bow. Not playing her games, I search the space we are in. Nothing but ash and dust line the ruins of the room, but the wind whips around us so fast it makes me wonder how high up we are. “I have not introduced you to my new friends.”
I scream as wind slams into me, shoving me hard onto the floor. Ash puffs up in a cloud above me and turns everything dark. My heart beats so loudly in my chest I just barely hear the large footsteps of the Titans as they surround us. Their shoulders rest above the ruined walls of the room and their empty faces stare down at me.
“You need new friends, you crazy bitch,” I bellow, but my insane sister just laughs in response.
She skips around me in a circle, humming a song I don’t know but sounds like a lullaby you would sing to a child. By Selena, she has lost her goddamn mind. My body starts to float into the air and I close my eyes, using my own magic to fight the hold on me. But nothing happens. I feel empty inside where my magic should be. Not even the sword feels as though it’s part of my being anymore. It’s like Eva has paralysed me with that creepy lullaby.
Just as I start to move my hand and get control of my magic again, I open my eyes, and shock makes me forget everything as I stare at the remains of the light kingdom. It’s nothing more than fire, ash, and rubble now. The once sweet smell of the kingdom is replaced with an awful burning scent that chokes me with every breath. Now I know it’s the smell of Vasili burning to the ground. Eva flies in front of me, still humming away as she gets super close and looks into my eyes.
“Why destroy the kingdom you wanted to rule?”
My whisper floats between us as she grabs my chin, her nails making me wince as they cut me. “The light and dark kingdom honoured the gods,” Eva says, digging her nails harder. “This is but a shrine to them and their old ways. The new kingdom I will build will honour only me.”
“No one will ever honour or love you, Eva. You’ve become unloveable,” I spit at her, tears falling from my cheek and onto her hand. “I could have loved you once. You’re my sister but you’ve destroyed everything that could have been. You are nothing more than a monster now.”
For a second, her cold and impassive demeanour cracks. I see it so clearly in her eyes like a wave crashing into the ocean, but it vanishes just as quickly, leaving only the sea behind; a sea of darkness in which Eva will never be able to rise ashore from.
My sister has to die.
Eva laughs again, her cackle making the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. Before she can do anything, a booming noise blasts in the distance. I turn to see a wave of dark fae floating in the air, and on the ground is an army of fae and shadowborn mixed in together. Sensing my mates and mother in the crowd, tears of relief and fear fill me.
They have come for me.
“Titans, do go and kill the remains of the old world,” Eva orders, sweeping a hand dismissively to the wreckage below.
“No!” I scream and my voice is cut off as Eva punches me hard across the face. The blows never stop, and the pain is indescribable as I cower into myself, wishing I could break free of the magic holding me down. As Eva screams and continues to laugh, hitting me again and again, I stare at the sky and my father’s words come back to me, almost like he is speaking in my mind.
“Look up, Corvina. The stars are welcoming you home.”
The goddess herself is never going to let me down, and the stars will never turn dark for me. My father might not be here anymore, but my mates and my mother are, and they are fighting for me.
I need to fight for them.
I’m Corvina Charles, Princess of the Light and Dark Fae, and I am also shadowborn.
No darkness can hold me down. No light can either.
I scream from the top of my lungs as power slams out of me in waves, knocking Eva across the room. I fall to the floor with her, breaking the magical hold she had on