He hated it, the guilt. 

Something clawed at Walker's chest the moment he realized that Conroe had fallen with the driftwing. After all, Walker had been the one to convince him to travel, despite his father’s warriors. 

Which only meant that they had to move as far away from the border as possible. Even though the warriors had no way of knowing if he was on it, that wouldn’t stop them from comin...

It had been said that silence could reveal the truth if you allowed it to linger long enough to listen. Darcie realized now that perhaps the words were a truth of its own. 

The silence that hovered in the frozen air was as stifling as any truth she’d discovered, her only reminder at how alone she had just become. Something she didn’t want to be at the moment.

It was the type of silence that had ...

Since the Kaidos warriors retreated in the night, Darcie had spent the day sitting next to her fathers grave whispering her goodbyes on the salty breeze. She’d picked through the remnants of her burnt home, scavenging what she could while tears fell to the mossy ground.

Nothing. She had nothing left.

What had once been a grand wooden cabin tucked along the forested coast was now nothing but soot...

Fires exploded across the land, leaving Darcie Whittle to flinch as she curled further into the disintegrating alley wall. Nose scrunching, stone scraped against her back as rocky debris fell to her feet.

The very walls trembled.  

Kaidos warriors flooded the streets, searching for Aurens to slaughter. They were out for blood and Wynthril was crumbling despite their best effort. Smoke curled in ...

The river stared back, angry and wild and roaring, just ten feet below. 

Black and grey, the bottom was endless––something Isolde and Warren had no interest in touching if they could help it. If they could manage to cross without falling. 

Yet their lives dangled in the misted air, the forested expanse stretching for miles as they inched closer to the fallen tree, its trunk wide and slick with d...

The darkness pressed in, quiet and heavy. Patient. Waiting. Just like every other nightmare Walker had ever dreamed.

It was a suffocating void, choking as if it had hands of its own, making his pulse throb like ice beneath his skin. The only reminder of that dreadful isolation he hated so much. Still, not a trace of warmth stirred in his veins.

Not a single trace of his fire.

Walker supposed ...

**The whistles began, birds chirping at the break of dawn. Singing in a way that set Philip's heart soaring the moment his eyes opened. Crisp rain filtered in through the cracked van window, the sun just warm enough to make waking in the cramped space bearable. Droplets of rain cascaded down the glass like a trail of happiness, searching for a place to call home.**

****

**Yet Philip didn’t have on...

Malice filled Belamy’s chest, lips sneering as she curled her fingers and watched three souls wither across from her. Their bodies crumpled, falling into a heap on the creaky hut floor.

They had a deal with the witch, and she came to collect. 

Wisps of white light floated in the air before they were sealed in glass jars––now forever hers to do what she wished. Sometimes she ate them, sometimes she...

I saw it then––the happiness he wore. The easy smiles and carefree laughs. And I knew it was something I’d never be able to have, despite how badly I wanted it....

A single day had passed when they announced it. That people's lives would soon come to an end, wiping everyone off the earth within seconds of hitting. 

Yet Evie couldn’t bring herself to care. 

Not that she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t. Her feet dragged on the pavement, pace slow and leisurely as she strode forward, gazing at the darkened sky. Stars winked at her, as if they knew wh...