Whispers and Shadows

Chapter 2

Blue

I blinked. I was standing in a long dark hallway. What was happening? Twirling, I looked all around me, and clutched at my pounding chest. I felt the frantic beats of my heart beneath my cold fingertips. I’d felt myself die. So how was I… alive?

It was dark here, but I did not sense the kind of cold, soul-stealing darkness that could only be found in the void.

I looked down, staring at my hands in shock. I was hale. I was whole again. I frowned.

I wasn’t supposed to be alive. That spell had required a sacrifice, and I’d paid it. I’d felt myself breathe my last. Felt my skin blister and burn. My spell had been that another would come and stop the old me from committing the unforgivable act of that night.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. Something had gone terribly wrong. It must have. Time travel required death, so if I’d not paid it, who had?

A chill ran down my spine as I took in a deep breath.

I felt no pain? Why was I… okay?

Had the Goddess heard my cries? But I’d not worshipped her in so long, there was no way she would listen to the cries of a tainted creature like me.

Wrapping my arms around my center I shook my head, this did not make sense. Had I cast the wrong spell? But even in my dying state, I knew I’d executed it perfectly. I’d felt the rending of my soul from my body, the Piper had consumed its sacrifice. So why wasn’t I burning in the void?

Suddenly, a shadow caught my attention, I glanced up. My jaw dropped and my eyes went wide.

That’s not possible.

I recognized that slight form.

Heart beating harder in my chest, I swiftly hid in the densest darkness I found, pulling even more toward me. Until I was no longer form but living, breathing darkness. I studied the stalking shadow before me. It looked left, right. Its movements were lithe, graceful but deadly. I was astonished that even I could not hear its footsteps. But then, that was why it’d always been called Demonia’s deadliest assassin. Her moniker had been Whispers and Shadows for a reason.

That shadow could only be one person.

Me.

Or, rather, the other me, the one who’d made all the wrong choices for love of a father.

The blood rushed through my veins as I looked back down the hallway with new eyes, noting the excessive opulence of the carpet and darkened, dangling crystal chandeliers. The hand-painted and gold-stamped wallpaper was imported from the East.

There was only one person I knew whose tastes ran toward this degree of lavishness. The High Priestess of Light. Which meant I was in the Middle Lands. There had only ever been one reason for me to be here.

I wasn’t sure how I’d wound up here, but somehow my spell had sent me back to that day. That was the very moment my father had won his bid to become emperor supreme of the dark fae realm, this was the spark that’d ignited the war.

I looked ahead of me, knowing if I made even the slightest sound other me would hear. But I had the upper hand here, she’d not felt my presence, because I was her. Anyone else would have failed at this mission.

I moved silent as a wraith, no one could walk up on me. Father had betrayed me because only with him had I ever let my guard down. An oversight I would never make again.

No one but me could stop what was about to take place.

Pulling a silver hairpin from my hair, I moved like the shadow I commanded. Coming slowly up behind the black-clad body kneeling over the golden crib.

Hesitation was evident in her startlingly clear blue eyes.

I saw her lift a trembling hand, saw the silver blade poised to pierce his chest. I recalled so vividly the thoughts that had run through my head that day. Memories of Erene and I growing up together, playing swords together, all our fights, our laughs, even our hugs. He was my twin, and even though we’d been separated, my love for him had never fully been extinguished.

I stared at her face, and for the first time, I saw the anguish there. I’d forgotten that once I’d felt emotions. After killing my twin I’d closed myself off completely, I’d become cold and heartless. That one act had altered me forever.

My hope as I’d lain dying and cast my last spell had been that some part of my future self might have imprinted the knowledge in the old me not to do it, but I could see the steely determination fixing itself upon her face. Nothing would change if I didn’t stop this now. Maybe that was why I was here, some higher being… power… other, had known nothing would alter that past me’s course.

Father was never going to become emperor supreme. I would see to that.

Just a touch would do. No demon could withstand the goddesses’ pure light. Not even a half-blood like me. I’d dipped these hairpins in the slain blood of a high priestess decades earlier. What she planned to kill Erene with was the same poison lacing my hairpin now.

I drew the needle down the sliver of skin at her neck. The strike was swift but true. I didn’t need to shove it into her vein or create a mortal wound. Just a nick would do.

Other me instantly seized and slapped a hand on the back of her neck. Turning swiftly on her heels, rage simmered in her light blue gaze and then her hands were lifted to deliver a devastating blow. But rage swiftly turned to shock and slowly she lowered her hands. Even now, even envenomed as she was, she could have taken me on. But then it was my turn to be surprised because she did not do that to me. Instead, the shock in her eyes shifted once again to something different.

Relief.

In truth, I’d always wanted an out, but I’d wanted it to be delivered at the hands of someone else. I’d not been strong enough then to stop myself.

She dipped her head, dropped to the ground, and did not utter a sound as the poison consumed her in deadly blue flame. Dying by the light of the goddess’s divinity was the very worst kind of death to anything with even a drop of dark fae in its soul.

Silver tears trekked down her cheeks as her flesh was consumed by that molten flame until nothing but ash remained.

The deadliest assassin in all of the lower realm had just met her demise and no one would ever know it, no one but me. I winced, half expecting this new me to vanish too. After all, I’d just killed the original. But as the seconds ticked on and nothing happened, I began to hope that maybe I was safe. Maybe I’d created a divergence, a new path, and though I was still her, she had not been me. I was different now. New.

Other.

Frowning, I stared at my hands. I wasn’t smart enough to understand how this could possibly make sense, but I also knew that no matter the whys, the facts were I still remained. And now I knew where her path had ultimately led, which meant I could now change the future.

I would assume her role. I would take on the heavy burden of keeping my father’s faith in me, while also protecting the one being who could eventually take him down.

It would likely destroy me in the end. Again. But in one thing Father had been right, I was too powerful to stay living. My purpose for coming back could only be to bring him down and topple his kingdom, after that, there was no more need for me to stay. Whatever being had granted me second life would surely strike me down once I’d completed my task. But at least I’d go out on my own terms this time.

I would never again blindly follow anyone.

“Sleep now, Erene. You do not know it,” I brushed a silken strand of dark black hair off his forehead, “but I will always protect you. You have my word.”

He looked so much more like father than I did. I’d taken after mother in looks. Erene looked more the dark fae than I ever would. But his heart was pure like hers. He was truly mother’s child. The light within him would come to maturation at age nineteen. And then, no dark fae, not even the Emperor himself, could withstand Erene’s light.

“Nineteen years I will guard you, my brother. And then, you must kill me,” I whispered.

Bending over, I pressed a kiss to his petal soft cheek. He cooed, shoving his fat little baby fists up into the air. I took one of his fingers and squeezed them gently, marveling at the silkiness of his skin. He was finally safe from father’s clutches. This might be an impossible task, I knew it, but I also knew I could not afford to fail.

Not again.

Placing my used silver pin on the dresser beside him, I took him gently into my arms. Cradling him tight. I had to hide him. I had to keep his whereabouts secret even from the temple of Light. For all intents and purposes, Erene was now dead.

Father must believe I’d killed him. It was the only way to protect him.