Page 111 of Of Realms and Chaos

But all I could think of were the bodies in Haven. The hundreds of funerals we held with no one but my Trusted to bear witness and say goodbye. I thought of Asher’s face as she stared out of my window in The Royal City the days following, unmoving and cradling her scarred arms. Of the way she screamed for mercy in her sleep. How she stopped speaking to those around her, losing the spark that I had witnessed flare to life on our journey through Eoforhild.

My mind stilled, hyperfixating on Asher. Her laugh, the way she wrote my name, every time she offered kindness like it was second nature. She was brilliant, strategic, commanding, and hotheaded. Asher was the most beautiful creature to ever grace our world.

And she was gone.

“Hello!” Farai yelled, waving his hands in front of my face.

I glared at him, pushing off the wall. “I understand you. I am simply choosing to ignore you.”

Without another word to Farai, I portaled away to the same place I often went. My body hit the icy waters of the Ibidem Sea, the cold locking up my limbs and pulling me under just as my eye caught sight of a ship. Odd. The water here was not suitable for sailing, wild and unforgiving—the depths as dark as the stormy gray of the clouds above.

As I let myself sink, being tossed around by the waves, I thought of how closely the color matched Asher’s eyes.

***

Everything was going horribly wrong. Deadly wrong.

Screams could be heard from every direction, but the worst were from those at the end of my blade. For every Shifter that fell, so fell a demon. Bodies were ripped to shreds, mauled beyond recognition. Fur-clad soldiers were hung by beams of light and wisps of shadow.

Death sang with glee, stealing lives so quickly it seemed as though the world was made of blood. I danced to the music, unable to stop the way my blade swung and my smile lifted.

I was everything I never wanted to be. Everything Asher loathed. Asher, who was still gone after three and a half weeks. Asher, who would sooner cut her own throat than do what I was doing.

Senseless death coated the air, and I breathed it in like a male suffocated.

Jasper was gone, their house empty and devoid of any signs of life. In fact, it looked as though the home had been long since deserted. Farai was somewhere in this mess, his cries repeating in my head like a prayer. And perhaps they had been.

We had successfully taken out the ten fae who held high enough leadership positions to be in the command center. Yet when we had finished, Henry and I walked out into a bloodbath. The demons had, against my orders, begun seeking retribution. And when we had tried to stop them, a Shifter had come at us, tackling Henry to the ground and nearly ripping out his throat. Maybe it was the thought of losing my best friend—my brother—but whatever snapped inside of me then left behind an unholy wrath.

I was furious as I took down Shifter after Shifter, their biggest weakness being their fraternization laws that separated them. Still, we were not winning. No, this was an even battle, and it was only leading to bloodshed.

A flash of brown curls caught my eyes, stealing my attention.

Asher?

The blade came and went, but the pain was delayed, like my body was attempting to resist the almost-mortal reaction to having one’s back sliced open. When the agony made its presence known, it did so in full force—a hot iron branding my back.

I fell to my knees, watching as the female with the long brown curls turned to face me before she shifted, morphing into a jaguar. As she stalked towards me, her gaze lethal and hungry, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I had been the problem all along.

***

Day thirty-nine without Asher was just as miserable as the one before.

Cyprus was not himself. He stressed about Luca’s absence even more than the rest of us, terrorizing new recruits—both mortal and demon. He was on edge, always tensing when I received a letter. There was only so much I could do to reassure him when I was also panicking.

Recovering after the attack on Isle Shifter was slow. Our soldiers were angry, ready for war, but they were also broken. We had not brought back any bodies, having to say goodbye to those lost without them. Burning bodies was crucial to sending a soul to the Above, which left too many devastated at the thought of those they loved being cursed to an endless existence in purgatory. It was a mournful two weeks of doing nothing but strategizing. The fae had not retaliated, despite the fact that we bathed their base in gore.

Farai sat in the corner, often not doing much else. He was convinced that his husband was in harm’s way, but we did not have the means to find and rescue him. Our plan had failed in many ways, but seeing Farai’s dejected expression daily was a reminder of the way absence and death haunted the present and living.

“Ash would have hated what we did,” Noe said, her head hung low and her hands clasped in her lap.

“Do not speak of her like she is dead or never coming back,” I seethed in return, finally looking her in the eyes. We stared off, both furious and overwhelmed and so, so scared.

“She very well might be,” Lian added in a whisper, looking far sadder than I would have thought possible months ago. But that was the problem with loving someone, they irrevocably altered you, a permanent shift from who you were.

“Shut up, Lian.” Henry’s chastising tone left my body humming with bitter ire.

“No, you do not get to stand up for me or protect me! It is our fault that Asher is gone, our mistakes that left her alone! You sooner should have let Farai die than take your eyes off of her, and I should have gotten to her immediately! But we fucked up! So you do not get to stand up for me or make me feel better. No one does. Because I know I deserve it all!”

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