The auran chronicles 3.., p.1
The Auran Chronicles 3 - Season Warriors & Wolves, page 1
This is for you reading this book. If you have made it this far into this series, this book is my love letter to you. Thank you for loving this story despite its many flaws.
PS: Mother, I beg, put the book down. I know you still wish this was a self help book, and it is a self help book, just…not the kind of self help you're thinking of.
PPS: This book is pretty spicy. Keep a glass of milk nearby.
Note from author
Content Warnings
Please read through content warnings before going into this book.
Gore, death, mutilation, murder, war, torture, mention of child torture, decapitation, blood, vulgar language, self harm, suicide, violence, child abuse, emotional and physical abuse, loss of loved one. Depiction of panic attacks, anxiety, depression and PTSD. Scars, alcohol abuse, hallucinations, derealisation and dissociation, mention of infertility, mention of genocide, mention of grooming and domestic abuse. Mention of stillbirth and stillborns. (Check my website under this book title for specific chapters and paragraphs. Please, feel free to email me or message me for a more detailed layout).
And lastly, explicit content. This series is intended to be read by mature readers (18 +) as there are many, many explicit scenes.
Contents
The Aura I
The Aura II
Fullpage Image
Prologue
Part I
1. White Pawn to E4
2. Black Pawn to E5
3. White Knight to F3
4. Black Knight to C6
5. White Bishop to B5
6. Black Pawn to A6
7. White Bishop to A5
8. Black Knight to F6
9. White Kingside Castling
10. Black Bishop to E7
11. White queen E2
12. Black Pawn to B5
13. White Bishop to B3
14. Black Kingside Castling
Part II
15. White Pawn to C3
16. Black Pawn to D5
17. White Pawn to D3
18. Black Pawn takes E4
19. White Pawn takes E4
20. Black Bishop to G4
21. White Pawn to H3
22. Black Bishop to H5
23. White Bishop to G5
24. Black Knight to E5
25. White Bishop takes E7
26. Black Bishop takes F3
Part III
27. White Queen takes F3
28. Black bishop takes E7
29. White rook to D1
30. Black Knight to D6
31. White Knight to D2
32. Black Pawn to D6
33. White Knight to F1
34. Black Queen to C7
35. White Pawn to A4
36. Black Rook to D8
37. White Knight to G3
Part IV
38. Black Knight to C8
39. White Pawn takes B5
40. Black Pawn takes B5
41. White Knight to F5
42. Black Knight to B6
43. White Queen to E3
Part V
44. Black Knight takes F5
45. White Pawn takes F5
46. Black Pawn to C5
47. White Pawn to F6
48. Black Pawn takes F6
49. White Queen to H6
50. Black Pawn to F5
51. White Bishop takes F7
52. Black Queen takes F7
53. White Rook takes D8
54. Black Knight to A4
Part VI
55. White Pawn to B3
56. Black Knight takes C3
57. Checkmate
Endgame-Five years after
The Castemonts
To be continued
Acknowledgments
About Author
Series Reading Order
. Chapter
Prologue
Toss. Black or white?
I’d been holding my breath past the point I could see straight. But if I breathed, I’d feel the cold bodies slither over my skin and wrap around my limbs. Feel their scales scratch my unhealed wounds. Or their weight straining my tied wrists even harder against the chains holding me upright.
The hisses had turned to a distant echo and my consciousness slowly began faltering, my body surrendering to the hold of the chains. Though each time I did slip away, the sting of fangs etched into my flesh and muscle jolted me awake, to keep me aware of what they were inflicting on me and of their cold presence.
The shiver crawling up my skin reminded me of a memory I had locked away with more than will and magic. Father used to lock me in these pits to train fear out of me when I was younger. I had taught myself not to blink and barely breathe loud enough to make sure I wouldn’t pass out while cold and scaly long bodies had brushed mine, encircled mine and bit mine to the point I had not woken for days. The memory was a silent dog whistle father used to remind me of fear though he had used it to strip me of it—he only had wanted me to fear one. To only fear him.
But there was no fear I felt.
Hatred. Burning hatred. Red and raw. It boiled quietly inside of me, inside the hearth they had failed to extinguish, a slow hearth of embers that suddenly caught flame again. It was overpowering. And it felt so…good. So disgustingly good.
Even deep within the walls hiding me, I could feel the vibrations of the rumbling thunder outside little before the chains binding me heated up and tightened, branding my skin with unbearable pain.
The serpents climbing my body dropped to the floor and skittered away from me, coiling and wrapping around themselves, tucking their heads in.
That…that was fear.
It was silent. Until the trickle of blood seeping from my wounds slowly dripped from the red metal and onto the damp floor that barely grazed my feet. The sound bothered me more than the ache of my stretched limbs, or the burns and the cuts, the hunger or the fog.
Father was taking pleasure in my insanity.
And so were the gods.
Do you take pleasure in my insanity, too?
A hand patted my cheek. “Who are you talking to?”
My eyes hurt to open. To stare at the woman who had robbed me. “The only one listening.”
She fluttered her pale lashes, leaning close to my face and whispering, “I’m glad you are up for a conversation. I’ve come to have a little chat with you.”
“We spoke. Not a while ago.”
Her bony hand wrapped around my jaw, black painted nails digging into my cheeks. “Are you losing your mind so soon?” She chuckled, giving my head a shake. “What did I say in your little head?”
“Don’t know. Don’t speak snake, bitch.”
She slapped me, hard, and I laughed harder. So hard it hurt. And it hurt so good.
“You don’t speak to me like that,” she bellowed, the sound reverberating.
“Mel, it’s too late to play mommy with me.” My eyes dropped to her stomach hidden between layers of Isjordian tulle and lace, and it made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe. “What a strong heartbeat from such a small thing. You might not have a red heart for me to pluck out, so thank you for growing another one.”
Her mouth quirked up in a cruel sneer and she raised a brow at me. “I’ve got the Night Prince locked just a few corridors from you. Perhaps he will be eager to answer me.”
“Pass him my greetings,” I said, slightly bowing my head to her. Was she so gullible? The man was made of death, while she bowed to it. The only answers he was getting out of him were cocktail recipes.
“You will tell me where your Olympian friends hide, eventually. Whether I take an eye or a kidney out of your—” she said, trailing a finger down my tattooed band of blessing curving around my ring finger, “brother-in-law.”
“Is that what you wish to know? Where Olympians hide? That much I’ll tell you.”
Her brows hiked up. “Isn’t that just sweet. Do tell.”
I leaned forward as much as the chains would allow me, and whispered, “My father’s nightmares.”
Her jaw ticked and she stepped back, shouting to the guards as she exited, “Throw the snakes back in with her and don’t take them out until the floor is covered in her blood.”
My chest rattled with the shaky breath I drew to laugh one last time. “Oh, Melanthe,” I cooed over the echo of her steps retreating down the corridors. “I’m going to rip you apart without touching one single bit of you.”
Chapter One
White Pawn to E4
Snowlin
My cheek rested on a damp floor, and all I could see between my burning eyelids was a pair of black leather boots that had stomped on my limbs restlessly for what I’d counted to be hours. They were coated with specks of crimson, soaked with blood—my blood.
He kicked my stomach hard and turned me on my back, resting a hard sole right over my neck to cut whatever little flow of air was entering my lungs. “Not fighting anymore?” Renick snarled, pressing harder.
He’d folded his sleeves back to keep the blood from staining his shirt, revealing skin that was no longer marked by our bargain. Where the band of magic had once been, now remained only a strip of mangled and burnt scar tissue. Which part of his soul had he sold to have it removed? Did he have any worth selling?
Though lightheaded, I managed to conjure one of my charming smiles. “Neither did your daughter.”
He hit me again and again, til
I kicked my head forward with whatever energy I had left, knocking him back. “You’re right. I haven’t.” Then I hit him over and over, until all my knuckles had broken, my skin chaffed and stained with his blood. Till I felt no need to scream. Till I’d silenced my anger again. I leaned into his ear. “My friend did. Sucked all the air out of her little lungs. I didn’t kill her, but I did watch life leave her body little by little after she told me everything I needed to know about you, Nick dearest. You should have not broken our bargain.” I trailed the back of my hand against his forehead. “How will I see you suffer now? It was going to be so good. You were going to suffer so, so…good.”
There was nothing.
No satisfaction.
Given up, I laid there beside him, feeling life seep out of me from all bleeding corners. I should be thinking of nothing. My mind should be empty.
But it was not.
Hot tears brushed my temples, my vision blurring.
It was not.
All I could see with my eyes open was her. All I could see with my eyes closed was still her.
Bleeding.
Lifeless.
Slain.
Show them hell, she had told me. But what hell would give me her back?
Demir tsked as he entered the room, his mouth curling in distaste at Renick’s twisted remains. “Remember what I told you?” he asked, squatting before me. “Everyone you kill will rot in here with you. And we’ve got to get rid of rotten flesh one way or another. The snakes will have to return.” He cocked his head to the side, studying the fresh bite marks all over me. “We don’t want that, do we?”
“He is not dead,” I croaked right about when Renick groaned and rolled to his side. He shook like a slighted beast, baring his teeth to me. “Why would I kill him when someone else can do it for me?”
The Bruma Commander scrambled to his feet and limped to me, but not fast enough.
“If he dies, who will keep feeding Verglasers mirk root to kill them for me,” I said a moment too late for him to strike me silent.
Demir spun round and pried him off me, gripping his jacket. “What is she talking about?”
Renick’s eyes had gone wide enough to pop out of their sockets. “Nothing. How can you trust a word she says! I told you all of her lies and deceit. She lies again!”
“For about years before I returned to Isjord,” I revealed, pushing myself to my corner. “To make them more powerful and please father. But they die. Quick. And no one knows because he sends them off to die in missions as a disguise.” I turned to him. “Have I missed something, Nick?” Did he really think I needed to weaken my father’s army this much as to let him hurt me more than I needed him to hurt me?
“Lying bitch!” he spat, trying to get to me again. “Olympian scum. She is lying! Always lying.”
Chuckling, I rested my head back on the wall. “Yeah, yeah.”
Demir narrowed his eyes on me over his shoulder, still not letting go of Renick. “If you want me to kill him, you’ve got to give me more than that.”
And so it started. I’d delayed them enough.
“Taste their blood, sailor boy.”
Renick clung to his clothes. “It is not true. It is not true, Demir, you have to believe me.”
“Farewell,” I murmured, watching him get dragged away like a dog.
What was one pawn? Nothing. I’d sacrificed worse.
Forty one days—it was almost the end of it. The end of was supposed to be my taming. Father had not changed his ways. It was the very fault and let down of Isjordians—their mechanistic and engraved ideas and old ideologies that they wrote, set in stone and enforced for the remainder of their lifetime. What a fault to have. Predictability.
First, they tried to beat the fight out of me. Though I did not fight back at all. There was no fight to fight back. Whoever beat me was too weak to satiate my thirst for blood. And whoever ordered them to beat me wanted to submit.
So, I gave them submission.
Though my skin had cracked and bruised, and my bones ached and groaned, there was not the slightest protest that I gave up. The more I hurt, the more I rose above caring about it.
It pleased them for sure. But I would argue that I was a people pleaser.
Then they starved me.
A trick humans use to teach their pets obedience. I obeyed though I'd barely starved myself out of the thing that fed me most—violence, pain and anger. Food fed the human, and the human in me was weak. Soldiers did not fight for you because you filled their stomach with food, they fought for you because you fed them rage. A full stomach sent you to the toilet, anger sent you to battle.
Once my father had taught me submission, obedience and starvation, he would come for the next thing.
Power. My power.
And power I would give him.
The air was thick with dust and smoke enough to make me cough every minute of my eternally long days, and like every time I coughed, the taste of blood weighted on my tongue and the groans of pain crawling up my throat slowly became uncontainable. I couldn't feel a lick of my magic, not only because of the craft chains sucking in every bit that flowed out of me, but because the whole room I was locked in was painted corner to corner in craft runes that glowed red the more I struggled, the more I fought to draw power.
So tired…I was so tired.
The three figures who had granted me a visit every day for the past month or so stood silently still before me. One had their features pulled in disgust, the other pursed with impatience and the other was simply and merely…silent.
Nothing. There was nothing in Demir’s face which had always been so brightly painted with his emotions. “I still don’t understand what game you are playing at.”
“Come closer,” I said, peeling my body from the damp floor. “I’ll explain it to you.”
He crouched down till we were face to face. “So?”
And in the midst of having my heart ripped open, I decided that if they were to take my heart entirely, I would rip theirs too by doing what only I know how to do best—dish out retribution. If she had been alive, she would have tried to convince me otherwise. Would have tried to make me reason. She…she would have reminded me that I have all I want. But she was not here.
“No game.” This was war.
He huffed. “You did not give up till the bitter end. That little trick you played with the lords and the walls cost us months of work. You did that to give time to the Night King, and you are doing this to give him more time.”
“You’re not as smart as you think you are, sailor boy. Time?” That made me cackle. “I’m simply petty. Imagining my father’s face when those walls came down has been my greatest gift these days. I dream about it. Fantasise about it. It keeps me well alive. How many died crushed under rock and cement? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? More? How many guards has he stationed over the ruins from fear that everyone will want a piece of his frosted cake? Bet it could all be seen from the height of Islines.” Slowly, I crawled closer to him so I could see the colour change on his green irises—so I could finally see his emotions betray him. “Won’t it be just so unideal if the old Krigborns knew the challenge to the throne? Wouldn’t it be just so unfortunate if they knew that father had no one lined up and eligible to take his crown? No son, no brother, no daughter—not one he can crown at least. An unborn child is no heir. Fren is the pure consequence of unfortunate reproduction, she is no queen.” I clicked my tongue. “And if I might take a wild guess, father has not found Reuben where he sent him to be.”
His brows pulled together, and he stood so quickly that the poor man got one and a half of a whiplash. There. Pure realisation. “So, you are playing.”
“No. Not me,” I said, leaning back on the cold wall of my cell. “But someone is. I just happen to have a piece of cheese on a string and the rats gather just like that”
“You have no connection to the outer world.”
“How certain are you about making that bet?”
“Very.”
I rolled my head back to look at the stained ceiling. “Give me a day.”
