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  Of Blood and Magic

  Of Light and Darkness | Book Two

  Shayne Leighton

  Copyright © 2019 by Shayne Leighton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  1. Red Frost

  2. As Above, So Below

  3. First Snow

  4. Yule

  5. New Blood

  6. Grand Re-Opening

  7. Western European Magic Court

  8. Nightshade

  9. Old Town

  10. Quarantine

  11. The Girl Who Was Already Dead

  12. Glass Wings

  Chapter 13

  14. With the Lights Out…

  Chapter 15

  16. B u t t o n s

  Chapter 17

  18. Monarch

  19. Hiding Spot

  20. Experiment

  21. Silverblade

  22. Unmagic

  23. Static

  24. Dead, Dead, and Dying

  Untitled

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Chapter 29

  Untitled

  Epilogue

  Foreword

  “Just in time, she was able to glimpse the large face of the moon, still looming in spite of the dawn. Silver, fading against the light of the sun, about to disappear back under the horizon. For some odd reason, it made her heart sink.

  But the moon would come up again, she reminded herself. Every night, the sun would set and the moon would rise.

  It always would....”

  * * *

  ~ Of Light and Darkness, Chapter Thirty

  Prologue

  Aiden

  * * *

  Death arrived at dawn.

  It clawed up the walls of my fortress, its claws cutting through stone—it did not wait for me to invite it over the threshold.

  Death came to stay forever…or so had been my expectation. I settled on the idea of floating in my infinite void. I waited for the eternal cold to come and wash me away.

  But this time, Death was just a visitor.

  Even now, it feels as though my enthronement ceremony was only yesterday—standing among the rest of my Regime brothers at sunrise, in front of hundreds of our subjects, about to embrace a life with the one I desired most— with Charlotte—

  The human among the monsters. The impossibly normal girl. The rose on fire.

  Minutes away from taking the throne. A new day. A new reign. A new dawn; just like the Great Wizard Vladislov promised. Just like they all promised. All my training had been all for this.

  Sunrays stretched over wicked, Gothic spires of the Tyn Church, the day commandeering its rightful place at the top of the sky. Night died a slow death, a purplish bruise crushed beneath the regal yellow morning.

  My father’s eyes gleamed as he watched me ascend to where Vladislov once sat. Finally, I’d done something worthy of his admiration. I was worthy.

  Charlotte trembled. I noticed the strain in her face, the jewels of sweat glistening at the base of her throat, the faint shudder of her eyelashes as she fought back tears. She didn’t realize it, but all I wanted was to do good by her—to rescue her from her miserable life of shadow. I loved her. She’d grow to understand that someday.

  The high priest’s words melded together as I went on fantasizing about how satisfying my wedding night would be; exactly the fusion of passion and revenge I’d craved for so long. I was about to have my turn with the entire occult society, with Charlotte, and if all went according to plan, the entire world.

  However, the Fates had much different expectations that day.

  I hadn’t noticed when they entered the throne hall. My back turned to the doors as I headed up gilded steps to take the royal chair, all eyes were on me…

  Until chaos ensued:

  Heavy doors slammed on ancient hinges. Gasps and screams chorused behind me. I knew who it was before I turned around.

  He stormed my celebration. The bane of my existence. The leech. The villain of my story.

  Rage seared white hot in my face when I saw the relentlessness in his eyes. The determination. The hell-bent fury. She cried his name in a way I knew she would never cry out mine. Then came a feeling unlike anything I’d ever experienced before—blinded by my own emotional fire.

  Enough.

  I launched myself into the riot, fighting with everything I had—lightening, fire, any sort of magic I could summon exploding from my fists until his icy teeth buried into my throat. I stopped at once, gasping. His claws stabbed straight through my center, twisting.

  I shoved him hard enough to knock one of his shoulders out of its socket. But he wouldn’t falter. The room went blurry. An impossibly strong vacuuming sensation pulled at the air in my lungs, all the fluid in my body rushing out like my skin and skeleton were torn apart by a cyclone. The empty half of myself fell numb. I continued to fight him with all my might. My mouth opened to scream, but my throat was ravaged, like I’d swallowed handfuls of sand.

  Life literally poured out of me all over the floor.

  My final moments—seared, tattooed, branded against the inside of my skull—are still there every time I close my eyes.

  Those within my cabinet refer to it as my dissention. But I consider it a metamorphosis—ushered into becoming the thing I was never supposed to become….

  The enemy.

  The vile leech clung to me for support while severe, early-morning light tore through his stony flesh. I watched it rupture his wretched heart, an immolation from the inside, blood, black like ink, oozing from beyond the fissures cracking across his chest. A fallen god, a forever effigy, broke apart in my arms. We killed each other. Light and dark. Two forces, both just as great, at last entwined in battle.

  I laughed, throwing my head back, as he suckled the life from me. He wasn’t a god, actually. Nor, even an angel. He was nothing more than larva starving for sustenance. Repulsive. Pathetic.

  Valek Ruzik. Dastardly scoundrel. Heathen. Bloodsucker.

  Death felt so undeniably good. Valek brought it to me—a gift.

  At last, he began to overpower me. My body gave way. I listened to the rhythm of my own heart. I counted each pulsation as they slowed. I collapsed to my knees, too overcome to keep going. I acquiesced to its pull …inhaling…exhaling…inhaling…

  Fire from wall-sconces ripped from the palace created blurry banners of orange and gold around the hall as denizens of the Light clashed with creatures of the Dark. My body became too cold to feel the fire’s influence. The battle, the cracked infrastructure of my beloved Regime blurred beyond my watering eyes.

  It was time. Death. I opened my arms wide and welcomed it.

  There was no sound other than my own, dying heartbeat. Despite having my life ripped from me, there lived my stubborn pulse. Ever hammering, a reminder to hold tight for what was to come.

  My fists slammed over his spine a dozen times. Again. And again. And again. Screams chorused. Blasts of magic energy. I could smell…soot. Smoke. Blood. Death.

  My state of being slowed down to a single beat of a hummingbird’s wings, like I’d relive my own death for all eternity. As if that moment would exist in concrete forever.

  Valek was steadfast while I continued to fight with my hands. I could have sworn I’d cracked a few of his ribs, though he
refused to break in my arms—too cursed by the evil inside him to yield against my power. Fight. Fight. It was all I could do. It was instinct—my last will to survive at the clutches of darkness.

  Who would’ve ever known that darkness would be my salvation?

  Those still left in the crowd raced for any exit they could find in fear one of Valek’s parasites would hunt them down.

  I recall loud crashing, the palace falling to ruin around me. Chandeliers shattered, tapestries torn. Thousands of years of history destroyed. I heard Charlotte’s distant wails muddled beneath the screaming, the bone crunching, and the magic wielding—powerful blasts of elements and the roars of the undead.

  While she had been so at ease before this day with her monster, hiding from me in the decrepit bowels of the Golden City, I’d searched for her. No building had I left unchecked. I’d overturned every last stone in Prague, endeavoring to make her mine, foolishly believing she’d love me back—

  Charlotte was nothing more than a street snipe, a monster’s whore, squeezing my heart until it bled in her hands before throwing it to the rats and refuse and left it there to rot.

  It is where my heart remains….

  As I lay slain on the marble floors of my ransacked chapel, unbreathing, unthinking, something dripped onto my lips. It seeped into my mouth. I was too weak to know what it was. It tasted metallic. Salty. Rotten. And as my golden world blackened, my mother weeping over my dying body, I, at last, gave in to the forceful tide.

  Death was seductive. It beckoned me under and hugged me close. Not painful, but more complicated than simply falling asleep. It took hold of what was left of my soul.

  I heard a new heartbeat—wet and gushing in my ears. It aroused a feeling within me which I could not define. Something I needed to satisfy, though I didn’t quite know how.

  At last, I allowed myself to be at peace among the clouded light.

  My body gave up, turning in the warm, soft waves. All the screaming and crying faded in the distance until there was nothing but my arms and legs floating out around my body, unfeeling, as I swam through the beauty of nothingness.

  Memories of the life I only just departed from moments before began to grow muddy and fade. Charlotte’s hazel eyes were the last of those images to dissolve before me.

  They did not anger me. They did not sadden me nor throw me into an envious fit, as they once had. They merely shimmered before my consciousness as a reminder of what my mission would be once I woke again.

  And I would wake again.

  It might have been days of floating in that infinity. Not being. It might have been weeks or months. I was unsure. It was impossible to determine how much time had gone by, or what the fate of the rest of my family was, or of my palace or friends. But the funny thing was…I didn’t care about any of that. There was only one thing I desired…

  Revenge.

  Then, the fire set in.

  At once, it turned my calm and cloudy sanctuary to ash as my body lay chained, incinerating.

  Flames ate through my flesh. I tried to swim through the scorching sea, but no matter how I kicked or pushed, I could not resurface. I remember howling, yet the hopelessness of the nothing drowned out any noise I might have made.

  No one was there to save me. I thought that would be my eternal prison— surely in hell, and I knew who put me there.

  Until, at last, there was that fateful moment when everything diminished into cooling winter snow. My body was whole and alive with a complete, new power.

  I opened my eyes and began my quest once more…

  This time, in the dark.

  Charlotte.

  I won’t let the monsters have you.

  Red Frost

  There are all sorts of princesses in the world. Some live in deep holes and have too many teeth. Even when Charlotte Ruzikova was a little girl, the dark never frightened her. But when the light of some passing streetcar flashed across her face, she winced and fell back into deeper shadow.

  Somewhere in Silesia—she couldn’t quite recall the village’s name—she stalked with stealth and silence, her hood up over her head, a blade tucked at her waistline, cool against her skin. The town was asleep, its streets vacant.

  The bottom of her jeans was soggy and though she’d put on two pairs of socks that night, her boots didn’t do well enough to keep her feet dry. The cold steeped in her bones, silver breath misting out in front of her face. Her teeth chattered. December was snowless, only icy brown slush wilted the grass and made pavement slippery.

  Charlotte wished for snow—the type that packed tight and created new ground over old parking lots—the type that soaked up tracks of blood like a sponge. She’d have to remember to clean up all traces before they left.

  She tucked herself within the shadow of a tall pear tree. It cast shade over a set of benches and a thin walkway that segmented a children’s playground from a soccer field. The small, square park seemed melancholy between three apartment buildings, all gray-bricked and so mundane it was depressing. It was the sort of place she imagined she might’ve grown up had her life taken a different course. She might have lived in one of those flats with parents who worked week-long in a factory making car headlights or something. She might have gone to school down the street, partied and drank at the discotheque on weekends, skiing and camping trips with friends… A typical Czech life for a Bohemian girl.

  But that’s not what fate had in store—not for her.

  It was late, now. Three in the morning. The witching hour. Most of the windows beyond the laundry lines were dark.

  She curled leather-clad fingers under her chin, waiting for the first sign of movement amidst the deep-indigo corners of night. She’d stalked the man for hours, so she knew he must be coming home. Soon.

  Some meters away, quiet footfalls treaded down the flagstone walkway. She squinted beyond the glare of a lone streetlamp, its fluorescents buzzing faintly near one building’s entry. It created a pool of insipid yellow over the pavement near the door.

  Charlotte shrank back against the tree bark and waited, unblinking. She unsheathed her knife, gripping it at her side. She hated how her fingers shook. Biting down hard over her bottom lip, she willed them to stead.

  Footsteps came louder as a man rounded the side of the apartments. She strained to see if it was the same man she’d spotted while glancing through a pub window in the square. It was. She noted his hair, roped and filthy—the same grubby jacket. An addict, begging strangers for change. Pathetic, weak, and reeking of ale.

  Charlotte was adept at two things in life; her graphite drawings and knowing how to choose a victim. Whoever she selected to die needed to be someone who wouldn’t be missed—someone who’s disappearance wouldn’t be questioned.

  As the man tottered up to the building’s front door, he hacked loudly before hocking a wad of spit into the shrubs. Charlotte wrinkled her nose.

  There were holes in his jeans despite the freezing night, dark circles cradling tired grey eyes. He carried a bottle concealed in a brown paper bag. His fingers were red from the cold and clutching it too hard.

  The tragedy was that this person was young—only about thirty or so. Something about his life had gone wrong. Maybe he’d also been forgotten by his world, like Charlotte was. Maybe nobody wanted him, and because nobody wanted him, nobody found him. Maybe the only difference between them was, she’d been saved by the magic… and he hadn’t.

  Once the man’s back was turned, grumbling incoherently, fumbling with a ring of keys, Charlotte’s heart pounded hard in her ears. Now or never. She bolted up behind him, knife gripped in her fist—but a twig snapped under her clumsy foot.

  He spun to face her. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt half the blade sink into his throat before she could stop herself. His flesh was like butter. Her weapon made a sick squishing sound and went in too easily. Her stomach rolled. She could hardly believe she’d done it. Her heart turned to ice. Every nerve in her body became electric. Any time
she’d hunted for Valek before had seldom been so direct—so violent.

  Valek usually took care of the violent part.

  Snapping her eyes open again, wider now, she gasped as scarlet ichor ran in a river down the front of his jacket. It turned its dark-green wool black and sticky.

  The man started to tremble, his eyes watering, locked on hers. Shock and confusion smeared across his face, but there was a strange lack of anger. The way his cheek curved was soft and a sort of relief colored the way he gasped. He faltered, like he wanted to collapse forward on his knees, but she gripped his shoulders, pressing his back firmly against the closed door behind him to keep him upright.

  So this is what it feels like, she thought. To watch death fill up someone’s eyes. To be responsible for it.

  She left the blade in his neck, frowning has he gurgled and choked, pleading silently.

  “So you can’t scream,” she explained, guilt swelling at the base of her throat, her eyes flooding. “Nobody can hear you, or we will be found out.” Charlotte produced her whistle from inside her shirt. With her other hand, she brushed tears from the man’s waxy face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But this is how your story ends.”

  Bringing the ornate thing to her lips, she blew hard on one end, its note trilling high, piercing through the wind, bouncing off every jacked edge of brick and metal until—

  A beastly and quite-familiar growl resonated deep in her ear. But it didn’t come from anywhere close by. It was low, guttural. It vibrated under her shoes and against her spine. Someone who didn’t know might’ve thought they were in the presence of a wolf…or a bear.