Crescent (Book 1)

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"You don't have to do this!" I scream, but I know it's too late. Simantha eyes are clear as she looks at me, her hands shaking as she raises them high. "Whatever you're about to do- please, Simantha. Don't."

Gabriel locks his arms around me again, but I'm too weak to get away from him. "Gabriel. Gabriel, look at me."

"It's no use, child. The spell is too strong. Your friends are gone."

Ceth yanks the blade from the sheath around my thigh, and the soldiers thrust the human prisoners forward, displaying them for the crowd. The humans sob as Simantha whispers a spell under her breath, and the serpentine blade in Ceth's hand glints as he brandishes it mid-air. "For Lushwind!" The blade cuts across flesh, slicing their necks cleanly.

"Brenna," Rosie whimpers.

"Look away, Rosie," I sob as her chest rises more and more quickly. "I love you. Just look away, sweetheart."

"For Osthen."

The second body falls to the floor and the tang of blood in the air makes me gag. Ceth grabs my mother next, her eyes quiet, brown hair crusted with sweat. The soldiers bare her neck to the cool air. She bows her head. Closes her eyes. Accepts death. Ceth speaks loudly:

"For Nexus."

I vomit right into the blood pooling at the floor as the blade meets skin and my mother's life leaves her. She hits the stone floor with a thud, and Rosie's cries slide into uncontrollable howls. The terror is spilling out of her now. She hiccups, her blue eyes red and body shaking as the guards take hold of her, yanking her by the roots of her hair.

"Ceth!!" I scream, and for a moment, I think he might look at me. "PLEASE!!!!"

"For Ireodran."

"B-Brenna," she says as the blade comes down. "Brenna- Renna-" and then her blood is bubbling from the hack in her throat. Sweet Rosie's face is white and her teeth are red and nothing else will matter if I just take the blade and end myself with it. I can't see. I can't hear. I can't smell. But I feel the world stir as they let Rosie's dead body drop onto the cold marble. And then Ceth moves to my father. My dad.

Somewhere distant, my father urges me to look at him. I see him kneel of his own volition and look into my eyes. They aren't cold and glazed over like my mother's. They have life- whatever little one has in the moments before death. I hear him say my name: "Brenna," Dad says again. His eyes are determined. "Don't you let this be the end. Do you hear me, Brenna? Do you hear me?"

Ceth brings the blade down. "For Glalas." Blood spills, and my body seizes as Ceth drops him. But I no longer feel the sadness. I don't feel the anguish, the pain. I don't feel anything but rage. White-hot rage like I've never felt before. The end. It's here.

I see nothing past the rage now. Rage that no one's here to save them. Rage that I'm powerless. Rage and flame and regret when I look back at the person forced to restrain me. There's a battle raging in Gabriel's eyes when I look at him. Regret flickers through me. Regret that I never really knew the only person here to make me feel safe.

Please, I beg silently. Let me go. Help me.

Ceth's emerald eyes at last turn to me. Death looks upon me and smiles. Death strokes my hair back and lifts the edge of the blade to my throat. "Spes ultima moritur," Death says. Hope dies last. Ceth recites the curse and the crowd swells, waiting for the final blood to be spilled.

"You understand why you have to die, don't you?" Ceth whispers.

"You can stop this," I weep, but Ceth shakes his head slowly.

"Are you ready, witch?" Ceth's smile is death incarnate. His eyes are bottomless pits of green. His touch is like ice, caressing my cheek, brushing my hair back. My eyes drift to Simantha. She's still shaking as magic pulses around her, but I spot the lone tear that trickles down her wrinkled cheek. Sadness. Pity. All worthless. Help me.

"For Vervale," Ceth whispers, the blade pressing in. Death kisses my throat. The end.

I grip the cross in my pocket, pressing in until I feel the blade dig into my palm. And then I jam the blade hard into Gabriel's thigh. His grip on me loosens, and in an instant, I turn that white hot rage on Ceth. My body roars as I fight magic and sorcery and bonds never meant to be severed. My feet hit the ground. I turn that white hot rage on Ceth, grabbing whatever I can find to finally end this. To fight.

"No!!" someone shouts just as a blast of magic pushes everyone back. Ceth stumbles, and I only see Simantha's hands move once as she casts her final spell. But this spell isn't for Ceth. Ceth's eyes widen in realization. I'm not powerless any longer. Ceth is frozen, unable to move, and the blade that killed my family is in my hand. I feel death again. But rather than being kissed by it, I'm the one wielding it.

Swift as a wing-beat, hard as the might of a thousand tons, I plunge the same blade Ceth used down into his chest. Power pulses between us, between lords and ladies, between kingdoms and realms. Simantha falls forward. Surprise glimmers in Ceth's eyes as I sink the blade so deep it touches bone.

I am powerful. I am helpless no longer.

Ceth sinks into the cooling mass of blood I created. He chokes on his last breath, taking one last glance at the ceremony around him. At the crowd witnessing his downfall. At the witch who rendered him and his entire court unable to move. I take everything he's stolen from me and hold it in my hands. I rip the blade away, and Christian Shawcross falls to the ground before the ground.

Chaos erupts in the ballroom. People scream, the crowd disperses, and Simantha's spell is torn apart.

Someone is yelling at me. Someone else is running, swords blazing right for me. Through it all, I still look for Rosie. Her body lays so perfectly still by the stone pillar. I drop to my knees beside her, taking her chilled, wet hands into mine. I will her eyes to open and her lungs to breathe. Alive. I've saved her. I've finally gotten her back. We can finally leave this place. Together. We'll build a home again with mom and dad. Without pain and sickness. A home without gods and goddesses, witches and wolves. A home like before.

But Rosie's eyes don't open. She does not breathe. Blood still spills from her throat and now my fingers are covered in it. Covered in death. Covered in her. I'm so cold. The blood is so warm and my dress is so dirty. It wasn't dirty before.

"Brenna," I think I hear a voice call. Someone is calling me. "Brenna," Rosie says, but someone pulls me away from her. From Rosie. From home. I look at the person holding me now. They're talking to me. Their gray eyes stare into me, and for a minute, I stare back. Ceth's eyes aren't gray. "Brenna, we need to leave," the person says. They grasp my red hands and wipe them against their black sleeves, but all I can think is that my hands aren't warm anymore.

"Brenna." Gabriel touches my cheeks. Gabriel. The gala. Chaos. "We need to leave." I shake my head at him, and from across the stairwell, I see a boy staring at me. Just a boy with two green eyes watching the horror I committed unfold. Two green eyes. "Brenna." I killed Ceth. Right in front of his son. Gabriel touches my cheeks again, smoothing his thumbs over me, and then takes my hands carefully.

Guards surround us. Soldiers flank either side of the stairs, and two men I don't recognize have appeared, holding the soldiers off with silver blades that flash brilliantly in the lantern light. "Rin!" Gabriel shouts at the shorter, more muscled of the two- who expertly dodges a blade to the gut. "Meet at the snow landing."

"That's where we agreed in the first place, Highness," he calls, long blonde hair flipping over his shoulder.

One soldier slips past his defenses, and Gabriel twists, throwing a dagger that lands squarely in the soldier's chest. "Weylin," Gabriel orders: "Get her out. Now."

The taller of the two knocks a group of soldiers back down the steps with just a kick. He turns at Gabriel's voice, fighting his way through the soldiers to greet us. He holds out a hand to me, a question in his eyes. Because Gabriel takes his other hand, I will myself to accept it. The world goes white. The ballroom, the fighting, the blood all disappear with a sudden whoosh. And suddenly we're in the snow.