A Demon's Wrath: Part I (Peachville High Demons) (4 page)

I understood why he had to go.

But knowing he was gone was only the beginning of
the terror that was to come.

I closed my hand around the stone and let my
memories drift back to that day just over a hundred years ago.

The Shadow World – 101 Years Ago

I crumbled Aerden’s note between my fingers,
then slammed my fist against the table.

How could I have let this happen? Yesterday, I
felt that something was wrong. I knew he was acting distant. I should
have kept an eye on him. I should have demanded he talk to Lea
himself.

I let my head fall against the table.

I felt empty and alone. How could I live without
him?

In the light, something shimmered and caught my
eye near his bed. I walked over, dread pooling in my core. I pulled
up a blanket that had slid onto the floor on the opposite side of the
bed.

Aerden’s axe lay discarded on the stone
floor.

He would never have left this here. He went
everywhere with that axe. Aerden was a warrior by nature, always
ready for any situation or danger. He wouldn’t have gone on
some grand adventure without it.

I picked it up and as soon as my hand touched the
silver, a vision flashed before my eyes.

It came to me in pieces, as these kinds of visions
often did.

Seeing the future was one of my gifts, handed down
from generations before me. The older I got, the stronger my visions
had become, but they were rarely full scenes. Mostly, they were more
like images in my head. Fragments of a greater whole.

In this vision, Aerden stood in a circle of black
roses, a glowing mass of light hovering just above the ground.

My hands curled into tight fists around the axe’s
handle, and I strained to see more before the vision faded. But the
harder I tried to hold onto it, the faster it slipped away.

When it had disappeared completely from my mind’s
eye, I stood, my brother’s axe clutched tight in my hand.
Terror began to grow within me. I had to find him. I needed to warn
him.

I closed my eyes and tried to feel my connection
with him like we’d done a thousand times. When I was scared or
lonely, I could always reach out to him. His presence was always with
me, even if we were miles apart.

Our connection wasn’t something you could
see. It was more of a feeling. A knowing. Something that couldn’t
be described in words, but something that we’d always had.

At that moment, I sent a piece of my spirit out to
him, wanting to know that wherever he had gone, he was still with me.

But for the first time in our fifty years of life,
I couldn’t reach him.

There was no reassuring presence. No connection.
There was only distance.

I grabbed the axe and the locket, then flew out of
his room and down the stairs. I had no idea where to look, but I had
to try. The engagement could be postponed. Lea would understand.

There was no way to know how long Aerden had
before this came to pass. Sometimes my visions came to pass within
days. Others had still never come true even after years of waiting.

Even if this was a vision of the distant future, I
knew I needed to find him and tell him what I’d seen. Maybe
there was still a chance I could make things right. A chance I could
save him from this fate.

When I burst through the door of my room, though,
I found my mother waiting in the entryway.

“Denaer?” She looked from my eyes to
the axe and back again. “What’s going on?”

I hesitated. My gift of visions had been one her
father had passed down. She’d asked me to never share these
visions with her. She’d said there was no way to change them
once you’d seen them, so she saw no point in letting them rule
your actions.

Still, this was important.

“It’s Aerden,” I said. “He’s
gone.”

I walked past her into the bedroom. A light breeze
blew in through the open archway and on the streets below, I could
already hear the sounds of the crowd gathering for today’s
celebration.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
she asked, following me.

I pulled a large leather bag from my closet and
began filling it with weapons and clothing.

“What are you doing?” She placed
herself between me and the bag, then put her hand on my arm. “Stop.
You’ve gone mad.”

I didn’t have time for this. I threw the
clothes on the floor, then reached into my pocket and took out the
golden case. “When I woke up this morning, the locket was
gone,” I said.

She shook her head, confusion wrinkling her
forehead. “Where was it?”

“In Aerden’s room,” I said.

“You’re not making any sense,”
she said. “Why would your heart stone be in Aerden’s
room?”

“Because he’s the one who is in love
with the princess,” I said. I knew it wasn’t my secret to
tell, but I needed to make her understand what was going on. “I
have never loved Lea. Not the way he does.”

My mother fell back against the bed. “You
don’t mean that,” she said.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I was
willing to marry her because it was my duty, but yesterday I realized
how blind I’d been to Aerden’s feelings for her. I tried
to tell him to go to her and tell her how he feels, but he refused.
Instead, he filled the heart stone in my place and left.”

“Where did he go?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But
I have to find him.”

“Wait,” she said, gripping my arm so
tight, it burned. “You can’t go anywhere. Not today.
There’s no time. We have to be at the castle soon.”

I shook my head and continued packing. “I
had a vision,” I said. “I know you don’t want to
hear about them, but this time, what I saw makes me think Aerden’s
in trouble. I have to warn him.”

She lowered her head into her hands for a long
moment while I rushed around the room, gathering supplies.

Finally, she raised her chin. “It doesn’t
matter what you saw,” she said. “Once a vision has been
seen, it cannot be undone. There’s nothing you can do for him
now.”

I didn’t want to listen to her. What if
there was a way? “I have to try.”

She grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the
window. “Look down there,” she said. “There are
thousands of demons who have traveled great distances to be here for
this ceremony today. If you leave now, you will shame us all.”

I stared out of the window, my stomach twisting
with regret. I should have never let things get this far.

From the looks of it, the entire kingdom had come
to witness the ceremony.

The King of the North had been known as one of the
greatest kings of all time and the demons of the Northern Kingdom
loved him with a ferocious passion. When Lazalea was born nearly
fifty years ago, the people had come from all over the kingdom to
send prayers of love and light into the sky in celebration.

She was their great hope for the future and they
loved her just as much as they had always loved her father.

I could see it in the eyes of the demons in the
street below. They all shared looks of joy and love, their loyalty to
the royal family so true and resolved.

Seeing the villagers who had traveled so far to be
here to witness our promise ceremony, it suddenly hit me how
significant this moment really was.

How much it would hurt everyone if I walked away.

I leaned against the wall, feeling so defeated and
lost.

“In time, your brother will learn to live
with his sorrow, and when he does, he will come back to us. Just wait
and see. He has made a great sacrifice for you today,” she
said. “For both of you. Honor him by doing what is right and
following through with your commitments. Bringing shame on all of us
will not do him any good. Either way, he was going to lose her. You
have to see that.”

I lifted my head and looked at my mother. She was
a good woman, but at that moment, for the first time in my life, I
understood that she cared more for her place in this kingdom than she
did for the happiness of her own children.

I would find no sympathy in her eyes.

“Come, Mother.”

I stood and held my arm out to her, resolved to my
fate even as my heart was breaking.

She nodded and wrapped her arms around me.

“Thank you,” she said, whispering
against my forehead as she hugged me close.

The walk to the castle was like a funeral march.

Every step had weight, as if my shoes were filled
with sand and stone. I wanted to reach back in time and take it back,
but it was too late.

I had to find a way to be strong.

I thought of my brother sitting alone in his room
in the early morning hours, pouring his love into the heart stone,
knowing that the woman he loved would believe they were my feelings.

What kind of strength did that take? What did it
feel like to love someone so much you would sacrifice everything to
make them happy and keep them from pain?

I would never know that same kind of love.

My parents had taken that chance away from me the
moment I was born into this world.

My mother’s hand squeezed my arm and when I
turned to meet her gaze, her eyes widened, reminding me I had a role
to play.

We paused just outside the archway that led into
the throne room. We had been through these steps a dozen times in the
past month, and I knew exactly what was expected of me.

I buried my regrets and my worry deep inside, then
straightened my shoulders.

There was no use going through it all in my head
over and over. This was my destiny, and I would embrace it with
courage and strength.

As I looked on the faces of the demons sitting in
the throne room, I vowed to put aside my own selfish desires. I would
dedicate my life to the kingdome. I would do whatever it took to
honor my brother by becoming the mate Lea deserved.

Somewhere high above, bells rang to signal the
beginning of the ceremony.

An excited hush fell over the gathered crowd.

My mother’s grip on my arm tightened and I
swallowed down my regrets and my secrets.

The doors to the king’s chamber room opened
on the opposite side of the hall, and all eyes focused on the light
streaming through from the royal chambers.

A chorus of shadowlings poured forth from
somewhere in the back of the room, their ethereal forms swirling and
dancing upon the air. They flew around both sides of the throne,
floating high up toward the ceiling.

A single shadowling girl took form on the bottom
step leading up toward the platform. Her voice flowed from her, a
sound so heart-breakingly pure no one dared breathe or move as they
listened.

She sang in an ancient demon language, long
abandoned in our daily lives, but still used on occasions of great
importance.

Even though I’d studied the language in my
lessons when I was younger, I could only understand a few words of
her song, its meaning was clear. It was a song about the beauty of
love.

When she was through the first verse, the rest of
the shadowlings joined her on the stairs, adding their voices to the
song. Music filled the chamber, echoing from every corner, a harmony
so pure and perfect it brought tears to my eyes.

From the back of the room, a parade of priestesses
made their way down the center of the crowd, colorful flames dancing
in the air above their cupped hands.

Behind them, the king’s council passed
through the crowd. They wore robes of gold and deep red. My father
held a position of honor at the front of the procession. When he came
into view, my mother straightened and smiled, pride radiating from
her.

Did it not matter to her at all that her other son
was completely missing from the ceremony? When had her ambitions
grown so high?

Or had my parents always valued their position in
the court this highly?

I had been so blind. I was a child until today and
suddenly, I wished I never had to grow up. I would rather have spent
the rest of my life playing in the fields with my brother and Lea
than have had my eyes ripped open to these harsh truths.

My father’s eyes sought mine across the
heads of the demons seated in the front rows. He lowered his head in
a brief nod and I nodded back, accepting my role.

The priestesses bowed to the empty throne, then
split off into two groups, one going left and the other right. They
turned around to face the crowd, then in perfect unison, lifted their
arms. Their flames lifted high into the air above our heads, then
moved together to form a circle just above the throne. The flames
spun faster as they moved closer together, finally coming together to
form a single bright flame. Its light shone down across the golden
floor before the throne.

I drew in a breath, knowing this was where I was
meant to stand and pledge my heart and my life to Lea.

The song of the shadowlings ended and the throne
room fell into a reverent silence.

A row of musicians in the balcony at the back of
the hall lifted glass horns to their lips and began the royal
processional.

The crowd of demons knelt and bowed their head as
the king and queen appeared from their chambers.

The king stepped to the edge of the steps and
raised his hands high into the air. At his command, everyone stood.
He smiled and lowered his head in acknowledgment and praise.
Excitement rippled through the air.

The King of the North led his queen back toward
the throne. He kissed her hand, then left her side as they took their
positions on either side of the golden throne. They turned their gaze
toward the door to their chambers and my breath hitched in my throat.
I struggled to stand tall and confident when all I wanted to do was
turn and run like a scared little kid.

My eyes were glued to the light in the archway.