Page 13 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

Scary high!

Realising that she lay on a soft bed, she tried to move her body up the mattress, groggily drawing her eyes over the room.

Not her room or her house, in fact, but a room she had never encountered before. There was a grey brick fireplace lined with brass metals. The dull stone walls were relatively bare, only displaying a few art pieces that appeared to be in a different language. The room was spacious, yet it had enough furniture to meet someone’s storage requirements.

She placed a shaky hand up to her forehead as her brain hammered against her skull.

Is this what the afterlife feels like?

Surely not.

Surely you weren’t supposed to feel pain in the afterlife. That’s why her grandmother always prayed to the Gods. Maybe she had prayed to the wrong one. Maybe she should have paid more attention to her grandmother’s lessons.

“Welcome back,” a soft voice drifted over to her from the corner of the room.

Startled, her soul leapt out of her skin and she met a pair of emerald-green eyes, fanned with thick, black lashes. A man sat in the corner with his elbows on his knees, his back arched over, leaning forward. His hands were placed together calmly, and his strong chin rested on the top of his fingers. He didn’t look harmful according to his stance, but she knew by the belt of weapons around his waistline that he had to be.

She pushed back into the bed, looking for an exit, but he was closer to the door than she was. Her head ached, forcing her eyes to shut momentarily. Panic set in.

She was not in the afterlife, she realised.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe here.” His soft voice warmed up to an almost velvet tone as he spoke to her.

She blinked but said nothing. She couldn’t find any words, just a pounding in her head.

“We managed to save you from your home last night.”

Utter fear scuttled through her as he spoke.

As if sensing that, the stranger said, “I’m not going to harm you.” He put his hands out in front of himself.

She looked down at his waist again to where steel had been forged and crafted into fighting knives and daggers. He studied her face through those glittering eyes before saying, “I promise.”

He was strong, she could tell by the muscles in his arms and legs, but his face was gentle and charming. It was such an interesting contrast, she had to remember to breathe.

Was she hallucinating?

A crashing ton of vague memories flashed like still paintings in her mind. Paintings of crimson eyes and bloodshed. Her mouth opened but her tongue couldn’t form the words she wanted to say.

Broken memories of last night all merged together to create one horrifying art piece.

She swallowed.

“Am I alive?” Emara croaked, feeling ridiculous even asking such a question. She lowered her eyes to her hands, looking down at the blood that still stained them.

“Yes,” he said softly and then paused. “You did extremely well last night to remain alive. You went through a lot.” Something in his voice made her look up at him again. He had dark eyebrows that framed his face, darker than the hair that lay wildly on his head, curling around his ears. She turned her attention to his mouth. Full lips covered a set of perfectly white teeth as they parted like he was attempting to speak, but didn’t. His jaw was square and strong, and his skin was golden like he had caught the sun.

He was extremely handsome.

Handsome enough for her to question what she currently looked like.

Dreadful, she imagined.

She felt a spasm of guilt for even thinking about her appearance given the fact that she didn’t even know where she was.

“Where am I?” she whispered, afraid to hear the answer.

The green-eyed stranger stood, not moving his stare from hers.

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