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  BURNING BRIDGES

  BURNING BRIDGES

  THE BLEEDING HEART TRILOGY

  VOL. 1

  NADÈGE RICHARDS

  Copyright 2012 © Nadège Richards

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, including photocopying, recording, or transmitted by any means without written consent of the author.

  Published in the United States of America in July 2012.

  Edited by Carley Zucco

  Book design by Silviya Yordanova | http://www.morteque.deviantart.com | http://www.facebook.com/MyBeautifulDarkness

  Model: Johanna Taiger

  ISBN: 978-1-4701-0279-1

  This is a work of fiction.

  All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  To Mom—

  for teaching me to shoot for the stars and never settle for the moon

  BURNING BRIDGES

  We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments. –Oscar Wilde

  PRESENT DAY

  O N E

  Echo

  SIPHON’S CITY, NEW HAVEN

  I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I was going to die tonight. There was no escaping it or any way around it. I couldn’t run from my destiny this time; I couldn’t hide. No, tonight I faced my fate in the chambers of death.

  The screams of the crowd in the arena filled my ears, the shouts of excitement and laughter boiling my heart down to nothing but untainted sorrow. I refused to open my eyes, but I could sense where I was by that rusty smell of metal and dried blood Father brought home with him every day. The shackles that bound my ankles and wrists to the wall confirmed it. I was a prisoner in my own home, my own Haven. I couldn’t fathom how in forty-eight hours my life had taken a one-eighty spin, but here I was, locked in the dungeon of my father’s kingdom, hidden from the world until it was my time to surface.

  “Echo… Can you hear me? Echo?” The voice’s intensity made me stir. I ignored it at first, but it just grew louder and more insistent. “Echo!”

  As I moved to sit up, the cold cement scrapped against my bare body, causing my scabbed wounds to bleed. My head felt heavier on one side than it did the other, and my torso seemed as flimsy as flax. I searched for the calling in the obscurity of the sector and found him chained to the opposite wall. It took me a second to orient his face from the rest of his body, but when I met those otherworldly, violet irises, reality struck me hard and cold.

  “You’re alive,” Ayden sighed. “Are you all right?”

  “Barely,” I croaked.

  Silence filled us as we stared at each other for what felt like forever. I wanted to touch him, to hold him again, but I knew there was no way. The chains on my wrists held me in place with barely a foot’s room to move. It was cruel.

  “Ayden, I—”

  “Don’t say it,” he interrupted.

  I frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “Don’t try to dissuade me from my decision, Echo. I don’t regret anything, nor did I ever.”

  I felt my knees begin to tremble then, tears welled in my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re going to go through with this? Ayden, that’s ludicrous. You can die out there!”

  He wouldn’t look at me and for a while he said nothing. “Do you remember the question you asked me that one day at the river? Do you remember what I said?”

  I nodded slowly. “I asked you if you believed in second chances and you said—”

  “Not until I met you,” he finished, his expression solemn.

  Not wanting him to see the tears that had come to my eyes, I glanced out the small crack in the ceiling. Very little light shone through, but it provided a sense of security that the dungeon surely could not.

  As the screams grew louder above our heads, Ayden and I listened to the Announcer call in the prisoners one by one. As soon as the horn was blown I could hear the clanging of swords and the sputtering of death threats as the two prisoners fought for their right to live.

  It frightened me to think only one person would come out alive; only one person had that second chance. When the crowd exploded in what sounded like exhilaration, I knew that one person was chosen. Blood seeped through the crack and dripped onto the ground beside me, its descent like a wakeup call for the both of us. Knowing that Ayden’s blood or mine was next to be splattered against the sands of the arena made me suddenly feel ill.

  “How can you be so strong in an ordeal like this?” I whispered to him.

  “I’m not,” he answered, misery rimming his tone. “I’m scared more than you can ever know. The fact that I can still see you and you’re very much alive gives me hope.”

  “I don’t want to die, Ayden,” I confessed.

  His chains pulled at the wall as he reached towards me, but he couldn’t get close enough. I looked away. “Echo, you are not going to die, don’t you remember our plan? I love you, hold onto that. They can’t take me away from you.”

  I stifled a cry. He was wrong, and I was certain he knew it as well. One of us was going to die tonight and by next week all would be forgotten. We would cease to exist.

  “Second chances, Echo. Do you believe in second chances?” he yelled.

  I didn’t look at him. The sound of the guards dragging the prisoner’s dead body across the sands was all I could hear.

  “Echo, look at me!”

  When I finally did bring my eyes to his I noticed his irises were darker than usual, his face red and masked with anger. “I love you,” he said. “I always have and I always will. I don’t care what the King says or what my people think of me. My heart belongs to you, always. Please, tell me you will fight for that?”

  The pain in his eyes made me feel small. I wanted to crawl up in the hearth of his chest and lie there for years. I wanted to go back to the time when we were free, but no such thing existed now.

  Before I could answer him, two guards covered in blood and scars broke into our sector and quickly unchained me. My screams echoed Ayden’s as we realized our time was over. Once unchained, they grabbed me by the waist and flipped me over their backs. Ayden’s shackles creaked in the walls, broke through the cement, as he tried to reach me.

  “Ayden, I’m so sorry. I’ll fight! Gods, I love you!” I shouted, struggling in the arms of my captors. Ayden’s anger matched my own.

  As they shoved me out the door, a hand caught onto my necklace. Ayden’s chains had broken and he was desperately reaching for me before the iron bars stood between us. But this outcome was inevitable. We knew it the first time we kissed, the moment we fell in love, the first night we spent together, and now. I watched him as I left and, not for the first time, wept.

  The guards brought me to the King and I slumped to the ground in front of him, the gown I’d worn the night before looking as dirty as the ground that lay beneath me. He was always my sense of direction, the man I thought to be my father, but I knew this time he was against my judgment.

  Throwing down a bloody sword, he said, “You’ve betrayed me, Echo. You know my rules, and yet you still defied me anyway. Henceforth, you will receive the greatest punishment of all, the only one I can bear to give you.” His eyes fell to the ground in a way that made it seem as if it were painful to set them upon me. He was disgusted by the mere idea that someone could love a peasant, a Hunter boy. But I had no shame, I had no regrets. I would fight.

  Before exiting the room and returning to his place in the arena, he glanced over his shoulder with the merciless gaze he gave to all his prisoners and said, “The boy you deceived me for will die by your hands.”

  T W O

  A
yden

  I could hear Echo calling my name as they pulled her down the hall. I screamed for her until my voice evaded me, but it was wishful thinking if I thought they’d return her. She was gone, and whether or not she’d be placed into the arena was to be determined, a fate that made breathing impossible.

  But I had a plan.

  I’d offer to fight two men at once, hoping I’d take Echo’s place. I’d win and I’d set us free. And even if I was denied, I’d fight with every last breath I had because she was worth it and just about everything else this life had to give. Despite my beliefs, I prayed to the gods that Adamo would follow through this time.

  One of the guards returned for me a little after I stopped hearing Echo’s voice and unchained my arms. “You’re next,” he barked. I’d known it was true, but not until it was said aloud did I realize the impact it had on me. It was like a tidal wave to my heart, careening me into the oblivion.

  I was next.

  “I wish to speak with the King. I want to offer him an agreement,” I said, as his bloody hands reached for me.

  “You’ll have time for that after. If you survive, that is.” He grabbed me by the shoulder and began to carry me out. Before he had me out the door, I made sure to take hold of Echo’s broken necklace, the only thing I was able to grab as they whisked her away. The glass pendent shone even in the darkness, the frozen bleeding heart a memory of what we shared but have now lost. I’d take it with me and hide it from the eyes of my captors because if they knew I had it, they’d surely burn it. If she was taken from me tonight, I needed something of hers to hold on to.

  The guards suited me up with armor and handed me an eccentric looking sword. Even though I was unchained, they kept a good eye on me. I was smart enough to know there was no way I’d overpower them if I tried to escape.

  We walked silently down the halls and through the wooden doors that led to pathways escaping into the arena, but my focus was on the gate that opened to the sands. As I stepped up, my heart went out to Echo; wherever she was, I hoped she was safe and alive. That she kept strong for the both of us.

  Trumpets played as the Announcer introduced me to the crowd. As I walked into the arena and my bare feet ground into the gory sands, people began to shout furiously and throw things down onto the field. Though some were even people of my own, I ignored them and continued to the center of the arena. I was ready.

  The Announcer pointed toward the door and I waited for the face of my opponent to appear. But as the doors slid open, my heart went slack. It was as if my eyes had deceived me.

  “So you all know the Royal’s royal secret by now,” he shouted. The crowd grew louder, pointing at me with fingers made for ridiculing. “I know, I know. It is quite shocking, but the King has found a way to settle this little tryst between the two once and for all. I’m sure it will please all of us in a heart-stopping way.”

  And my heart did just that.

  Echo came out behind the doors and stood fully suited in armor. She walked to the center of the arena and refused to look my way. Immediately, as if my feet had a mind of their own, I went to her.

  “Echo, please tell me this is a joke!” I sneered.

  A tear dripped from her eyes, but she didn’t say a thing.

  “Whoa there, lover boy. This is a fight to the death,” the Announcer said. “You’ve shared enough alone time with her, I think.” His big hefty hands pulled me away from her and the other guards crowded around the perimeter of the arena. I begged Echo to look at me, but she wouldn’t. Was she seriously going to betray me? What happened to our plan?

  The Announcer held a flag out and he slowly counted to three. The air grew still, a silence so tangible I could feel it running laps around me. The flag went down, the horns were blown, and the battle began. As if on cue, Echo circled me slowly and her eyes watched me like a piece of meat. When I looked at her—really looked at her—the hollow gaze she shot me gave way to the emptiness that was swallowing her whole. The sword in her hand was a bit heavy, yet despite her own strength, she held it with pride.

  She charged towards me then, sword coming up to stab my middle. Before I could block or even find a weapon of my own, it was jabbing into my shoulder. We were face to face, and yet she still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Echo!” I yelled, as her sword dug into my shoulder. “What’re you doing?”

  Her eyes met mine briefly and I saw a glint of remorse in them. Seconds, minutes, millennia seemed to tick by as she looked at me. But just as quickly, the look subsided and she was angry again. She withdrew the sword from my shoulder and raised it to my neck, my own blood spilling down the length of my shirt. My neck arched as I tried to retreat from the sharp edge, but my eyes remained on her.

  “I want you to take the sword, Ayden,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I want you to kill me. Do it fast and don’t hold back.” There was a challenge in her eyes.

  Right then I knew she had no plans to kill me. It was simply an act to pleasure the hearts of the civilians, but I’d been so ready to fight anyone—whoever and whatever—that I never stopped to think about the possibility that my life would have to go by the one I loved.

  There was no way I was allowing her do this.

  “No. Echo, you finish this. Do you hear me?”

  “Ayden, I can’t. Don’t you see? Life without you is no life at all. Take the sword and kill me. You’ll live.” She pushed the sword closer to my neck, eyes darting between me and the guards.

  She was being ridiculous and stupid. Although I understood, knowing she died by my hands would burden me with the sickest sorrow.

  “Do you believe in second chances, Echo?” I asked her.

  Her face contorted in confusion. “Ayden, not—”

  “Do you?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She nodded again.

  An idea dawned on me, and even though I knew it was a thought at the spur of the moment, I went with it. “Take a chance on me. We’ll escape here and lead our own lives. Just you and me. We’re not going to die like this, not now.”

  This brought tears to her eyes, but I knew they were tears of joy. “Ayden, we can’t. They’ll stop us and they’ll kill you. The King only put me in here because he knows I am the better swordsman; Shadow told him.”

  I asked her again. “Do you trust me, Echo?”

  Hesitantly, she lowered the sword and said, “I do.”

  The crowd erupted with anger, some shouting out their frustration while others started pushing their way to the arena. At the same moment, the guards took notice of our unity and trudged forward to break us apart. But one look at her told me she understood. Whether we lived to see tomorrow or died here in this arena, our souls would always live as one.

  The two of us against the two guards.

  As we prepared to fight until death, I knew we’d slowly started a revolution. We were burning bridges one by one.

  5 WEEKS EARLIER

  T H R E E

  Echo

  THEDIBY, NEW HAVEN

  The warm August wind blew across my skin, sending tendrils of chills down my spine. Though I was without my shawl, I welcomed the whipping cold for all that it was worth.

  I should have been happy; after all, today was the day I would finally dine with my dearly betrothed. The feeling that consumed my heart said otherwise. I was horrified, and to say the least, scared out of my wits. I tried to push the thoughts away, but to no avail, they continued to overwhelm me.

  “Echo, what have you? You seem lost,” Everlae whispered from behind me, her hands tangled in my long, dark tresses as she twisted them into an intricate chignon.

  I looked away, lost in the evergreens of Thediby. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking—”

  “Thinking what?” she asked, the hint of anxiety lacing her tone. Her Thedibian accent was always strongest when annoyed.

  “I don’t know about this. Father is all worked up and Mother can barely contain
her excitement. Why do I feel like I’m the only one concerned?”

  “Perhaps because you are,” she said, pulling her attention back to my hair. “Prince Noah is a perfect fit for you, do you not see? And he’s lucky to have someone as beautiful as you.”

  I rolled my eyes and refused to believe her. Everlae was wiser as my older sister, but Noah Eastman was an egotistic ninny. He cared little about anything, save his inheritance and the dishonored wench he snuck up to his chambers when he believed I was unaware. It was only because of his father, the King of Delentia, that he had finally chosen to take me as his bride.

  “All finished.” Everlae sat with her back against the big oak tree, staring at me with sheer admiration. “A work of art, if I do say so myself. He’s going to love it.”

  Shrugging lazily, I said, “No matter. He won’t be looking at my hair anyway.” I fingered the laced edge of my bodice, remembering the way Noah had stared at me at the ball last winter, prior to our first meeting. It was as if I were a slab of meat to him, a possession—a title—to be owned.

  “I don’t love him.” I spoke between clenched teeth and my fingers continued to knead the lace. “I won’t love him. And I don’t care what Father says, Ever, I will not be happy.”

  Everlae opened her mouth to speak, her eyes flashing that stone grey of our father. “You shouldn’t say those things, Echo. You know this is your duty, so why do you fight it? Silas and I are happy. We may have started off on the wrong peg, but we’ve grown on each other. Just like you and Noah will.”

  I sighed, feeling utterly defeated. “I suppose you could be right.”

  With that, Everlae’s mood seemed to brighten a little. “Of course I’m right. You were always so strong, Echo. Did you know I envied you for the first three years of your life?” She laughed silently to herself. “Everyone always spoke about you being the family’s next heiress after Caesar—how courageous you would grow up to be. I presume they were correct.”