We were alone now, just the four of us, and as I scanned the space, I was horrified to see a few dead bodies on the ground. Students. Two students had been killed. The blood looked like it had been drained from their bodies. They lay like ashen corpses, eyes open as they stared at the sky.
Shock ripped through me and then I heard Ayden grunt as he fell to the ground, holding his ribcage. There was blood dripping from his fingers.
Oh Light.
“Ayden!” I ran for him, but Ariyon put out a hand to stop me, placing it right on my bare chest.
“You’ve done enough, Fallon. Please leave,” he growled, and shame burned through me so hot I couldn’t help the tears that burned the back of my eyes.
He thought this had to do with me?
“Don’t talk to her like that!” Ayden snapped from his place on the ground.
“Let’s go home.” Eden tugged on my sleeve.
There was a commotion at the entrance to the garden and the Royal Guard started to filter into the yard. Ariyon removed his hand from my chest and walked towards his brother, the healing marks on the tops of his hands spinning wildly.
“It’s not her fault,” Ayden said to his brother as I backed away with Eden.
But I heard the words that Ariyon spoke next, and they ripped my heart in two.
“The woman who killed our parents is alive and she called herdaughter. Fallon will end up just like her mother and where will that put you if you fall in love with her? In a casket. Be smart.”
Eden whimpered beside me, and I blinked rapidly to try to force back the tears that wanted to fall down my cheeks.
‘I pooped on his guitar,’Yanric announced, sailing above us.
I couldn’t muster a smile though. I was broken. Ariyon, the one guy in the entire realm who could touch me, saw me as a copy of my birth mother, destined to her fate and no amount of good I did would change that.
“Prince Madden! What happened?” a guard shouted, sword pulled and ready to fight, but the fight was over. The three dozen guards stood at the ready, looking down at the two dead students’ bodies with wide eyes. I didn’t recognize who the students were, but I’d only been here a week.
Ariyon looked over his shoulder at Eden and me.
“Escort those two ladies back to the West Side and then summon my aunt. Nightlings were here,” he ordered. The guards gasped at the Nightling comment.
It must not be normal for them to come here to the city. I’d only ever seen a single one in my lifetime myself.
Two guards broke away and stayed five paces behind us while we walked past the dead guard at the gate, throat ripped out.
My hands shook as I tried to process everything that had happened.
Ayden confessed his feelings for me.
Then Ariyon almost kissed me.
Then Marissa showed up and her friends almost killed all of mine.
Then Ariyon spoke a truth that cut so deeply I felt the edge of my mind fraying.
“Are you okay?” Eden asked after walking a few moments in silence. “We should have a sleepover. Our parents won’t be home until late and I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
I felt numb, knowing my destiny was set out for me, that I would become a creature who fed on crimson lifeblood and stared at people with blank, hollow eyes.
“You shouldn’t be friends with me, it’s probably not safe,” I told her and walked a few feet ahead of Eden. I would never forgive myself if I hurt her.
“What!” Eden ran to catch up as we passed into the gate that led to the West Side. “Don’t listen to Ariyon, he was shaken to see his parents’ killer like that. We all were. I thought she was dead.”
I turned to her. “Mymother. His parents’ killer is my mother, and she looks just like me, so no one is ever going to let me live this down. That is my fate and the fewer people I drag into it, the better!” I snapped and broke into a run back to my house.
