A Chance At Death Part 3

Okay so I did consider not publishing the final part this week and instead doing my monthly wrap-up and making y'all suffer. But I'm not actually that mean. Well, actually I am, but I didn't have time to do a monthly wrap-up post this week so I guess you are in luck XD

Anyway, onto the third and final part...

“I’m sorry, Sephone,” he mumbles staring down at his hands. When he raises his eyes I notice that they are rimmed with red in the pale bluish glow of the glowgems. “I’m sorry for the pain I caused, but I’m not sorry for what I did.”

I reach up to massage my temples, a brief jolt of pain before my magic soothes it, and once again wonder what it would be like for him, to always have that pounding in his head. To always be in pain, and not have his magic make it stop, because it is his magic that causes it.

“It wasn’t worth it, Hade,” I say softly.

“Some people made it out.”

“I could have saved all of them!”

Even buried under the dirt and rocks, deep in this cavern I can almost imagine that I smell the smoke. Even though it was an event of the past, I can almost hear the screams. So many dead, and all for what? One useless mage to breathe?

I’m not worth it.

“I could have saved them,” I say again.

“At the cost of your own life,” he replies softly, but firmly. His low mumble is something that I realize I would have missed in the underworld. For someone capable of such destruction, Hade is so quiet. He can’t even speak loudly for fear of making the pounding in his head worse.

“It was a price that I was willing to pay.”

“But I wasn’t,” he replies, his voice finally raising to a bitter edge.

I stare into his black, seemingly soulless eyes. “Who gave you the power to make that choice?”

He blinks and looks away. “No one. No one said that it was okay for me to just let them die because I couldn’t lose the one person who had ever meant anything to me. I know that you certainly did not ask me to save you. But as you were bleeding out before my eyes…” his voice breaks, but he straightens and meets my gaze again. “It was a choice I made all on my own. It’s my rotten fate. I destroy everything. Everything I touch surely dies. The Prince of Death they are calling me. Even when I save someone’s life, even when I heal instead of kill, somehow people end up dead anyway.”

It is a rotten fate. For the both of us. I was supposed to fix everything, everything. I only needed to do one thing. Die.

And I couldn’t do that one small thing for the greater good.

Hade may have healed me, but I had allowed my spirit to return. I could have fought I, but I hadn’t really wanted to die and now so many others were dead because of it.

“Now I have their blood on me,” I say softly, staring down at my hands. Pale and unblemished with callouses from my time spent wielding swords. They are deceiving, they don’t look like they have been permanently stained.

“Their blood isn’t yours. It never will be. You are not the only one who has to live with this choice. I’m the one who actually made it. Do you think that it doesn’t destroy me as well?” he cries at last. Then he recoils with a grimace, his own voice causing him pain. “Don’t you think that the weight of every soul the world lost because of me does not drag me down?” he asks again more softly. “They drag me all the way down to the underworld with them.”

He slumps against the wall as a ragged sob escapes his lips and echoes through the otherwise empty cavern.

I want to rant and wail and scream, but I don’t dare raise my voice again for fear of the pounding in his head. Instead I stare blankly at the flickering glowstones.

Death was my destiny and yet I lived. How could that even happen? How can someone cheat their destiny?

Destiny is final.

Final like death.

My eyes flick back to Hade’s crumpled form. Unless my destiny wasn’t what I had thought it was. Such a beaten broken boy, barely holding onto a magic that could destroy us all. What if he someday lost the will to keep fighting? What if one day he succumbs to the aches in his head?

But his magic isn’t always bad. He used it to save me, and maybe that wasn’t the wrong choice.

Perhaps I wasn’t fated to save those people in the village after all.

I was prophesied to save many by destroying myself. I had always thought that it would be through bleeding my magic out. Everyone had thought that, my own mother had thought that when she tried to flee the land with her infant daughter so that she would not be forced to live that fate. The people of the land thought it when they forced her to return to her home.

I had thought it, growing up, knowing that every breath that I breathed was borrowed.

But we were all wrong. My fate never included death. My fate didn’t have anything to do with my magic at all. It could have saved one village, stopped the army for a time. Delivered a crippling blow against the Tibernans, but they would have rallied. They would have come back and this time I wouldn’t have been there to stop them.

My solution was not a permanent one. My solution never would have saved everyone.

I step forward toward Hade. He doesn’t look up at my approach, which means that he can’t shrink back as I move to wrap my arms around him. He stiffens, but then melts into my embrace.

Then we both cry.

Him because of untruths he has believed and me because I finally know the truth.

This broken boy with madness in his head. This prince with seemingly no purpose has the hardest destiny path of them all. His eyes are not soulless but just tortured because he is the only one who can stop his people and end this war.

I was born to save many by destroying myself.

Now I know what that prophecy truly meant. Because it destroyed me to not save those people in the village when I could have. Men, women, and children died. Whole families consumed in the fire. But that wasn’t my destiny to save them. My destiny wasn’t to die, but to live. My destiny is to save the Prince of Death so that he can save others.

Annnd... that's a wrap. Well mostly. I'll also share a picture a drew of this story for the same anthology that I entered them both into. It wasn't chosen to be featured either.

Aww, my poor Hade boi is crying

Well, that's all. What did you think of the story? Do you think that I should feature more flash fiction on my blog? Isn't that picture just pure tragedy? Comment Below!

A Chance at Death: Part 2

Settle down, children. It's storytime with Nicki in which I give you part two of my short story A Chance at Death.

“Why would I believe you?” I ask again, my voice much quieter this time.

“Because I spoke the truth,” he says at last. His voice is soft as ever. A mere whisper.

Perhaps the reason I trusted him was because I didn’t think a monster could be so soft spoken.

I grit my teeth. “Do you truly expect me to believe that? Truly? After everything that happened? After you betrayed me? And you want me to believe that you had not planned to all along.”

“I hadn’t,” he says softly. “But… I couldn’t let you go through with it. I couldn’t let you sacrifice yourself-”

“Don’t pretend that you did this for me!” I cry surging to my feet.

I was born to die so that others could live. That was the destiny of my path. It had always been set out clearly before me even on the darkest of nights.

I may not have wanted it, but I had accepted it.

Now I had to accept the fact that it was gone. My destiny was gone. I am now no better than those with the soulless eyes. The ones who don’t have a destiny but are forced to wander through life, destroying everything.

Because how could anything good come from a person who has no true purpose?

“You’re right,” he says quietly. “I lied. I did not do it for you. I did it for myself. I am a selfish worthless creature, but I couldn’t lose you. So I saved your life.”

I pause in my steps, taking in his profile, praying for something, anything to show that he is lying. It would be so much easier to deal with the person who betrayed me for his wicked plans to succeed, than the person who betrayed himself for the girl to live. The person who let innocent people die at a great personal cost. It would be so much easier for me to believe that Hade is truly the person he seems and not the person I’ve come to believe he is.

But the truth of the matter is in the time that we have worked together to end the carnage before it could begin, ever since he came to my cottage and asked me to help him find a way to save my people from his people, we had become something more than simply companions. Than simply partners.

I’d hated him at first, when he barged into my quiet life like a harbinger of my death. He had claimed that his people, the Tibernans, were moving to war against my own peace loving people. His father the king had been assassinated and my people were blamed for it. He hadn’t realized until it was too late that it was his own power hungry counselors who had killed his father and blamed my people in the hopes of going to war. They wanted to ravish our lands and to steal our glowgems from under our earth. By the time he realized this though, he had already declared war and ordered his army to muster.

When he tried to rescind the orders, the counselors claimed that he had gone insane because of the grief. Everyone already knew that he had been born with a tempestuous type of magic. The headaches were because he tried to keep it in, tried to keep the magic from consuming everything in our world, including him. It was the perfect excuse to get him off the throne just long enough for conquest.

War was coming and he couldn’t stop his own people. So he came to me, his enemy, to help him find a way to stop the bloodshed.

I was considered the guardian of my people. A girl with rare magic that flowed through her veins. Magic that could be spread by blood. Mostly I healed people by giving them a drop of my blood, but I had always known what my destiny was.

When I was born, a mage with magic that could see into the future, saw my fate. I was to save everyone, but only by destroying myself.

It was obvious what that meant. I was to bleed out and thus completely release my magic on the world. I could save them, but only if I died.

And so I was my people’s protector because they knew as long as I lived, I could save them. And that was why the Prince of Tibernan had sought me out.

Naturally, I hadn’t wanted to die. I had considered him my villain for forcing my hand. For being the person behind my ultimate demise.

But he was fighting just as hard to save my people as I was. And as we spent more time together, traveling as I tried to find some way to save my people without having to die. I started to fall for him.

I think the moment that happened was when I heard his laugh for the first time. The thrill I had felt knowing that I was the one to make him laugh was unlike anything that I had ever felt before.

I had fought to ignore my rising feelings, constantly reminding myself of who he was, of who I was supposed to be. I was the sacrifice and he was the person who made it so that I had to be such. But it was no good.

I saw that there was good in him.

I hadn’t been ready to die until I met him. Until I realized that dying would save this kind but lost boy from becoming a monster.

When the time came that the Tibernans moved against my people, I had been ready. I had gripped that knife in my hand and I had buried it into my stomach. I’d closed my eyes and prayed for my spirit to be quickly carried to the underworld. Then I’d bled. But apparently somewhere along the line he had decided that my sacrifice wasn’t worth it. And so he had healed me instead.

And that’s what the problem is. I believe him when he says that he saved me because he couldn’t lose me. He didn’t do it because I was a fool and trusted the wrong person. He did it because we were both fools and we had trusted ourselves to do the right thing even when it was hard. And somehow that made it worse.

To be Continued...

Don't miss next week when you get the third and final part.

A Chance at Death: Part 1

So this week I'm doing something different. Instead of my usual rambling blog posts, I'm going to share a story that I wrote for an anthology themed in death. The story was not accepted so Faith suggested that I post it on my blog. I'm dividing this story into a three part series. Considering that I'm starting to write some flash fiction for Havok there may be longer series like this in the near future.

But now, without further ado, A Chance at Death- I hope you enjoy!

I’m not dead. And that surprises me.

Because I should be.

A groan slips unbidden from my lips as I struggle to lift my eyelids. It is as if they have already been weighed down by the coins that would have bought my passage into the underworld. Finally I manage a small crack and peer through it at the hazy world beyond. Perhaps there is something wrong with my eyes because everything is dark. But as I blink several times I realize that the problem isn’t with my eyes. Everything is dark.

A few more blinks and I finally recognize where I am. The Starlight Caverns. Named because of the hundreds of precious glowgems that dot the ceiling and wall providing a dim light.

It had been our hideout for the past several days as we waited for the army to arrive.

The question is, what am I doing here now instead of floating down the River of Tears to my soul’s final resting place?

I sit up, fighting a grimace at the sharp stab of pain in my abdomen, but when I rub my hand across my midsection, I find no bandages. I don’t feel the dip of an open wound or even the familiar bump of a puckering scar. Just a phantom pain. A reminder that I had once been wounded. My body and my magic berating me, telling me that even if I am healed this time that I must be more careful.

Other than that, there is no evidence of what should have been a fatal wound. Someone healed me completely.

My eyes move around the small interior chamber of the cavern, seeking answers of how I lived

I freeze when my eyes land on him. The villain, the boy, the something more.

What is he doing here?

I don’t know why I bother asking the question, obviously his presence here is directly tied to the reason that I am here as well.

“H-Hade?” I gasp out, my voice slicing against my dry throat.

He grimaces and I wonder if the pounding in his head is worse today. I regret having talked. Then I remember that I’m supposed to be dead. I have bigger problems at the moment. “What have you done?”

The last thing I remember was the biting pain in my abdomen as I stabbed myself. I remember collapsing on my back and staring up at the sun one last time, wondering if there will be a sky in the Underworld. Then the pain stopped and I had closed my eyes.

I was dying, and yet here I am.

He glances away, unwilling to meet my gaze and I know that my suspicions were correct. He is solely responsible for the reason that I am still alive. I should have known better than to trust the villain of my story. Instead, I was fooled. When he came and begged me to help stop the destruction that was coming- that he was bringing- I believed him.

What sort of fool am I?

And worse yet, so many people had died for my foolishness.

“You didn’t mean any of it did you?” I ask, I can’t muster up the strength to feel angry, just hollow. My eyelids droop low. I am so, so tired I just want to lie down. Coming back from death is exhausting. But more than that, the despair is worse. All my life has lead up to one moment. Just one moment. Now that moment is gone and yet here I still am.

All because I had trusted a villain with sad eyes and an urgent plea. I curl my fingers into a fist.

Now the anger comes.

“You didn’t really want my help. You only wanted to get close enough to me to figure out a way to stop me. How could I believe you?” I cry, I don’t care how it hurts his head even as he recoils into the wall opposite me. I slam the palm of my hand against the slab of rock that I had woken up lying on.

My magic races down my arm trying to heal any damage I might have done to the delicate bones. I ignore it and the guilt at the familiar rush of light and warmth in my veins. I had tried to betray my magic. And yet here it still is, my ever constant companion, unaware that the wound that had nearly killed me was caused by my own hands. I had stabbed myself in an attempt to bleed my magic out for the rest of the world to feast upon it.

It would have risen to my last request. Wipe out the army of Tibernans attacking. Save the village.

But with me still alive, the village was never saved.

To be continued...

That's all for this week! Tune in next week for the second part. What did you all think of this? Would you like me to publish more short stories on my blog in the future?

Dreamworld Duology Book Reviews

I'm totally not doing this because I forgot to write any other post *shifty eyes* or because I forgot to do this last month when I actually read these books *coughs uncontrollably*

Obviously I am doing this because I am consciously aware of the fact that I hardly ever post reviews on this blog and am making an effort to change that. *nods* Yes that is definitely what it is*

*A note for the reader: that is not at all what it was


But anyway this week I will be sharing two reviews for a couple of books that I read last month. They are young adult fantasy romance having to do with dream worlds so if you like any of those things I recommend them to you.

Book 1: All That We See of Seem
Rating: 4 stars

Review:

So... I gotta say this wasn't what I was expecting at all. I will fully admit that I was expecting adventure with a dash of romance, but what I found was romance with a dash of adventure.

A very interesting thing about this story was that it almost seemed like two stories. One about Reeve awake and one about her asleep. It was somewhat jarring, but still really interesting. The description was great, a little over the top in some areas, but it really brought both these world's to life.

Reeve as a heroine was annoying. She was desperately naive and borderline stupid. Honestly I couldn't stand her, over emotional ninny. Her grudge against her poor brother was stupid, she never thought that there would ever be any consequences for her actions, and she ignored the glaring facts that were right before her eyes. So many times reading this book I was shaking my head at her. However the other characters more than made up for her faults.

There is a love triangle of sorts, and honestly it is really confusing because I liked both the guys and that doesn't happen for me. When love triangles are involved,because I am an aggressive shipper, I pick my favorite and hate the other forever. But with this book I couldn't pick a favorite.

Bran was a sweetheart, and I loved him. Though there were some cases where I was wondering what the heckers he was thinking. He wasn't as dumb as Reeve, but he did get pretty close. I probably ship him and Reeve more not because of anything against Arden but simply because he's the one I think she is going to end up with.

Arden stole my heart. I probably should not have liked him so much because he is a scoundrel, but let me say, I appreciated his cool head and his ability to be emotionless. Quite refreshing compared to the emotions of Reece and Bran. Also he made me laugh quite often. I wish I could ship him with Reeve but I don't like to set myself up for disappointment.

Her guards were the best characters, not going to lie. They had my heart from the start.

Content:

Somewhat more than I had been expecting. There is some language which was surprising since I thought this was a Christian publisher? But then, I may have been wrong. There are also innuendos. There isn't too much violence but the violence there is, is described very acutely.

Not the story I was expecting but still an entertaining one. I looked forward to seeing what happens next.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Boot 2 A Dream Within a Dream

Rating: 4 stars

Review:

I'm just going to start off by making googly eyes at that cover.

This book broke me. Not because of anything too offensively horrible to the characters. But the romance broke me. Not because it was an absolutely awful romance, or a tragic one. But because it had two romances, each equally good. And it was a love triangle. And my shipper mind didn't know what to do.

I think I'm team Bran???? I mean, he is really sweet and loyal. I still shook my head at many things he did, but he's still lovable even if he is aggravating.

But also, Arden. How he always calls her "wife" and "love" and is willing to become a better person for her. The person who took his heart off of a shelf only to get it dented. I'm crying for him.

Reeve is a somewhat better person in this book than she was in the last, but it was still painful waiting for her to come to realizations that I'd already come to in book one.

I loved the concept of the hidden world and how that all worked out, that was really interesting. The ending was somewhat anticlimactic, though. And while most of the description was really quite beautiful, there were parts were it seemed completely unnecessary and other parts where it was just weird. Get rid of all the flowery language and I think this book would be only a hundred pages. A hundred and fifty at most.

Content:
Some mild language, including one instance of a word that I wouldn't count as "mild" language. Innuendos and overly described violence.

All the same, a good conclusion to an extremely different series.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to give a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Completely unrelated to the books but as I was downloading A Dream Within a Dream's cover it was labeled under it's initials ADWAD and for a second I thought that I was putting on the wrong cover because AWDAD is A Winter Dark and Deadly and I almost thought that I was putting that cover up instead. So then I thought why not include it in this post so at least it will be pretty to look at because I failed to add any aesthetics to this blog post.

Oh well, that is all I've got for today. What do you guys think about me doing more book review blog posts? Do you even like book review posts? What do you think about these books? Comment below!

Farewell April

Not that I forgot, but yeah I totally forgot to write this post XD Phew, April was a whirlwind, but also it seemed to last forever and now I am convinced that I am living in some form of tear in the time space continuum where time is both fast and slow.

Life

Other than being completely boring, I haven't done much. Let's see, I worked. A lot. Allergies have been kicking my bum, but hey, who needs to smell out of both nostrils anyway? I'm still on my kinda-sorta internet break as in I'm not going to be on it overly often because I've got writing to get done.

I've not really done much else.

Ugh, this is depressing, why did I ever think it would be a good idea to update on my life? I have no life!

Reading

In April I read three books. I am now nine books behind on my Goodread Reading Challenge, things aren't looking super great over here.

A Dream Within a Dream by Kristina Mahr
4 stars
Dream world//Love triangle//Sequel

All That We See or Seem by Kristina Mahr
4 stars
Dream World//Love Triangle//Dark Magic

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo
4.5 stars
Little Mermaid//Pirates//Bloody

 Screen Time

Honestly I feel like I'm missing a movie or two. Sheesh, I have to keep better tabs on these instead of trusting my Goldfish brain.

Mirror, Mirror

Believe it or not, this was this fairy tale lover's first time watching this movie. It was hilarious, I really liked it. Not a movie you take very seriously though. Kudos to having Armie Hammer play the prince, definitely my favorite part.

Aquaman

I went into this movie with low expectations. I didn't really like how they portrayed Aquaman in Justice League so I didn't think I would like having a whole movie dedicated to him. This movie exceeded all of my expectations. It was epic, the water special affects were so cool, I really enjoyed the movie's mythology. The characters were the best part. Aquaman is I think the first super hero movie I've seen where both the guy and the girl have super powers (Guardians of the Galaxy came the closest, but neither Peter or Gamora technically have super powers) and watching them as a dynamic team was the best.

I know that it has language, but I watched it through Clearplay so I don't know how much or how bad.

Captain Marvel

I came into this movie with low expectations and it still managed to disappoint me. Blech, probably the worst movie I've seen this year. Worst movie I've seen in a really long time.

Men in Black 3

I saw the first MIB a while ago, then we skipped the second, and this was my first time watching the third. I actually really liked it. It was hilarious and the special affects were far more enhanced from the first one. Also it had a timey wimey twist and y'all know that I love me some of those.

There was quite a bit of language. I don't know quite what because we watched it through Clearplay, but it muted a lot of stuff.

Doctor Who Season 2

I ONLY HAVE THREE EPISODES LEFT BEFORE THIS SEASON ENDS AND I DIE. And that is all I have to say about that *cries forever*

Victoria Season 3

Finally started watching this again. I don't know how many of you know this, but I have a very great weakness when it comes to Period Dramas. I watch them too much honestly. The last episode that we watched had killed off a beloved character from season one quite cruelly so I'm not sure what exactly I should say about my enjoyment of this series.

Victoria's sister is a nutcase and wins the award for most hated character in this particular season.

Writing

For those of you who haven't kept up with my rambling posts, this month was Camp NaNo. I wrote 45,000 words in A Matter of Curiosity. Which hopefully means that I'm halfway through the book. I'm hoping to finish writing it in May. I'm super proud of this achievement because I've been in a bit of a writing rut and hopefully this pulled me out of it.

I didn't work on any other projects that wasn't Amar related this month. Instead I took this break to think about which of my stories I'm actually going to work on. I am going to allow myself to write two that are not already related to the series that I've written, and one has already been decided and I have a pretty good idea for what I'll work on for the second. To everyone I have told that I am going to work on a specific story, I'm sorry, I've probably put it down. It just didn't work out. I'll announce at least one of the projects very soon.

That's all for now. Hopefully you had a productive month. Have you seen Captain Marvel yet? If so what did you think of it? Where are you at in your Goodreads Reading Challenge? Comment below!