A Walk Between Worlds
Anastasia Rabiyah
Published by Purple Sword Publications, LLC at Smashwords
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
A WALK BETWEEN WORLDS
Copyright © 2011 ANASTASIA RABIYAH
ISBN 978-1-61292-008-5
Cover Art Designed By Anastasia Rabiyah
Edited By Brieanna Robertson
To the fallen who choose to rise above what they have always been and reach for the light.
Prologue
Treila sat alone in the corner of the room she had shared all her life with her twin sister. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth, tears trailing down her cheeks. Minai was gone, and she didn’t understand why. She was the one who did not belong, the one with the secret. Not Minai. Treila had prayed for such an event to befall herself, a horrible kidnapping so that her family would be rid of her, an untimely death so that she would not have to hide what she was.
Three days had passed, and no word had come. The weight of the crown felt heavy upon her, for her parents had never intended she inherit it. Of all the things she was, the most was unprepared. She had no training to lead her people, but there was no one else in her family’s line left. She needed answers. She needed time. She needed her sister back. Minai, with her quiet determination, her ability to solve problems, and her benevolent magical charms, would have known what to do next.
Not long after her sister was taken, Treila received word from the Nor king that he would not take no for an answer. He would arrive to wed her and unite their lands by full moon. If she refused, he would kill her and claim the Telen city by force. Either way, the war between their cities would come to an end...soon.
She reached out with her mind, a trick of someone with empath talents in her blood, and sought the familiar touch of her sister’s thoughts. Treila concentrated and whispered a prayer over and over that Minai was safe from harm, that she would find the comfort of their lifelong mental connection.
Chapter One: Courage
Kolar raised his face to his master. “You cannot make me do it. I refuse to kill the woman.” He glared into the demon king Olemoth’s almond-shaped, red eyes. They narrowed further to slits of anger. His master’s brown claws clicked atop the handles of his bone throne. Firelight flickered across his recently polished horns. Kolar kept his feathered wings folded at his back and ran three fingers across the hilt of one of his swords. “She is innocent. Spilling her blood will not change the outcome of this war.”
Olemoth sucked in a tight breath, his dark lips quivering. “How dare you disobey me? Me? The one who pulled you from the flames as a babe. A master who taught you how to fight, how to serve. You shame yourself defying me in this.” His master’s knuckles cracked as he tightly grasped the edge of the handles of his throne and pulled himself into a stand. The ermine-edged cloak Olemoth favored swept past Kolar, brushing his forearm, infusing the air with the scent of sage.
Remaining on his knees, he waited to see what his master would do next.
Olemoth’s hooves thumped across the red and gold carpeting, the sound of his passing fading away from the throne room. Not long after, metal armor clinked in time with soldiers’ boots. Kolar heard Minai’s cry of fear. He turned to see what would happen to her—the woman he had stolen from the Telen city.
Her ebony skin was bare in the places her fine dress revealed. He alone had captured her upon his master’s command. Kolar had carried her through the air, across the great desert called Galaffa, and here to the demon sky palace, just as he had been ordered to do. But now, he did not want to see her die, and the two demon soldiers at either side looked ready to slit her throat at any moment. Kolar had never given a second thought to killing before that moment.
“You should use her to bargain with,” Kolar suggested, an unfamiliar panic starting in his chest. He stared at her large, round eyes—eyes full of fear and naivety. “Trade her to the Nors in exchange for an alliance.”
Olemoth’s reptilian tail swished behind him, a sign of annoyance. “Who do you think you are to suggest what I should do with this hostage?” His upper lip curled.
“I am but your humble servant, as always, my master.” A shiver of foreboding ran along Kolar’s spine. Rarely did he argue with Olemoth, but the woman’s tender embrace, the way her hand rested against his cheek each night they had camped on their journey, her kindness and forgiveness for what he was, had awakened hunger in him—longing for more than his rank as an assassin for the demon king. He saw the world around him in a new light now. He questioned the truth of Olemoth’s teachings, and even the story that the demon had found him as a baby in the castoff fires. Minai had told him different stories, tales about more of his kind that flocked in the western skies and kept themselves in the crags two days from the Telen palace. He didn’t believe her at first, but she had no reason to lie to him.
“Humble.” Olemoth snorted. He reached for the dagger at his belt, drew it, and examined the blade. “You seem to have lost that trait.” His fiery gaze flickered to the woman.
Minai stared into Kolar, her brown eyes pleading for aid. She needed a champion, someone to stand up and fight for her, not a fallen angel who lived among demons—who might very well be half demon himself.
The demon king strode across the carpet to face the Telen princess. “What do you think, dark child? Should I bargain you to your enemies? Would you warm the bed of the Nor king for the rest of your days and keep peace among us all?”
Minai’s breathing increased. She stared at Olemoth and then at Kolar. Her full lips parted. “I would choose to live if it is my choice at all. Kolar is right. There’s nothing to gain in murdering me. The wars will go on.” She bit her bottom lip for an instant. “I would warm your bed to stay alive.”
Kolar held his breath, realizing what horror he had done by bringing her here. She no more deserved to be a concubine to any king than he deserved to be called a knight.
Olemoth sighed. “As pleasing as your offer is, I only want my kind in my bed. Life is a fleeting thing.” His blade sliced through the air.
“No!” Kolar screamed, and drew his swords as he jumped to his feet to charge. Time slowed. He sprinted toward the demon king in what he knew would be his first and last act of defiance. Olemoth’s blade slashed. Blood spurted across Minai’s cream-colored dress, staining her corset and splattering outward.
Wind whispered when Kolar’s swords arced toward his master.
Too late. I am too late. He didn’t watch where he struck, his gaze fixed on Minai as she slumped forward, her life draining away.
The guards released her and sprang forth to protect their king.
Kolar’s metal blades crashed against Olemoth’s shoulder guards.
Her body hardly made a sound when she crumpled to the carpet. She landed sideways, her innocent expression facing him, her eyes losing their luster. Minai had opened his mind to the light she offered for a brief time, and now he felt darkness closing in all around him. The guards drew their axes and made ready to cleave off whatever part of Kolar they could reach.
Olemoth hissed.
Kolar knew he could not beat them. He turned, and for the first time in his life, he fled. There was nowhere for him to go, no place safe that he could hide from the demon king. He made it out of the throne room, down the candle-lined hall, and raced through the concubine quarters, empty now, for the king’s women were out in the bathing pools.
The guards gained, crashing through the silks and linens piled by the archway. Vases fell to the marble floor, shattering.
An open window beckoned to Kolar. Cool morning air brought with it the scents of the wilds. At either side of the target, gauze curtains puffed and billowed. My only hope. He ran faster, leaping over pillows and beds in his effort to gain freedom. At his back, his wings spread in preparation. The perfume of flowering copperwood trees far below the palace lured him into hoping for what could not be.
A shot of pain cracked against the back of his head. In that instant, as his heartbeat pounded in his temples, he knew all was lost. His eyes slipped shut. He saw Minai’s face over and over at the moment the demon lord had slit her throat and heard his voice echoing. “No!”
Unfortunately, he did not fall unconscious. Steps away from the window, the guards hauled him up, one at each arm, and dragged him back the way he’d come. His fallen swords rested atop an unmade bed. He wished he had them with him, but even so, he knew there would be no way to escape his master now.
Blood ran down the back of his neck, hot and slick. It made its way along his spine and soaked into his pants. He held still, knowing no way out.
When the guards placed him before Olemoth, Kolar did not bow. He stood as straight as he could, his body swaying, his vision blurred. He faced his punishment with a courage he had lacked all his life—a courage he should have possessed moments before when Minai needed him. He had failed her—the only person to ever show him kindness. He had not deserved it.
“Death is too kind an atonement for you, betrayer.” Olemoth paced, his hooves making a steady cadence. “You do not deserve to live either.” He rubbed his bearded chin, eyes wandering over the carpet. “I must make an example of you.”
The demon king halted. The stubs of his wings, long ago cut away in battle by the Nor king, twitched above his shoulders. “I will have you thrown into the void. There, you will know true loneliness. You will come to understand that what I offered you, a home, duty, life; those things were precious. You’ve thrown it all away with your disloyalty to me. And for what?”
Kolar could hardly stand. His head pounded, and he felt faint. He wanted to shout out that he gave it all away for the soft touch of a woman’s hand against his cheek and for the truth of stories from another land that rang with hope and love, two things he had never known before. But he knew Olemoth could not understand these things. They did not matter in the sky palace. Such aspirations were the fairy tales of the Telens and the Nors. Demons believed in power and strength, taking instead of giving. Until Minai had sidled beside Kolar in the icy cold night when they camped in the Galaffa Desert and whispered three small words, he had not known what light was. “Please, protect me.”
“For that little Telen whore of a princess. I’m sure she seduced you. That’s what they do best. It’s her I blame for this act of treason. But you...” He faced Kolar and lifted his chin with a fisted hand. “I thought you were stronger. I should have left you to die in the flames like the trash you are. Spawn of a demon and an angel. You have no place. You belong in the void.”
Kolar’s eyes slipped shut.
Sounds rushed past his ears. The scrape of metal against metal, the crack of whips preparing to bite at his bare skin. He cringed when they bound his wrists. When each slap of lash against flesh hit him, he bit his lip, determined not to cry out or show his pain. He was ashamed. Not for betraying Olemoth. He was sorry he had not promised to protect Minai, regretful that he had not been able to stop her death.
The beating went on for three days. When the guards unhitched Kolar’s bonds, he fell face-first against the bloodstained floor of the torture chamber. Lying there, he waited for whatever punishment his master might mete out next. Water dripped from the rafters, pattering every so often near his face. He was thirsty and tired. His stomach grumbled. His back throbbed with pain.
Hooves clacked across the stone floor.
Kolar opened his eyes and saw Olemoth’s furry legs a few steps away. “Place him in the void. If I don’t forget him, I may give him a second chance.” The demon king snapped his fingers, setting guards into motion. “This war is trying and requires my attention.”
Kolar lifted his head to see his master’s face.
“I doubt I will remember you after this day.” Olemoth turned and sauntered away.
The guards took up Kolar’s wrists and removed him from the chamber. They passed through several arched halls, descending into the bowels of the sky palace to the void. It was not exactly a place, not a room or a dungeon, but the magical span of energy that held the palace aloft in midair. The door to the void awaited, open and ready to swallow him up.
Kolar closed his eyes and prayed for the courage to survive it. For if he did, he swore he would change. He would make his way toward the light Minai had spoken of. He would find his people and learn the truth of his origins. He promised he would never serve Olemoth again.
They shoved him forward, and Kolar fell through an endless sky of black. No stars marred the darkness. He spun head over heels until his black wings caught air and slowed his descent. Time became a mystery to him. His stomach no longer begged for food, and his thirst was quenched. The void stopped all life but did not destroy. The void was limbo, a state of being and yet not being. There he waited, alone and broken, for the day Olemoth might remember him.
Chapter Two: Justice
Treila held her hand to her throat and cringed from the echoed pain there. My twin has died. She stood in the window of the high tower, watching the sky for some sign of the dark angel who had stolen her sister, some sign that what she felt had happened was not true. When the gods offered none, she covered her mouth with her hand and stifled her cry of pain. The bond they had shared since birth was broken forever now, and she knew the full weight of being alone. “Minai.” She closed her eyes and let pent-up tears fall down her cheeks.
The war between the Telens and the Nors had taken a turn for the worse. The demons in their sky palace had seized the opportunity to gain power. Killing off the nobles of both cities seemed to be their plan. They had taken her father and mother in a bloody siege three months before. With her sister now gone, Treila knew she would be the demon king’s next target. She made a plan to escape, to slip away in the night before the Nor king could arrive to claim or kill her.
She thought back on the night Minai had been taken. “Why would an angel steal my sister?” She had seen the black wings of the one who thieved her twin. She knew he was different than the fair-winged angels living near Telen in the cliffs of Plemae. Her sister’s death meant that either the winged clans had turned against Treila’s people, or the demon king had found a way to turn one of the angels to his cause. She doubted the latter. Angels were watchers. They never took part in the wars or in times of peace, for that matter. They went about their lives in the cliffs, more of a mystery than anything else.