Destiny's Blood by Marie Bilodeau (superbooks4u txt) 📕

despite the creatures clawing at her. She felt warmth and reached out to grab hold of Ardin’s arm so as not to lose him. Then the light vanished and she opened her eyes. The ramparts were empty of creatures. Below, only the dead and a few living remained.

She could see Loran on the other side, unconscious and bleeding. Her right leg was gone. Three Mirialers surrounded her and Avienne looked away, towards her brother. His face was covered in nicks, his right arm bled freely and one eye was badly swollen.

He was looking up, and she followed his gaze. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun shone in the east, its rays soothing her cold skin.

“Layela,” Ardin whispered and turned to his sister.

She smiled. “Go. I think I can handle things here.” He hugged her quickly and was gone with a speed that defied his wounds. Around him, a cheer rose from the Mirialers, as they, too, came to understand the meaning of the sun on the horizon.

Mirial was saved, and day could rule once again.

Avienne smiled and joined in the cheer, then turned and started to collect the twenty-four expensive ether knives she intended to sell. She would look into buying a home. A real home. For herself, near wherever her love-struck brother would go. But first, she would definitely be spending some of the profits on soap and new clothing.

Blood and bones, she didn’t think she could smell much worse.

i

Twenty years. It had been almost twenty years.

Twenty years since Mirial and her weakening shields were discovered by Solari, two days before the heir was to be born. Most remembered the after-effect of that birth — the exile, the pain, the loss of their home — but Dunkat remembered the moment: the exact moment he learned of ether.

The stench of flowers mingled with the smells of people all around him. His father was proudly discussing the spiral architecture of the royal palace, holding his wife’s elbow as though she were his most precious and fragile possession.

The Mirialers, wary at first of the strangers, were growing to enjoy Minister Groosh’s love of art. It was something they took great pride in, but were rarely able to share with outsiders. Their duty and choice had always been to remain hidden; to protect and hide Mirial from those who would take advantage of her ether.

He heard bits of conversations, his tired mind playing them over and over again, whispers and shadows from a past only he seemed to remember.

“Minister Groosh, you must see...”

“Minister Groosh, the Destiny’s design was meant to...”

Groosh. That was his name too. He had been thirty, full of ambition. And he’d had a name.

Silence broke through his memories and he heard his rattling breath. But soon a crying child shattered that sound, too.

“The heir!” a hopeful voice cried. Dunkat already understood that they needed a girl. A boy-child would be whisked away and given to some other family. Dunkat wondered if it would be the family of the father. The father: a man unknown, un-acclaimed and uninvited to his own child’s birth.

The thought was forgotten as he glanced around, his own memory growing dim as the taste of blood grew stronger in his mouth. The captain of the Royal Guards headed towards the back, where the birthing room nestled hidden behind layers of rich gold and red curtains. He knew the captain’s face — the man had kept a close eye on the Solarians since their arrival.

Dunkat took a deep breath. Cooling mist soothed his senses, seconds before his memory exploded with vivid colours.

“Loretta!” he heard his father scream as a roar smothered them. His mother’s knees seemed to weaken for a moment. Then she turned and he saw that the delicate silk of her dress was melting, bubbling and turning her body black. Her mouth was twisted in a silent scream and her knees slowly gave out, her grace as a dancer defying the agony of her body.

His father’s hair was sizzling, his skin melting as he reached her. He managed to remain standing long enough to catch his wife, holding her crumpling body in his own as they both caught fire.

The smell of burning flesh and fresh mist mixed past and present, and Dunkat felt his heart break and harden, all at once. Around him more fell, struck by the mysterious ether, but he and a few others remained standing. The ether ripped through them without care or discrimination, downing one and leaving the next unharmed.

And the screams, the fires, the heat on his flesh as he ran away, away from his burning parents...Dunkat gasped. The metal in his mouth was stronger than before.

That was the power of ether. He forced his tired eyes to open and, made out the blurred shape of the heir near the waterfall, her back to him.

He needed to stop the revival of ether. He needed to kill her.

But he was dying.

No! I must stop it!

His father had found ether. His father had found a way to survive, to try to avenge his love, and Dunkat would do the same.

The wraiths of Mirial. The tainted ether. Ether that could go against the very laws of life, unless purified by Mirial herself. To cling to the dark ether in death would offer him the powers of ether, of the evil he had no choice but to use so that he could destroy it. And unlike his father, Dunkat had never been weak with love of art.

He took a deep breath, felt the blood rattle in his chest and tasted it on his tongue. He clung to his anger and hatred, clung to the powers he had felt from his father.

He clung to the darkness until his breath stopped coming and his sight grew dark.

Silence. Darkness. Nothingness.

And then he could see, clearer than ever before. His heart and breath no longer sounded in his own ears, his memories no longer assailed him but supported him, his entire body animated by a deep, scorching fire. The need to stop