Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
She’d listen as I described us running through a secret paradise. Fields of flowers and high grasses, soaring trees with branches low enough to climb, dipping our toes into the stream that wove through the meadow where we’d meet.
How perfect it was there in Tearsith, a haven without pain or shame.
At seven, she’d sat at the edge of that same bed and told me I was getting too old for imaginary friends.
At ten, she’d begged me to stop, gripping my hand as she whispered that I was scaring her.
At sixteen, when I’d left the safety of Tearsith and descended to fight in Faydor, when the wounds had begun to show, I’d been forbidden to ever speak Pax’s name again.
A name I was never supposed to speak anyway, but I’d never been able to keep the truth of that place contained. It’d always felt as if it was going to burst out from within me.
Her nails sank into my flesh. “Tell me!”
Pain lanced through me, this gutting, shattering hurt that blistered through every nerve.
I gulped back the tears that stung my throat and eyes.
I had to leave.
Run.
I couldn’t go through it again—the doctors and the prescriptions. The psych commitments and the interrogations.
They would never believe. They would never see. They would never understand. I would only continue to hurt them, just like they unknowingly hurt me, and I couldn’t stay under their scrutiny any longer.
“I love you, Mom.” I choked it out around the torment that roiled through my insides, and I prayed she understood how deeply I meant it.
At my tone, confusion puckered her forehead, and before she could say anything else, I untangled myself from her hold and grabbed my backpack and jacket from the floor. I flew to the door with every intention to run, only I paused for a beat to look back, unable to just leave like that.
“I hate how much I’ve hurt you. I hate it. But if you know one thing, please know how much I truly do love you.”
“Natalie? What’s going on?” My father’s voice boomed from the other side of their bedroom door. No doubt, he’d heard her shouting.
Panic lit, and I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Then I turned and ran down the hall and to the stairs. My mother’s words followed me, the same as her frantic footsteps. “Aria! Aria! Do not walk out that door! Aria, stop! We need to talk about this . . . get you help.”
I raced downstairs, my heart speeding out of control, sorrow pounding through the middle of it.
Because I didn’t slow. I flew out the front door and into the frigid winter cold.
Chapter Five
Aria
Tearsith
Sixteen years old
Aria emerged at the edge of Tearsith, where the lush woods were dense with foliage and peace billowed on the breeze.
She peered into the clearing where her Laven family had begun to gather, wearing their matching uniforms.
Aria’s pulse skittered.
Tonight would be unlike any other she’d experienced before.
Today, she had turned sixteen.
She had reached the age of maturity for a Laven, and tonight, she would descend into the darkness of Faydor for the first time.
It was an event she had been preparing for throughout her life. Until this point, her nights had been spent here within the boundaries of Tearsith, the realm above Faydor, learning of the importance of her calling and the sacrifice that it required. Even never having stepped out of Tearsith, Aria understood that sacrifice was great.
Once she entered Faydor, she would never be the same.
She tried to keep her fear at bay, but it pulsed through her blood, and she searched, though her spirit already told her that her Nol had not yet arrived.
But Dani noticed that she had, and Aria’s friend jumped to her feet and came jogging over. She took Aria by both hands as she gave her a smile of kind encouragement.
“Happy birthday, Aria.”
“Thank you,” Aria whispered around the anxiety.
“Are you nervous?” Dani asked, concern pinching her delicate brow.
“I feel like I should be prepared but have no idea what to expect.”
Understanding passed through Dani’s expression. “It won’t be easy, but you were created for this.”
Some days, Aria wished she had not been. She had no choice but to come here night after night. No choice but to look in the mirror each morning when she awoke and wonder if she was lost.
Insane.
Prisoner to a reality that did not exist.
It was then her spirit expanded, though, and an awareness thrummed through her veins and sparked in her soul. She shifted to peer back at the edge of Tearsith.
Pax stepped out of the woods.
So gorgeous that her heart stalled, jolting from its axis and pitching in his direction.
She had to tamp down what she knew was written on her face, the forbidden feelings that he evoked.
Not that he would ever return those feelings anyway.
She took in his face. A carved sculpture of white granite, his eyes that unfathomable gray. Everything about him was razor sharp and deadly, though every interaction she had ever shared with him had been tender and careful.