Chapter 1 One

“Cupid! Run! Take your mother, find a closet upstairs and hide! Now!”

I nodded shakily, took one last panicked look at my father and ran as fast as I could up the stairs, holding my mother up with one hand while she limped and carried my baby sister.

Crash!

The front door smashed inwards before we even reached the top of the stairs, and I could hear my father bravely draw his sword to defend us against the intruders.

We rushed into my bedroom, my mother half collapsed against the closet wall where we hid, with both hands pressed to her wounded leg.

“Cupid. You have to escape. The King! The Dragon King has come for you!”

“What for? Why me?” I whispered in confusion.

“There's no time to explain, sweetheart. But you have to go, now!”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to...”

A burning beam came down from the ceiling above us, and I threw myself over her, feeling the heat of it graze my back before it crashed to the floor three feet away, scattering embers across the closet floor.

Outside, the sky was black as ink, sheets of fire dropping from above, and the screaming from the other houses on our street had been growing louder and louder.

I worried whether Lyriel, my best friend, was safe somewhere or if he was screaming along with them.

The Nexium soldiers had come in the night, marching across the streets, setting fire to our houses and destroying everything in their path.

There was no warning, no declaration, nothing. One second, we were all asleep, and the next, there was fire and then screaming, and my father’s voice from downstairs yelling for us to go hide while he fought to protect us.

I was 120 years old then, 15 in human years. Old enough to understand what was happening, but too young to do anything about it but hide with my mother.

Clang Clang The sound of sword fighting and grunting rang loudly from downstairs.

My baby sister Imi was pressed into the corner behind my mother, crying and screaming with fright, her small hands fisted in the back of my mother’s shirt.

The wound on her tiny arm had soaked through the cloth I’d wrapped around it. The gold blood of Heartkind seeping through the fibres.

I got back to my knees and pressed both hands over my mother’s leg again to put pressure on her wound.

It was nasty, one deep jagged line running from her knee down to her toes; it was a miracle she could even manage to walk.

“Stop,” my mother whispered. “Cupid, listen to me. You have to go.”

“No.”

“You are the only one of us who isn’t hurt. You can still run before the King gets here, you can still—”

“I said no.” My voice broke apart. “I’m not leaving you and Imi, I won’t, you can’t make me—”

My mother grabbed my face in both her hands, gold blood smearing across the dirt and ash on my cheek, and looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her before.

“You are our last hope. One day, you will save us from the Nexium King and end this war. I have seen it in my visions,” she said quietly. “But if you died… it would doom us all.”

She took off the golden amulet necklace on her neck and quickly pulled it over my head, “This will hide you from the Dragon King’s evil eyes. It will protect you. Now go!”

I heard a low, pained groan come from downstairs, the sound of someone collapsing to the ground, then silence.

I gasped, realising with horror that my father had lost the fight. He was dead.

Suddenly, boots were pounding up the stairs, growing louder as they got closer.

My mother closed her eyes and started frantically whispering, praying, “I beg you, great goddess. Please come to my aid and save my children!”

“Please,” I whispered. “Mom, hush, they’ll hear us.”

In that instant, someone ripped the closet door off its hinges and threw it to the side.

He was the largest living thing I had ever seen. A giant in black armour, holding a sword already dark with blood that I knew was my father’s. He glared at us, his black eyes full of cold hate and moved to strike.

My mother whispered one final prayer, but he moved so fast.

He grabbed her by the throat and ran his blade across it, slicing her neck open, cutting her prayer off mid-word while she gurgled blood.

“Mom! No! ” I screamed.

I threw myself across Imi, covering her with my own body, hearing her crying for her mother underneath me, her fists grabbing at my shirt as I screamed up at the soldier from the floor.

“Please! I beg of you! Please spare her, she’s just a baby, she doesn’t understand! Please take me instead, just let her go, please—”

“Die,” he said, his dark, empty eyes cold as ice. “Heartwalker swine.”

The sword came up.

I grabbed Imi tighter. “I’m so sorry Imi. I wish I could’ve protected you better. I love you. I hope I can be your sister again in the afterlife.” I whispered to her, even though she was too young to understand the words.

I put one hand over her eyes to cover it, then I shut my own, and together we waited for death.

“Enough!”

The soldier stopped immediately, his sword stoppíng barely an inch from my back.

I opened my eyes only a little.

He, the owner of the voice, approached the closet doorway one slow step at a time, his dark, chilling presence filling the frame, drawing all eyes to him.

The King of Nexium.

I knew him from the horror stories my parents told me around the campfire, King of the Nexium Dragons, eternal enemy of the Heartwalkers who only brought evil, spite and hatred to the realms.

Beware the coming of the Dragon King, the villagers would whisper to their kids as bedtime stories, beware the eater of worlds.

But their descriptions had not done him justice. He was tall and broad and majestic, skin as dark as cooled volcanic rock, and eyes that burned with fire from somewhere deep inside him.

A robe of ominous dark smoke trailed behind him as he walked, and his royal insignia of the Hydra, the snake with many heads, was engraved deep into his left temple.

He was horrific and terrifyingly beautiful, towering over us like he was a god and the rest of us were tiny, insignificant creatures.

He glared at the three of us in the closet with a hatred so complete, I felt he had worse in store for me than death itself.

His soldiers dropped immediately to one knee, awaiting orders, but the king ignored them and crossed to me.

I tried to scramble backwards out of his grasp, but it was useless. He reached down and lifted me off the ground by my hair until my feet left the floor while I bit down on a scream.

“Open your eyes,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly.

I opened them fully, my eyes stinging with dust and tears from pain and grief.

“Please,” I begged, “Do what you want with me, but don’t touch my sister.”

He looked at me for a long time, his terrifying fire eyes burning into mine. His head tilted slightly, and a faint flicker of recognition crossed his face.

Suddenly, he dropped his head, pressed his face to my neck and inhaled deeply.

I was too terrified to move or breathe or do anything at all except hold Imi’s hand where she stood crying beside me.

Then he pulled back.

“You,” he said quietly. “What are you? Where have I met you before?”

I said nothing, frozen in fear. My tongue couldn’t work long enough to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, or better yet, tell him to rot in hell for starting this war that killed my parents and destroyed my home.

He grabbed my face roughly and turned it left and right, examining it, while I whispered: “Please, please let her go, please.”

But he wasn’t listening; he was searching for something in my face that he couldn’t find.

I felt the amulet on my neck grow hot against my skin, thrumming with magic, and suddenly he blinked, then he threw me to the ground in a heap.

“No,” he said, almost to himself. “You are not her.” He moved toward the door to leave.

“All Heartwalkers, makers of affection and weakness, must be destroyed. I will make sure the whole world forgets what love ever was, starting with this putrid village.”

“She is not the one I seek. Kill them,” he finished.

The soldier pulled out his sword instantly, while another soldier dragged my crying sister out of my grasp, taking her away with him.

“Noooooooo!!!!” I opened my mouth and screamed with everything I had.

“Cupid!”

I screamed louder.

“Cupid, wake up!”