Dark World (Book I in the Dark World Trilogy)

by Q. Lee, Danielle

  Kane heard Arcanum’s rage, charging the Queen, dark smoke escaping his nostrils as fire smoldered behind his teeth. The world spun around him, his spent blood cooling beneath him.

  It wasn’t going to be long.

  “Hold him off!” Kane heard impatience in his mother’s voice as she ordered her shades to subdue the raging dragon.

  Shifting her focus back to Ever, the Queen asked of her, “Are you afraid, little one?”

  His eyelids struggling to remain open, he saw Ever raise her chin defiantly and shake her head no.

  The Queen stroked Ever’s cheek, then held her face with both hands and whispered, “You should be.”

  With one last beat of his heart, Kane’s eyes closed.

  She descended the staircase four at a time, Vale’s wisp too weak to take even one of them back to the ballroom.

  “Hurry!” Fate called to him.

  A flight behind her, he retorted, “I am!”

  After the crash in the ballroom, followed by a few roars, there was silence. That bothered Fate more than anything. What was going on in there? What was the crash? What creature was bellowing?

  She couldn’t get there fast enough. A vision of Kane, bleeding, dying, stayed clear in her mind. What would she do without him?

  She loved him.

  Hope coalesced with fear, a sickened combination of emotions rose and fell inside of her. She bounded down the stairs with renewed fervor.

  At the end of the staircase, she raced towards the French doors, ignoring Vale’s anguished cries for her to wait.

  Fate flung the doors wide open, a gruesome scene unfolding before her: necromancer bodies lay strewn about the floor, silver blood streaming from them. Arcanum, his massive body crawling with shades, lay muzzled and tied amidst the heap of slaughter. Ever stood in the center of the room, her chest pulsating with silver light as the Devil muttered an incantation.

  And Kane.

  Fate gasped, the world moving in slow-motion as she ran to him. Traversing the field of death, she fell to her knees at his side.

  In her peripheral, she saw Vale grasp a sword from a fallen fighter and attack the Queen, plunging the blade into her chest. The link between her and Ever severed, but both fell lifelessly to the floor.

  “Kane,” she sobbed. Her hands ran over his chest. Cold. No heartbeat.

  Fate rested her cheek on his cold chest. No breath. No life.

  Why now? Why when they both realized their feelings for one another?

  Why?

  Lying there, wishing that she too would die, just to be with him, she remembered. A sudden, sharp memory.

  I’ve healed him before.

  Setting both her hands on him, she closed her eyes and searched for the power that had served her once before.

  Please! Please bring him back!

  A slight tingling warmed her fingertips. Then, nothing.

  Please, goddammit! Please!

  She tried again, squeezing her eyes shut, searching her soul for some unknown force.

  Fate opened her eyes, gazing at her prince, waiting. But nothing happened.

  I’m not strong enough. I was too late. I can’t bring him back.

  Hot, salty tears careened her cheeks. He was gone. Her eyes worshipped every angle of his gentle face. One last look.

  Fate leaned over, taking his face into her hands, his skin cold on her palms. Bringing her lips to his, brushing them softly, she whispered, “I love you.”

  A stir of energy sparked in her core. Heat.

  She set her hands upon his chest, allowing the spark to flow through her. Letting the power move through her. Move into Kane.

  It pulsated. Flowed. Shared.

  But it still wasn’t strong enough.

  Suddenly she felt two hands upon her shoulder. Electricity surged. Power like she’d never felt flowed through her. And into Kane.

  Her hands burned like embers as the lightning ran down her arms and out her palms. Opening her eyes, her entire body was aglow with hot, red energy. Kane’s body radiated crimson.

  With her palm on his chest, she waited. Hoped.

  Then, she felt the lightest beat.

  Then another.

  His heart started thrumming a steady rhythm.

  He was alive!

  Tears of joy stung her eyes. They’d brought him back from the dead. But who had helped her?

  Fate gazed over her left shoulder, then her right.

  Vale on one side.

  The Oracle on the other.

  Destiny

  Vale held the Nexus in his hands, fingers of blue electricity danced and probed within.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Fate asked, sadness caught in her throat.

  He shrugged as he traversed a careful path through the mutilated bodies of necromancers. Fate cast a hopeful eye at Aura, her broken body lying amongst her murdered peers.

  The scent of burning flesh and hair wafted into the ballroom from outside, the remnants of the fallen, both sides of the battle, cremated.

  The Queen’s body was dismembered, then incinerated. Kane’s orders. He refused to take any chances. Fate agreed though couldn’t help but wonder if the act was more about retribution than necessity.

  Fate stole a long look over the ballroom, her emotions mixed. So much death. Yet they’d been victorious.

  With their Queen dead, the remainder of her shade army fled. Probably to regroup, though, without a leader, who would they follow? What would their new purpose be? Their new destiny?

  Across the room, Kane carefully freed Arcanum from the muzzle and bindings. Worry lines traversed his handsome face.

  Ever, Fate thought as her gaze shifted to the unconscious princess, her arms folded across her stomach, silver hair framing her ivory face, blue eyes hidden behind sealed lids. Fate’s heart mourned. How long would she sleep? No one could wake her. No one knew why.

  The cloaked Oracle stood beside Ever’s body, her gloved hands hovering as though sensing, perhaps healing.

  “Okay, it’s ready,” Vale said, the Nexus now rested upon a tripod in the center of the ballroom, pulsating.

  “Let’s do it.” Kane nodded at Vale.

  Vale whispered one word, “Mythos,” and the orb came to life. Tendrils of energy ripped from the sphere, probing and darting about the room, each bolt finding one of the fallen necromancers.

  Fate watched as the Nexus caressed every one of the necromancers, almost lovingly. Nurturing them back to life.

  Aura was the first to awaken.

  She sat up, stretching as though she’d only had a quick nap, glanced around and smiled.

  “What did I miss?” she asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

  Everyone chuckled. A welcome reprieve from the heavy atmosphere.

  After awakening, Vrill immediately leaped to his feet, ran across the room and snatched the gilded box containing the scrolls from their place on the buffet table. Safe within his arms, he raced out of the room and up the twirling staircase, no doubt to hide the precious pages.

  Fate approached the Oracle, careful not to disturb her as she worked on the princess.

  “Yes?” the hunched prophetess inquired, seeming to have sensed the shade behind her.

  “I…just wanted to thank you,” Fate started, “I never could have brought him back without your help.”

  “You’re welcome,” the crone muttered, then said, “She had this on her, I am told by the spirits it is intended for you.” The old woman handed Fate an amethyst vial.

  “What is it?”

  “A potion, I assume,” she answered gruffly.

  Fate sucked in a breath. Her cure. The shaman had done it. Ever had brought it to her. Risked her life to save her, and now, she might be lost to this world forever.

  Necromancers rose around them, refreshed and apparently unaffected by their recent demise. Her eyes on Ever, Fate wished it could be as easy for her.

  “I wonder why she won’t awaken?” Vale asked, coming up behind them.
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  The Oracle stiffened. “I’m…attempting to heal her.” Her voice seemed softer suddenly. Younger.

  “I have to ask you, Oracle,” Vale began. “What race are you…I mean, with your healing abilities…” his voice trailed off.

  She turned around slowly, her face buried deep within her cowl.

  “I suppose…” her voice trembled, “…that I can trust you,” she said, her hands shaking as they moved to pull back her hood. “You are, after all…my brother.”

  An enchantment released, the elderly façade vanished. Silver hair shimmered as it was released from the cloak, falling over her shoulders and framing her youthful face.

  Vale gasped as he lunged forward, taking her into his arms.

  “Sybil!”

  Fate’s eyes watered, her heart smiling. He’d found her. He’d found his sister. After descending into a dark world, sacrificing his life, his destiny, he’d finally settled his debt with fate.

  Stepping away from the joyous reunion, Fate turned her eyes to her palms. Smooth as alabaster marble. No marks. No lines telling her of a great destiny, children, a husband. Nothing. According to her hands, she didn’t exist. Just a barren surface of lost hopes and dreams.

  “What are you looking at?” Kane’s baritone voice startled her. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her.

  She smiled, his presence warm as she fell back onto his dark chest. “Nothing,” she replied bashfully, balling her hands shut.

  Waves of body heat wrapped around her like invisible arms. He gently turned her to face him, his heated hands settling on her shoulders. Blue eyes burning into hers, he trailed his right hand down the length of her arm, the tips of his talons dragging until they reached her own fingertips. Taking her hand in his, he brought her palm up. He pulled his gaze from her and examined the smooth, milky skin of her open hand.

  His warm breath feathered across her cheeks. “Can I see?”

  She hesitated, wondering what he would think of her if she had no real destiny. No purpose. She snapped her hands closed. Ashamed.

  Kane sighed, his blue eyes searching hers. “Please?”

  Finally surrendering, she exposed her desolate palm. “I…don’t have any lines.”

  His dark brows pulled together. “I don’t understand.”

  “On the Surface, we have lines on our palms, lines that are supposed to…tell us our destiny.” Fate thought of Shelby, reading her future on the night she…died. A lump rose into her throat.

  “Lines?”

  Fate nodded, looking at her open palm as he held it like a delicate flower. “I had a Life Line, a Heart Line…a Line of Fate, now, there’s nothing.” Her voice quivered. “I have no destiny. No fate.”

  His lips pulled up at the corners, and without a word, he raised his free hand, exposing his palm. Fate gasped. It was as empty as hers. A blank slate.

  “But…” she started, confused.

  Kane released her hand, then cradled her face within his palms, the burn from his fingertips sending hot shivers down her spine.

  His blue gaze locked with her blazing white.

  “The Surface may wait for destiny to happen to them, but down here…” He pulled her close, his dark lips finding hers, “…we make our own.”

  To be continued…