When Stars Fall (Book 2, When Shadows Rise series)

Chapter 2 (Kayden)

Kayden Branimir crouched near the base of a large willow, plucking glowing blue petals from a plant known as the fyra's dream. Once she collected a handful, she pocketed them and trudged on through the forest to the edge of the small island. She dropped her cloak and discarded her knives onto the narrow beach, along with the needles hidden in her hair. Kicking off her boots that were in dire need of replacement, she stepped onto the light sand. It was still warm from the now absent sun.

When she closed her eyes, she saw it all over again.

Eka reached for her, hand outstretched, so close to filling the space between them. The flash of steel in the night, and Eka's blonde hair–white as a spirit–trailing above–as her head thudded against the sand, green eyes empty.

If only Kayden had cut her out of her life like she should've done years ago, Eka would still be alive and well in Freca, but it had been impossible for Kayden to convince her heart to do just that, and now Eka was dead because of her. Not only that, but if Kayden had been strong enough during her escape from Leodia, she could've saved Eka. If Alaric had just shown Kayden how to make her magic more powerful like he'd promised, then maybe she wouldn't have been too late.

Now, everyone thought Kayden was broken. A shell of who she used to be.

No, she knew better than that.

Her memories might not be as trustworthy as they'd been before her time in Chhaya's dungeons beneath the Leodian palace, and her shadow-scarred hand might not work the way it used to, and her wonderful and awful magic might not have reappeared yet since that night in Leodia, but no, she was not broken.

She couldn't be, not after everything she'd been through.

Holding the blue petals in a deathgrip, she trudged into the waters that were poisonous to all magical mortals. When she was knee-deep, she released them. Everyone was foolish to believe some glorified bonfire would be the best send-off for Eka–a way for Kayden to find closure–but they should've known better than that. Burning a body was sacred in Freca, the dead's soul prepared for their ascent into the Above, their ashes left on Risan's Peak to roam the mountaintops. Without Eka's body, it all meant shit to her.

So Kayden watched the glowing petals drift in the sea instead, the waves pulling them under. This had used to be her tradition with Eka to honor Jesse. Back in Freca, they'd brought torbit leaves to the cliff where he had supposedly died, and they'd scattered the leaves in the snow.

This was not Freca, the place where she and Eka had grown up together. This was not Leodia, the place Eka had lost her life. However, this was the closest Kayden could get to her place of rest. Somewhere across the Deorc Sea, far south of Englia, were the Leodian shores connected by the same water she stood in.

"Damn it," Kayden muttered, wiping at the fresh onslaught of tears. She hated crying. All her life, she'd learned to keep herself composed. Every action, every spoken word, even every thought had to be carefully planned out, otherwise she'd risk exposing her cover or facing Mother's wrath. Mother was dead now, though, slain by Queen Chhaya with the help of Kayden's older, half-brother Malakai Branimir, the new king of Freca.

Her throat felt tight, and her chest ached horribly. Her breaths quickened. Somewhere in the night, an animal screeched, and the trees scratched against each other in the wind, and the waves beat against the shore, and it was all too much.

Kayden waded deeper into the water and dove under. The effect was immediate–all at once, the world fell blissfully quiet. Then she heard it, a faint, feminine voice. It was more like a feeling prodding at the back of her mind than an actual whisper. This wasn't the first time she'd experienced this in the past months, and she chalked it up to being a side effect of whatever Chhaya had done to her in the dungeons. When Kayden couldn't hold her breath any longer, she watched the bubbles rise to the surface, tinted red from the light of the moons, and then she came up for air.