Ever So Lightly- Book 1

5

Kade watched through the broken window as Zephyr led the lieutenant and soldier into the alley behind the shop. After they could no longer be seen, he pulled his eyes away and let them fall on the body lying just inside the window. The pool of blood that had been steadily growing beneath the woman seemed to have stopped.

Kade then moved his gaze to the lifeless soldiers that littered the shop. A smile slowly formed on his lips, his eyes nearly glittering in the dark as rain ran down his face. If anyone had been in the street in front of the bookshop, if they were paying close enough attention, they might have noticed the rain falling at odd angles in front of the window. Kade wasn't the least bit worried of being noticed though, not at this late hour with the storm still raging above.

With the store now being empty of any living beings, Kade stepped inside, releasing the energy he was holding on to. He could almost feel his body come back into sight, transparent tendrils of his image growing upwards from the floor, quickly increasing in solidity until he could be fully seen. He walked over to the soldier who had lunged for Zephyr and had been the first to fall. The shock of his sudden end could still be seen on his now pale face.

Kade thought back to what he had witnessed while watching unseen through the window. He couldn't be sure about what precisely Zephyr's Gift was, but he was confident that she indeed possessed one. If he had to guess, Kade would say she had somehow manipulated the air surrounding the men, from the way they had seemed to suffocate. She had been stunning, the wind blowing her shining silver locks into a frenzy around her face, contorted beautifully by hatred, her eyes glowing unnaturally as her Gift came forth. Kade had seen few who possessed a Gift so powerful, and even fewer who lived past meeting him. Though his Gift of vanishing was not inherently formidable, his connection to the queen made him a force to be reckoned with.

He looked down at the sword sheathed at his hip, a gift from Queen Lorelei after he had eliminated his last target, a man hiding in the capital who could control fire. The weapon was exquisite, the pommel formed into the head of a snake whose etched body wound its way up the rest of the hilt and onto the base of the blade, where the tail split into two more snake heads. All three sets of snake eyes were filled in with gemstones, one ruby and one onyx for each head. The sword was nothing short of magnificent, but it's beauty was overshadowed by it's history.

Forged in the flames of the now inactive volcano within the Doelith Mountains, the steel of the blade was made nearly unbreakable. The sword was made for Bastion Farrington, the first member of the former Counsel to fall to Queen Lorelei. Renowned across Auros for his expert swordsmanship and Gift of controlling the serpents represented on his sword, Farrington had stood confidently against Lorelei, only to be reduced to nothing more than a feeble, whimpering shell of himself by the youngest member of the Counsel. The queen had gifted Farrington's sword to Kade not only as payment for tearing down any who opposed her, but also so that it could be a reminder to her enemies, proof that even their strongest couldn't stand against her.

Pulling his gaze away from the weapon and turning back to the scene around him, Kade once more took in the bodies littering the floor of the shop. He smirked at Agitha's body and the pool of blood beginning to dry on the floor around her. The queen's order to do away with Agitha had been sent to Kade by one of the queen's messengers, a man with a vacant, almost despondent look in his eye who had said nothing, and after handing Kade the letter had immediately turned his horse around and headed back toward the capital. That was how it was with most of Lorelei's less important lackeys, men and women who seemed as lifeless as a child's doll, who blindly, unquestioningly followed every order and whim of their queen. Kade wasn't privileged with the knowledge of exactly what it was that Lorelei could to do to turn her deviants into mindless creatures bent on doing her bidding, but he knew that she had no qualms with using her Gift on any who she felt she needed to. He tried his best to stay on her good side.