by H. D. Gordon
In this world and the next.
Yes, my love, forever and ever.
I closed my eyes and waited.
Nelly
There had been no time to stop and gather Lamia like I had done in the Seer’s vision. It was already night and the battle would have already begun. Still, I refused to believe that it was too late. Not if I hoped to maintain any sense of sanity through the end of this, I couldn’t allow myself to believe that it was too late.
I was at the Silver City now, and night had fallen and it looked just the way that it had in the vision–cold and unfriendly and on the precipice of becoming a graveyard. I raced through the snow, throwing my mind out like a blanket and covering every single soul here.
I had already fixed one big problem, and this had given me hope that I knew was dangerous to my soul. The messenger that the King had sent to tell the Queens in the other territories to dam up the rivers—a red-headed man with a thick beard—had been exiting through the invisible barrier between this world and the human world when I had been entering. I had reached into his mind and erased the task as though it was nothing more than chalk on blackboard.
And then I had barreled in.
Now I ran faster than I had ever run in my life, feeling my heart pounding in my ears with every step I took. I used all of the strength in my mind to find her, and I did.
Something was wrong. Alexa’s soul was not glowing like the sun, as it usually did. It was there. I could see it in the third story of the Council Building, flickering like a light bulb that’s almost run its course. She was hurt. Bad.
I spread my mind out to reach the people around her, and saw through their eyes what was happening. Alexa was kneeling over Kayden, whose golden eyes were dull, lifeless, and a sword that didn’t belong to her was sliding out of the small of her back. The Warrior who held the sword raised it high over his head, ready to remove her head from her shoulders, and deliver the final blow.
I didn’t stop moving, but I pulled all of my mind’s strength around me, wrapped the souls in this world up in its grasp, and commanded them all to stop what they were doing. Just stop.
When I reached the Council Building, they were all just standing there, swords lowered to their sides and eyes wide, ankle-deep in the snow and the blood of the fallen. I held them all completely, knowing that if I told them to stand this way forever, they would do so. And it was a sight to be seen. To say the least, it was a sight to be seen.
Blood marred their faces, their hands, matted the fur on the muzzles of the Wolves. People, both fighters and not, lay dead all around, their bodies sliced and cut and separated. It was like hitting pause in the middle of a graphic war movie, right in the midst of battle, and the destruction was a sight that I will never forget even if I live to be a thousand years old.
I ran past them all, knowing that their eyes were following me and not caring at all, just knowing that I had to reach that building and that room where my sister’s soul was flickering. It couldn’t be too late. It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.
I jumped up onto the building and scaled it the same way I had the mountain where I had found the Lamia. My fingers dug into the hard rock and froze instantly on the ice that was coated there. My breath plumed in and out, in and out, and I reached the balcony and climbed over and ran into the room where I knew she was.
The Warriors here were as frozen as the thousands of people outside. My eyes found her at once, and I kicked the King’s head out of my way as I ran toward her. Her body was sprawled on top of Kayden’s, blood blooming out of her lower back and making the black cloak she wore a darker black, falling to the marble floor and mixing with that of her fallen love.
I fell to my knees beside her, tears filling up my eyes and blurring everything. My hand was shaking terribly when I reached out and turned her head gently to me. And that horrible hope rose in me as her big brown eyes cracked open and settled on me.
“Nell,” she said, and her voice was weak, broken. The voice of a dying soul.
I bent down and kissed her, tasting my salty tears as they ran down into the corners of my mouth. “Shh,” I said, as I ripped off the jacket I was wearing and pressed it against her wound. “I’m here, Lex. I’m here. Don’t worry. I’m gonna get you fixed up. Don’t worry. I’m here.”
Alexa’s red hands came up and gripped my wrists with more strength than I knew she had left. “No, Nell Don’t. It’s…okay.”
I shook my head, trying to glare at her and only feeling my lips trembling and my legs shaking. “Don’t say that!” I cried. “It will be okay. I just have to get you help…to stop this bleeding…I won’t let you…I won’t—”
“Please, Nell.”
Alexa’s hand released my wrist and groped for something beside her. When she brought it up, she was holding her Gladius. Her eyes fluttered closed as she held it out to me. “Please,” she said.
I shook my head, unable to process what was happening; refusing to process what was happening. She couldn’t mean… No. No way. This wasn’t happening. I was dreaming and I would wake up soon and this wasn’t happening.
Blood was bubbling from her mouth now, and my shaking hand came up and brushed it away. Before I could stop her, Alexa caught my fingers and pulled them open with weak movements. Then she placed the handle of her sword between them.
“It…hurts…so much…please…Nelly…I want…I’m ready.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe or think or move. “But I love you, Alexa,” I said. “I can’t lose you. I love you too much.”
Alexa coughed, her face scrunching up in pain and more blood bubbling between her lips and the fire in her soul flickering smaller and smaller. “I know…I know…you too…Nell…always…all of it…for you…do…..this….for me.”
Her eyes widened a little then, and I knew that her next words would be her last.
“End it…end the pain…please.”
My hand tightened around her Gladius, and I closed my eyes and did as she asked of me. The only thing she had ever asked of me.
But I killed a part of myself that night, too.
So the Story Goes…
Benjamin—little Benny, to those that were older than him—sat at the fireplace in his cozy house in a city known as Two Rivers. His little girl sat on his lap, looking up at him with eyes that were big and round and brown, like his.
“Daddy,” she said, her sweet little voice bringing a smile to his lips. “Did you ever meet the Sun Warrior and the Savior? Were they pretty?”
Benjamin chuckled. “No, my Love, I didn’t. Wish I could’ve. But my father told me the story just the way I tell you, and the way you’ll tell your children and so on.”
He could remember that long ago time so clearly, when he had just been a little boy about her age, and would never have dreamed of having a life like this. Even though many a moon had passed between then and now, he could still feel the cold ground of the hut when he thought about it. He could see the purple and black bruises that had been in the crooks of his small arms, though they had long since faded and his body had grown into a man’s.
This day was always a big one to him. Bigger than any other day of the year, save for his daughter’s birthday, and it always brought the memories of that time back into sharp focus. He did not tell his little girl about the time spent in the village, for she was much too young to hear things like that, but he did tell her the tale that had been surely changed throughout time, as close as he could reckon it from his semi-firsthand account. He had never known the two girls that gave everything so that he could be here, holding his child and enjoying his life, most of those who were saved didn’t, but there had been those that had known the Sun Warrior and the Savior, and word had spread about what they did.
“It’s kind of a sad story, Daddy,” she said, breaking into Benjamin’s thoughts and pulling him sweetly into the present.
He smiled down at her and kissed her head. “Yes, my Love, I suppose it is,
but often the most beautiful stories are a little sad. Come now, it’s time for bed.”
Her small nose wrinkled and her brow creased. “What about Nelliana? What ever happened to her? Can I meet her someday? And the Sun Warrior and her Libra, did they go on to the Heavens together? That can’t be all, Daddy.”
Benjamin stood up and carried his little girl into her pink room and set her down on her princess bed. As he tucked her under the covers, he said, “That is all, Sweetheart, because no one knows what happened to the Savior, and because the answer to the other question really just depends on what you choose to believe in.” He kissed her forehead. “Good night, Love.”
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “What do you believe, Daddy?”
“I believe that there is a whole lot we don’t know.”
“Will we know someday?”
“Oh, I think so, Baby. I really think so.”
Then he shut the door gently and went to his wife, who was sitting at the table in their cozy kitchen, staring out the window at the night. She was always quiet on this day, never shared any of her personal experiences of that long ago time, even though he knew she had spent time in the villages, too. He went to her and set a hand on her shoulder.
And Soraya kissed his fingers and looked up at him with a slightly crooked smile and big brown eyes that were the same color as their little girl’s.
The Note
I sat on a beach of fine white sand, underneath a black sky that glittered with millions of silver stars, watching a dark ocean roll in and fall just short of my feet. The piece of paper that my sister had given me on that day so long ago, now yellowed and stained with time, was clutched between my fingers. The ink had faded some, but I knew the words well enough that even after the script disappeared completely, I would be able to see the letters scrawled there, down to each curve in her handwriting.
Any other way, and it would not have been right.
I folded the note and tucked it carefully into my pocket. I had long since given up on coming up with all the other ways that it could have been right, all the ways that could have ended with her by my side for forever. It did no good to think of such things. The possibilities in them never stopped hurting.
I had left behind the world that she had saved so that I wouldn’t have to. I’d found that I just couldn’t stay there. Those people had no need for me, and I had given them enough. I didn’t care what they did with their freedom, how they chose to run their government after I left. I didn’t want any part of any type of politics ever again, no other people’s rules to live by or orders to follow. The wind never told me what to do, so I was just fine with living beside it.
And Tommy, too, because he had been nearly as broken as I’d been when we left. His father was dead, and that left him with as much family as I had–none. I found out that it was easy loving him, something sweet and simple and true in a world where such things were lost to me, and that was good.
Our lives are not terrible, I suppose. Sometimes when I’m with him, life can be almost beautiful. But not quite so. Never quite so, because the part of me that had been able to see beauty died with my sister on that night long ago.
There are times like these, though, as I sit next to him under a dark sky and watch the stars, that I feel like she is out there somewhere, still burning as bright as the brightest star, and waiting for me to come and find her.
And with her note in my pocket and her love in my heart, I am able to live.
Afterword
Well, we have come to the end of the dance. I can’t tell you the joy it brings me that you were willing to sway to the song with me, even if I may have bumped your elbows and stepped on your toes at times. When I started this story, it had been only for me, a girl building a world that I would want to live in, but as I moved along, and you so graciously joined me, it became more than that, and I knew that this world had to become a better place than when it began now that you were there. I hope I’ve done that. You stayed when the number would change, and the tune would switch to something I’d never heard before, and my feet would take me off somewhere that I was sure you would be unwilling to follow.
And now you’re here. You came. Thank you for that.
Alexa and Kayden? I think I loved them. If you loved them too, and are sad to have seen them fall, know that I share in your feelings. And I tried to save her. I really did.
But I’ve learned something about this world you have allowed me to live in, and it is that the possibilities stretch on into oblivion like the folds and dark corners of the universe, and there is music playing there. I’ve heard it. And things are dancing there. I would like to join them.
So I extend my hand to you, and maybe you will join me on another twirl around the dance floor. Surah wants to come, too.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my mom for listening tirelessly to my writing.
Thank you to my dad for always encouraging me.
Thank you to my sister, Moo, for reading from the beginning. And, my sister, Gianna, for finally hopping on the train.
Thank you to Nicole Passante. You know what for.
Thank you to my amazing beta readers on this project: Dave Ferraro, Nicole Passante, Karla Calzada, Terri Thomas, Jennifer Smith, Alana Rock, and Tanecia Cannon for always handling my last minute files with grace and for staying up into the wee hours to read for me, you guys are amazing.
Thank you to Regina Wamba at Mae I Design for all the amazing covers your talent and professionalism continue to amaze me.
And most importantly thank you to my fans & bloggers everywhere. I am humbled by your love of this series. Your support means the world. You rock my socks.
Soraya and Akira, really, it’s all for you, loves.
Other Books by H. D. Gordon
Blood Warrior- The Alexa Montgomery Saga, Book one
Half Black Soul- The Alexa Montgomery Saga, Book two
The Rise- The Alexa Montgomery Sage, Book Three
JOE
About the Author
H. D. Gordon is the bestselling author of The Alexa Montgomery Saga. Blood Warrior, the first book of the Alexa series was her debut novel and has held spots in the top 100 fantasy bestsellers for the past year. In June of 2012, Joe, a thrilling fantasy novel about a young clairvoyant, was released. H. D. is a lifelong reader and writer, a true lover of words. When she is not reading or writing she is raising her two daughters, playing a little guitar, and spending time with her family. She is twenty three years old and lives in the northeastern United States.
Connect with H.D. Gordon:
Website: http://hdgordon.com/
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Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5189455.H_D_Gordon