"Wife." Arun kissed my cheek, and then crouched to put his hands on either side of my belly. "Daughter." He kissed the small bump.
I tugged him back up to standing by the shoulders and held him in front of me, staring. This was the strangest thing of all—Arun and me, settling down, running a home, starting a family. Stranger than my dead sister picking vegetables in the garden, stranger than my brother marrying my former arch-enemy. I kissed him, long and hard, not caring who was watching. I heard the hoots and hollers from our spectators, but I didn't care.
He pulled away, laughing, and patting me on the head. "Later, wife, later. What's for dinner?"
After dinner, which had been a loud, happy ordeal, I stepped outside to get some air. I followed the fence to the back of the house and found myself looking down at the lights of Bor'sur.
I was home.
We were home.
A hand grabbed mine and I expected it to be Arun, come to continue our earlier kiss. I turned, a smile ready on my lips, and instead came face-to-face with cold blue eyes from my nightmare.
But I didn't scream or pull away or reach for my weapons.
She came to stand beside me, her small fingers intertwined in mine. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, looking out at Bor'sur.
I was ready to agree with her, but when I turned my eyes back on my town, it wasn't as it had been before. Instead, flames licked the sky, black smoke pouring out of homes and businesses. People ran through the streets, leaving trails of smoke and blood and screams.
Bor'sur was burning.
The world was on fire.
And it was all my fault.
I jerked awake with a gasp, coughing and gagging, trying to get the smell of smoke out of my nostrils. I stood on shaking legs and stumbled to the door, swinging it open. My throbbing head was made worse by the light of a beautiful day.
Arun was facedown on the ground a few feet from the door, a trail of blood behind him as if he'd dragged himself there. He was quiet and still, unmoving.
I'll make everyone you love suffer, she'd said.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
Not Arun.
I knew it would happen.
I tried to get him to leave, and he wouldn't.
He had to stay, and now he was…
Stupid, stupid elf.
Stupid boy.
I dropped down beside him and rolled him over, my hands and arms trembling. He flopped lifelessly onto his back. There was a huge gash across his chest, from shoulder to hip. But when I put my ear to his chest, I could hear it. The gurgle of strangled breathing and the faint pulsing of his heart.
He was alive. We both were.
I dragged him into the house and slammed the door, then used a knife to tear his shirt away from the wound. There were clean white cloths in the kitchen, and I dipped them in alcohol to clean the wounds. It was a gruesome task, the skin loose and ragged, but when the blood had been cleaned, it looked at least a little better. I found the extra wire and hooks that we didn't use in the traps and sterilized them in the hearth fire before threading them. Taking a deep breath to steady my hand, I forced the needle through one side of the wound, then the other, and pulled, lacing the skin back together.
Over and over I did this, and all the while, Arun didn't stir. I paused every few stitches and listened for the sound of his breathing. Though light, it grew increasingly steady as the bleeding slowed to a trickle. With the last stitch at his hip, he gave a shudder and a low moan.
"Don't move," I whispered, not sure he could even hear me.
I sat back and studied my bloody hands. Estrid was dead. Erik was gone. There would be no babies, no family dinners. The dream had been just that—a dream. This was my reality. A life of pain and blood, a life where everyone I knew would die just because of their association with me. Savarah would hunt me for the rest of my life and do everything in her power to convince me to free Dag'draath.
But it was better me than Kaem. What would she do with Kaem, who didn't have anyone? Maybe that wasn't the right question. Maybe the right question was: How much easier would Kaem be to turn because she didn't have anyone holding her to the light?
Savarah could never learn the truth: that she was hunting the wrong woman. It was up to me to stay out of her reach, to keep her distracted and on the wrong trail, so that Ravyn and Lunla could do what they had to do with Kaem.
And with Savarah on my tail, it would give me more than enough opportunities to end her once and for all. I would find a way, because Savarah couldn't get her hands on Kaem. The world needed a Suun heir, and it wasn't me.
Kaem was their best chance.
Their only choice.
I just hoped she was the right one.
Continue reading this series, Legends of the Fallen with book 7, Soul Goblet
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About the Author
J.A. Culican is a USA Today Bestselling author of the middle grade fantasy series Keeper of Dragons. Her first novel in the fictional series catapulted a trajectory of titles and awards, including top selling author on the USA Today bestsellers list and Amazon, and a rightfully earned spot as an international best seller. Additional accolades include Best Fantasy Book of 2016, Runner-up in Reality Bites Book Awards, and 1st place for Best Coming of Age Book from the Indie Book Awards.
J.A. Culican holds a master’s degree in Special Education from Niagara University, in which she has been teaching special education for over 13 years. She is also the president of the autism awareness non-profit Puzzle Peace United. J.A. Culican resides in Southern New Jersey with her husband and four young children.
For more information about J.A. Culican, visit her website at: www.jaculican.com.
About the Author
Cassidy studied English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and won the Bill Hooks Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2007. She lives in beautiful North Carolina with her husband, two kids, two dogs, and one cat who thinks he's a dog.
For more information about Cassidy Taylor, visit her website at: http://cassidytaylor.net/
Acknowledgments
Editor: Frankie Blooding
Cover Artist: Christian Bentulan
Formatting: Dragon Realm Press
Finding the Suun Page 14