Burning Bridges: The Bleeding Heart Series, #1

PROLOGUE

Echo

PAST—YEAR 2053

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Mother was lying and my father knew it.

They stood together in the empty hall, their voices a hushed murmur. It was perhaps the only time I’d ever seen them standing so close.

Echo, why are we here? Issy whined from behind me, her small hand tugging on my dress.

It’s Mother, I whispered. She’s crying.

But the guards, Echo! Something is happening!

I swung around to meet Issy’s frightened eyes and my footsteps faltered. There was no missing the blaring horns, the screaming people beyond the palace walls, and then the way my little cousin held her breath as we crept through the barren hallways to follow my parents. She trembled right there in the heels we’d stolen from my sister’s closet.

Take my hand, I told her, reaching out in the darkness. We’ll lock ourselves in my chamber the second I know what they’re talking about, I swear it.

B-but...it can’t be so important, Echo. Not possibly!

Is, you wouldn’t understa—

Father’s voice quieted and Mother yelled out, Who’s there? Diana, is that you? She moved to peer around the corner, but I pulled Isobeli away and we huddled between the shadows.

Mother had worn her only red gown tonight. She’d had it prepared weeks before and it truly looked better on her than on the mannequin, as Everlae had said it would. She’d also said that tonight would be the happiest night of our lives. As I watched my Mother turn away with sadness in her eyes, I knew no happiness would find us this night. Nor the next.

Maybe not for a long time.

With my head pressed against the cold, marble wall, I whispered, You must trust me. Mother doesn’t just walk out on guests. My father is keeping something from us.

What do you suppose is happening? Isobeli asked breathlessly.

My father had a hand on Mother’s shoulder, and he held her while she cried for what felt like hours. It was such an open display of affection on his part that I was taken aback.

Why her, Cyrus? Mother bawled. Why our baby?

"The gods have chosen her, Abriel. She’s been chosen; I had no say in the decision."

Lies! Mother fired back, and the floors shook. She moved from his arms and her face was as red as her dress. This was to be Caesar’s night. Everything I’d planned for her, everything I’ve buried—

Let it go.

Just like that, Father had silenced her. My heart scuttled in my chest and cowered somewhere in the pit of me. I’d been holding my breath without even realizing it.

What did she mean?

What did he mean?

You’ve known this day would come for a long time, Father continued.

Yes, Cyrus, but not Echo! Not my baby! They can’t have her. With a step, Mother was in front of him again. I-I told you what I’ve seen, what I know. Echo just isn’t ready for this, Cyrus!

"Then get her ready!"

She simply cannot! She never will be.

With a burst of realization, I knew they were talking about the heir to the New Haven throne. It wasn’t exactly something you put much thought into as king. You had an eldest and he was a son. You crowned him heir, and when he came of age, he was the royal. Father had that with Caesar, his one and only son, and Caesar had fared well. Isobeli and I had always assumed it’d be him.

Echo, I don’t understand, Isobeli mumbled through tears, her grip on my arm tight. You can’t be Qu—

My mouth opened, but no words came out. Just clipped sounds that fell off the fragmented sentences I couldn’t form. No—no, it wasn’t true. Perhaps I’d gotten it all wrong.  Not me.

Don’t speak it into existence, Isobeli, I thought with my eyes screwed shut.

My ears heard different.

"Echo will be Queen, Abriel. You will teach her and she will be great."

"No. No, I can’t! I won’t, Mother said, shaking her head vehemently.  Please, do not make me ruin her!"

My gaze slid over to my Father, the king, and where I expected to see sympathy, I saw cold indifference instead. You will and you must.

They were his final words before leaving her, and I still couldn’t quite grasp their meaning, their solidity. Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me chanted:

You will be queen. Echo Abbeny will be queen.  You...will be queen.

Mother crumpled to the floor in her red gown and it flared around her like a river of crimson. What have you done! she bellowed to no one but her shadow. My knees buckled beneath me and I slid to the floor, my gaze vacant as I tried to take in all that had just happened. Isobeli screamed to get my attention, but I couldn’t hear her—not completely.

What had Father done? I couldn’t possibly be... queen, could I? He’d made a mistake. He had to take it back.

Make him take it back, Issy, I whispered. The tears in my eyes wouldn’t fall and Isobeli was bawling now. She trembled more than I did and her hands on my face were alarmingly cold.

Cold. Like my Father.

My Queen! a guard called, running down the hall. He helped Mother to her feet, but she continued to weep even in a stranger’s arms. We must hurry, he said. Hunters have breached the border and they make haste.

Haste? Mother uttered. When the words hit her, she panicked almost immediately. "The border? They come here now?"

The guard nodded. I must get you to safety. The king— He moved to grab for her, but she pushed past him.

My baby...where’s my baby? The thought of righting her hair or her makeup didn’t even occur to her. Mother looked feral. "I go nowhere without them, you bastard. You bring them back!"

My Queen!

Mother ran out into the hall, the dark lines of her ruined makeup running down her face, and stopped the second she heard Isobeli’s crying. I still hadn’t turned my gaze from the wall in front of me, but I heard her give a relieved sigh when she found us together in the corner.

Echo will be queen.

Isobeli? Echo? my mother called. Oh gods, you’re all right.

Auntie Abriel!

Please, do not let me ruin her!

Mother’s hands touched my face and she quickly brushed back my sweaty tresses and tucked them behind my ears. She did this more out of habit, consolation, than anything else. And I still couldn’t look her in the eyes.

Echo, darling, look at me. I’m here, she said over and over again. Momma’s here, and I’m not going anywhere. I swear it. Her warm lips brushed my forehead and, finally, as if some glacier in me had melted, a tear slid from my eye.

Momma... I glanced down at my hands as if they held all the answers, and the only words I could manage were, I can’t.

Mother was gearing to say something, hopefully something akin to an explanation, but four other guards rushed us from the end of the hall. Beside me, Isobeli cried louder.

Queen Abriel! They come! they shouted.

When Mother took my hand in hers and Isobeli clung to my dress, I didn’t fight it. I let the tears fall freely; I welcomed the anger.

We were thrown into a small closet beneath a staircase and Mother gathered us in the back to hide us between the clothes. When Isobeli continued to cry, I took her hand in mine and said, Hush, now. Everything is fine.

My mother, Echo, she—

Is safe, Mother told her. She boarded up the door with coats and shoes and blew out the light. When all was quiet and Mother lay her head back on the wall, her small frame cradling my own, I heard her say, Everything is fine, girls. Everything is all right.

I didn’t want to say a thing, because I knew she spoke more to herself than she did to me. Outside the door we heard footsteps...and then sorrowful screaming.

Everything will be okay in the morning, Mother continued, and she sang. She rocked back and forth as she held me, her words empty. "Echo will be queen. She will be great, and I won’t let them have you."

Although I had every reason to be afraid, I buried my head further into my mother’s lap and held Issy just a little tighter.

I trusted Mother. I did.

So when a tear slid from her eye and fell to my cheek, I promised I’d do it for her. I promised to make her happy again, to see her happy again. In her red gown.

Yes, Momma, I uttered, and beyond the door the world erupted.

ALWAENIA, 2065

Present Day

CHAPTER 1

Echo

SIPHON’S CITY, NEW HAVEN

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I was to die this night.

There was no escaping it or any way around it. I couldn’t run from my destiny this time; I couldn’t hide. No, tonight I faced my fate in the chambers of death.

The screams of the crowd in the arena filled my ears, the shouts of excitement and laughter boiling my heart down to nothing but untainted sorrow. I refused to open my eyes, but I could sense where I was by that rusty smell of metal and dried blood the king had brought home with him every day. The shackles that bound my ankles and wrists to the wall confirmed it. I was a prisoner in my own home, my own Haven. I couldn’t fathom how in forty-eight hours my life had taken a one-eighty spin, but here I was, locked in the dungeon of my father’s kingdom, hidden from the world until it was my time to surface.

Echo...can you hear me? Echo? The voice’s intensity stirred my consciousness. I ignored it at first, but it just grew louder and more insistent. Echo!

I moved to sit up, the cold cement scraping against my bare body, causing my scabbed wounds to bleed. My head felt heavier on one side than it did the other, and my torso felt as flimsy as flax. I searched for the calling in the obscurity of the sector and found him chained to the opposite wall. It took me a second to orient his face from the rest of his body, but when I met those otherworldly, violet irises, reality struck me hard and cold.

You’re alive, Ayden sighed. Are you all right?

Barely, I croaked.

We stared at each other in silence for what felt like forever. I wanted to touch him, to hold him again, but I knew there was no way. The chains on my wrists held me in place with barely a foot of slack to move. It was cruel.

Ayden, I—

Don’t say it, he interrupted.

I frowned. How do you mean?

Don’t try to dissuade me from my decision, Echo. I see it on your lips. I don’t regret anything, nor did I ever.

My knees trembled and tears welled in my eyes. Don’t tell me you’re going to go through with this? Ayden, that’s ludicrous. You can die out there!

He wouldn’t look at me and for a while he said nothing. Do you remember the question you asked me that one day at the river? Do you remember what I said?

I nodded slowly. I asked you if you believed in second chances and you said—

Not until I met you, he finished, his expression solemn.

Not wanting him to see the tears that had come to my eyes, I glanced out the small crack in the ceiling. Very little light shone through, but it provided a sense of security the dungeon surely could not.

The screams grew louder above our heads, and Ayden and I listened to the Announcer call in the prisoners one by one. The horn was soon blown and I heard the clanging of swords and the sputtering of death threats while the two prisoners fought for their lives.

It was frightening to think only one person would come out alive; only one person had that second chance. When the crowd exploded in bloody exhilaration and the cold sand beneath us shook, I knew that one person was chosen. Blood seeped through the crack and dripped onto the ground beside me, its descent like a wakeup call for the both of us. Knowing that Ayden’s blood, or mine, was next to be splattered against the sands of the arena made me suddenly feel ill.

How can you be so strong in an ordeal like this? I whispered to him.

I’m not, Ayden answered, misery rimming his tone. I’m scared more than you can ever know. The fact that I can still see you and you’re very much alive gives me hope.

I don’t want to die, Ayden, I confessed. And it was true. All those tales and myths about Death I’d heard as a child rushed to mind and now left their mark on my soul.

Death was infinite; I knew that now.

Death was forever, unlike us.

His chains pulled at the wall and he reached towards me, but he couldn’t get close enough. I looked away. "Echo, you are not going to die. Don’t you remember our plan? I love you...hold onto that. They can’t take me away from you!"

I stifled a cry. He was wrong, and I was certain he knew it as well. One of us was going to die tonight, and by next week all would be forgotten. We would cease to exist.

Second chances, Echo. Do you believe in second chances? he yelled, coercing me to believe—to believe in him—with his words.

I didn’t look at him. The sound of the guards dragging the prisoner’s dead body across the sands was all I could hear, all I could think about.

Echo, look at me!

When I finally did bring my eyes to his, I noticed his irises were darker than usual, his face red and masked with anger. I love you, he said again. I always have and I always will. I don’t care what the king says or what my people think of me. My heart belongs to you, always. Please, tell me you will fight for that?

The pain in his eyes made me feel small. I wanted to crawl up in the hearth of his chest and lie there for years. I wanted to go back to the time when we were free, but no such thing existed now.

Before I could answer him, two guards covered in filth broke into our sector and quickly began to unchain me. My screams echoed Ayden’s as we realized what little time we had to prepare ourselves for the inevitable was over. Once free, they grabbed me by the waist and flipped me over their backs. Ayden’s shackles screeched in the walls as he tried to touch me, even one last time.

Ayden, I’m so sorry. I’ll fight! I shouted, struggling in the arms of my captors. His anger matched my own. The tears that came burned my cheeks. Gods, I love you!

As they shoved me out the door, a hand blindly caught onto my necklace and I was jerked upright. Ayden’s chains had broken and he desperately reached for me before the iron bars stood between us. However, this outcome was unescapable. We knew it the first time we kissed, the moment we fell in love, the first night we spent together, and now. I watched him with sad eyes as I was carried away and, not for the first time, cursed the forsaking gods who’d left us to this Hell.

The necklace fell and I was gone.

Time didn’t matter.

The guards brought me to the king and I slumped to the ground in front of him, the gown I’d worn the night before as dirty as the ground that beneath me. He was always my sense of direction, this man I thought to be my father, but I knew this time he was against my judgment.

He threw down a bloody sword. You’ve betrayed me, Echo. You know what is law, and yet you still defy me! His words ran rampant in my mind. Henceforth, you will receive the greatest punishment of all, the only one I can bear to give you. His eyes fell to the ground in a way that made it seem as if it were painful to set them upon me. He was disgusted by the mere idea that someone could love a peasant, a mere Hunter boy.

I had no shame, I had no regrets.

I would fight.

Before exiting the room and returning to his place in the arena, he glanced over his shoulder with the merciless gaze he gave to all his prisoners and said, The boy you deceived me for will die by your hands.

CHAPTER 2

Ayden

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I could hear Echo screaming my name as they pulled her down the hall. I shouted for her until my voice evaded me, but it was wishful thinking if I thought they’d return her. She was gone, and whether or not she’d be placed in the arena was to be determined, a fate that made breathing impossible.

But I had a plan.

Or at least I had one now.

I’d offer to fight two men at once, hoping I’d take Echo’s place. I’d win the king’s favor and I’d set us free. Even if I was denied, I’d fight with every last breath I had because she was worth it and just about everything else this wretched life could offer. Despite my beliefs, I prayed to the gods that Adamo would follow through this time.

One of the guards returned for me shortly after I stopped hearing Echo’s voice and he hastily unchained my arms. You’re next, he barked.

I’d known it was true, but not until it was said aloud did I realize the control it had over me. It was like a tidal wave to my heart, careening me into the oblivion.

I was next.

I wish to speak with the king. I will compromise, I said as his bloody hands reached for me.

You’ll have time for that after. If you survive, that is. He grabbed me by the shoulder and began to push me out. Before he had me out the door, though, I made sure to take hold of Echo’s broken necklace, the only thing I was able to reach when they pulled her away. The glass pendent shone even in the darkness, the frozen bleeding heart a memory of what we shared and had now lost. I’d take it with me and hide it from the eyes of my captors, because if they knew I had it, they’d surely burn it. If she was taken from me tonight ... Hell, I couldn’t even fathom the idea.

I was suited in seedy armor obviously worn by another, and a bloody double-edged sword was thrust into my hand. Even though I was unchained, they kept a good eye on me. I was smart enough to know that I’d get nowhere if I tried to overpower them and escape. However, that didn’t stop me from eyeing the staircase leading to the palace.

We walked down the ruddy halls of the pit and through the wooden doors that led to pathways escaping into the arena, my focus solely on the gate that opened to the sands. As I stepped up and placed my feet on the red X, my heart went out to Echo; wherever she was, I hoped she was safe and alive, that she kept strong for the both of us.

Trumpets played, then the Announcer introduced me to the crowd. I walked into the arena, my bare feet beating the gory sands, and people began to shout furiously and throw things down onto the field. Though some were even people of my own, I ignored them and continued to the center of the arena.

I was ready.

The Announcer pointed toward the opposite trap door and I waited for the face of my opponent to appear. When the doors slid open, my heart went slack and I unclenched my fists. Surely my eyes had deceived me.

"So you all know the royals’ royal secret by now! the announcer shouted. The crowd grew louder, pointing at me with fingers made for ridiculing. I know, I know. It is quite shocking, but the king has found a way to settle this little tryst between the two once and for all. I’m sure it will please all of us in a ...heart-stopping way, eh?"

My heart did just that.

Echo came out behind the doors and stood fully suited in armor. She slowly walked to the center of the arena and refused to look my way. Immediately, as if my feet had a mind of their own, I went to her.

Echo, please tell me this is a joke!

She stood silently, a lone tear falling from her eyes.

Whoa there, lover boy. This is a fight to the death, the Announcer said. You’ve shared enough alone time with her, I think. His hefty hands pulled me away from her and the other guards crowded around the perimeter of the arena. I begged Echo to look at me, but she wouldn’t. Was she seriously going to betray me? What had happened to our plan?

The plan.

The only plan that made any of this worth a damn thing.

The Announcer held a flag out and slowly counted to three. The air grew still, a silence so tangible I could feel it running laps around me. The flag went down, the horns were blown, and the battle was called. As if on cue, Echo circled me slowly, her eyes watching me like a pillager would its victim. When I looked at her, really looked at her, the hollow gaze she shot me gave way to the sorrow that was swallowing her whole. The sword in her hand was too heavy, yet despite her own strength, she held it with some semblance of pride.

She charged towards me then, sword coming up to stab my middle. Before I could block or even find a weapon of my own, it was jabbing into my shoulder and slamming me against the cold arena wall. We were face to face, yet she still wouldn’t look at me. 

Echo! I groused through clenched teeth, her sword digging into my skin. What’re you doing?

Her eyes met mine briefly and I saw a glint of remorse in them. Seconds, minutes, millennia ticked by in that one look. Just as quickly, it subsided, and she was angry again. She withdrew the sword from my shoulder and raised it to my neck, my own blood spilling down the length of my shirt. I arched my neck, trying  to retreat from the sharp edge, but my eyes remained on her.

I want you to take this sword, Ayden, she said, tears in her eyes, and I want you to kill me. Do it fast and don’t hold back. They’re looking. She dared a glance up at the second floor, talking all the while. Make it look as if you’ve overpowered me. I don’t have much time to explain, but—

Do you hear yourself right now, Echo?

I knew then that she had no plans to kill me. It was simply an act to pleasure the hearts of the civilians, but I’d been so ready to fight anyone—whomever and whatever—that I never stopped to think about the possibility that my life would have to go by the one I loved.

There was no way I was allowing her do this.

No, I whispered. I pressed my neck into the blade and kept my gaze on her. Echo, you finish this. Do you hear me?

She let out a small cry. Ayden, I can’t. Don’t you see? Life without you is no life at all. Take the sword and kill me. You’ll live!

Echo was being utterly stupid playing with Death like this. Although I understood, knowing she died by my hands would burden me with the sickest sorrow.

Do you believe in second chances, Echo? I asked her.

Her face contorted in confusion. Behind her the crowd raged. Ayden, not—

Do you?

She nodded. Yes.

Do you trust me?

With my life.

Then don’t leave me to do this alone. I pushed away the sword and Echo took in a breath of air like she’d been physically restrained. We do this together.

This brought tears to her eyes, but I knew they were tears of elation. Ayden, we can’t. They’ll stop us and they’ll kill you. The king only put me in here because he knows I am the better swordsman; Shadow told him!

I asked her again. Do you trust me, Echo?

Hesitantly, she dropped the sword. I do.

The multitude erupted in anger, some shouting out their frustration while others started pushing their way to the arena sands. At the same moment, the guards took notice of our unity and Echo’s lowered sword, and trudged forward to break us apart. From above we heard the king yell out from his throne, And so the gods have chosen! Kill them—kill them both!

And to think this is what our two havens depend on, I thought bitterly. The bastard.

Ayden... Echo’s small hand slid into mine and it was pure instinct to hold her close. She was trembling terribly, but one look at her told me she understood. Whether we lived to see tomorrow or died here in this arena, our souls would always live on.

Maybe not here, but somewhere.

And so it was the two of us against all of New Haven. We prepared to fight until death—to fight what was hopefully our last fight—and I knew we’d slowly started a revolution.

We were burning bridges one by one.

THEDIBY, NEW HAVEN

CHAPTER 3

Echo

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The warm August wind blew across my skin, sending tendrils of chills down my spine. Although I was without my shawl, I welcomed the whipping cold for all that it was worth.

I should have been happy; after all, today was the day I would dine with my betrothed. The feeling that consumed my heart said otherwise, however. I was horrified, and to say the least, scared out of my mind. I tried to push the thoughts away, but they continued to overwhelm me.

Echo, what’s the matter? You look lost, Everlae whispered from behind me, her hands tangled in