Death is immortality.
Death is your second chance.
Velian Terrashine belongs to a classless society of equality, art and democracy; a land full of creativity and mindfulness. It is in that perfect political system that one wrong movement, one carele...
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THE MORNING HAD COME and passed by in what had seemed to be mere heartbeats. I'd been sleeping from the moment Denfer had walked out of the infirmary till the moment my mother had come to visit me. A sleep so deep and heavy that I hadn't even realized the storm that had replaced the burning sun of yesterday.
"I need you to be as calm as a dead person when they test your blood. I need you to not show any sign of rush or terror if they find something. Your blood will glow only if you panic or feel some extremely negative emotion. Am I being clear?"
Mom's voice was the only thing giving life to this room, and I tried to stretch my right leg only for my whole body to start shaking from the crippling pain. Clasping the bedsheets tightly, I closed my eyes and let out a sound of hurt I couldn't keep contained to myself any longer.
Even though I wasn't supposed to be making the slightest move, I couldn't sit around all day watching the physicians and the doctors giving me advice about the recovering process of a fractured leg and providing me with salves and medications.
I tried to straighten my back, but my right leg felt so heavy that I couldn't even change into a sitting position. Rolling my eyes, I murmured a quiet yes to my mother as the last thing I could offer to her. We'd talked several times in the past about the way my blood glowed each time distress took the upper hand. My childhood had been an endless cycle of either trying not to fall and bleed or learning how to control my emotions, bury them in the blackest corner of my heart to make them fade to nothing. Green, brown, hazel and grey eyes were an outright sign of magic's existence. Glowing blood was the tangible proof that someone needed to be executed, the proof that magic was present and real.
Mom's dark blonde hair billowed in messy curls over her shoulders and even though she used to dress like every day was a celebration, today her eyes betrayed her. There wasn't that sparkle of joy and grace that would always accompany her fine looks. It seemed like I hadn't only let myself down but my family as well.
Her face leeched of color as I gripped her wrist and said, "I know what to do, Mom. But in case something goes wrong . . ."
The pause was the result of the guilt that slowly crept in as I realized the lie I'd just let slip out of my lips. Everything would go wrong, there was no doubt about that. I would make it go wrong.
"In case something bad happens, I want to say thank you for keeping me alive and hidden for twenty-one years. Even if they weren't the best, they were all I had and at least your presence in them made everything worth it. I want to say that I'm sorry and that . . . I'm just sorry, I guess."
The words flowed and flew around the room, striking terror in her heart, something that was instantly visible in her eyes. I avoided her gaze.
"What are you even talking about, Velian?" she asked.
I didn't want to be here, but I also didn't want to go anywhere else—especially to a utopian kingdom supposedly no one in Lantra knew of. Here, everything would be the same, the planets would always orbit in the same direction, the sun would always rise from a certain place and I was tired of having to rise and keep myself busy, of having to be creative and productive and all the things I would never be while trying to contain what lived inside me by murdering every negative emotion. When fear and sadness and desperation won, I didn't want to witness everything that boiled in my veins and made my blood glow be revealed to everyone.
