The Warlord by Gena Showalter (free ebook reader for pc .txt) 📕

Her gaze dropped to her mother’s rounded belly, where twins named Kaia and Bianka grew. She gulped.

“Do you understand, Taliyah? We must take this secret to our graves. If ever anyone discovers the truth about your origins, you are to kill them without delay.”

“But I don’t even know what I am now!” Reeling.

“I’ll explain,” her aunt piped up. “Before your birth, the brothers appeared in Harpina every fifty years. One terrorized our villages, and we couldn’t stop him. The other mended the survivors. Sixteen years ago, the two appeared to me in secret and offered to spare us for a time...if I spent the night with them.” Her tone thinned. “Though I fought to become General, I agreed to their bargain. Nine months later, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl.”

Tamera had given birth only once. Which meant... Blythe had two fathers, too? Wait. Blythe was Taliyah’s sister? Reeling faster.

“Five years later,” her mother said, her tone just as tight, “the brothers reappeared. This time, they came to me, offering the same bargain. I agreed, despite my own bid to become General. Nine months later, I birthed you.”

Taliyah licked her lips. So much to digest. Too much at once. She centered on the most difficult to accept, trying to make sense of it. Her fathers. In history class, she’d learned about twin brothers who’d done exactly as described. Warriors so powerful, they evinced terror in everyone they faced. Not just warriors. The sons of a god.

“I’m a daughter of Asclepius Serpentes and Erebus Phantom, sons of Chaos.” The words tasted odd on her tongue.

Asclepius was known as the Bringer of Life, a god of medicine able to raise certain immortals from the dead. He was also the creator of snakeshifters and gorgons.

Erebus was his opposite. Known as the Bringer of Death, he destroyed whatever he touched. His contribution to immortal species? The creation of phantoms. Mindless soldiers able to take both spirit and bodily form. To survive, these phantoms consumed the souls—the very life—of the living. A grotesque act to harpies. To all immortals, really.

The two were gods in their own right, yes, but they came from a greater god known as the Abyss. That meant... I came from the Abyss.

Well, of course I did! Frankly, she was amazing. A defender of all harpykind.

“Where are the brothers now?” Oops. Did she sound too eager? Harpies weren’t supposed to care about such matters.

Her mother hiked a shoulder, the answer clearly of no importance to her. “Rumors suggest the two picked a fight with the wrong warlords, men who once served as Chaos’s personal guards. They killed the brothers, but Erebus came back...wrong.”

So, one father was dead and gone. The other lived, but not well. Her stomach churned. “Does Erebus know about me? Does Chaos?” Would they visit her? A flicker of hope sparked. Maybe they’d want to get to know her or something.

“If they know of you, daughter, they care not. You are nothing to them, and they are nothing to you.”

“Right.” Her shoulders rolled in the slightest bit. “Good riddance, I say. Who needs them?” She did just fine on her own. Better than fine! The best! The pang in her chest bore no significance to the situation.

“You’re right. You don’t need them. Soon, you’ll wield abilities beyond your wildest imagination.”

She perked up at the thought of new power. “What abilities?” And how soon?

“You won’t know until you’ve shed your first skin for your second,” Blythe told her. The black-haired, blue-eyed beauty smiled and—Taliyah gasped. Her irises! Specks of black shimmered in their depths. “If you’re like me, you’ll push your spirit from your body, possess others, communicate with the dead, walk in the spirit world to spy on your enemies and recover from any death...even your first.”

Her first? She zoomed her gaze to the weapons. Realization punched Taliyah, leaving her winded. Her family planned to kill her and raise her as a phantom.

Warring impulses surged, one after the other. Flee. Protest. Cheer. Die? In the end, she bit her tongue and remained silent. What mattered more than her dream? To walk in the spirit realm and spy on her enemies, to recover from death...

She would do anything. There’d be no greater General.

“I, too, fight for the right to rule,” her cou—sister said. “When the time comes, the two of us will be forced to battle for the honor. But it will be a fair fight. Fair and right.”

“Fair and right,” Taliyah repeated with a nod. “But I’m still going to win.” Facts, and all.

Blythe gifted her with another grin, there and gone. “We shall see.”

“Like your half sister, you will only ever use your new powers in secret.” Her mother’s harsh statement cut through the night, the slightest tremor shaking her. “Erebus and Chaos have enemies who will stop at nothing to apprehend and use you, if ever your identity is discovered. Do you understand? For all we know, the gods themselves will want you dead.”

Though she feared nothing, Taliyah offered a clipped assertion. When had the Vicious ever trembled? “I understand.”

Satisfied, her mother lifted the fireiron sword. The dark metal glinted in the moonlight. “Are you prepared to die to become the phantom you were meant to be, my daughter?”

No! “I...am?” Though she hadn’t yet lived a decade, Taliyah had already participated in two major battles. The first with Sent Ones—winged assassins of the skies—and the other with wolfshifters. She’d watched friends enter the hereafter in the most painful ways, helpless to save them.

If dying today meant better protecting harpykind tomorrow, so be it.

Harpies today. Harpies forever.

“I am,” she offered with more confidence, jutting her chin.

“So be it.” Her mother repositioned into a battle stance, and Tamera and Blythe followed suit. “May your end serve as your beginning.”

That said, Tabitha shoved the fireiron straight into Taliyah’s heart.

Searing pain exploded through her. Blood rushed up her throat and out her mouth, choking her. All thoughts of dying for a cause