(unedited) 1st Chapter of Book Three, A Throne of Burning Embers

A Throne of Burning Embers

Ironworld Book Three

By

Candace Osmond

Chapter One

The line between alive and living was vast. In fact, you could be alive and not live at all.

Trust me.

My body lay in a strange bed, in a strange room, hidden in a place no one knew existed. The Isle of Serene, an island sanctuary for witches.

Oden’s mother created it. He and his brother kept it safe after her death. That much I overheard while I curled toward the wall for days. Only stirring to go to the bathroom. But I moved like a driverless car. I watched it all from behind a mental glass wall, Tess’s old garden at my back. I’d completely detached from reality and retreated to some comfortable recess of my mind, just listening to the world around me, the people coming and going for days.

First, it was Julie. Of course. Thank the gods, she made it out alive. I wasn’t sure if my heart could take another…

She held my limp hand and spoke of some virus in Ironworld, an outbreak that shut everything down. Universities, the café, the gallery, everything. There was no reason to go home and no reason to leave my comfy corner, even though I knew it wasn’t real. Tess’s home was destroyed by Faerie soldiers.

“Come on, Avery. You have to talk to me,” Julie pleaded as she squeezed my hand. I just stared at the ceiling. “A nod, anything. Eye contact.”

I rolled over and faced the wall. I couldn’t deal with anything. I felt possessed. Shellshocked. And rightfully so, for everything I did, everything I gave…

I learned I couldn’t think of his name, every syllable cut like a fucking knife.

“Fine,” she said and crawled onto the bed, hugging me from behind. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

She stayed for two days until Oden came and collected her. I didn’t see her face as he peeled her from me, couldn’t bring myself to look at her from behind the glass wall. But her quiet sobs would forever be etched into my brain.

“She’ll be fine,” Oden told her. I could hear the strain in his voice. He wasn’t sleeping.

“You don’t honestly believe that, do you? Look at her, Oden!” Julie angrily whispered.

He sighed deeply through his nose and pulled her toward the door. “Come with me.”

The relief I gained in their absence was the first true thing I’d felt in days.

My next visitor was Moya. She showed up as the early morning sun filled my quaint hospital room, bringing with her the scent of flowers near the ocean. The Summer Court. I pressed my cheek against the glass wall in my mind and watched as she talked to Oden about cleaning up the battlefield and fixing the tower.

“Exclude my Domain,” Oden proclaimed.

“What?” The utter shock on Moya’s elegant but fearsome face was something to behold.

Oden sat not more than a few inches from my bedside. I’m not sure he ever left. “I want to remain open to Ironworlders. To vampires, Fae, and Therians alike. To anyone who seeks refuge.

“And you wish to work with Tessana?”

I felt his energy tense at my back. “I am very much open to working with Summer. I’ve made that very clear in my many letters to the Lady. I hope my desire to help others won’t impede on any possibility of a partnership one day.”

“Partnership?” Moya chuffed and raised a brow. She took a long glance at me before looking back at him. “Tessana is still in a coma. Oliver is doing everything he can to save her. Let’s not talk of politics now. Not when so much is on the line.”

Aya and Brie burst through the large wooden door, their faces alight with hope as they witnessed my lifeless body lying on the bed, and their expressions faltered.

“Did you bring it?” Moya asked them.

“We did”, Aya replied and opened a leather satchel that dangled from her belt and carefully pulled out a small bottle of some strange blue potion. The free-flowing fluid seemed to move on its own accord within the round glass bottle.

Brie added, “Oliver refuses to leave Tessana’s side, but he concocted this for Avery. He said to administer the whole thing in one go.” The wraith–ethereal yet lethal–flicked her gaze to the bed and then exchanged a look with her twin. “She must take it orally.”

Something in me stirred. A sort of panic. Behind my glass wall, no one could see me, no one could touch me. I was safe, unbothered, free from the burden of war that bogged down my physical self. I wasn’t ready to be fixed.

Oden’s deep, exhausted sigh echoed around the room as he pushed up from the lounge chair next to the bed. “Will it work?”

Aya and Brie answered in unison. “Of course.” Brie continued, “Oliver claims the potion will heal any physical wounds the witches could not find and reconnect her mind and body.”

I peeled the side of my face from the glass wall, the impenetrable shield I’d formed in my mind, and watched intently, unable to form words. Please, don’t make me drink it! I’m safe here, I’m happy. There’s no pain, no guilt, no regret. The memories of what I did can’t touch me here.

Oden took the bottle, now dwarfed in his large hands, and curled those long fingers around it as he seemed to weigh the decision. “Thank you,” he told the twins. “Please send my gratitude to the healer and keep me updated on Tessana’s recovery. I’m sure Avery would want to know of any progress.”

Moya crossed her elegant arms over the tightly buttoned coral trench coat she wore, her gold bangles jingling. “Do you think she can hear us?”

“Yes,” Oden replied without missing a beat. “I believe she can.” A palpable silence filled the room, pulsing against the mental wall I leaned on. Finally, Oden cleared his throat and added, “Thank you all for your help. I’m sure the Summer Court needs you more than you’re needed here.”

Moya’s face pinched with concern. “Would you like me to give her the potion before I go?”

Oden shook his head. “No, thank you. I’ll have Valdri and her healers administer it this afternoon.”

“Very well,” the maiden replied with a curt nod. She motioned to her sisters, and they stepped closer to her. “Send word of any changes,” she told Oden.

“I will,” he assured her. “And do let the Lady of Summer know that I wish to sit with her when she’s able.”

Moya hesitated but managed a half smile. “I suppose it’s time, isn’t it? Some things need to change.”

“No,” Oden corrected, his eyes glued to me on the bed. “Everything needs to change.”

***

As Oden promised, he had Valdri and her team of healers fill the room later that day to assess my condition and administer Oliver’s potion. I didn’t resist when they turned me over and propped me up to pour it down my throat. As much as I tried–yelling at my own hands and feet to move to no avail–I was no longer in my body, and no magic potion was going to fix that. The dreamscape and boundary I’d somehow created for myself used every ounce of my energy, and nothing was going to rip me from it.

As the day went on with no change in me, Oden grew impatient. “Why isn’t it working?” he demanded of Valdri as he helplessly paced the floor. His snow-white hair fell in wisps around his tired face as it pulled from the tie that loosely kept it back. He pointed at the bed where my body lay. “Why does nothing seem to work?”

The witchy priestess stood still, her face nonplussed, her chin held firm as she crossed her arms over the long, flowy white robe she wore. Thick silver cuffs clenched her wrists.

She narrowed her wise gaze at the Lord. “Because there is nothing wrong with her.”

“How can you say that?” The broken desperation in his voice picked at my heart like a single clawed finger. “She hasn’t eaten in days, hasn’t moved save for the few times she’s relieved herself. She refuses to speak, to even look at anyone.”

Valdri tilted her perfectly bald head and unfurled her arms, revealing hints of the tattoos that covered her skin beneath the fabric as she stepped closer. “My Lord, there are no physical wounds left. We’ve done all we can. It’s her mortal mind we cannot restore because Avery is protecting it.”

“There must be something you can do,” he insisted.

She exchanged a fleeting glance with her sisters. “We can wipe her memory.”

Oden’s stormy eyes went wide. “What?”

“It is all there is left to do,” Valdri explained. “Avery has shielded her mortal mind from the horrors her heart has endured. We cannot reach her, and there is nothing to heal. All we can do is wipe the slate and allow her to move on.”

My eyes darted to an unreadable Oden. Yes, please! Do it! Put me out of my misery! I pleaded, but the sound only bounced off the walls of my mind. I slumped against the glass wall as the world unfolded on the other side. I couldn’t face it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“No,” Oden finally replied. “I can’t do that to her.”

He’d be doing everyone a service.

The sisters left. Oden remained. I could hear him at my back, the lounge chair groaning beneath him as he shifted around for hours. Periodically, he’d leave the room, but only for a moment. It was quiet for another day or so, no visitors, and I let myself melt away deeper into the dreamscape I’d created. I sat with my stool and easel in the center of Tess’s garden, staring at a blank canvas. I couldn’t bring myself to paint.

Oliver was the next to come during the wee hours of one morning. I hadn’t even realized Oden was in the room until he sighed at the knock.

“Lady Summer is stable,” Oliver told him. “So, I thought to pay a visit.”

“There’s no change,” Oden told him. “She stirs only to go to the bathroom, but she’s like a shell. She hasn’t eaten or drunk a thing in days. How long can humans go without sustenance?”

This was the first time I’d heard the real panic in his voice.

“Well, she’s not entirely human. Is she?” Oliver reminded and grumbled under his breath as he looked me over, felt for temperature, listened to my heart, pulled at my eyelids, and examined my eyes. “They’re right, you know.”

“Who?”

“The witches. Moya told me what they said. Avery is, by the book, in perfect physical condition. Save for the nasty gash on her shoulder. It’s healing, but not as fast as the rest of her body. The problem we’re really dealing with is that she’s protecting her own mind. Her mortal mind.”

Oliver pulled a small wooden box from his satchel and held it out for Oden to take.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It contains an orb that holds Avery’s Fae magic, the power that would restore her and strip away her humanity.” He wiggled the box in the space between them. “It might be the key to helping her mind heal. All you have to do is smash it.”

Oden shook his head. “I can’t make that choice for her. I’ve already altered the path of her life far too much.”

Oliver had a look on his face that said I get it. He leaned over and left the box on my bedside table. “I’ll leave it anyway. It’s hers. When she does come back to us, she should have it.”

I wanted to turn around so badly. The box pulsed with a beat that matched my own heart’s, and it thwomped against my back. Like a gentle purr, luring me closer.

Max came later that day. Oden was gone. She stood against the bedframe for a while, and something in me twitched at the thought of turning over.

“Quinn,” she said irritably like I was wasting her time or something. “Quinn.”

When I didn’t respond, she plopped down on the bed and sidled right up against my back as she stared at the ceiling. “Do you have any idea what it means for me to be here? I’m a Therian, Quinn. The creatures that literally eradicated all witch kind in Ironworld. And now… I’m here, in their beloved sanctuary, wielding their magic with the blood of their oppressors, all the while living in a world where people who look like me are oppressed every day. If that’s not a fuck load of twisted irony, I don’t know what is. But it just goes to show how much they all care about you. Things are changing, Quinn. You gotta snap out of this.”

A deep sigh scraped over my insides–in my mind and my body. Max smiled at the slight movement from me just as the door creaked open. The scent of cherries and crisp air filled the room. He must have been out riding.

“Any change?” Oden asked.

Max sat up, her long black braids pooling behind her, and grinned. Her gold lipstick shimmered in the light. “Nothing major, but she’s there. I felt a twitch.” She stood, letting a black maxi dress hang to the floor. “Avery will come back when she’s ready.” She was the first person to say it, to be so sure of it. There wasn’t an ounce of panic in her voice. “Just give her time.”

Oden actually looked relieved. Was he really that worried? He strode across the room and plunked down into the lounge chair. He looked like he’d finally gone home to rest and clean up.

“Avery is lucky to have you,” he told Max.

Her face was like stone. “No, we’re all lucky to have her. She could be the very thing that unites all of Faerie and Ironworld. I think we owe her the benefit of the doubt. She’s totally fine.” A slight hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Stubborn bitch.”

“You’re very insightful, Maxine,” Oden said.

She once threatened to kill me for using that name.

“Don’t forget it,” she tossed back and sauntered toward the door. The fact that she said nothing to him told me she respected Oden.

“I wouldn’t dare.” He crossed one leg over his knee. “How is my brother, by the way?”

Max stopped with her hand on the door handle and chortled. “He’s got a lot of gumption; I’ll give him that.” Her expression went stonily again. “But tell him to stay away if he knows what’s good for him.”

A raspy chuckle rolled from him. “He doesn’t.”

“What?”

“Know what’s good for him.”

She quirked a sharp, dark brow. “Then he’s in for a world of pain.”

Oden nodded. “With all due respect, Maxine, I think he’s looking forward to it.”

Max made a groaning sound and left.

He stared at the door for a long while after that, sitting so still that he almost looked like some sort of statue perched in a garden somewhere. He would have fit beautifully in Tess’s magical backyard oasis. Once again, I found the energy to peel my cheek from the glass wall and glanced over the dreamscape around me, imagining a marble carving of Oden nestled near a hawthorn tree full of twinkle lights.

The bed beneath my body suddenly sank under Oden’s weight. “I’m so sorry, Avery,” he whispered. “I put you here. I…ruined your life. It may not have been what I intended, but we both know that the poor choices I made are what led us to this very moment. I never should have made a deal with Vivian.”

He paused to take in a deep, shaky breath, and I swore I could hear the crackle of tears at the back of his throat. “If I hadn’t been so filled with rage over my father’s murder, or broken by the loss of my mother, perhaps I wouldn’t have let darkness fill my heart for all those years. It blinded me for so long that not even my own brother could pull me from it. I just dragged him down with me.”

A tired breath flowed from him as he shifted on the bed.

“But…you saved me, you know? From sinking further into that void. When Evaine found you…I watched you for weeks, convincing myself that I had to learn everything about you, so I had tools to control you. But, deep down, I knew that after one day of observing your delicate life, I was enthralled; you fascinated me. I watched as your world crumbled and you discovered all the things that had been hidden from you and how you just persevered right through it. You didn’t let it break you. I didn’t realize at first, but you were showing me that I could make amends for my actions, that I had something to offer, something to prove. I could find a way to honor my parents and make Faerie a better place. I can–” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “I can…if you help me. I can’t do it alone, and I also don’t want to. Faerie deserves more.”

Something stirred in me. A spark of light deep in the gallows of my gut. It tingled and grew, spreading through my chest and into my limbs. I pushed up from the damp grass and stood staring at a broken dark Lord sitting on my bed.

A shadow blanketed half the room, the other half illuminated by a blade of moonlight that cut across the space and lit up his beautiful face. He looked so alone, so helpless. Not at all the impenetrable Fae Lord I’d come to know, so far from the unyielding beast I witnessed on that battlefield.

Slowly, I reached up and pressed the tip of a trembling finger to the glass wall that separated me from reality, and it instantly turned to dust, particles filling the air and floating to the ground around me. As I took a single step over the threshold, I slipped back into my body. Oden pushed off the bed and headed for the door.

Despite the agony that weighed down my physical self, I rolled over. The mattress creaked, and Oden glanced back over his shoulder, brows high. Our eyes met and locked, and the storm inside his began to settle. He didn’t react; he just stood as I stared at him, trying to find words. It felt like eons since I used my voice.

My dry lips cracked as I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

He remained staid and gave me a simple nod before looking away and disappearing through the door.

To be continued Fall of 2024 (or Summer of 2024 for those who backed my Kickstarter campaign for the Ironworld collector’s omnibus!)