Chapter 1
Evelyn

The world sits coated in an earth shattering silence, the rain beating the ground like a thousand bullets being shot off into the dark.

The first thought that comes to mind is simply this: life.

I have lived through the impossible and by some miracle or curse, I am still alive. When I look at the burgundy gossamer curtains and through the windows they frame so delicately, I see an endless stretch of trees and a million flowers livening the forest floor.

Life. This is what life looks like.

The air smells faintly of wild berries mixed with the kind of ash that leaves an awful taste on one's tongue. Adrenaline still runs a river through my blood from the chaos of just an hour ago.

The smell of burned flesh and the tang of scarlett blood is a ghost that follows my steps through the empty halls of a manor that's not entirely mine.

Aaliyah, Leander and Draven had spread out through the various rooms of the home as soon as we had landed in the foyer. It's a very real possibility that we could spend weeks in here without ever seeing one another.

It's been one hour. One hour since the three spread out to collect their thoughts and calm their minds. They can take as much time as they need to regroup, but I'm afraid that I have no such luxury.

Rory Nivirah had informed me that Moonstone is in chaos without me there to deal with the aftermath of a battle hard fought and lost anyway.

Demons push at the edges of my mind and I fight for control over my person. If I am to be around other beings, then I need to be collected enough so that my power doesn't lash out at any and every perceived threat. More often than not, everyone in the room is some sort of threat.

Not even an hour and Valerie has dumped a pile of reports on me to process and file through. Just twenty minutes ago I had sent her on one of the most dangerous missions fathomable. She should be in Varkeshia now, playing the desperate refugee.

What plagues my mind is the question of who survived the carnage of those dreadful fires and the slaughter that had ensued. I don't know what kind of person would knowingly allow their people to be killed for the sake of a war strategy, but it's my best card. I am not awful because I am not human.

I rub my eyes, trying to dispel the ache in them from the incessant smoke that had seeped into my every pore. I stretch my legs out and yawn like a cat who's just woken up from her third nap of the day.

I don't bother to change because, with a flick, all the blood on me had been gone an hour ago. Now my clothing was pristine after another wave of the hand. The ruby crown still sits atop my head, digging into my skull as a reminder that I am still alive.

The ringing in my ears had long stopped, but the faint feel of it still follows me to my dressing table as I look at myself in the mirror, my skin unmarred.

As I turn away I catch another glimpse of blood-red hair. The image triggers a warmth in me that I've never felt the equal of. I swiftly turn back to the glass only to find it devoid of any such color.

My eyeshadow is bordering on perfection and my face is as pale as ever. There are only a few scratches on me, but I don't bother to fix them. I need to look like I've just fought a battle and those scratches are the evidence of survival against the odds.

With half a thought shadows and smoke are engulfing me in their lovely embrace of cold reassurance.

The throne room had not been spared fire's fury.

I walk down the hall that leads me to the endless stares of lost lambs. A man stands at the door- a different one from before- and he readies himself to announce me. My list of titles is sure to be spouted off this time and I have no desire to kill him right now, so I'll just have to take another route.

His voice is a rasp into the silent dark as he starts, "Evelyn Ashfire Forrester Augustine Violetta Night Aculiac, born of the gate and void, descended of Azura Aculiac, High Queen of Varsillia, Royalty of the Upper Ether ley lines-"

Deciding to cut off the mans long serenade of all the things I've done and the responsibilities I've assumed over the years, I open the doors, brush past him and I don't stop my march to the throne until I'm standing on the raised dais, staring out at a battered people.

The room looks as if a stage four hurricane had torn through it and left nothing untouched. The throne is the only thing in the room that's been spared the onslaught of destruction. It had been spelled long ago to never break.

This is perhaps the only time I've been in this room when the people were silent long before my entrance. Chaos had been the wrong word for Rory Nivirah to use. This is not chaos, this is defeat.

They are afraid and showing it. Masks are off and being carefully reconstructed but off all the same.

Every person in this room had seen me kill a few hundred people with a lazy, idle, motion. If they hadn't seen me, they've most likely been told by now. They should be afraid of Varkeshian, but they aren't. They fear the monster in their home more than the one about the encroach on it.

I swallow down emotion and don't skip a beat as I refrain from laying across the throne. I sweep my gaze out over the congregation of people, seeing blood coated hair, scratched up faces, frowns, and expressions of great ware on the soul. A lot of them died today.

I allow myself to choke out a laugh that holds no amusement, "Azura Aculiac had once gazed out at a crowd much like this and she had said, "welcome, my people of pride and power." I look around now, standing where she stood and I see a room full of beings at war with themselves and war with the enemy as a second thought. Those who died were out for themselves and not Varsillia."

I sober my tone and try to keep neutral. This is a losing game we've all been forced to play. Maybe I'm too tired to care or my mind has just convinced itself to just say to hells with it, but I let my eyes shine with the emotion that I always- always- keep in. I swallow, my throat bobbing with the motion as I attempt to force water down a dry passage. "With unequivocal confidence, I can say that the bloodshed here proves that Varkeshia is a very real threat. I can ensure no one's safety, but I can swear that by the end of this we will be free, one way or another. Sloppy efforts stop here and now. We, as a people, need to become what our foremothers could not be- united."

Such silence echoes its careful dance of plotted moves through the broken image before me. I close my eyes off once more, done with giving for the day. Now I just want to go back to Riverside and be done with this festering hole of hate and fear.

With bones of sin and a broken heart of betrayal who's been drenched in cold loneliness and burned to the last, I disappear as quickly as I had come into being. A taste of foul ash takes my place as I fall into my private chambers at my home in the in-between.

A meeting with the council of nines- at least what's left of it- and then I'm headed to New Orleans to sway a certain witch queen to my cause.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that this war will forever be remembered, that a lot of people will want to be a part of it. I know that this is the time for hard choices, for people to be let down, to be killed or saved.

War is coming- no, war is here- and it will not relent, so neither will I.

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