This is two chapters from the first novel I ever tried to write. Please note that it contains adult themes. I force my keys into the lock and turn, the tinkering claws of Poppy already thrashing on the other side to greet me. My bag hits the laminate flooring with a gentle thud as I scratch behind her ears, the house still smells of bergamot. I call for my mother, and without response, I kick off my burgundy loafers and jeans right there at the door. I pull an almost dry, oversized band t-shirt from the airer and swap it for my burnt orange blouse, sticky with a day of London heat and sitting against old woollen public transport seating. I pour myself a glass of water and add an inch of orange cordial, chugging the whole glass at the sink. I open my emails on my phone and sure enough, confirmation blinks on my screen, announcing its arrival with a blue dot. Hi Suki,  
We are so excited to have you on board – I am sure you are looking forward to your adventure. Your tickets will arrive over the course of the next few days – please make sure you check your junk mail just to be safe. Your rooms have been booked at all of the venues, and we will forward over the contact details of the managers for you to coordinate timings etc. As I mentioned earlier today, breakfast is booked for yourself, but your friend will have to pay additional charges if she wishes to join you, I have attached a PDF which includes any add-ons you may wish to take advantage of, I would highly recommend our spa facilities in our Dubrovnik hotel. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
 
Regards, Frances Morton
Creative Director
Hemmingway Hotels I scan the email again, and open the attachment. 5 pages with purple titles and photographs of glittering azure pools and plush king sized beds greet my eyes, addressing each hotel with its location and facilities. I lock my phone and grab a plain rice cake from the cupboard above the empty kettle. My mothers house is largely the same as it was eight years ago. Me and my sister’s rooms remain as though we still occupy it’s walls but with a few extra bits of clutter in the wardrobes and under the beds that do not belong to us. I left London two weeks ago. Squeezing my life into my mothers red Ford Fiesta, and her boyfriend Tony’s silver Skoda. Now it was neatly organised into labelled boxes and vegetable crates I had taken from the delivery driver at work, stacked between her loft space and attached garage. The day before yesterday, I’d severed my final ties with London. Cancelling my gym membership which I hardly used, and my subscription for a local artists work space, where I would process my films in their dark rooms on a biweekly basis. I had occupied a black mould-riddled double room in a shared house of seven in Kentish Town. A couple who spent their days under the covers in a haze of cannabis and lavender incense, three musicians and a student midwife. I had moved to the city eight years prior to study and stuck around, hopping between dingy studio flats and house shares, subsidising my income of below-par photography commissions with bar jobs. The hours had me walking home whilst teenage boys delivered morning papers on blue bikes in their school uniform. Between the minimum wage, part time hours and scattered photography jobs, I had forged a life in London that in my teens had been embellished with late night negronis, hopping from meetings to shoots with my leather camera bag and MacBook, having hot sex with musicians and columnists and never looking back to the town I had come from. I look out the window. It is 6pm and the corner shop’s yellow lights flicker to dark. The last place for wine or cigarettes until the following day. The house has become silent and dark as I have sat here. I don’t even notice the lack of a rattle as the train passes, the thrum of a bus pulling away from its stop. I was ready to leave London because it left me behind a long time ago. It is Saturday morning and I am two days away from leaving for my first stop in Florence. My legs are folded on the sofa in cycling shorts and a t-shirt full of holes at the hem. I open my laptop. I triple check the emails from Frances, and email my flight tickets to Tony’s PC to print. I mindlessly delete the emails for 20% off homeware and discounted gym memberships and stop at the fourth email in my inbox. _Subject: I’m sorry. _The heat rises to my cheeks and I flex the muscles in my neck and open the email. Suki, I’m not sure what to say. So I just want to wish you the best with your trip, I only ever wanted the best for you. W I had met William on a Tuesday night in a comedy club. He was writing columns about up-and-comers and I was killing time after my shift had been cancelled next door just ten minutes before I was due to clock on. I was eating peanuts and drinking a lime and soda when he asked me what I thought of the lanky 21 year old on stage, dragging out an anecdote about young marriage. I shrugged. “It’s not really my thing, I’m just waiting for the rain to stop so it’s better than standing out there.” We talked about working in London, about university and self-employment and The Guardian. He told me how he had been writing half-asleep columns for four years but wanted to write about fishing laws and immigration and gentle parenting. He told me his wife was a painter who spent her evenings in a studio painting commissions for hotels. How they swapped shifts at 6pm to parent their five and three year old sons. I told him how I had moved to London to be a documentary photographer. How I was going publish books and tell stories with images and tour exhibitions of my work all over the continent. The rain subsided and he gave me his card. “I am good friends with Simon the creative director – give me a call and maybe we can arrange a meeting, if anything he might be able to give you some sound advice?” He placed a white formal card in my hand and I slipped it into my khaki coat pocket. I ran to catch my bus, sliding my headphones over my ears and running my thumb over his name. William Reed, Journalist. A week and a half later, William met me in an industrial coffee shop with rustic tables and steaming mugs served on cork coasters. We ate doorstop slices of banana loaf and he told me about his family. “We sleep in separate rooms now. She’s my best friend really, we just don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. We parent the kids and we have a nice house and I think that’s just how it will be now.” I nodded in sympathy. His eyes were kind and blue. His mousy blonde hair flopped over his eyebrows and he would brush it out his line of vision every couple of minutes. It was rare I had this kind of attention from a man, and this man in particular was fourteen years my senior and I felt like I was playing the game of grown ups again. I had found his wife on social media the night before. She was tall and slender, with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. A Swedish beauty next to my Viking-like build and ripped jeans. My intimate experiences had been minimal in my few years of sexual activity and William sparked a curiosity that I couldn’t ignore. He asked to see my photographs and I told him they were mostly analogue, and they were at home. “Do you want to come back to mine for a cup of tea, and I can show you?” “I’d like that.” It went slow and then it went fast. He kissed me with carelessness on the edge of my bed before tearing off my clothes. His hands were heavy and hasty and he breathed “_are you on the pill?” _in my left ear. I nodded and his weight was on me. I opened myself to him and he groaned. I felt relief in the pleasure I had brought this man who had not received it in so long. He lasted less than ninety seconds and kissed my forehead before rolling to rest on his elbow beside me. “Your turn,” he said through smiling teeth and he ran his palm over my stomach. I rested my palm on his fingers. “No, I mean don’t worry. Sometimes I find it hard to finish, especially if its with someone new, its okay, honestly.” I tugged at the duvet to cover myself. “Okay,” he said and he rolled onto his back. “That, was fucking fantastic.” I smirked at him, connected my phone to the Bluetooth speaker and put The Smiths on shuffle. I didn’t even like The Smiths, but I wanted William to tell his friends he fucked a nineteen year old who smoked and drank and listened to The Smiths. He turned and looked at me in the eyes. “You have no idea how long its been since I’ve felt that close to someone.” He traced his index finger in a flower around my navel. I smiled and touched his cheek. “I am sorry you don’t feel that way with your wife,” I said sympathetically, and in that moment, I really did pity him. “Well, I would really like to see you again, maybe we could, you know, come to an arrangement that suits us both? Dating is difficult for pretty girls like you in London. We could be, you know, like companions for each other?” He stopped tracing my pink flesh with his fingertips and rested his hand on mine. I kissed him on the lips. “I would like that.”

The smell of fried chicken curled through the thick smog as I rounded the corner in Lowtown Market, and rain thundered against the awnings protecting the vendors beneath them. My heavy black boots clipped against the slick pavements, and I nestled deeper under the hood of my jacket. I liked the city the most when it rained, it felt like it was washing away its dirt and sins. The buildings were too tall for hot weather, stealing away any chance of a cool breeze and making it virtually impossible to spend an entire day in the same set of dry clothing. “Kayori, what time is it?” I asked my operating system, and the time glimmered in the right corner of my vision. It was my day off work, and so I’d slept in a little later than expected. My new eye implants were certainly impressive, if not difficult to get used to. Just another perk of my new job. “Lennox, over here.” I followed the direction of the voice to find Bridger waving as he sat perched on a stool outside one of our favourite stops for lunch on this side of the river. He grinned as I pulled the stool out beside him, removing my hood and shaking the water from my fringe. I’d recently dyed my blunt bob a vibrant shade of yellow, and I was grateful the colour hadn’t leached down my face from the downpour. The light from the stall reflected against the quicksilver of his implants that carved from his lid to his brow, an implant much more technologically advanced than mine, assisting him with his work as a programmer and hacker. The vendor smiled, flashing two gold teeth as he placed two cans of Max-ade before us. Lemon for Bridger and cherry for me. “Thanks Terry,” I said, smiling. “The usual for you guys?” We both spoke in unison. “Yes please.” “Coming right up.” Terry turned his back to begin frying off the chicken and I picked up a straw, twirling it between my fingers before cracking open the can and taking a long gulp. “How is corporate life?” Bridger asked as he took a sip from his own can, and I shot him a knowing look. “Exactly how you’d imagine,” I sighed. Our eyes drew to the tv screen above Terry as the news reader reported on an incident from that morning in Slido. Another cyberpsycho had let loose in one of the mega-buildings. “I hear the emergency doors failed. He managed to wipe out the whole ground floor,” Bridger said as his violet eyes watched the cctv footage of the beefed up psycho walking straight into the monstrous block of apartments like no one could stop him. “Damn, did the PD take him out?” He shook his head in response. “No, they brought the SDA in.” Terry placed two trays before us. Fried chicken, lathered in hot sauce with a side of fries. Extra pickles for me. A muscle ticked in my jaw and I rolled up my sleeves. The SDA were not to be messed with. A defence organisation owned by the very company I was now employed by. It’s how everything worked these days, jurisdiction didn’t matter if you had enough money. That’s how the corporates basically owned the city, the country even. I bit into the fried chicken and hot sauce dribbled down my chin. I wiped it with the tattooed back of my hand. “I hope you don’t eat like that in the office, Len,” Bridger mocked and I grinned, displaying to him a mouth full of half chewed chicken. He grimaced. Bridger and I had been friends for as long as I could remember. We’d both grown up in megabuilding 18 and our mothers had got talking in the laundry room. We’d found out we only lived two floors away from one another, and the rest was history. He went to college for programming and computer science, and I joined the ranks of the PD. Back when I thought I could make a lick of difference on this desolate city. I was dishonourably discharged after four years for ignoring direct orders, because I thought I was doing the right thing. I was weeks away from living on the streets with only enough savings to pay one more month of rent, when Bridger reached out to me. He asked me to meet him at the very market stall we sat at eating fried chicken, and asked if I was looking for a job. He told me he worked for an independent non-corporate organisation that had the people’s best interests at heart. I was sceptical, it sounded exactly like the speech I’d received when I first joined the PD, and they all turned out to be low-life corrupt bastards. I’d told him I was interested, but needed to know more. He’d scratched the back of his neck then, his gaze dropping to the floor and I knew in that moment that he wasn’t being completely honest with me. I’d eventually got him to crack of course, and he agreed to introduce me to his boss. The Calvados were recognised as a terrorist group, and every instinct in me had flared hot with fear and worry for Bridger when I realised what he’d gotten himself into. That was until I met them, and they showed me what they were really fighting for. They wanted equality for the people of Celestia once more. A government that could not be swayed by money. A safe city for everyone in it. They channeled money into the most impoverished areas of the city, payed the debts of families who had lost loved ones to cyberpsychosis, the illness caused by malfunctioning cyberware or overuse of implants. Of course, they were the biggest threat to the corporates that owned 97% of Celestia, and so they were tarnished with the brush of traitors, terrorists, murderers. And that’s where I came in. I had been planted smack bang in the centre of the most well-known and dangerous corporate group in the world, working for their CEO and head of the Verables family. “The report came back on your implants by the way,” Bridger said between mouthfuls. “You’re clear, nothing in those tracking or listening to you.” He gestured towards my eyes and I nodded, taking another slurp from my can of Max-ade. I’d never been a huge advocate for cyberware, but when I joined the PD, it had opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It began with a piece of tech in my palm that meant only I could fire from my own gun - a safety mechanism should I ever find myself disarmed. And from there, I had my joints reinforced and my lungs enhanced so I could run faster, longer, have more stamina when in combat. The new eye implants gave me heightened vision, plus a few extra gimicky perks like seeing the time, and being able to use my phone without actually looking at the screen. I sighed with relief at the thought I at least wasn’t being monitored through the mandatory bit of tech that came with my employment. I turned at the sound of a car back-firing, and my eyes drew to the skies as the clouds began to clear. Helo-pods hovered between the skyscrapers, ferrying the elite between their offices and penthouses, and the light of the sign to Lowtown Market flickered like a dying star. “Breaking news.” We turned in unison to the tv screen once more, and even Terry looked up, tucking his spatula into the pocket of his greasy blue apron. “It is with a heavy heart,” the newsreader said as her face grew pale, “that we announce today that the CEO of VK and head of the Verables family has been assassinated in his office in Celestia City by a member of The Calvados terrorist organisation.” I swallowed the lump of chicken hard, my stomach bottoming out as the words turned over and over in my mind. Bridger dropped his fork beside me and I flinched as it clattered against the metal tray, as a photograph of my own face framed in bright yellow hair popped up on the tv screen, the red letters below spelling ‘Wanted… DOA’.

“What will you do now?” Jack asked as he wiped the grass stains from his clammy palms onto his cord trousers. “Go to class,” I responded shrugging, before pushing myself to my feet from the steep bank that overlooked the valley. Rolling green hills were framed by snow-capped mountains, and maple trees blushed ruby under a golden sun. I adjusted the strap of my backpack on my shoulder. I’d been using the same bag for school for as long as I could remember, and I’d had to repair the strap a dozen times. “I meant about your parents,” he said quietly as he followed, and we began meandering through the shrubbery from our secret viewing spot of the mountains and back to the grey stone courtyard. I folded their death certificate, pushing it into the back pocket of my torn jeans. “They’re dead Jack, there’s not much I can do.” I swallowed, pushing down the tightness in my chest that built every time I thought about them. But strangely, it wasn’t their deaths that made my heart race, and made my lungs feel like they were being compressed by the cage of my ribs. I’d never been close to my parents. They’d slung me into a boarding school before I’d even learnt how to tie my own shoes. That’s the thing with having world-famous film stars for parents - they loved each other, and they believed they wanted a family. But they’d never love anyone else as much as they loved themselves. We rounded the stone fountain, the Goddess of War carved intricately from stone, her long sword pointing to the clouds like she could wield the very lightning itself. Mist from the cascading fountain brushed my flushed cheeks, and my long orange lashes fluttered from the chill. It was cold in the mountains, much colder than I was used to even after my stint at boarding school in the Scottish Highlands. I moved to the Highlands School for Troubled Girls after I’d set the dormitory on fire after the school bully put pig entrails under my pillow. It was an accident, of course. I hadn’t known that the blood of the Fire God coarsed through my veins. It wasn’t hereditary after all, only those worthy were chosen to wield the magic of the gods. Great choice, I cursed to the Fire God. Of all the people in the world, he picked a curly haired ginger sixteen year old, with no friends and parents that hated her. At least, that wasn’t the case anymore. I had Jack and Gabi, and I was pretty sure my parents couldn’t hate me from their grave. We joined the crowd that piled through the mahogany gilded doors into the classroom, and I scanned the tops of heads as everyone found their seats. A pale hand popped up at the back of the room, and I stood on my tiptoes, clocking Gabi who waved frantically. I gestured to Jack, who pushed through the pre-class chaos to take the two seats either side of our friend. I had only spent a few weeks at the academy. It had all happened so fast. I’d returned home for summer, and as usual my parents spent their nights at lavish parties, drinking expensive champagne with the world’s elite, and their days recovering between silk sheets with bloody Marys. It was a normal Saturday night. I was wearing my pyjama bottoms with aliens on them and a black tee, curled up in the loft window reading my latest purchase from the rare comics store I’d visited earlier that day. The loft window was my escape whenever I visited home. It was perfectly circular, and it hugged my frame as I curled up in a bed of pillows, looking out at the sleepy town as I flicked through the colourful pages, losing myself in the story. Mom and Dad left without saying goodbye as usual, and I watched the Bentley pull from the drive way. I was just about to get up and grab a snack, when their car returned, and they both hurried back into the house. I’d paused. I guess Mom forgot her purse or something. But there had been a loud smash like broken glass, and a shriek like a cicada that made me still. I froze, my heart no longer beating and in my throat as I listened. Our house was enormous, and yet I could hear the bangs and crashes from four floors up. I nearly leapt from my skin when the door to the loft swung open, and a face I did not recognise burst in, their face stricken with panic. “Leonie, we need to get you out of here!” they’d whispered, ushering me from the window. “Who are you?” I was trembling as I spoke, but the crashing downstairs only grew louder. Whoever was attacking my parents was still in the thralls of their rage. “It doesn’t matter right now, I just need to get you to safety,” the stranger said, ushering me towards them with their hand. They had an androgynous look about them, with long black hair and buttery skin, their nose and cheeks freckled like spots of paint. Their blue eyes flared as the sounds grew louder, almost pleading with me. “I don’t know who you are.” I was surprised at the flatness of my voice as I stood, my feet bare against the wooden floorboards. “Sunrise Saviour, right?” I looked down to the comic in my hand, and back to the stranger. I nodded. “Look, I know you don’t know who I am. But you need to trust me,” they continued. “These people want you, and if I don’t get you out of here then you’ll suffer the same fate as your parents - or worse.” “And what fate is that?” my voice was raised only for a moment before silence ensued below us. I could have sworn my blood ran cold in that moment. What followed is still a blur. I remember nodding, stepping forward and wincing as the floorboards creaked beneath my cold feet. The stranger had reached out their hand, and I’d taken it. A flash of bright white light transformed the loft around me to a place I did not recognise, and my head had flared with hot pain before I lost consciousness completely. What I do know now, is that it was The League of Osris that saved my life that night. The organisation dedicated to protecting wielders of the gods magic from Venatores, the organisation who sought to destroy them. The stranger who I now knew as Romy had teleported me from my home to a safe house. I hadn’t even attended my parents funeral and in a matter of days, I learnt about my power, about the secret existence of mortals blessed with the power of the old gods, and the unspoken war that had been raging for decades. They’d told me about the school for others like me, and I’d been all too happy to return to a place of normality after everything that happened. The school could not be reached by mortals, and was heavily protected by wards that kept Venatores followers out. I still had that comic, it was the only piece other than my backpack that I’d kept of my old life. “I found this in the library.” I snapped from my gaze as Gabi slid a worn tome across the table discreetly before pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. Gabi wielded Lotanna’s power; she could become completely invisible to the naked eye, which was perfect for swiping restricted scriptures from the library. Jack’s magic allowed him to create illusions, falsifying the world around his subject and making them believe or see whatever he wanted. I took the tome, opening its pages with an ancient creak as the spine cracked. Professor Hemney drawled on about the origin of the gods as I scanned the immortal words. Venatores and their magic. “How did you find this?” I whispered, and Gabi only curled the corner of her mouth into a wolfish grin. We had spent days searching old texts for information on the organisation. Professors hated answering questions about them, and I wanted to know everything there was to know about why they hunted us. Why they were so desperate to hunt a sixteen year old fire wielder that they murdered two of the most famous people in the world to get to her. I pleated my brow, my pulse quickening, before I slid the book from the table and into my satchel. “Let’s meet tonight, read it together.” “Okay.” They both nodded in unison as I drew my attention to the front of the class.

Paloma stood at the window as she waited in the small study, the lacklustre lace curtains hanging limply either side as condensation fogged the glass before her. She watched a gaslight flicker in the street like a dying star, casting an amber glow across the slick, wet cobblestones. The branch of a birch tree tapped against the glass pane like a crone’s bony finger, the only shred of nature that was resilient enough to survive the dense smog and pollutants of the kingdom that was submerged in perpetual darkness. The Bluffs were a combination of haunting beauty and grim decay, with the church’s towering spires and brooding stone gargoyles looming over the shadowed streets below like sentinels. But beyond the little village that stood alone on the moors, a lamenting grey sky loomed over sprawling lands, shrouded in fog and swarming with monsters that Paloma only witnessed in her worse nightmares. Her eyes rove across the landscape, as hilltops peered over the blanket of fog that swirled like cold water, and old ruins blackened from centuries of brutal weather stood alone amongst clusters of leafless trees. She swallowed, a lump forming in her throat at the thought of being lost in the fog, of stumbling through an undergrowth of tangled brambles, desperate for a sign of light or life. At least, that’s what she imagined for George. His hunting group had returned the previous afternoon, his horse without a rider in tow. The saddlebags were still attached and filled with all of his essential supplies, which meant that her husband was out there in the fog with nothing but the clothes upon his back. The breeze rattled the glass panes, and sheets of rain began to slide across the landscape, hissing and whooshing in the wind that grew stronger. The hinges of the mahogany door clicked behind her, but she did not turn. “The second search party has returned m’lady, and I am afraid they have found nothing,” she only nodded once at Simon’s words, not even turning to acknowledge him. He had been the leader of the hunt, after all, and he was George’s older brother. He should have been looking out for him. The house seemed to tremble from the storm as Paloma paced the study, the fire in the hearth now simmering to hot orange embers. She stoked it gently as a chill rattled down her spine, but the wood had burnt to cinders. A whisper startled her from the task at hand, and she immediately scanned the room, her eyes flaring with surprise. No one had entered, and the sound hadn’t seemed to come from anywhere in particular. Shadows crept up the panelled walls, closing in on her as her eyes rove to the window once more. She squinted, wrapping her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she walked to the window and peered out. A figure stood in a clearing beyond the village. Not George, in his riding gear albeit weathered from a night alone in the harsh conditions, but a woman in white, her long obsidian hair whipping in the wind like tentacles. Paloma ran a hand down her face. She had not slept a wink all night, not eaten or drank, only stood watching from the window of the study. Perhaps she was delusional. She squinted once more, focusing on the spot where the woman stood. She appeared to be wearing a white nightgown, the fabric crumpled like parchment, her face so pale like she had drank from the moon. Paloma watched her lips move, and somehow, she could hear her. “Did you think you could avoid me all those years?” she croaked, and Paloma’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Her eyes welled with salty tears, and her bottom lip trembled. “I was only a child when I made that bargain, I couldn’t have known—“ “You were appropriately warned,” the witch countered, and Paloma shook her head fervently. “Anything, you can have anything you want. But not George, not my George,” she begged, her fingers now pressing into the glass of the window. “I assured you that your desires would not come without sacrifice,” “He is my only desire, please don’t take him,” “How you have changed from that spoilt, vain little thing you once were,” the witch hissed, “there is something else, I would be willing to take.” Paloma’s heart skipped with the buoyancy of relief. “Anything, anything,” she crooned. “Come to me, and I shall tell you.”

“What if we are wrong?” my sister breathes, as the biting wind snaps at her words, throwing the tendrils around her jaw like Medusa’s snakes. I turn to her, my blue fire gaze meeting her forest green eyes. We are only half-sisters, a shared blood of our mother Athena the goddess of warfare, both our fathers are unknown, “But what if we are right?” We both swallow, our throats bobbing in unison as we look down into Styx River, we are the only remaining survivors of half-bloods, and if we survive this, we cross over to be welcomed into Olympus. We will finally meet our mother. Half-humans cannot be raised by the gods, and so we found ourselves jumping between foster homes until we came across one another in California in our teens. It was almost as though fate brought us together, she from New Mexico with her obsidian coils and sun-kissed complexion, me with my hair like fresh snow and skin like alabaster from Colorado, and we had been inseparable since. The majority of humans don’t believe in the gods anymore, but it was written in the stars above us that we would accept these challenges, and proceed through the Trials of Olympus before we rightfully excepted our power and immortality. Our power that would allow to continue the war against titans that had been raging for eons, the war that humans did not even know existed. I took her hand, our matching olive tree tattoos on our wrists connecting as a chill rattled up my spine. I chewed my lip, and she shivered in my peripheral vision. We had come across one other half-blood during our trials. A son of Poseidon with long golden hair and cerulean eyes. He would have made it too, had it not been for the titan we came across when we first arrived in Greece. The giant beast had plunged a blade into his chest before we’d even had a chance to help him, its monstrous mouth curling into a grin of sadistic satisfaction as he’d wailed, before taking his final breaths. If it hadn’t been for our speed and quick thinking, we never would have escaped ourselves. And now we stood before our final trial, to make a leap of faith that would kill any human on impact. But we were not human. The blood elixir of the gods ran strong through our veins. At least, that’s what the prophecy said, right? There was no guidance on this journey. No friend to confirm our beliefs to be true. This whole affair could have been fragments of our imagination, and now we were faced with the final blow. Jump, or return to a life of poverty. A life where no one knew our names, or remembered how we drank our coffee. Where we would need to work two, perhaps three jobs each just to pay the rent on a cockroach-infested apartment. The world needed the gods, but they had cast them aside all those centuries ago. With so few half-bloods to fight the war, the titans would soon find their way to the realm on earth that humans walked, and they would be completely defenceless. And yet here we stood, on a planet where nobody cared for orphaned girls, willing to jump to our deaths in order to save it. “I love you,” I choke out, and she squeezes my hand. I don’t say I love you to anyone, it was only ever reserved for her. I step closer to the edge, pulling her with me as all of a sudden the drop feels even higher than we thought, the wind pushing back against us like it’s begging, pleading us not to take the leap. She turns her head slowly, nodding as a single tear spills from her eye. Then we jump.

She should have gone for sleeves, she doesn’t have the shoulders for a strapless dress. At least, that’s what I told myself as I chewed at the skin around my nail. My mother swatted a hand wrinkled like parchment at my own to stop my disgusting habit. The woman in the row before me blew into a handkerchief like a baby elephant. I flicked my gaze to the bride once more as she walked down the isle, her arm tucked neatly around her fathers as he prepared to give away his only daughter to the love of her life. The love of my life. My best friend, who once upon a time, asked if I would be the woman who walked down the isle to be his. I swallowed, looking down at my gold shoes that peeped out from under my skirt. The dress was olive green, with a corset-style bodice and a slit that cut up to my tanned thigh. I wore my hair loose in curls, my eyelids dusted with shimmering gold. My mother told me that my dress was too revealing for a wedding. I told her that it was my last attempt at getting William back. She laughed, but I wasn’t joking. Will and I had met at university, when I was studying English literature and wearing jumpers with holes at the wrists where I’d poke my thumbs through. He studied philosophy and politics and smoked enough weed I’d questioned how he even made it to lectures at all, let alone graduated top of his class. We met one night at The Vaults, when he’d tried to skip the queue for the pool table. I told him just because his parents paid for his tuition didn’t mean he got immediate rights before everyone else and he’d laughed, challenging me to a game. Loser buys the next round. He lost. I took his number, and forgot about it. We had bumped into each other two weeks later in the library. I’d spilt my Americano down the front of my shirt and he told me that I was a very typical English literature student, that we were messy and chaotic and wore our emotions on our faces like we were the only ones in the room to have them. I’d scoffed, and told him anyone studying philosophy and politics was a self-righteous arsehole. We went for drinks that night, sharing a bottle of wine and a bowl of olives before I went back to his student flat, and my coffee-stained shirt ended up on his bedroom floor. His friends became mine, and we spent the remainder of our time at university bathing in the summer sun on the river banks drinking box wine, booking weekend breaks to Edinburgh for the Christmas markets, watching the superbowl at midnight in the local sports bar, even though we didn’t like American football. I spent my summers at his families, braiding his little sisters hair and playing hopscotch with chalk on the pavement, and he spent weekends at mine, mowing the lawn and taking out the bins as I cared for my father who grew sicker with each day. When my father passed and we moved to London together, we got grown-up jobs and split the bills in a house share of six, arguing about using each others shampoo, and who kept leaving toast crumps in the communal butter tub. I was let go from my first internship, and sacked from my second when I accidentally shared a confidential file with the whole office. My frustrations grew like my waistline as I sunk pints I couldn’t afford, as my behaviour became reckless and I blamed it on the death of my father, the economy, my own loneliness. But he only grew stronger. He was offered a promotion, and then another. He made new friends playing squash at the local club, and I knew he was embarrassed when he took me to work socials, his unemployed university girlfriend who dropped food down her shirt and swore like a football hooligan when she drank more than three pints. It was the beginning of the end, my behaviour becoming more erratic, blaming Will after everything he had done, after all the time he’d spent by my side. Until one evening he sat me down, and told me I should move back to my mothers. He couldn’t afford to support us both anymore, and returning home to a hostile environment every night made him weary, anxious even. He was worried about me, home alone all day surrounded by my own clutter. I obliged of course, the battle was won before it had even started. I had simply been waiting for him to dismiss me, because I didn’t have the heart to admit that I knew I deserved it. It took me eight months to get back on my feet again. I lived with my Mum, giving out paper CVs and accepting two jobs in my small hometown. Mornings at a local coffee shop, and evenings stacking shelves in Tesco Express. I stayed away from the pub, and my body returned to its natural healthy state as I fell into the rhythm of life once more. Will and I spoke every day, a few texts in the morning, or a phone call before bed. He was my best friend, my soul mate. And although he’d been wracked with guilt for how it ended, I didn’t blame him. I was responsible for my own happiness, and yet I had let the burden weigh on him, and him alone. The day that I accepted a new job in London, I got the train straight to Will’s new flat. I picked up a pack of beers for him, his favourite, and a pack of Pepsi Max for myself. I was sober, and I wanted to show him that I’d changed. I still wore the suit from my final interview where they’d offered me the job on the spot, and I smiled bashfully as my heels clicked along the cobbles, the evening sun blushing rouge in London. I rang the buzzer, and the door opened slowly. A blonde with flushed cheeks and ocean eyes answered, her smile wide. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Will had met someone else. I had told myself that we were soul mates, and no matter what, we would stay together, always. With every text, every phone call between us, I had assumed he was waiting for me. But he was not waiting, he had moved on. I looked at Will through long black lashes, at his little bow tie and grey pocket square. He smiled at her, his brown eyes glossy as her father kissed her tenderly on the cheek, and she took her place beside her husband-to-be. It had been five years since the day my heart broke on his door step. Five years of missing him. Four house shares before I could afford my own flat in Clapton. Three occasions I had started drinking again, before the days to follow reminded me why I’d quit. Two promotions, and now I was working on the final edits of my debut novel. And one second until I announced to the church that I was still hopelessly in love with him.

“Your turn.” A chill rattles down Rory’s spine, and he flicks his long black lashes up to Beth as she frowns quizzically at the cards on the floor between them. He wiggles in his sleeping bag, shimmying further into it before pulling his hat down over his forehead. The torchlight flickers, and Beth glances down at it from her own sleeping bag. “Do you think your parents are asleep yet?” she whispers, placing another card face up on the stack. “Probably,” Rory replies, checking his wristwatch, “it’s midnight.” It’s cold for April as they camp in the little red tent in Rory’s back garden, but it’s a tradition they’ve upheld as long as they’ve been friends. Soon, they will be too old, and their parents probably won’t let them camp alone together anymore. The trees whistle outside, and a distant car alarm whines as white curls of breath roil between the friends. “Is it getting colder?” Rory asks, placing a flat palm against the interior of the tent. He can feel the condensation gathering, and shivers once more. An ear-splitting roar cleaves the world in two, and Beth drops her cards as their heads spin in unison to the entrance to the tent. The sound is distant, and yet neither of them have the courage to even breath. They unzip themselves quickly from their bags, their too-long legs fighting free of the fabric as they reach for their coats, pulling them on and fighting their feet into their muddy boots, the laces still knotted in tight bows. Beth, having always been the bravest of the two, unzips the tent slowly, the sound seeping the nostalgia of camp outs in the woods with their fathers, and Rory swallows a hard lump in his throat as he grabs the torch. He can already feel the anxiety rolling in his stomach like a ship in a perfect storm, and Beth steps out into the night air. The stars blink above them, and the moon is full, drenching the garden and roof tiles on Rory’s house in bleached white. It is silent once more. “Perhaps it was a coyote,” Beth says softly, tucking her hands under her armpits from the biting cold. The rear porch light flicks on, and they both flinch in surprise. It hums like a fly, and Rory leads them to the sliding glass doors, clicking the button on the torch to turn it off. “Let’s just sleep in the house, I’m cold anyway,” he says over his shoulder, reaching for the handle before hesitating, “Beth, what is it?” Beth’s face blanches white like a scorned revenant as she grabs Rory’s hood, yanking him backwards and onto the grass and pointing a shaky finger towards the house. “Look,” she stutters, and Rory follows her line of sight through the glass doors and into the living room. A figure stands motionless, its form telling in shape of neither Rory’s mother or father. It picks up the remote from the armrest of the sofa, clicking the television on and filling the room with vibrating tv static. They can see it now, illuminated in the light of the tv. It looks like a man, only preternaturally white and stone-like as it stares at the television. It angles its head like a cat, watching the white and black dot around the screen. Something glistens on its chin, sticky and winding down its bare neck in black rivulets. Except its red, not black. It’s blood. It is Beth who opens her mouth to shriek as the man turns, his eyes black like the deepest lake they have ever seen. Rory slams a hand over her mouth as the man grins with sadistic satisfaction, his pointed fangs bone-white against the contrast of slick wet blood. Rory curses with the only bad word he knows, for only a few hours prior they had flicked through the vampire comics that they had swiped from his older brother Max’s room. He pinches the thin skin on his wrist, praying to gods that he wished he believed in that this was simply an unwelcome nightmare. But he was already awake. They sprint around the side of the house without hesitation, passing his Dad’s blue parked truck and skidding to a halt at Beth’s driveway. She whimpers at the sight of her red front door kicked open, and muddy boot prints that trail into the hall and up the cream carpeted stairs. “The bikes, quick,” Rory says between bated breaths as they dash to their two bikes, laying on the wet grass before Beth’s house. “We should cycle to the Sherriff’s office,” Beth says through tears, “I think my uncle is on duty.” It’s a safe neighbourhood after all, they’ve always been able to leave their bikes out at night. That was, at least, before it was raided by blood-thirsty vampires.

The fates had not written such an ending. And yet Suliena lay in the street, the ground slick with rain as her blood ran in red rivulets between the grey cobbles. She’d heard Nyx cry her name only seconds before the world fell silent around her. As she tumbled to the ground in slow motion, voices and screams muffled like she was locked tight in a glass box, their movements as though they were underwater and not defending their city from its streets. Her memories trickled through an opening of soft light then. Of tanned skin, damp with perspiration between white silk sheets. The smell of earth after rain. The taste of vanilla and cinnamon on lips plump from endless kissing. A laugh, the rumble from his chest as she rested her cheek upon it. Their time together had always been borrowed and yet somehow, as she lay in the street, as her skin grew colder and her consciousness drifted further and further from grasp, Soliena felt the rush of panic that she had been robbed. She could have spent every waking moment with her betrothed and she would still protest at the gates for there had not been enough time. She thought of her mother and father for the briefest of moments, and perhaps if they had understood, if they had taken a moment to see through eyes that were not clouded with desperation for vengeance, then perhaps they could have settled their differences with The Night King. For the sake of their only daughter, at least. For their hunger for power had just caused their last light to blink out once and for all. Nyx fell to his knees beside the body that lay upon the cobbles, the hard stone biting into his knees as his long sword fell from his grip with a loud clatter. He reached for her, desperate to touch her face and yet his hands were bloodied with the death of her very own men. The men who’d sought to fight for her and her kingdom. His bottom lip trembled with denial as he watched the light blink from her eyes, as the chaos continued to ensue around him like a hurricane of death and destruction. His cheek was shadowed with a bruise from the impact of a fist, and his callouses were torn to shreds from hours wielding the blade. Neither of them had wanted this, had only wanted peace between their kingdoms and yet it seemed that between the families who had fueded for eons, it was only they that suffered, along with the families of the soldiers who had fallen fighting the war that had lasted three centuries. He looked up to the dark sky that swirled with grey cloud, his shoulders dropping in defeat before he bent to his love once more, placing his thumb and pointing finger on her lids to close them softly. “You showed me the light in a lifetime of darkness, rest well my love.” A ear splitting roar cleaved the world in two as Nyx bellowed, before reaching for his blade and standing to his feet. He turned preternaturally to the onslaught of soldiers, watching from above like a celestial being as he witnessed his body cut through skin, sinew and bone like they were meagre branches on a hike through a forest. By some miracle, he reached the gates to the palace, except it was no miracle for he had become something not of that world as he had watched Soliena die on the cobbles like a plagued street cat. Soldiers fell like dominoes as his forces continued to push, some of their faces turning white like the spirits they were to become as they watched a half man, half monster covered in gore approach them with wrath painted across his expression. His thoughts left him as he fought his way through the palace, travelling to places only in memory now his other half could not recite them to him no longer. The first night he had met her, how his eyes had roved over her bronzed skin freckled with gold, her obsidian hair in tight coils and eyes like molten chocolate. How she had looked up at him through long black lashes, a dimple forming in her cheek as she had smirked under his gaze. He knew that he’d been in trouble immediately. His knees weakened at her honey-sweet smile, her scent of blackberry and bay, her quick tongue that bit back witty remarks quicker than he had chance to dodge them. Neither of them had known who the other was, and in the underground illegal clubs where citizens of both day and night mingled alike, it had certainly been no place for a prince or a princess. And yet they had found each other, on the very same night, in the very same club like it had been written in the stars for them to meet. For them to fall disastrously in love with one another. The door to the throne room swung open so hard, the mahogany splintered against the wall as Nyx stormed in, his face a picture of sadistic satisfaction. “Tell me why you don’t fight with your men King Cyrus, but instead hide with the women,” he pulled a second blade from its leather sheath and its metal sang in the echoing hall, “whilst your daughter bleeds out in the cold?” The King’s eyes flared if only for a second, before he regained his composure, standing from his golden throne and balling his hands into fists. “If my daughter is truly dead then it is at your own hands,” “She died fighting your war,” “An honour to her people,” the king growled in response. Nyx could feel the weight of the glass vial in his pocket like solid rocks weighing him down as he shifted in his feet. “Your kingdom will fall,” the king continued, “and Solis will rise, correcting the balance and order in the world once more,” “I will not let you bring harm to anyone else, my people or your own,” Nyx spat, as he watched movement being the king where the women clustered together. A cry broke free from the queen, and her face crumpled like parchment. He watched the whisper spread as news was confirmed to her that her only child lay dead on the streets outside. The King did not even flinch, confirming the rumours that he was used to hearing his own wife cry with pain. “I suppose you are here to get me to surrender in place of your father,” the king said casually, and Nyx shook his head, his eyes darkening. “My father is dead,” Nyx crooned almost tantalising, and the kings eyes flared with hunger. It seemed to happen slowly and then all at once. The shimmer of silver bangles striking at the queen‘s wrist like quicksilver as she approached the king from his rear. But it was not jewellery. It was a blade. She drew the blade quickly across his throat, and his bitter words of arrogance became the gurgling sound of him choking on his own blood. Nyx didn’t have a moment to react as he stood frozen before them, as the queen’s stone face turned to him like a predator. “Carry her light in your heart forever,” she only said, her voice monotone, before thrusting the same knife that had killed her king into her own heart. Word that both kings were dead must’ve travelled as Nyx left the palace, as soldiers of darkness and light rallied together to tend to the wounded, like a curse bound for centuries had dropped the moment that the body of the last king fell. Nyx walked to his love, reaching one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath the underside of her knees, lifting her from her own cold pool of blood. An empty glass vial that once held blackbane, the most fatal venom in existence, rolled from her pocket and smashed on the cobbles beneath them. The Dark King was dead, she had kept her end of the bargain. “We did it my love,” he whispered into her curls, as tears began to prickle at his waterline, “I only wish you were here to see the fruits of your labours. To watch two broken kingdoms be healed as one.” The new King carried her across the boundary line of his forces, as his own soldiers bowed their head with respect to the woman they would have called their queen. The End.