Emerald Darkness

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Sarra Cannon

  ISBN: 978-1-62421-037-2

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Cover Design by Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.

  http://gobookcoverdesign.com/

  Formatting by Dead River Books

  http://www.deadriverbooks.com/

  Only A Dream

  The moon peered through the dark clouds, creating a crisscross pattern of shadows on the forest floor. I darted between them, my feet light and careful, every step a chance to be discovered.

  Or followed.

  Miles from home, all alone, chasing a truth I didn’t even understand. This would be the perfect way to end me.

  I adjusted the black hood covering my blonde hair and glanced behind me. I didn’t dare to breathe, afraid the sound might cloak a misplaced footstep or snap of a twig. I counted to ten, my eyes searching for any sign of movement.

  But nothing moved.

  The forest was still and quiet, as if it somehow shared my fear.

  What was I doing here? I couldn’t shake the feeling that once I got to my destination, nothing would ever be the same again. Something secret had been set in motion and once I discovered it, there would be no going back.

  I ducked low, my heart racing. Was she out there this time? Watching me?

  In the back of my mind, a part of me realized this was only a dream, but it didn’t slow the beating of my heart or calm the butterflies dancing in my stomach.

  When I was confident I had not been followed, I moved again, darting toward the next shadow, my blood pumping as the trees thinned to reveal a small circular clearing several feet ahead. I made my way to the edge of the woods and paused to study the small shabby house situated perfectly in the center of the clearing.

  This was new.

  Most nights, I ran through the woods, fear stalking me like a hunter, never knowing where I was headed or who was behind me. Sometimes, I got a rare glimpse of the woman in black, her dark hood pulled over her head to hide her face.

  But I’d never seen a house before.

  There were no roads or worn paths leading up to the front door. Brown, brittle grass and weeds had grown up as high as my knees in most places. It looked completely abandoned. No lights shone through the windows. No shadows moved beyond the broken glass.

  A simple porch was attached to the front, but it was barely more than a few boards nailed together. Strips of white paint had been removed by the weather over the years, leaving the place looking dull and brown and haunted. There was no front door. Only an empty black hole. A heavy sorrow overwhelmed this place, hanging in the air around it like a thick perfume.

  I found myself wishing for Lea. Even in my dream, the thought of her name made my stomach tense. I had hurt her, and it devastated me, but she was part of our group, and I needed her. If she were here, she could reveal the secret tragedies this place had seen. Her gift of conjuring memories might have been useful, but I had a feeling I did not want to know the horrors of this place.

  The moon disappeared behind the clouds again, and the clearing slipped into complete darkness.

  I should move now, but fear sank down to the pit of my stomach like a heavy stone, anchoring my feet to the ground.

  Was it a trap? What would I find inside?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling of death that hovered near me, breathing down my neck.

  My lips parted, and I inhaled a ragged breath. I leaned my forehead against the cool, rough bark of the pine tree and closed my eyes. I pictured the drawing Jackson, my fiancé, had given me shortly after our final battle with Priestess Winter several months ago. A king and queen seated on a soft blanket in a sunny field, hands clasped as they watched their son playing in the grass. A promise of happier days to come.

  Jackson’s visions always came true. There was no avoiding them.

  Usually, that was a bad thing, but this one vision, this one drawing, had given me peace. I clung to it like life.

  I touched my palms to the tree and waited for the essence of its power to fill me, feeling its roots snake through the soil under my feet. I became a part of the earth around me, connecting that secret well of strength deep inside my core to the river of energy that pulsed through every living thing.

  When my eyes snapped open, my hands disappeared. I became the color of air and nothingness, invisible to the normal human eye. I crouched and slipped into the high grass.

  No turning back now.

  The boards on the steps leading to the porch groaned under my feet, and I paused, waiting. I watched for movement through the dark windows.

  I stepped more carefully, moving with aching slowness as I crossed the threshold into the house. It was somehow colder inside than it was out in the woods, and goose bumps prickled my arms and legs.

  I thought of the strange female voice that always spoke to me in my dreams.

  Please. Listen. Darkness is coming for you. Find me there, and I will steer you toward the light.

  Was she trying to help me? Or was this another in a long line of betrayals?

  I reached for the gold locket hanging from a chain around my neck. A gift from Jackson, his heart stone locked inside like a secret meant only for me. It had never been with me in my dreams before, and I drew strength from its presence, praying that whatever darkness we were about to face could be survived, as long as we had each other.

  I let my invisibility drop and stood shivering in the small, one-room shack of a house in the middle of the woods.

  With a trembling hand, I conjured a small orb of white light and sent it to the center of the room. The house was completely empty, except for one thing. A cage made of black iron, its door wide open.

  Hot blood pumped through my veins. I had seen cages like this once before in the dungeons of Winterhaven. Priestess Winter, the leader of the sapphire demon gates, had locked away witches who crossed her or disobeyed her, forcing them to live in iron cages suspended fifty feet in the air while their life and power drained from their bodies.

  For her evil, I had killed Priestess Winter with my own bare hands, ripping what served for a heart straight from her chest.

  And I knew that someday her sisters would want their revenge for what I had done.

  Something very dark and very dangerous was on the horizon, and now I understood what all these dreams had meant. I understood why the cloaked woman had come to me in my sleep, urging me to listen.

  My eyes locked on something lying on the floor of the cage.

  I stepped forward and lowered my orb inside to get a closer look. My mouth went dry at the sight of it and a cry escaped my throat.

  There, on the floor of the cage, was the symbol of my late father’s love for my mother—a single, pure white rose. It was a symbol of all that was good inside me. The white roses were our secret portal between worlds, allowing us to pass from the human world of my birth into the Shadow World of my newfound demon heritage.

  The sight of it struck me so hard it brought me to my knees against the dusty floor, but it wasn’t the flower that had rattled me.

  It was the fact that the rose was wrapped in a strand of dark green emeralds.

  An Unwelcome Spark

  The witches were barely visible through the trees. Ten of them, more than a hundred yards away. It would be a challenge, but I had never been one to back away from a fight. The harder, the better.

  Tell me I couldn’t do something, and I would prove you wro
ng every damn time.

  I pushed one foot forward and lifted my bow. I nocked a ghostly arrow and drew back on the string. I aimed at the first witch, taking a deep breath and letting go on the exhale.

  I didn’t wait to see if my first arrow found its mark. I quickly nocked another conjured arrow and shot again and again, the string making a satisfying thumping sound as each arrow released.

  By the time my breath was gone, I had sent all ten arrows toward the conjured witches. I lowered my bow to my side and counted my kills, my heart racing.

  Each target had a glimmering arrow through its shadowy heart.

  I allowed a hint of a smile to tease my lips, but I had celebrated too quickly.

  I’d hit every mark except one. Number six. I trudged through the thick pine straw on the forest floor, kicking at the fallen limbs in my path. My hand clutched the grip of my bow so tightly, I worried I might break yet another one.

  Teeth clenched, I studied the sixth conjured witch. The arrow was seated deep in her left arm, which was the useful equivalent of a freaking mile away from her heart.

  Nine out of ten was unacceptable. In a real battle, witch number six could have been the death of me or someone I loved.

  Right now, if that person was Harper, I might not mind so much. In fact, it didn’t escape my notice that half the conjured witches on this round had faces that resembled hers. But anyone else dead as a result of my poor aim would be a tragedy.

  With a wave of my hand, the figures dissolved. All traces of my victory smile were gone, replaced by an anger and sorrow I wasn’t ready to face. Not yet.

  The snap of a limb nearby brought my bow back up, arrow ready, but I lowered it as Aerden walked into a thin strip of moonlight between the trees. He better not have come to lecture me about using my powers out here in the woods. Tomorrow morning, I’d have to beg Zara to regrow some of the trees I had ruined by pulling from their life force in order to cast.

  “I almost shot you,” I said.

  “Normally I would say keep dreaming, but you’re getting scary,” he said. He motioned toward the area where the targets had stood moments before. “How many this time? Eight?”

  “Ten,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow, and our eyes met through the shadows. “You’re improving quickly.”

  I shook my head and looked away. “I missed one.”

  A smile played across his lips and quickly disappeared. “One target out of ten at a hundred-yard distance?” He shook his head and sighed. “Pitiful.”

  “Don’t start with me,” I said, heading back toward Brighton Manor. Not tonight. “When the fighting begins again, even one miss could mean the difference between victory and seeing everything we’ve worked for destroyed.”

  He grew quiet and stared up at the sky. The moon was barely visible through the tops of the pine trees. Sadness stretched between us, the heaviness of a hundred years behind its strength.

  Even though he’d been free for several months now, Aerden wore his despair like a dark cloak draped over the shell of who he used to be. It would disappear for brief moments, but a simple word or expression could bring it back in the blink of an eye.

  Mentioning the coming war was a mistake.

  I had learned not to bug him about his moodiness, never pushing him to tell us about his years as a demon slave to the Order of Shadows. Talking about it only seemed to make it worse. Besides, his twin brother Jackson bugged him about it enough for all of us.

  Around me, I allowed him to be silent. I think that’s why he always sought me out when I was alone here in the dark, training. He once told me he’d had voices in his head for so long, silence was the only way he could be sure he was free.

  “Not going to try again?” he asked when he caught up with me.

  “Why? You want a go at it?” I asked. I had come out here to be alone, but maybe I’d spent enough time sulking in the shadows for one night. Besides, I was glad he had spared me the lecture. Harper didn’t like for us to train out here in the open where our destruction could be easily seen and tracked, but considering she’d just gotten engaged to the demon I once loved, I didn’t really give a crap.

  “I could be persuaded to participate,” he said.

  I stopped and smiled, glancing back at my makeshift training grounds. “As ally or enemy?”

  “Anyone who dares to be your enemy is a fool,” he said. “Ally for sure.”

  I nodded and reset the course, adding ten additional witch targets in a row behind the first ten.

  Aerden and I had trained a lot over the past few months. At first, his skills were rusty. He sometimes struggled to shift forms and his confidence was nonexistent after all this time of being forced to do whatever his host witch commanded or needed of him. But his instincts were still there.

  Other than shifting from solid form to demon shadow, he never used his powers. He preferred physical weapons, everything from axes to swords to spears.

  He’d been a great warrior once. Even better in battle than his twin brother, Jackson. It was good to see him training again.

  “Why don’t you try magic this round?” I said as casually as I could, barely glancing at him as I walked toward my starting mark.

  Even fifty feet away, I could feel him tense.

  “Maybe next time,” he said, the playful tone gone from his voice.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw him lift a hand to the spear strapped to his back.

  I prepared my first conjured arrow and took a deep breath. With a subtle nod of my head, he shifted to black smoke and flew through the air toward the targets, gracefully dodging my arrows as he rushed toward the witches on the second row. He moved so fast my eyes couldn’t keep track of him.

  His skill distracted me, and I slowed the release of my arrows just to watch as he shifted back and forth from solid form to shadow, his spear twirling, landing each blow and stab with such precision, it awed me. The targets fell to the ground so quickly that by the time I released my seventh arrow, the target I’d been aiming for was already gone.

  Aerden returned to his solid human form just in time to catch the crest of my arrow with his bare hand.

  My lips parted, and our eyes met across the distance. Breathless, he watched for my reaction.

  An unwelcome spark ignited in my chest.

  “Impressed?” he asked, one eyebrow raised, his head cocked slightly to the side. He still held the burning arrow in his hand.

  Impressed was not the word I’d been thinking of.

  “Not bad,” I said, clearing my throat and trying to understand the fluttering feeling in my stomach. I waved my hand in the air and the brutalized targets disintegrated into nothing. “For a guy with a primitive weapon.”

  “Hey, if I had my axe back, I’d have taken down more of them.”

  He laughed and tried to hide his smile. Hell, even a hint of a smile from him felt like a victory. I longed for the days of our childhood when we laughed all the time and had no idea of the terrors that awaited.

  But that was before our lives were stolen from us. Before our past happiness became the pain we had to bear in silence.

  We walked side by side through the forest toward the house, the warmth of that one smile from him soaking into me like sunlight. His arm brushed against mine, and I felt myself wanting to lean into him.

  Instead, I moved away.

  More Important Things

  Footsteps sounded behind us. Aerden and I both raised our weapons without hesitation.

  We were all on edge these days.

  A man with black hair smiled and lifted his hands in surrender. “I come in peace,” he said, his thick Spanish accent apparent even in his laughter.

  “That’s the second time I almost shot someone tonight,” I said. I secured my bow across my shoulder and reached out to grip his hand. Andros pulled me into a strong hug. “You guys should both know better than to sneak up on me. Especially tonight.”

  “Why especially tonight?” Andros asked,
releasing me and holding his hand out to Aerden. “Has something happened?”

  “Her former betrothed got engaged,” Aerden said, gripping Andros’s hand in welcome.

  I shot him a look. I hadn’t realized he understood why I was out here training tonight, but Aerden constantly surprised me that way. In the same way that I never asked him about his years as a slave, he never asked me to talk about what really happened between Jackson and me. It was an unspoken agreement between us, but he seemed to understand how much it affected me, even after all this time.

  “Engaged?” Andros asked, his eyes darkening. “How can this be? Unless you have given him your permission, Princess?”

  “Do you think I could really deny it?” I asked. “He proposed at the Halloween party. Which you bailed on, by the way. I thought you said you were going to bring Ourelia.”

  I missed spending time with Andros, his wife, Ourelia, and their young daughter, Sasha. We had spent many years together in the Shadow World before I came over to this side, and even though a few of my best friends had come through with me, this world was often a very lonely place. Strange how you could sometimes be surrounded by people and still feel alone.

  Especially when you lived with the demon you used to love more than life itself and the new girl he loved more than you.

  I definitely did not want to talk about it.

  “There will be plenty of time for parties once the Order of Shadows is defeated,” Andros said. “For months now, we have been waiting. Doing nothing while the Order continues to kidnap demons from our lands and force them into slavery.“

  “Thousands of demons free and home with their families,” Aerden said. “You can’t say we’ve done nothing.”

  Andros shook his head. “I do not mean to sound ungrateful for all your group has accomplished,” he said. “But freeing the sapphire gates is not enough. For every demon that has been set free from slavery in this world, two more are being kidnapped. The four remaining priestesses of the Order have doubled their recruitment over the past few months. Something must be done.”