PROLOGUE
17 Years Ago…
Caspian
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
I hear the first rounds of gunshots discharged into the air like a lightning bolt, their shockwave ringing from the grand hall we left behind, celebrating our betrothal. I couldn't tell if they had hit their targets or not.
I was now running. I held her on my back, Genesis, as light as air, but in that moment seeming to weigh more than anything I have ever carried on my body. My grip tightening on her legs, gripping them steady on my waist, too tight? Maybe, but I would not let her go. Not now. Never.
"Take care of her".
My mother's most recent words to me had started echoing in my ears louder than the chaos behind us.
The acrid scent of ash and smoke filled my lungs as I tromped through soggy dirt in my boots. The world rushed by me, the black-stripe marble fountain, the fire-lit blaze behind us from the house, the wall-tall hedges. The gardens I somehow knew from memory; tonight, they were strange-distorted by shadow and fear.
I felt her breathe, falling shakily on my ear. Her arms encircled my neck, shivering so violently that I could feel it through vertebrae. And when she did utter words, they were in hot hysterics within icy, commanding voices.
"Right!"
I didn't hesitate. I stepped to the right. My boots slipped over grass that had been dew-kissed, and I caught myself just in time.
"Left!" she screamed again.
I turned left. Thorns snagged at me, vines looped about me, but I did not fall. I could not. I had no idea where we were going, but she did. I knew it in the way she directed-picked out words with purpose, intent, and speed.
"Keep straight! Just go!" Her breath hot against the side my face.
I obeyed. Aching legs, burning lungs, but I did not let up, leaping over a log that lay in our path, even as a jarring knife of pain flashed up through my calves. The stinging was receding, far off-but not non-existent. Not ignorable.
We were only a few feet from the west garden's edge when I spotted him.
A guard.
One of mine or at least he was. His gun was drawn, his eyes scanning into the darkness as if he was seeking to find a ghost. The moonlight caught the silver glint of his gun, and he held it in a position that was extremely close to the path we had to traverse.
I stopped and knelt lightly placed Genesis on the ground; pushing her into the trunk of a tree. She looked up at me, gasping for breath as she regained her footing.
"We can't outrun a bullet," I gasped.
She nodded, her hold on my arm tightening.
I looked down, thinking. There wasn't another option. Not without going back the way we'd begun-and we didn't have space or time to do that.
My fists were clenched around a rock that had been at the base of the tree. It was slick, big enough. I looked at it, then at the guard.
"We go once he's distracted" I said to her as I grasped the rock.
Genesis nodded at me and hesitated.
I gasped hard under my breath.
Three. Two. One-
I threw the rock way to the left, deeper into the woods. It whanged through the underbrush, clipping the limb and hitting something solid.
The guard jerked in surprise. His gun re-directed.
"Go," I breathed.
We sprinted.
Heels barely off the pavement, we whizzed past him as his light veered crazily in the sound's direction. My chest groaned with a heaving. One misplaced glance and he'd spot us. One squeeze of the trigger and he'd-
We never relaxed our sprint.
"Almost there!" Genesis screamed in a whisper. "It's ahead!"
The trees yawned, creaking ominously as silver moonlight pierced through the gaps between the leaves. And half-hidden behind the branches of a giant oak stood an old, weathered treehouse.
I gasped walking underneath it. "Genesis, what-"
"Up!" she urged hurriedly, already stepping on the first wooden board nailed onto the trunk of the tree. I helped her up holding her steady as her little fists gripped the broken boards on the trunk and up she went with the calm ease as if she had climbed those steps a hundred times before.
"My daddy had people put it up last year!" she explained over her shoulder noticing my confusion and hesitance, panting she looked down with a weak smile. "It's safe!"
That prompted me. I took off climbing, no regard for how bark was chewing into the palms of my hands. Each creak of the treehouse was keeping my heart pumping, but I never gave even the slightest hint of slowing. Not until I could pull myself up and wriggle in alongside her.
She was already curled up in the corner, knees to chest. I came running in, and I tripped over her, stepping on her dress, feisty as ever she shot me the evil eye somehow reducing the tension we felt. I sent a sheepish smile gathering her in my arms and covering her as best I could.
Then-crack. Another explosion of gunfire shredded the night. We both tensed up.
I hugged her in. Her sharp intake of breath, constricted gasps at the concavity of my collarbone sliced through room. The tree groaned and its wooden heart contracted, but it held fast. And in that moment with our held breathes and tense shoulder in the corner of that creaking box, we had the illusion of safety.
A mythic darkness devoured outside, occasional screams scattered generously through the night and the smell of blood and treachery filled the air. But in the tiny, scorched enclosure that enveloped me, I held around me the sole human creature whom I could not possibly lose.
We said nothing. We listened.
And hoping that, come morning, we might be alive.
Minutes elapsed-maybe hours. Time lost all meaning, distorting in the wake of our fear. I ran my fingers up the nape of her head to the cadence I could not shatter, attempting to control her breathing, attempting to control my own.
I could hear them yelling again, this time in the distance and covered by the background noise. There were more than one of them this time, pounding down the gravel roads that we'd sprinted. They were coming after us. I pushed her head harder into my shoulder.
"Don't move" I whispered softly.
I could hear her now, crying, muffled into my chest. I did not like hearing that. The muffled crying in general. As if she'd already learned crying in secret. As if she'd already known surviving getting through this very same nightmare ahead of time.
I buried my face in her hair. "They won't see us," I growled, though I had no idea. I had to tell her. I had to make her believe I was lying.
Another sound-this one nearer. The snap of a twig. I remained motionless and timed my heartbeats. One. Two. Three. My eyes tightly shut praying to whatever deity was listening that they wouldn't notice the wooden steps at the side of trunk. I was ready to spring if need be. Fight. Run. Die.
But it was done. Whoever it was just continued walking.
Genesis shifted, ever so slightly. Her fists tightened in my shirt material, onto resting tensely against my chest.
She'd trusted me. When the world fell apart around us-when bullets tore through the lives we were born into-she didn't lose it. She didn't sob. She issued commands.
And I followed.
A chill wind sprang up on the wooden boards. I removed my coat and draped it over her shoulders. She did not fight so long as she did not utter a word. She just breathed, a sleepier sound than a restful one.
We survived. Just barely. And this night, that would have to suffice.
My mother's words continued to ring through my mind once more. Take care of her.
And I would. Whatever might be to come, whatever we might be deprived of, I'd keep that vow. I'd be loyal to Genesis Moretti for the remainder of my existence-however long that would be.