'd witnessed several horrors ever since the prophecy snatched me from my simple life on Earth and propelled me into Ardoria a bit over half a year ago. I had faced death, had unveiled secrets that were more deadly than anything else, and had fought against demons.

And lived.

But nothing, nothing, could have prepared me for what we were discovering.

We had stayed chained to our spots until dawn creaked in at last, going through pages after pages, seeking something. Anything. Whatever information, explanation or solution could save us, and we became so desperate we begged it was nothing but a false trail meant to stir us from our plans. But we knew better than to fool ourselves.

And what greeted my eyes, what was sculpted in my memory, didn't ease my soul one bit. We read and read and read about Apocalys, unveiling so much of what we believed was nothing but a lie. A bitter and fierce lie to allow us to sleep with closed eyes at nights and nothing more.

There were scripts about the Red War, about Apocalys's conversion, about the power he possessed. Those powers, those unholy surges of magic in his immortal soul that challenged the Great Five. The same powers that wrecked the heavens, killed Aether's daughter, and doomed us all. There was no word to describe the Dark God, nothing to give justice to all this darkness. And he was just that: a father of darkness and death. A body of powers more chaotic than anything this world could endure.

But there was one more thing that sucked the warmth of my blood and made my bones weak, and it was the thought of standing in front of a former god, a useless sword and shield against masses of powers that could annihilate everything I came to care for in seconds.

My heart felt tight and heavy, all the weariness of the night pounding in my veins, obscuring my mind. I stirred my eyes from the page we were studying and focused on the white. For how long, I didn't know. The only thing I was conscious about was the bits of memories tugging at the thin ends of my mind, beckoning me to remember something I couldn't quite place my finger on. Something so close I could picture it in front of my eyes but couldn't be summoned, a memory out of fingers' reach. And then I became aware that the book was glowing, light propelling from it with smoothness I could never capture with words.

The letters twisted and melted—the so familiar sight—before a prophecy, a warning, was inked. My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t look at how it was summoned, didn't bother wondering if it was a clue from the Gods or anything else. I just read.

"Thou, the one who has all seen,

Life and death and everything in between.

Thou, the Queen who can speak,

The one who redemption and destruction seek,

The heavens warn thee.

Far in the darkness, a threat is rising,

And between what was left, a God is awakening.

Beware the bleeding of the moon,

As it is the beginning of doom.

The demon once King will ascend,

His puppet him shall defend.

The world we'd come to know will die,

But a solution in thee might lie.

For thou are a soul that only once happens,

A gift from the highest heavens."

"The Queen who can speak," I mumbled, eyes drifting to my father. "And here I thought you were only trying to amplify my ability at the gathering."

"Until this moment," he replied," I believed the same. Maybe your ability with the Gods is greater than what we thought."

I wanted to snicker at that, wanted to argue of how they had left us in our journey, leaving us until the direst of all moments to help. But maybe they were powerless. Maybe they were at too many threats to help us.

"This prophecy hasn’t told us more than what we already discovered," Leon added, "but the knowledge that there is a solution."

"Then our night wasn't fruitless," spoke Ramos, his fingers gingerly pushing the book close, the gentle thud followed by one of Siltheres's heavy breaths.

"It is dawn," he drawled slowly, eyes tracing all of us," thou should retreat and rest for as much as time allows. Duties never sleep, and the Courts will be waiting you today, claiming all thy powerful glories."

"It is right," Father said at last, the only words he had uttered ever since Ramos confirmed our most feared doubts. His emeralds eyes flicked to mine, weary and troubled. "We should sleep." A whisper, his voice merely a murmur, as though the weight of all those years asleep and the one of the past night came crashing on him all at once.

But I wasn't ready to leave yet.

"I will stay a bit longer." I stared with unwavering eyes as the three men turned to me, faces bleached of colors from all the horrors, all the murders and dead and curses we learned about.

"The first gathering is of the Second Crowns who hadn't laid their reports yet. Since I don’t have to attend it, it gives me a few more hours to rest. I can use an hour or two to look through for that solution."

"Celestia—"

I didn't let my father finish, didn't allow his voice to reach that tone that would break my mind and make me want to snuggle against him. To drown in his warmth. To scream the frustration building up inside me. I opened the Book of Astazan once again.

He didn't argue. He knew, they all knew, that the Book responded solely to me. And if there was anyone who could find that solution, it wouldn't be but the chosen one.

"I believe we won't be seeing you at the first gathering," said the king to Leon, if ever to lighten our minds before leaving this realm.

Leon merely shook his head and said, "The Prelius family already laid its report weeks ago. My aunt has other plans for today."

I caught bitterness in his voice. His face was blank but his eyes were laced with a mere shadow of disdain and disapproval.

Siltheres slightly tilted his head, his warm breath blowing against my neck as he spoke, "Renva is still trying to wed thee, I see."

I fought the tension building in my back and willed my face to neutrality at the mention of Leon looking for a bride. I didn't know this. And apparently neither father did as he stared at the Shadow with shock, and maybe a tinge of forced amusement.

"Well, it seems you have rendered Renva so hopeless she can't wait to kick you out," teased Father. Leon barked out a laugh, but it was dark and cold enough that said clearly that all was happening wasn't of his approval.

"At least,'' spoke Ramos, shifting one of the white chair Siltheres had summoned earlier for them so he could sit facing us."Try your best to get out of that house without leaving a mess of a crying woman in your wake."

Leon arched an eyebrow and he ever so slightly turned his attention to me, disapproval flickering in them.

He was to find a bride, to be engaged.

Something heavy formed in my heart that felt like it sucked all breath from my lungs. I tried pushing that inexplicable ache aside, cursing myself for knowing from where it came. And knowing a bit more it shouldn't exist.

"Of course," the Shadow drawled, "it is my fault that the woman couldn't bear reject. Perdiel gave me his share of threats for breaking his niece's heart."

"I have no doubt," father added, "that her tears had nothing to do with the crown that slipped from her hands.''

Siltheres's grumble was enough of a laugh as he nuzzled his head; scales caressing my skin, brushing the dangling, feather-shaped earrings Leon had gifted me when we were back at Green Leaf's village. Suddenly, they felt heavy and wrong.

"Even though," Father continued, his face calm yet serious, ''I know Renva to be wiser than getting in arrangements before war. And especially with his family."

"It is because the war is coming that Renva is racing time.''

Father and I both turned to Ramos, but Leon spoke before.

"The noble families are tying my throne to this nonsense. I am not to claim Nevora's throne unless bound to a woman of noble birth, be it low or high. And if war is looming, I have until the very last moment to announce any sort of commitment or else, I risk losing my seat. If I fail in doing so, the Second Crown will pass to Rhia. And she cannot take it."

"He cursed her." It wasn't a question but a statement, like father had it all sorted out. I, on the other hand, didn't.

Leon's soul was dark as he replied, his voice little more than a whisper, as though fearing the walls could hear and understand. "You felt it." Again, not a question.

The king said," I have known Rhiannon since she was born, Leon, as scarcely as those few years might be. But I know her aura, and I know that there is something different about it than the girl I had blessed nineteen years ago."

Nineteen, from Carter's age, then.

"It happened three years ago," the future Lord of Nevora explained, and I already knew bits of what he was about to say. He had told me that story the day following Blake and Mealin's attack under the volcano. "When I was sent invitation to attend the gathering hosted in Rimelia, the same day the ruling family fell. Claurod had accompanied me back then, and no one was suspecting anything.

"But the food was poisoned and our strength were reduced to non existence during dinner. Demons attacked, some fled, some others stayed and fought. The attacks ceased and we thought we had won, but they stroke again in the midst of night and killed them all. By the time, we all were far way. I was walking down the streets, hidden in shadows when Mealin appeared." A pause filled the room with suffocating silence. And I waited to hear the dreadful part that fought its way out of Leon's throat.

"I don't remember what happened then, after I tried fighting back. The only thing I knew was that I was chained between two pillars in an underwater, frozen cave. He knew I was poisoned, and knew just well when powers would be at their weakest.

"Mealin abused me, making sure I tasted the powers he'd been gifted from Lysithea after the night he'd left us to die in that desert. It lasted for days, the whipping and torturing and threatening until my body was so limp and bloodied I doubted I would be ever capable of moving a muscle."

Another pause. I dared a look at Father and regretted it as I saw just how bleached his face was.

"He never made to capture Rhia, never had the urge to get rid of her as much as he did for me. As absurd as it sounds, he might as well have cared for her the few weeks following her birth and no more. But we knew he would come for her once he made sure I was gone. She is just like her."

And there it was, the pain. He merely showed a thread of it, but it was there, in his eyes and voice. It wasn't pain about him, about what he'd lived, but about the fact that he felt he failed her. That he never would be capable of keeping her safe.

It was helplessness.

But my father smiled, if ever, to ease what I saw in Leon's soul. "She do is just like her, and not only in features, but in heart and mind."

Ramos spoke," Her mind is a weapon, Aragon. And one far sharper than Estelle's. She will have a glorious future, one marked with world-changing discoveries."

The shadow smiled and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. "And it is because of this that he cursed her. Rhia never wanted the crown, feared it since we were children, but she never objected when she was trained. She knew that if I fell, she would have to keep Mother's long dynasty alive and rightful owners of that seat. Mealin knew it, too. So, he made me watch in that cave as he slit his right palm open, smearing blood on the floor."

He took a heavy breath.

"As much as we try to deny it, to refuse it, there is still one drop of his blood in our veins. A bit of him in us. And he used it to damn her, that if she ever claimed Nevora as hers, she would die slow and viciously. And maybe to mock us more, he allowed her to rule only if she gives up the power within the Prelius name, transfers her right to another family, she could own it. But as a consort and not a ruler. Just to break our mother, even if after death."

"Then thou are bound by the Law to either claim it, or watch Estelle's rule shatter for good."

Watch Estelle's sacrifice vanish to anything. But Siltheres was wise not to add it.

"But do tell me," my father said finally, absorbing all that Leon had narrated, "who are the ones responsible of these changes? I had made your rights clear, with no restriction."

It was Ramos that answered, fingers running in his beard. "Perdiel and his cronies, I will give you the entire names later on. It was a few years after the incident in the castle, when the Prelius's seat was in its weakest political stages. Renva found it best to agree, and the law was made sworn to not be broken only by the interference of a god—"

"The irony,'' Leon interrupted, snarling. "Because they claimed that if Nevor truly wanted me on that throne boundless, he would interfere like he had saved us from melting to death. What makes it worth is that there are not many women amongst our noble range, the only sane ones as old as what my mother would have been today."

"I take it you have no woman in mind?" teased Ramos just to get Leon out of those unholy thoughts crawling in his mind. What the king had planned to do to him as we danced seemed merciful.

"Not really, none from the ones still available. Mostly Perdiel and his fellows' nieces."

"I wouldn't put it beyond them to make it impossible to toy with the law and fake the engagement."

Ramos shook his head. "We'll see what we will do in due time. But now, let's retreat and rest." He looked at Leon long and hard then added, "How that symbol your mother carved on your flesh still provides you with strength, I don’t know. But we all know it won't be sufficient to help you through the day. Sleep well."

The Court leader patted him on the shoulder, pressed a kiss to my hair, bowed his head to Siltheres who watched silently, and stood aside waiting for his king. Father kissed my forehead before he whispered a 'don't stay for too long' to which I nodded before he and Ramos vanished into mist.

For a few heartbeats, there was silence and nothing but the sound of Leon, Siltheres, and I breathing. I didn't let myself stare at the to-be Lord of Nevora. I didn't trust myself, my heart and emotions, enough to do so. But he shifted and rose to his feet, shoulders slumped and face solemn. He allowed me to see this weakness, this broken posture and wrecked soul even when he had kept his head high as he spoke of the horrors he'd endured.

"I will take your leave," he whispered, but I rose to my feet before he could also turn into mist and stepped toward him. I made myself stare at his lips, at his strong jaws, at his scarred hand that reached to tuck the strands of hair obscuring my face, brushing past the earrings he'd gave me, but never at his eyes.

I knew I would lose myself staring at them, knew that the ache that he'd be taken before war-drums ever started beating would grow even more. I forced the words out and said, "Unless you have eyes for the woman you're meeting today,'' I paused and hated myself for staring at those eyes. At that arched eyebrow that gave a bit of playfulness and flickering light in those ocean eyes. But he didn't utter a word, waiting. "Refuse her hand, and we'll find a solution to all of this."

To the war, the engagement, the threats and deaths. All of it.

His smile was tight, but the fact that he made himself curl those lips even if slightly for me made my legs weak.

"Don't linger in your searches, today is long and will devour all of our strength,'' he whispered and leaned closer, his face lowering due to the difference of height between us until we could share breath for a mere second.

Then, his lips were soft and warm on my right cheek as they whispered a gentle kiss. Without a sound, he vanished, the feeling of that brush still lingering on my skin.

I might have stared for a good few minutes into nothing before Siltheres moved, snapping my attention back to his mighty form. And the book glowing next to his claws.

I didn't glare, didn't speak as I walked to him even albeit making sure he could see clear through my head what would happen if he did as much as speak and hint about what just happened.

I held the Book of Astazan in my arms, waiting until light started to fade, and stared at the curved words building slowly under one title.

A solution.

And when the light vanished and I could read it, dread came crashing down on me in waves of cold water. For a moment, the world stopped. For a moment, I was nothing and no one as I read again and again and again what lay in front of my eyes.

A child born from both,

In her blood runs the oath.

Shall she rise to be queen

In her hands powers that never have been seen.

With her destiny,

She shall write a final glory.

The gift will turn to malediction,

For a price will be for redemption.

The chosen shall rise to free the light,

Blackness she will fight.

Alas, with the birth of the new sun,

Time would have long run.

With the dawn of her new kingdom,

An end must come.

For one souls frees all,

Death upon it will befall.

Note to readers:

Book 1 is undergoing a slow, offline edit (which is in hiatus) in which I am working on fixing weak spots and enriching details and relations. The earrings and backstory that are mentioned to be in the Mark of Aether, but you do not remember, are new. I will highlight them each time.

*The details do not interfere with what you know or with the plot*.