Emerald Darkness Read online

  A king holding his young daughter, her smiling face tilted to his as he wrapped his arms around her.

  I hadn’t seen my own father in nearly thirty years.

  The last time was the day I begged him to help me fight against the Order of Shadows. I had gone to him against Andros’s advice. Andros had warned me that my father would never help, but I hadn’t wanted to believe him. By that time, it had been almost seventy years since Aerden had been taken by the Order. Everyone believed he had become a slave in the human world and was most likely dead. And even if he wasn’t dead, they all said that once taken, a demon would never be free again, but I had not been able to abandon all hope. Like Jackson, I wanted to believe we could still do something to save him.

  And I wanted to save my relationship with Jackson, too.

  He had followed his brother to the human world fifty years after his disappearance, fighting his way through to the other side, only to become imprisoned himself, trapped in his human form and unable to use his magic. At the time, I wasn’t sure what had become of Jackson, but I could not abandon him.

  Every single demon in the Shadow World had given them both up for dead, but I refused to let them go. I couldn’t. I loved them both, and I couldn’t imagine a life without them.

  So, after decades of self-imposed exile in the Underground, far away from the safety of my father’s city, I finally returned. I called a meeting with my parents and asked that Jackson and Aerden’s parents be there as well. I humbled myself, begging them to help me rescue the twins we all loved so dearly.

  I honestly believed they would help. Even if my father and mother were reluctant, I truly believed Jackson’s parents would convince them to bring their army against the Order. How could they turn their backs on both of their sons? How could they abandon them to such torture?

  And yet, that’s exactly what they did.

  I still didn’t understand it, even after all these years.

  In that moment, standing before my father’s throne, my eyes had been opened to the harsh reality of love.

  Love is nothing more than a word, and our actions are the only way to truly know it exists.

  Staring at the painting in the great hall of Harper’s castle, I wondered if I had ever been truly loved by anyone.

  I wondered if Harper realized just how lucky she was to be loved by them all.

  She may have grown up alone, but both of her parents had given their lives for hers. Even my beloved Jackson would gladly lay down his life for her now.

  I felt so incredibly alone, and for the first time in a long time, I wondered if Andros was right. What if my place was there, with him? Fighting with the Resistance?

  “I thought I might find you out here.”

  I turned at the sound of a familiar voice echoing off the stone walls of the great hall. I smiled at Aerden and walked over to him, pushing his long, dark hair out of his face and running a finger across the long cut at his jawline.

  “Look at us,” I said with a laugh, gesturing toward the bandage around my arm and the cuts on his face. “We’re a mess.”

  “We’re alive,” he said. He lifted his hand and traced the spot where my fingers had touched his skin.

  I looked away, unsure of the best way to approach the subject of the key. I knew he didn’t like to talk about what had happened to him in the days before he’d been taken, but I needed to know.

  “I wish we understood more about who had sent the hunters to attack, and why they were here,” I said. “I get the feeling this was about more than just revenge.”

  He nodded and turned to stare at the painting on the wall beside us.

  “Aerden, can I ask you something?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning back to me.

  I hesitated, absently touching the black cord at my neck.

  “Do you remember the key you gave to me just before you disappeared?” I asked softly. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t retreat inward the way he usually did when one of us mentioned those days.

  He inhaled sharply and his lips twitched. He ran a hand through his long hair and shook his head. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time,” he said. “Why are you asking about it now?”

  I pulled the key from beneath my shirt and held it in my hand for him to see. “I’ve worn this every day since,” I said. “But I never needed it until today.”

  His eyes widened and his eyes lifted to mine.

  “What do you mean?”

  “During the battle, I found a hunter in the trees beyond the dome,” I said. “She was extremely powerful, and I’m convinced she was the one who brought down the dome itself. I also think she was the one casting those powerful shields around the other hunters.”

  His eyes narrowed and he reached out to touch the key. “What does that have to do with this key?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. I knew I needed to tell him, but I didn’t want this information to go beyond the two of us. Until I was sure exactly what was going on, I didn’t want Harper and Jackson to know that I had any suspicions about my father’s possible involvement.

  “Lea, what happened out there?”

  “This hunter, she attacked me, and Aerden, I swear to you, if it hadn’t been for this key, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

  His lips parted and he took a breath. He searched my face, something I didn’t understand flashing in his eyes.

  “I didn’t know what happened at first. One second she was sending a death blow directly at my chest, and the next, I felt this key burning into my skin,” I said. “When I pulled it from under my shirt, the diamond in the center was glowing. I don’t even know how to describe what happened.”

  I looked around, making sure there was no one in the hall who could hear us. I lowered my voice.

  “The trail of her magic solidified,” I said. “It was like the invisible residue of her spell crystallized in midair. I didn’t understand it, but I took advantage of it. I grabbed the crystal rope and pulled her into my sword.”

  “Oh my God, Lea, I don’t even know what to say,” he said. “Did you tell the others about this?”

  I shook my head and swallowed. “Aerden, you have to promise me you won’t say anything to anyone else,” I said. “I need you to do this one thing for me.”

  His eyebrows cinched together and he studied my face. “Why?”

  “Because after the hunter died, I went back to search her body,” I said. I reached into my pocket and, glancing around again to be sure we were alone, pulled out the carefully wrapped diamond pendant. “I found this.”

  Aerden reached for it, but I pulled it back and shook my head.

  “Don’t touch it,” I said. “We have no idea what kind of magic might be locked inside.”

  His hand hovered near the pendant, and then fell to his side. “I don’t understand.”

  “Aerden, you were there the other night when Andros told us about the stone guardian. Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that two days later the Southern Kingdom gets attacked by hunters who were obviously sent here by someone who uses diamonds in their magic?”

  He shook his hand and turned away. “Lea, you can’t be saying you think your father had anything to do with this.”

  “Shh,” I said, stepping toward him and placing my hand on his arm. I rewrapped the pendant and put it back in my pocket. “Please, you can’t tell anyone about this.”

  “He would never do that,” Aerden said.

  “How can we possibly know what my father would or wouldn’t do?” I asked. “We’ve been gone, Aerden. I haven’t even seen him for more than thirty years, and you heard what Andros said. Everyone thinks he’s gone mad, locking up the entire King’s City and basically invoking martial law with the help of this dangerous stone guardian. It’s crazy. We have no idea what he might be capable of.”

  “Lea, diamonds are known to be the gemstone of the High Priestess. Surely you don’t think your father has some kind of agreement with her?�
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  “I don’t know,” I said. “But if he is somehow using diamonds to keep the demons in the city in line, I think it’s entirely possible there’s some connection there. Think about it. He rounded up all of the richest, most powerful demons in the Northern Kingdom and locked them inside his city where they would be safe. Everyone else? He completely abandoned them. He practically offered them up to the Order like a sacrifice to a god.”

  Aerden closed his eyes and turned away.

  I waited as he gathered his thoughts, not sure what else there was to say or how I expected him to react to this. I guess a part of me wanted him to tell me I was crazy. That there was no way my father could be involved. But I knew that no matter what we believed, we wouldn’t be sure until we’d gone looking for the truth.

  “Aerden,” I said. I came up behind him and touched his arm again. His muscles tensed under my touch. “I need to know where you got this key.”

  The Same Fear

  When I woke up, I was confused for a second about where I was. I reached to turn on the lamp, but it wasn’t there.

  Then, the realization of where I was, and why I was there, hit me like a freight train.

  I sat up in bed, wondering how long I had slept.

  I could already feel my strength returning, but the heaviness of my eyelids and the ache of my muscles told me it wasn’t nearly enough. Still, there was so much work to be done on the castle, and I was dying to know if Jackson and Gregory had found out any new information about why the hunters had attacked and who had sent them here.

  Although, I had a good feeling I already knew who had sent them.

  I hadn’t dreamt during my sleep here in my father’s room, but the memory of those emeralds in the abandoned house was never far from my thoughts.

  But why? Was the emerald priestess just showing us her power? Was this her way of telling us that she wanted revenge for what we had done to her sister?

  Or was there more to it?

  I got out of bed and walked to the other side of the room. I conjured a small orb of light and placed it inside a lamp sitting on the dresser. Above it, my father’s sword hung on the wall.

  When he died, he had poured most of his life force into my body, saving me from death. In the tradition of Shadow Demons, he placed what was left of his power and spirit into a stone embedded in the hilt of this sword.

  I stared up at it, thinking how I needed him now more than ever.

  “What should I do?” I whispered to the sword. “How do I keep them all safe?”

  The door to the bedroom creaked open, and Jackson peered inside and smiled.

  “You’re awake,” he said. “I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Only a few hours,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. What happened with Gregory? Did you find any clues as to why the hunters were here?”

  He shook his head. “No one seemed to see anything unusual other than the attack itself,” he said. “We searched the bodies of the dead hunters, but didn’t find any trace of a gemstone or talisman given to them by their ruling priestess.”

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Don’t the priestesses usually give their hunters something to help increase their power?”

  “Yes. And the talismans are also how the priestess tracks her hunters and controls them,” he said. “It’s very strange not to find a single gemstone on so many hunters.”

  “What about the one Lea killed in the woods?” I asked. “Did you find her body?”

  “Gregory found it, but there was nothing there, either.”

  I closed my eyes, my head starting to pound. “We need to find the hunter who got away,” I said. “She seemed to be one of the more powerful ones. What if she was the only one carrying a talisman? Unless this was some kind of band of rogue hunters, which I seriously doubt, one of them had to be carrying evidence of their master. How else would the priestess have tracked their actions?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But sending someone after her could be extremely dangerous.”

  “Right now, it’s our only chance at understanding what truly happened here tonight.”

  Jackson moved behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He leaned down and kissed my neck.

  “You were looking at your father’s sword?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I wish he was here,” I said. “He would know what to do. He might have been able to save the dome, if he had been here.”

  “You did a wonderful job leading the guards in battle,” he said. “But I know how much you miss him. Harper, why aren’t you carrying the sword? He wanted you to have it.”

  I looked up at the large, shining sword, and felt the tears threaten to start up again. “I don’t feel like I’m ready for it, yet. Like I’m worthy of it,” I said. “My father was such a great king. He knew how to protect his people and what to do in battle. He was such an incredibly strong warrior. I don’t know how I could ever live up to that, Jackson. How am I—an eighteen-year-old girl with human blood running through my veins—ever going to be as great as he once was?”

  Jackson turned me around to face him. “You have demon blood running through those veins, too. Royal blood,” he said. “You killed one of the strongest, most powerful witches who ever lived. How can you say you aren’t worthy of that sword? Do you really think you aren’t good enough to be the queen of this kingdom?”

  I swallowed and looked down at the floor. “Today, when the battle started and everyone was looking to me to tell them what to do, I felt like such a child,” I said. “I suddenly felt like I was this tiny little person in a world bigger than anything I know how to handle. I’m not ready to be the leader they all expect me to be, Jackson. I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, lifting my chin with his finger. “The only thing keeping you from being what you want to be is your own inability to see what you already have become.”

  He leaned down and placed his lips against mine.

  I put my arms around his neck and held him close, wanting nothing more than to believe him, but so incredibly terrified that he was wrong.

  I went to kiss him again, but something grew warm inside the pocket of my jeans. My stomach flipped and I inhaled sharply.

  I pulled away from Jackson, my jaw tense and my body trembling.

  I reached inside my pocket and closed my hand around the six ruby communication stones I kept there at all times.

  Please, God, not now. Don’t let this be happening.

  I took a deep breath, scared to open my palm for fear of what I might see.

  Jackson reached to put his hand around my wrist, our eyes meeting for a brief instant, the same fear making both our hearts race.

  Slowly, I opened the palm of my hand and stared down in horror at the rubies. All six of them were glowing with a bright, pulsing light. A distress call from each of the six Primas of the emerald gates who had made a secret alliance with us.

  All at once, the stones went dark and shattered in my hand.

  All Of Them

  Two shadows flew toward us, and I quickly dropped the diamond key back inside my shirt.

  Jackson and Harper took form beside us, their eyes wild and panicked.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, feeling my entire body tense. Had there been another attack?

  “The communication stones went off,” Jackson said.

  “From the emerald gates?” I asked. “Which one?”

  “All of them,” Harper said. She held out her palm so we could see the six stones, all shattered into pieces. “Something terrible’s happened. I have to get to Cypress as fast as possible.”

  “Lea, can you and Aerden tell the others? Send Erick, Mordecai, Joost, and Cristo out west. Ask them to check in on the gates out there,” he said. “Harper and I will go to Cypress. The two of you can go to that little town outside of Atlanta and check on them.”

  “No, I want Lea w
ith me,” Harper said. “If something has happened to Eloise and her girls, I want to have Lea pull up the memories of what happened.”

  I nodded. “I’ll go with Harper,” I said. “Jackson, you can go with Aerden and rally the others. We’ll spread out and see what we can find at each of the gates.”

  “What do we do about the castle?” Jackson asked. “We can’t leave it undefended.”

  “Tell Angela to stay here with the guards,” Harper said. She pulled several small leather bags out of a large backpack she must have grabbed from her rooms here in the castle. She removed one ruby from each small bag and handed them to Jackson. “Pass these stones out to everyone. Make sure Angela has one so she can contact us if something happens here in the castle. And make sure to keep one for yourself.”

  “I think we should tell everyone to be very careful at each of these gates,” I said. I knew I was keeping things from them about this most recent attack, and the last thing I wanted was for us to split up and come across a more dangerous foe than anyone was prepared for. “We don’t know what’s happened or why, but the fact that it comes on the heels of this attack on the castle makes me suspicious. Sneak in wherever you go and don’t alert anyone to your presence until you know the coast is clear.”

  Harper nodded. “That’s a good idea,” she said. She gripped Jackson’s arm and leaned over to kiss him. “Contact me as soon as you know something in Atlanta.”

  I looked away, and found that Aerden was staring at me.

  “We’ll talk about it later?” he asked softly.

  I gave a simple nod, and followed Harper out to the portal inside the white roses that would take us back to Brighton Lake.

  Aerden hadn’t had a chance to answer about the diamond key, and now that we were splitting up, I had no idea when I would have the opportunity to ask him about it again. If we found any evidence that the High Priestess had anything to do with these six communication stones going dark, I knew I would have no choice but to tell Harper the truth.

  For now, though, I wanted to hold onto this information awhile longer.