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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GOLDEN.
All I could see around me was golden. From the elaborate tapestries that illustrated crowns and flowers in the darkest shade of the color to the curtains that spoke of luxury and aristocracy. The shades were endless, some of them lighter, as if the sun itself had created its kingdom here, and some darker, but still sweet as honey.
I dared a look at the green marble floor. Again, scattered splashes of gold decorated it, adding a tone of brightness and richness to it. The grandiosity everything in that room radiated was breathtaking. A palace that hadn't been built on the ashes of a fallen kingdom but on the bones of an upcoming empire.
As I lay half-asleep and half-awake in the softest bed I'd ever lounged in, the chandelier that was full of crystals in different colors and shapes made my eyes hurt. A comforting feeling of refreshment and hopefulness was spread all over my body and my mind, like there was something worth anticipating in the near future.
From the cloaked and armed sentinels pacing around the enormous room, I could understand that I was being kept in a golden cage and the realization that my plan hadn't worked hit me like a hatchet in the heart.
My attempt to be forever gone and away from everything had utterly failed. For me, I was in the middle of an enormous room and not a clock was placed on the walls around me. All the mindless wishes and dreams that I was in some waiting room in Heaven vanished the second two figures entered the room. Tall and imposing, I clenched my fists on impulse, my jaw tightening. All the possible options regarding what they might be started dancing around my mind. I could still be in Lantra, in some secret castle before my beheading. That was possible. That could be real.
"She's awake," the woman with the shoulder-length auburn hair said first, approaching my bed. Her long night-black dress with hues of crimson red on the sleeves made the curves of her body point out in the most flattering way possible. I'd never seen her before. And that dress . . .
It was provocative and scandalous and left nothing to the imagination, something no artist in Lantra would have ever chosen to wear. For it wasn't made of soft colors and ethereal flowers but of pure darkness and wild madness. She couldn't be from Lantra.
I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what was about to happen. If I valued my life, I would have been drenched in sweat by now. But . . . I didn't care.
As the woman waved a hand over my eyes to test if I was conscious, I willed myself to look and sound emotionless as I said, "Of course I am."
She laughed, not with a sarcastic, almost evil tone, but a heartwarming one that could announce surprise from continents away. Her black eyes were smoldering, almost cheerful. Her light brown skin immersed her in a darkness that wasn't dreadful or miserable, but powerful.
Next to her stood a man with messy brown hair, the face of a criminal with edgy cheekbones and a raw stare.
"You can go ahead and act like you can't get out of bed for however long you want to, but I'm sure you'll get bored of it." His playful and teasing voice didn't match the sharp edges of his chin, the rough characteristics of his pale face.
