This is not treachery.
This is freedom.
In the middle of Heaven and Hell, the days of rain and mist are long gone. Now, the Gap World is a kingdom of light and darkness, goodness and evilness, sunshine and clouds. When clandestine forces weave toget...
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THE DUST HADN'T SETTLED. All I managed to see was Denfer stretching out a hand and catching an arrow that was supposed to find my heart. The latter almost stopped beating the moment Denfer broke the shaft in half and threw the ruined arrow to the road. Suddenly, I was glad that before we'd stepped out of the Castle of Sunlight, Denfer had commanded two of his trusted guards to follow us on their horses and in the kind of distance that provided us with both secrecy and safety.
What had started as a serene night in the city with the downtown bars being relatively empty and no pair of boots echoing on the cobblestones, had ended with a handful of people shouting at each other.
Wrong.
Squinting my eyes to see better, I found that they were shouting at a man who was laying unconscious in the middle of the road.
But that didn't matter at all.
Not when the woman, whose arrow had threatened to penetrate my body, left the crowd behind her and started running toward us. I didn't know how I managed to pull the reins and make the horse stop in time, but I did it. Denfer was off the horse immediately, sword in hand and pointed at the woman in front of us, who should probably be in her mid-thirties. As for me, I turned around to see if the others were coming for us, as well. They weren't. They were too busy kicking the bleeding man in his stomach to care about us.
"One step closer and you're in Hell," Denfer said to the woman, voice steady, face unfaltering.
She took a step back, a hand covering her mouth, as if she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she was standing before the king. She quickly collected herself, muffled her surprise and said, "The only one who should go there is the killer you carry with you, Your Majesty."
Jumping off the horse as well, I willed my magic to awake because I needed to be ready for the worst-case scenario. I watched the woman tossing her dark hair out of her equally dark eyes, pinning Denfer with a look, as if she hadn't been threatened by a man with a sword; as if she didn't have the king of the Gap World standing in front of her. She was drunk, I could see it in her daring smile and her shaking hands. But I knew that even if she'd been sober, she would have said the exact same things.
An edged chuckle came from Denfer. "Stupid people believe stupid rumors."
At that, the woman snapped her head to me and said, "The rumors are true. She killed her guards. And you still let her walk amongst us like she's some innocent woman. In that ancient prophecy she was called the Leader of Hell for some reason. Do not ever forget that, Your Majesty."
Denfer held his breath, and for a moment I thought he was going to lose his temper. I wouldn't be mad if he did, but it wouldn't really help us, either.
