Prologue
Screams. Flames. Blood. Pain.
That’s my world right now.
And for the last few years, that’s been my life. Never ending agony, never ending blood. Screams that echo in my ears long after they’re silenced. Scorching hot flames that consume everything in their path, including my heart.
He didn’t mean it, she took advantage of it. Now, I can’t feel my back save for the blisters and the sword wound.
Which I can’t feel anything but agony in my body.
My knees meet the cold ground, the grass that should be soft sending small stabs of pain into my skin and broken leg. I sway, and fall onto my back.
My crimson life is flowing from my back and torso in a steady stream.
My arm is mangled at my side.
My chest throbs with each breath.
I can’t move my leg.
My body burns like venom coats each cell.
I am broken.
Darkness tries to claim my senses. I don’t let it. My eyes won’t focus through the pain and blood loss, but I can see the blurry forms of my friends around me, fighting. They’re in better condition than me, but not for long.
I think I black out for a moment, because there’s suddenly a presence at my side. A hand cups the uninjured side of my face gingerly before it meets the other over my largest wound beneath my ribs. I’d recognize those hands anywhere. My love.
He’s begging me to stay with him, apologizing and saying my name over and over as the pressure intensifies over my wound. I want to speak, but I can’t move my tongue or lips. My vision sharpens for a minute to see him; his fiery blue eyes shining with tears, his burnt brown hair, his faintly tanned skin, the grim and sweat covering his pained bloody face. Then it swirls into colors and shapes.
In a second, he’s ripped from my side, cold air filling where he was before the heat of the flames turn suffocating, seizing my lungs inside shattered ribs.
Someone else yells my name, I think Arc, but then everyone is crying out each other’s names, screams and shouts of pain are all that fill my ears. My sight fades completely, but the last thing I see is someone collapsing face-first to the ground, right after another. I can’t tell if my eyes are closed or open now.
Then the shouts and cries cease, replaced by the laughter of the woman I loathe. They’re dead, they’re all dead.
Silence blankets the air, the presence of others gone. For a brief moment, I wonder why she left me without driving a blade through my heart.
But the cold numbness in my body brings a realization to my fading mind.
I’m dying.
And no one can help me.
The darkness shifts later when I feel someone touch my neck. Four hands—two people—move along my body and torso swiftly. Then I’m fading again.
Maybe I was wrong, maybe someone can help me.
But they can’t save me.
In a world without my family, my love, my friends, I’m not living.
I’m already dead.
