"Crowns topple easily. Thrones crumble like dust. Hearts cease to beat. Thorns draw blood."
In a country torn into two, there should have been no room for mistakes. Especially not at the very core of the royal family. That was what she was. Yes, a...
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Irina could remember the taste of brandy on her lips, like a spirit of temptation. The bitter liquid a cold reminder of the opulent wealth of those in the upper class.
She could remember dying. She had felt her life slipping away and her heart beginning to slow, and at the end of the tunnel, there was only darkness. Not the darkness that Aleksander emitted but the shadows of loneliness, of sadness, of loss. As if all the joys in the world were seeped out.
She could remember feeling such pain within her chest at the thought of leaving behind the people she loved. Her father, Igor, Vasilka, Dima, and even Aleksander. Saints, she couldn't leave him alone.
She could remember her eyes flickering open for a second, pulling her from the land of the dead when black liquid was suddenly being forced down her throat, her throat being filled with such gunk that she thought that it was possible for her to die a second time.
After that, there were only nightmares. Over and over again. She relived the moment when she discovered her power, grasping the older woman's wrist and commanding her to kill herself. She relived the first life she took, watching it in her mind's eyes. Though she knew what would happen, she could do nothing to stop it.
She kicked and thrashed, but nothing could change what it would result to. The woman still jumped to her death, the woman still died. She could only scream as it happened, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. Then the cycle begins all over again.
Irina begged for a reprieve from any of the Saints, from all of the Saints. She had stopped hoping after the fourth time.
Until suddenly, it all stopped.
It was only darkness then. The familiar darkness. The shadows that she had found solace in. The darkness she yearned for. His darkness.
Aleksander. Aleks.
She didn't know how the shadows that comforted her found her again, even when she had thought herself so lost. Gone.
It was him who brought her back.
That was the last thought on her mind when she was brought back to the land of the living. She awoke with a gasp, light filling her vision before she began hurling up everything in her gut.
"Irina!" Someone exclaimed, surprised. "Call for the healers and a bucket to clean this up."
After she had successfully purged the poison from her body, Irina fell back on the bed, breathing heavily. She felt sick. Beyond sick. She felt straight-up awful. She shut her eyes tightly, her throat burning yet she did not have an appetite for anything, fearing that she would hurl once more.
Antero's worried face filled her vision, his blonde locks so light, they could almost be white. "Irina, thank Djel you're alive."
Irina could not say anything in return. Everything hurt. It was as if she was infected by the flu she had as a child, only this one, it seemed unnatural.
