Ari and Tib have escaped Eida, but now they must fight the darkness thriving within themselves or be consumed by it. To make matters worse, they’re met with hostility instead of help when they reach the shores of Taiatum. Someone is killing Taiatum’s guardians, and unless Ari and Tib find out who, the guardians will execute them for it.
Bound from using her rune magic, Ember has always felt like an outsider among her people. But when the gods reveal a hidden power within her, Ember must choose between staying loyal to her people or forging her own path. If she reclaims her magic and helps Ari and Tib, she’ll lose her place among her people forever. And the fate of Taiatum rests on her decision.
On the cliffs of the Starfallen’s new home, Graeden anxiously awaits Ari’s return while overseeing Isla’s imprisonment. When he learns Ari is in danger, he’ll risk anything to protect the woman he loves, even if that means trusting the fairy responsible for the slaughter of countless Starfallen.
As the ravaging darkness spreads across the Four Realms, enemies must come together, and all will need to rise to survive the coming storm.
I hope you enjoy the first chapter of SHADOWS OF GOLD (THE FALLEN KINGDOMS, BOOK 3)! And when you finish, if you want to keep going, you can get bonus content by joining my reader newsletter or you can grab the full book below!
Bound from using her rune magic, Ember has always felt like an outsider among her people. But when the gods reveal a hidden power within her, Ember must choose between staying loyal to her people or forging her own path. If she reclaims her magic and helps Ari and Tib, she’ll lose her place among her people forever. And the fate of Taiatum rests on her decision.
On the cliffs of the Starfallen’s new home, Graeden anxiously awaits Ari’s return while overseeing Isla’s imprisonment. When he learns Ari is in danger, he’ll risk anything to protect the woman he loves, even if that means trusting the fairy responsible for the slaughter of countless Starfallen.
As the ravaging darkness spreads across the Four Realms, enemies must come together, and all will need to rise to survive the coming storm.
I hope you enjoy the first chapter of SHADOWS OF GOLD (THE FALLEN KINGDOMS, BOOK 3)! And when you finish, if you want to keep going, you can get bonus content by joining my reader newsletter or you can grab the full book below!
Not everything glitters in the city of shadows and gold...
CHAPTER ONE - ARI
The waves lap against the ship’s hull as the boat lurches sickeningly to one side. I fasten my grip around the railing, and my stomach churns as viciously as the ocean. I squeeze my eyes shut, inhaling the frigid air, and focus on where the ocean spray turns to ice as it hits my cheeks.
It doesn’t help.
Peeling my eyes open, my gaze settles on Tib. He stands at my side, arms draped over the railing, tired stare lost among the waves. I can’t believe how much has happened since we left Cliffside three weeks ago. Never did I imagine I’d travel by ship across waters as great as the Whispering Expanse or that we’d search for the mystical city of shadows and gold.
The ship heaves to the side, and I stumble, clutching tighter to the railing. It only took Tib a day to claim his sea legs. I’m not meant for the sea, though. I’m meant to fly. I purse my lips as my dragon’s heat slowly rolls through me. Inaara has been more patient than I as we’ve sailed across the Whispering Expanse.
I follow Tib’s somber gaze over the waves, the noon sun disappearing behind thick, dark clouds. Somewhere on this sea, Taiatum hides. We won’t stop until we find it.
You abandoned him.
I jerk, snapping my eyes shut against the whisper that still hisses through my head. The remnants of darkness I never lost from Eida, even after Caelum ripped them from me.
He needed you, and you fed him to the wolves.
I grimace, shoving the words from my head and trying—and failing—to center myself. Graeden used to ground me, his touch an anchor to a reality that I’ve now lost.
An ache spreads through my chest at the thought of him. Stars, how I wish he could be here.
I press my tongue against my cheek in stubbornness. I refuse to second guess my decision. I left Graeden in Cliffside with the Starfallen. They need someone to help them establish a new home in the human realm, and I need to free myself, and Tib, from this darkness.
At the reminder, an ache crawls across my brow, and I wince and rub my forehead, bidding the pain to subside. But the vicious words circle on repeat in my mind: He needed me, and I abandoned him. Not Graeden. Caelum. The guilt paints my nightmares each night, stirring up memories of the boy I’d rather forget.
You were always a monster.
Caelum’s face slips into my mind’s eye, his tawny hair tied loosely against his neck with a leather band. Shadows cut across his narrow face in my memory, his chin sharp and his eyes full of wanting.
Caelum claims he sent me to Eida because I rejected his marriage proposal—because he claims he became undesirable to the women in our village as a result—but it was more than that. It wasn’t my unwillingness to wed him that made other women reject him after me but rather the vicious thoughts he entertained. Thoughts that scared Tib and me enough that we ostracized him.
Since we were children, Caelum suffered from nightmares—horrific, awful stories he’d fill Tib’s and my head with come daylight. The monsters came for him in the night, and the memories plagued him. He would describe the atrocities in great detail—gruesome murders, villagers strung up on the noose, and a dark figure who stalked him.
The stories made my skin crawl, but I listened. Tib, too. Caelum didn’t want to carry the burden alone. He wanted us to feel his demons as he did.
And one night, I did.
The dark figure entered my dreams. An iron cloak hung from her shoulders, and thin steel rods hugged her body concealing every inch of her skin. The iron twisted around her frame, coiling in intricate designs like lace. A spiked crown rested on top of her hooded head, chains cascading down to veil the woman’s face.
She raised her arm and reached a bony, decrepit finger toward me, beckoning. I screamed and ran. Later, Caelum told me that was the first dream he’d had of her, too. He said I shouldn’t have run. He didn’t. He wasn’t a coward, he’d said. Instead, he’d stood his ground, and when she spoke, he listened.
The figure lingered in my memory for days, dread settling over my heart. I couldn’t shake the feeling until I’d confessed it to Mother. I stopped listening to Caelum’s stories, and Tib and I left him to fight his nightmares alone.
The growing waves smash into the boat’s side and pull me from my memories. The blue sky darkens with cloud cover. I’ve traveled so far since that time. Away from Mother—if she’s even still alive. Away from home. Away from Graeden.
The ocean’s brine coats my tongue with each inhale, and the promise of rain hangs in the air. I swallow, burying the ache. Stars, I miss them. With a shiver, I tighten my coat around my waist, the fabric brushing my ankles as I draw the fur-lined hood over my head.
At our journey’s onset, the captain and his crew outfitted us—lightweight trousers, floor-length coats, and a single pair of leather boots each. I finger the soft navy blouse with its tapered sides and low-cut neckline. If Graeden saw me in this, I’m sure his gaze would drop dangerously low. Warmth spreads across my cheeks, and I smile and shake my head. I’d prefer anything to the soiled, worn tunic I crawled out of Eida with.
The air turns cold and from the corner of my eye, I notice Tib tightening a dark brown coat over his new white cotton shirt. Beneath the coat, a silver and navy vest shimmers in the dim light. No one would ever know that only a month ago, we clawed our way out from the fearsome troll realm.
The ship lurches again, and my stomach clamps. I pitch toward the railing and heave the contents of my stomach into the ocean. A cold sweat lines my skin, my palms clammy against the glossed wood.
Tib stares across the ocean not batting an eye at the vomit catching in the wind.
“How in Eida’s depths are you not sick?” I grumble.
Tib’s gaze slides toward me, a forced smile tugging at the edges of his lips. “Stomach of steel, I guess.”
“I guess,” I mumble.
A breath escapes his nose, hardly a laugh, as he returns his attention to the sea. At least he’s trying.
In Eida, I removed the darkness from Tib by drawing it into myself, but when he awoke, shadows remained, pieces of darkness fastening to the edges of his memory. It clings to him tighter than it has to me. Add to those remnants his muddled memories, and he’s lost himself. This tight smile and barely-there laugh is the closest I’ve seen him act like the Tib I know in the past three weeks.
The darkness doesn’t seem to grow within me anymore—nor in him—but it’s there, quiet and deceitful. In Eida, it grew silently, unnoticed. If we don’t rid ourselves of it completely, I fear it will continue to grow, and without my magic, we’ll succumb to it like Caelum has. I grit my teeth, heat surging through my veins, Inaara’s flames igniting with my anger toward him.
I don’t regret abandoning Caelum to his nightmares when we were young. He was a sinking ship, and I refused to go down with him. But the darkness within me drudges up memories, as if finding them within my head and linking them to him. As if the darkness serves Caelum as its master, and until I rid myself of every remnant, I’m tethered to him, too.
“Hold on!”
The shout cuts through my thoughts, tearing me from my reverie just as the boat lurches and pitches to the starboard side. I’m thrown away from the railing and skid across the deck. Wooden casks break through their binds and careen toward the waters as the ship teeters steeply toward the sea. Shouts rise into the air and the ship’s crew scrambles to their positions.
“Flaming nights,” I mutter.
Pushing myself to my feet, I scramble to where Tib pulls himself up using the mast. We hit something.
The ship groans as sailors shift the sails, the captain at the helm furiously spinning the wheel. Whatever we crashed into, stopped the ship in its tracks. Tib locks his hand with mine as we both cling to the ropes coiled around the mast.
Slowly, the ship turns—moaning with the effort—until it rests parallel to whatever forsaken thing we hit. As the boat settles, Tib drops my hand as if he didn’t realize he’d grabbed it. As if my touch had burned him. He wipes his palm on his trousers before giving me his back and racing to the taffrail.
With a shaky breath, I sprint after him, and my eyes widen at the thick wall of silvery mist that churns before us, hiding everything beyond it from horizon to horizon. Lightning flashes through the dark clouds above, and I gasp as hundreds of runes glisten through the misty barrier.
But in the next moment, they’re gone.
We did it. We traveled along the unseen path, hidden by the air itself, and have found the runes that will lead us to Taiatum.
“Oy!” the captain shouts as he thunders across the deck. Shoving past his crew, he knocks everyone to the side until he reaches the ship’s bow. Where an intricately carved siren once rested, now lies nothing more than crushed wood and splintered beams. “What in the devil did we hit?”
Rain drizzles from the sky as if weeping over the lost figurehead. A smaller seaman points a trembling hand toward the mist. “It’s the Great Divide, Cap’n.”
A nervous murmur ripples through the crew. A few stumble back as if they have somewhere to escape to while others fall to their knees to pray to their gods.
“Off your knees!” The captain throws an arm toward the sails. “Get these sails positioned and bring this ship about.”
An icy wash coats my stomach, and I push my way toward the captain. “You’re turning around? This is what we came for.”
“And here ye are, lass. Your city of myth.”
A quiet, hissing laugh builds in the back of my mind. You’ve failed.
I glance at the mist, my eyes skittering over the thick, roiling curtain for some way around it. “This isn’t it,” I growl. “The journey doesn’t end at the runes. The runes lead us to the city.”
“Our journey ends here.” The captain pushes past me to bark orders at a few deckhands.
Stop fighting me.
“No!” I shout, my hand finding my blade’s hilt. I still myself before drawing it, aware I’m outnumbered by forty-to-one.
The captain pauses mid-step, his shoulders bunched near his ears. Slowly, as if caught on a swivel, he turns. In two furious strides, I’m cast in his shadow, his expression full of rage, but I lift my chin, pinning my glare to his.
“Ye hired us to carry ye across the Whispering Expanse,” he snarls. “We’ve done that. Whatever business ye have among these waters, let it die with ye here. There is no way farther in, and I won’t be sacrificin’ my crew for ye to find out.”
I clench my teeth. “We aren’t leaving.”
The captain turns his back on me and climbs toward the helm. “Well, I hope, Miss Decatour, ye know how to swim because yer on your own from here.”
Seething, I stare at the captain. He has no idea what monster he brought on board when he agreed to charter a young couple across the ocean. But I can’t raze the ship unless I want them all to drown. I glance over my shoulder toward the shimmering barrier. If the ship hit the barrier and couldn’t pass through, I’m guessing Inaara won’t either.
“We always knew these people wouldn’t be of much help in the end.” I jolt at Tib’s voice close to my ear.
“How do we get through?” I ask under my breath. Tib traveled to Taiatum years ago. He’d learned their magic then entered the troll realm to rescue me with it. That was another lifetime, but thank the stars he still remembers the path back.
Tib’s gaze flickers to the crew, tying off ropes and adjusting the sails. “We don’t. Not with them.”
Stepping toward the railing, Tib peers over the boat’s side where the sailors have secured a single rowboat. Rain splatters inside it as the waves churn violently against the side of the ship. My gaze flickers to the captain. This is our last chance to reach Taiatum and free ourselves from this darkness.
“The trick to following the runes,” Tib says, “is to not let them know you’re there. We need to slip through unseen, as though we don’t exist beyond the mist.”
His fingers work deftly at the knots securing the rowboat, and we watch it lower one slow inch at a time. At any moment, the crew will notice us and realize what we plan to steal, and I doubt they’ll let us take it without a fight. Not when it’s the only escape off this ship in the middle of the empty ocean.
My fingers find my waist, subconsciously counting each blade fastened to my weapons belt, as well as the throwing knife clipped against my thigh. Sweat dews on my skin as I wait for Tib to finish his work, and I wipe my palms on my trousers.
“When we hit the water,” I whisper, “we should take cover in the mist where the sailors can’t see us.”
Tib glances beneath his slender brows at the crew, and nods. “You might want to climb in.”
I don’t hesitate. As smoothly as possible, I swing my leg over the railing and slip into the rowboat. Tib climbs in behind me with only two knots left. I dig my fingertips against one of the knots as Tib works on the other. My heart thunders in my ears matching the rumble through the storm clouds.
“What do ye think yer doing?” a voice cries, nearly lost in the howling wind.
Bloody sands. I tug at the knot with more ferocity, but I can’t unfasten it.
Footsteps thud across the deck as a sailor races toward us. His eyes widen when he realizes what we’re doing. He reaches for my arm, but I draw my dagger and slice it toward him. He hisses, cradling his hand against his chest.
“Ari,” Tib warns. He holds his rope, the knot unfastened. He’s ready for the drop, but my knot isn’t.
“They’re stealing the dinghy!” the sailor shouts over the wind. “The landsmen are taking our only lifeboat!”
“You might want to put a bandage on that.” I nod toward his hand where blood blossoms against his leather vest from the deep cut gracing his palm.
Without another word, I slash the blade against the last knot and cut cleanly through its fibers. The rowboat jolts, and then we fall. A wave rises to meet us, but we still slap against its surface, the air knocking from my lungs.
The ocean sprays my skin and thunder rumbles overhead. Tib tosses me an oar, and we shove them into the water just as a torrent of rain cascades from the sky, drenching through my coat in an instant.
I blink through the violent rain, focusing on the misty barrier ahead. Lightning flashes, my gaze snagging on the thin lit runes.
“Pull!” I shout above the raucous storm.
Tib grunts, his back facing the barrier, and strokes harder. I match him with my own oar, stroke for stroke.
Rain slithers down my cheeks and drips from my chin. It clings to my lashes, blinding me against the ocean. The storm is trying to hide the barrier, and I push harder through the water as we slowly lap over the waves.
My muscles burn with each stroke, my coat growing heavier with every drop of sweat and rain. Lightning claps through the sky, and I jolt. I dare a glance behind me to where we abandoned the ship and inhale a shallow breath as its silhouette disappears behind the sheet of rain.
“When we reach the barrier,” Tib shouts, “we must go unseen by the city’s magic! Don’t stir the water. Don’t let it know we’re here. We let the runes guide us to Taiatum.”
Lightning crackles through the sky again, and I give one more shove of the oar, and the rowboat’s nose cuts through the curtain. Lifting the oar from the water, I rest it over my lap. The boat rises on a wave’s crest and pushes us through the barrier.
The wind settles, and the rain dissolves around us. My gaze slides to my left where the storm still rages within reach. But inside the mist, the storm doesn’t exist. Instead, an ominous weight hangs in the air, and we drift in unmoving waters. My nerves tighten, and I force a slow breath. The rowboat slows, the ripples around its underside fading before it comes to a full stop, and we sit motionless in the middle of the fog.
I itch to turn my head, to gather my bearings, but Tib widens his eyes in warning. We sit motionless in the glistening mist atop the ash-violet water. We wait as moments drag into minutes, and minutes into hours.
My muscles scream, frozen as I am in the rowboat. My calf cramps and my backside aches from the flat of the boat’s bench. I need to move. I need relief. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, anything to keep my body still.
Water gurgles softly around us, almost undetectable. I peek through my lashes, and relief sweeps through me. The boat is moving. I’m not sure what guides it along, but we glide across the water, parallel to the barrier.
We slip through the untouched waters, and it’s as though time doesn’t exist. My arms ache to paddle, my legs beg to stretch. Even Inaara fans her wings beneath my skin, uncomfortable with our stillness. After longer than I can track, two dark silhouettes mercifully emerge in the distance. My mouth falls open as we near the great onyx stones rising from the water like giants.
The gateway.
Each stone displays a single column of dull rune marks. There’s no life in them, no power.
“Hold still,” Tib whispers on a breath, his gaze flaring with another warning.
My gaze settles on the unlit runes as we pass through the gate, and I understand. We sail through these waters unseen, but the magic will wake if we aren’t careful. A slow breath escapes my nose and lifts a strand of my hair before my face. My eyes widen in horror as the nearest rune sparks to life.
Like a ripple, the others follow until both stones glisten with lightning. The mist groans and the water trembles beneath the boat. It foams and froths. Water sloshes over the edge, and the boat shifts. The ocean churns, pushing our small vessel deeper into the mist.
“Can we move now?” Tension laces my strained voice.
Tib doesn’t answer. The water rises, carrying our boat on its crest before shoving us down its slope. Wind claws through my hair, and I choke on my scream. The rune-bathed mist vanishes, and we plunge into a dark vapor.
“I can’t see anything!” I tighten my grip on my oar, but the ocean tears it from my grasp. Saltwater sprays my skin, and I wipe it from my eyes. “What do we do?”
“We can’t do anything!” Tib shouts. “They know we’re here.”
The boat catches a cross wave and rocks wildly, retreating a few feet before plunging down another slope. It’s as if the water is corralling us.
A roar cuts through the mist, and my blood runs cold. Ice pricks at my fingertips, and I curl my hand into a fist wishing I still held Starfallen magic, but I haven’t wielded it for weeks. The cry scatters through the darkness again, and I whip my head to the side. I can’t tell from which direction it comes.
Then, in the distance, a light glimmers amongst the darkness. It flickers at eye level, slowly rising in a disjointed pattern. My brows kiss, and I lock my gaze on the light, afraid I might lose it.
As the light grows, my heart sinks. My fingers find my blade’s hilt, but they’re numb, a cold sweat dewing on my palms. Beyond the small light lies a great fang, longer than my entire body. Dozens of them surround it, gleaming wickedly.
Two beady, bloodshot eyes peek over the creature’s beak, its wrinkled neck stretching toward us with hunger. A long, spongy tongue slithers from its gaping mouth, stained black with blood. It looks disturbingly close to a tortoise, only much, much larger.
The creature roars once more, the cartilage and the sinew of those who have dared cross through the mist wedged between its sharp teeth. A putrid, rotten scent rolls over us, and my eyes burn, unbidden tears falling down my cheeks.
Another wave slaps into the boat’s side, centering us before the great monster’s mouth. It’s going to swallow us whole. Flames burn through my core as the beast yawns, its gaping jaws hungry.
We have not traveled this far—survived this much—only to die here at Taiatum’s door.
“Grab onto me!” I shout as Inaara’s heat barrels through my veins, the flames scalding and expanding. Her wings snap against my spine, and the sound of breaking bone is lost among the beast’s cry. She splits the seams of my skin, and we shift.
Tib leaps, his hand latching onto one of Inaara’s spikes. He hauls himself aboard as the rowboat capsizes beneath the waves. Next to the vicious beast before us, Inaara is no more than a small pest. The creature growls and raises a stubbed and padded foot from the water. It smashes through the waves, and a spray explodes into the air.
Howling, its head swings to follow Inaara’s path. We dive, slipping around its leg and beneath its belly.
The churning water brushes her talons, and Tib must lower his head to avoid being flattened against the creature’s underside. Inaara weaves around another leg before launching skyward.
As she climbs, sunlight cuts through the mist and pours over the creature.
My heart lodges in my throat, snuffing out the fire building there. The creature stomps beneath us, searching through the waves. A sleek shell spreads over its back, but it isn’t the creature that has stolen my breath.
It’s the firelight flickering across its shell.
The scintillating gold in the trees rising from its back.
The people living on this great tortoise.
Tarasque. Inaara supplies the word I can’t find.
This creature isn’t guarding the door to the city of shadows and gold. It is the city. The tarasque carries Taiatum on its back.
The waves lap against the ship’s hull as the boat lurches sickeningly to one side. I fasten my grip around the railing, and my stomach churns as viciously as the ocean. I squeeze my eyes shut, inhaling the frigid air, and focus on where the ocean spray turns to ice as it hits my cheeks.
It doesn’t help.
Peeling my eyes open, my gaze settles on Tib. He stands at my side, arms draped over the railing, tired stare lost among the waves. I can’t believe how much has happened since we left Cliffside three weeks ago. Never did I imagine I’d travel by ship across waters as great as the Whispering Expanse or that we’d search for the mystical city of shadows and gold.
The ship heaves to the side, and I stumble, clutching tighter to the railing. It only took Tib a day to claim his sea legs. I’m not meant for the sea, though. I’m meant to fly. I purse my lips as my dragon’s heat slowly rolls through me. Inaara has been more patient than I as we’ve sailed across the Whispering Expanse.
I follow Tib’s somber gaze over the waves, the noon sun disappearing behind thick, dark clouds. Somewhere on this sea, Taiatum hides. We won’t stop until we find it.
You abandoned him.
I jerk, snapping my eyes shut against the whisper that still hisses through my head. The remnants of darkness I never lost from Eida, even after Caelum ripped them from me.
He needed you, and you fed him to the wolves.
I grimace, shoving the words from my head and trying—and failing—to center myself. Graeden used to ground me, his touch an anchor to a reality that I’ve now lost.
An ache spreads through my chest at the thought of him. Stars, how I wish he could be here.
I press my tongue against my cheek in stubbornness. I refuse to second guess my decision. I left Graeden in Cliffside with the Starfallen. They need someone to help them establish a new home in the human realm, and I need to free myself, and Tib, from this darkness.
At the reminder, an ache crawls across my brow, and I wince and rub my forehead, bidding the pain to subside. But the vicious words circle on repeat in my mind: He needed me, and I abandoned him. Not Graeden. Caelum. The guilt paints my nightmares each night, stirring up memories of the boy I’d rather forget.
You were always a monster.
Caelum’s face slips into my mind’s eye, his tawny hair tied loosely against his neck with a leather band. Shadows cut across his narrow face in my memory, his chin sharp and his eyes full of wanting.
Caelum claims he sent me to Eida because I rejected his marriage proposal—because he claims he became undesirable to the women in our village as a result—but it was more than that. It wasn’t my unwillingness to wed him that made other women reject him after me but rather the vicious thoughts he entertained. Thoughts that scared Tib and me enough that we ostracized him.
Since we were children, Caelum suffered from nightmares—horrific, awful stories he’d fill Tib’s and my head with come daylight. The monsters came for him in the night, and the memories plagued him. He would describe the atrocities in great detail—gruesome murders, villagers strung up on the noose, and a dark figure who stalked him.
The stories made my skin crawl, but I listened. Tib, too. Caelum didn’t want to carry the burden alone. He wanted us to feel his demons as he did.
And one night, I did.
The dark figure entered my dreams. An iron cloak hung from her shoulders, and thin steel rods hugged her body concealing every inch of her skin. The iron twisted around her frame, coiling in intricate designs like lace. A spiked crown rested on top of her hooded head, chains cascading down to veil the woman’s face.
She raised her arm and reached a bony, decrepit finger toward me, beckoning. I screamed and ran. Later, Caelum told me that was the first dream he’d had of her, too. He said I shouldn’t have run. He didn’t. He wasn’t a coward, he’d said. Instead, he’d stood his ground, and when she spoke, he listened.
The figure lingered in my memory for days, dread settling over my heart. I couldn’t shake the feeling until I’d confessed it to Mother. I stopped listening to Caelum’s stories, and Tib and I left him to fight his nightmares alone.
The growing waves smash into the boat’s side and pull me from my memories. The blue sky darkens with cloud cover. I’ve traveled so far since that time. Away from Mother—if she’s even still alive. Away from home. Away from Graeden.
The ocean’s brine coats my tongue with each inhale, and the promise of rain hangs in the air. I swallow, burying the ache. Stars, I miss them. With a shiver, I tighten my coat around my waist, the fabric brushing my ankles as I draw the fur-lined hood over my head.
At our journey’s onset, the captain and his crew outfitted us—lightweight trousers, floor-length coats, and a single pair of leather boots each. I finger the soft navy blouse with its tapered sides and low-cut neckline. If Graeden saw me in this, I’m sure his gaze would drop dangerously low. Warmth spreads across my cheeks, and I smile and shake my head. I’d prefer anything to the soiled, worn tunic I crawled out of Eida with.
The air turns cold and from the corner of my eye, I notice Tib tightening a dark brown coat over his new white cotton shirt. Beneath the coat, a silver and navy vest shimmers in the dim light. No one would ever know that only a month ago, we clawed our way out from the fearsome troll realm.
The ship lurches again, and my stomach clamps. I pitch toward the railing and heave the contents of my stomach into the ocean. A cold sweat lines my skin, my palms clammy against the glossed wood.
Tib stares across the ocean not batting an eye at the vomit catching in the wind.
“How in Eida’s depths are you not sick?” I grumble.
Tib’s gaze slides toward me, a forced smile tugging at the edges of his lips. “Stomach of steel, I guess.”
“I guess,” I mumble.
A breath escapes his nose, hardly a laugh, as he returns his attention to the sea. At least he’s trying.
In Eida, I removed the darkness from Tib by drawing it into myself, but when he awoke, shadows remained, pieces of darkness fastening to the edges of his memory. It clings to him tighter than it has to me. Add to those remnants his muddled memories, and he’s lost himself. This tight smile and barely-there laugh is the closest I’ve seen him act like the Tib I know in the past three weeks.
The darkness doesn’t seem to grow within me anymore—nor in him—but it’s there, quiet and deceitful. In Eida, it grew silently, unnoticed. If we don’t rid ourselves of it completely, I fear it will continue to grow, and without my magic, we’ll succumb to it like Caelum has. I grit my teeth, heat surging through my veins, Inaara’s flames igniting with my anger toward him.
I don’t regret abandoning Caelum to his nightmares when we were young. He was a sinking ship, and I refused to go down with him. But the darkness within me drudges up memories, as if finding them within my head and linking them to him. As if the darkness serves Caelum as its master, and until I rid myself of every remnant, I’m tethered to him, too.
“Hold on!”
The shout cuts through my thoughts, tearing me from my reverie just as the boat lurches and pitches to the starboard side. I’m thrown away from the railing and skid across the deck. Wooden casks break through their binds and careen toward the waters as the ship teeters steeply toward the sea. Shouts rise into the air and the ship’s crew scrambles to their positions.
“Flaming nights,” I mutter.
Pushing myself to my feet, I scramble to where Tib pulls himself up using the mast. We hit something.
The ship groans as sailors shift the sails, the captain at the helm furiously spinning the wheel. Whatever we crashed into, stopped the ship in its tracks. Tib locks his hand with mine as we both cling to the ropes coiled around the mast.
Slowly, the ship turns—moaning with the effort—until it rests parallel to whatever forsaken thing we hit. As the boat settles, Tib drops my hand as if he didn’t realize he’d grabbed it. As if my touch had burned him. He wipes his palm on his trousers before giving me his back and racing to the taffrail.
With a shaky breath, I sprint after him, and my eyes widen at the thick wall of silvery mist that churns before us, hiding everything beyond it from horizon to horizon. Lightning flashes through the dark clouds above, and I gasp as hundreds of runes glisten through the misty barrier.
But in the next moment, they’re gone.
We did it. We traveled along the unseen path, hidden by the air itself, and have found the runes that will lead us to Taiatum.
“Oy!” the captain shouts as he thunders across the deck. Shoving past his crew, he knocks everyone to the side until he reaches the ship’s bow. Where an intricately carved siren once rested, now lies nothing more than crushed wood and splintered beams. “What in the devil did we hit?”
Rain drizzles from the sky as if weeping over the lost figurehead. A smaller seaman points a trembling hand toward the mist. “It’s the Great Divide, Cap’n.”
A nervous murmur ripples through the crew. A few stumble back as if they have somewhere to escape to while others fall to their knees to pray to their gods.
“Off your knees!” The captain throws an arm toward the sails. “Get these sails positioned and bring this ship about.”
An icy wash coats my stomach, and I push my way toward the captain. “You’re turning around? This is what we came for.”
“And here ye are, lass. Your city of myth.”
A quiet, hissing laugh builds in the back of my mind. You’ve failed.
I glance at the mist, my eyes skittering over the thick, roiling curtain for some way around it. “This isn’t it,” I growl. “The journey doesn’t end at the runes. The runes lead us to the city.”
“Our journey ends here.” The captain pushes past me to bark orders at a few deckhands.
Stop fighting me.
“No!” I shout, my hand finding my blade’s hilt. I still myself before drawing it, aware I’m outnumbered by forty-to-one.
The captain pauses mid-step, his shoulders bunched near his ears. Slowly, as if caught on a swivel, he turns. In two furious strides, I’m cast in his shadow, his expression full of rage, but I lift my chin, pinning my glare to his.
“Ye hired us to carry ye across the Whispering Expanse,” he snarls. “We’ve done that. Whatever business ye have among these waters, let it die with ye here. There is no way farther in, and I won’t be sacrificin’ my crew for ye to find out.”
I clench my teeth. “We aren’t leaving.”
The captain turns his back on me and climbs toward the helm. “Well, I hope, Miss Decatour, ye know how to swim because yer on your own from here.”
Seething, I stare at the captain. He has no idea what monster he brought on board when he agreed to charter a young couple across the ocean. But I can’t raze the ship unless I want them all to drown. I glance over my shoulder toward the shimmering barrier. If the ship hit the barrier and couldn’t pass through, I’m guessing Inaara won’t either.
“We always knew these people wouldn’t be of much help in the end.” I jolt at Tib’s voice close to my ear.
“How do we get through?” I ask under my breath. Tib traveled to Taiatum years ago. He’d learned their magic then entered the troll realm to rescue me with it. That was another lifetime, but thank the stars he still remembers the path back.
Tib’s gaze flickers to the crew, tying off ropes and adjusting the sails. “We don’t. Not with them.”
Stepping toward the railing, Tib peers over the boat’s side where the sailors have secured a single rowboat. Rain splatters inside it as the waves churn violently against the side of the ship. My gaze flickers to the captain. This is our last chance to reach Taiatum and free ourselves from this darkness.
“The trick to following the runes,” Tib says, “is to not let them know you’re there. We need to slip through unseen, as though we don’t exist beyond the mist.”
His fingers work deftly at the knots securing the rowboat, and we watch it lower one slow inch at a time. At any moment, the crew will notice us and realize what we plan to steal, and I doubt they’ll let us take it without a fight. Not when it’s the only escape off this ship in the middle of the empty ocean.
My fingers find my waist, subconsciously counting each blade fastened to my weapons belt, as well as the throwing knife clipped against my thigh. Sweat dews on my skin as I wait for Tib to finish his work, and I wipe my palms on my trousers.
“When we hit the water,” I whisper, “we should take cover in the mist where the sailors can’t see us.”
Tib glances beneath his slender brows at the crew, and nods. “You might want to climb in.”
I don’t hesitate. As smoothly as possible, I swing my leg over the railing and slip into the rowboat. Tib climbs in behind me with only two knots left. I dig my fingertips against one of the knots as Tib works on the other. My heart thunders in my ears matching the rumble through the storm clouds.
“What do ye think yer doing?” a voice cries, nearly lost in the howling wind.
Bloody sands. I tug at the knot with more ferocity, but I can’t unfasten it.
Footsteps thud across the deck as a sailor races toward us. His eyes widen when he realizes what we’re doing. He reaches for my arm, but I draw my dagger and slice it toward him. He hisses, cradling his hand against his chest.
“Ari,” Tib warns. He holds his rope, the knot unfastened. He’s ready for the drop, but my knot isn’t.
“They’re stealing the dinghy!” the sailor shouts over the wind. “The landsmen are taking our only lifeboat!”
“You might want to put a bandage on that.” I nod toward his hand where blood blossoms against his leather vest from the deep cut gracing his palm.
Without another word, I slash the blade against the last knot and cut cleanly through its fibers. The rowboat jolts, and then we fall. A wave rises to meet us, but we still slap against its surface, the air knocking from my lungs.
The ocean sprays my skin and thunder rumbles overhead. Tib tosses me an oar, and we shove them into the water just as a torrent of rain cascades from the sky, drenching through my coat in an instant.
I blink through the violent rain, focusing on the misty barrier ahead. Lightning flashes, my gaze snagging on the thin lit runes.
“Pull!” I shout above the raucous storm.
Tib grunts, his back facing the barrier, and strokes harder. I match him with my own oar, stroke for stroke.
Rain slithers down my cheeks and drips from my chin. It clings to my lashes, blinding me against the ocean. The storm is trying to hide the barrier, and I push harder through the water as we slowly lap over the waves.
My muscles burn with each stroke, my coat growing heavier with every drop of sweat and rain. Lightning claps through the sky, and I jolt. I dare a glance behind me to where we abandoned the ship and inhale a shallow breath as its silhouette disappears behind the sheet of rain.
“When we reach the barrier,” Tib shouts, “we must go unseen by the city’s magic! Don’t stir the water. Don’t let it know we’re here. We let the runes guide us to Taiatum.”
Lightning crackles through the sky again, and I give one more shove of the oar, and the rowboat’s nose cuts through the curtain. Lifting the oar from the water, I rest it over my lap. The boat rises on a wave’s crest and pushes us through the barrier.
The wind settles, and the rain dissolves around us. My gaze slides to my left where the storm still rages within reach. But inside the mist, the storm doesn’t exist. Instead, an ominous weight hangs in the air, and we drift in unmoving waters. My nerves tighten, and I force a slow breath. The rowboat slows, the ripples around its underside fading before it comes to a full stop, and we sit motionless in the middle of the fog.
I itch to turn my head, to gather my bearings, but Tib widens his eyes in warning. We sit motionless in the glistening mist atop the ash-violet water. We wait as moments drag into minutes, and minutes into hours.
My muscles scream, frozen as I am in the rowboat. My calf cramps and my backside aches from the flat of the boat’s bench. I need to move. I need relief. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, anything to keep my body still.
Water gurgles softly around us, almost undetectable. I peek through my lashes, and relief sweeps through me. The boat is moving. I’m not sure what guides it along, but we glide across the water, parallel to the barrier.
We slip through the untouched waters, and it’s as though time doesn’t exist. My arms ache to paddle, my legs beg to stretch. Even Inaara fans her wings beneath my skin, uncomfortable with our stillness. After longer than I can track, two dark silhouettes mercifully emerge in the distance. My mouth falls open as we near the great onyx stones rising from the water like giants.
The gateway.
Each stone displays a single column of dull rune marks. There’s no life in them, no power.
“Hold still,” Tib whispers on a breath, his gaze flaring with another warning.
My gaze settles on the unlit runes as we pass through the gate, and I understand. We sail through these waters unseen, but the magic will wake if we aren’t careful. A slow breath escapes my nose and lifts a strand of my hair before my face. My eyes widen in horror as the nearest rune sparks to life.
Like a ripple, the others follow until both stones glisten with lightning. The mist groans and the water trembles beneath the boat. It foams and froths. Water sloshes over the edge, and the boat shifts. The ocean churns, pushing our small vessel deeper into the mist.
“Can we move now?” Tension laces my strained voice.
Tib doesn’t answer. The water rises, carrying our boat on its crest before shoving us down its slope. Wind claws through my hair, and I choke on my scream. The rune-bathed mist vanishes, and we plunge into a dark vapor.
“I can’t see anything!” I tighten my grip on my oar, but the ocean tears it from my grasp. Saltwater sprays my skin, and I wipe it from my eyes. “What do we do?”
“We can’t do anything!” Tib shouts. “They know we’re here.”
The boat catches a cross wave and rocks wildly, retreating a few feet before plunging down another slope. It’s as if the water is corralling us.
A roar cuts through the mist, and my blood runs cold. Ice pricks at my fingertips, and I curl my hand into a fist wishing I still held Starfallen magic, but I haven’t wielded it for weeks. The cry scatters through the darkness again, and I whip my head to the side. I can’t tell from which direction it comes.
Then, in the distance, a light glimmers amongst the darkness. It flickers at eye level, slowly rising in a disjointed pattern. My brows kiss, and I lock my gaze on the light, afraid I might lose it.
As the light grows, my heart sinks. My fingers find my blade’s hilt, but they’re numb, a cold sweat dewing on my palms. Beyond the small light lies a great fang, longer than my entire body. Dozens of them surround it, gleaming wickedly.
Two beady, bloodshot eyes peek over the creature’s beak, its wrinkled neck stretching toward us with hunger. A long, spongy tongue slithers from its gaping mouth, stained black with blood. It looks disturbingly close to a tortoise, only much, much larger.
The creature roars once more, the cartilage and the sinew of those who have dared cross through the mist wedged between its sharp teeth. A putrid, rotten scent rolls over us, and my eyes burn, unbidden tears falling down my cheeks.
Another wave slaps into the boat’s side, centering us before the great monster’s mouth. It’s going to swallow us whole. Flames burn through my core as the beast yawns, its gaping jaws hungry.
We have not traveled this far—survived this much—only to die here at Taiatum’s door.
“Grab onto me!” I shout as Inaara’s heat barrels through my veins, the flames scalding and expanding. Her wings snap against my spine, and the sound of breaking bone is lost among the beast’s cry. She splits the seams of my skin, and we shift.
Tib leaps, his hand latching onto one of Inaara’s spikes. He hauls himself aboard as the rowboat capsizes beneath the waves. Next to the vicious beast before us, Inaara is no more than a small pest. The creature growls and raises a stubbed and padded foot from the water. It smashes through the waves, and a spray explodes into the air.
Howling, its head swings to follow Inaara’s path. We dive, slipping around its leg and beneath its belly.
The churning water brushes her talons, and Tib must lower his head to avoid being flattened against the creature’s underside. Inaara weaves around another leg before launching skyward.
As she climbs, sunlight cuts through the mist and pours over the creature.
My heart lodges in my throat, snuffing out the fire building there. The creature stomps beneath us, searching through the waves. A sleek shell spreads over its back, but it isn’t the creature that has stolen my breath.
It’s the firelight flickering across its shell.
The scintillating gold in the trees rising from its back.
The people living on this great tortoise.
Tarasque. Inaara supplies the word I can’t find.
This creature isn’t guarding the door to the city of shadows and gold. It is the city. The tarasque carries Taiatum on its back.
Thanks for reading the first chapter of Shadows of Gold! Are you ready to return fully to The Fallen Kingdoms?
Preorder your copy of Shadows of Gold here! Print copies go live in September.
Preorder your copy of Shadows of Gold here! Print copies go live in September.
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