Prologus
This book is the second in the series, 'War of Hearts'. If this sequal interests you, you can find the first book on my page called 'Astra'. Happy reading.
It’s strange how life goes on after war. Something so brash and embracive is something that feels permanent, like once you’re there; you’re always there. The pain, the trauma, it adorns your skin like an invisible tattoo.
Always there, lurking under the surface, constantly stinging and reminding you of what you lost.
They call it the Bellum Corda, it’ll go down in history as the War of Hearts. The day Beckett and I overcame the fate written for us, and conquered the darkness that threatened us all.
They don’t talk about the tattoos that scorn our bodies. It’s like a ghost, knocking behind glass, begging to be let out. It lays heavy in the atmosphere, the unspoken truth. How we’re all really feeling. That yes, we won a war. A bunch of teenagers saved the world, but at what cost?
By day we force the mask, the smile, the face of justice. Justice was served, and we will push forward with a new life. Changes will be made to the realms, new choices made.
By night, nightmares, memories, trauma, torment my sleep. It’s been a year since the war, and I haven’t had a good night of rest since. Even with Beckett holding me, kissing the top of my head, whispering sweet wishes to me.
Still I awake, afraid, feeling broken, and alone.
You’ll ask yourself, ‘when does it stop hurting?’ The pain of that torment, does it ever go away?
The answer is simple, it doesn’t. Not really. You just move on, you find a new version of what normal means. Then, you just try your best to love it, navigate through it. It’s all you can do.
It’s hard though, when you are living in a constant state of expectancy; of waiting. Wondering, when will that other shoe drop?
I have felt something dark building since the war, while we sit in meetings of the court and work on a life of equal joy for all realms. I feel it there, lurking, growing, suffocating. It bangs behind the glass similar to the one holding my sorrow, hiding behind the mask of peace.
Something is coming, and I feel it getting closer. Coming for us all.
