Decree, p.1
Decree, page 1
Decree
Beginning's End Series, Volume 8
W.J. May
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2023.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DECREE
First edition. May 15, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 W.J. May.
ISBN: 979-8215286036
Written by W.J. May.
@Copyright 2023 by W. J. May
THIS E-BOOK OR PRINT is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book/paperback may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2022 by W.J. May
Decree, Book 8 of the Beginning’s End Series
Cover design by: Book Cover by Design
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Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Book I - Rae of Hope is FREE!
BOOK TRAILER:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gILAwXxx8MU
How hard do you have to shake the family tree to find the truth about the past?
Fifteen year-old Rae Kerrigan never really knew her family's history. Her mother and father died when she was young and it is only when she accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Guilder Boarding School in England that a mysterious family secret is revealed.
Will the sins of the father be the sins of the daughter?
As Rae struggles with new friends, a new school and a star-struck forbidden love, she must also face the ultimate challenge: receive a tattoo on her sixteenth birthday with specific powers that may bind her to an unspeakable darkness. It's up to Rae to undo the dark evil in her family's past and have a ray of hope for her future.
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Decree Blurb
USA TODAY BESTSELLING author, W.J. May, continues the highly anticipated bestselling YA/NA series about love, betrayal, magic and fantasy.
Learn to fight—it is the only option...
In order to rise from the ashes, one must walk through the flames.
When Kiera found herself face to face with a dragon, she was certain her life was finished. The truth settled for a single moment, before her world disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flame. But fire was not the end of her story, it was only the beginning.
After discovering a mysterious castle in the heart of the desert, the friends must race back to their homeland to warn the fae about the damaris and Sorne. But secret forces are conspiring against them, and it won't be so easy to return home. After finding some unlikely help from a friend, the gang finally reaches the eastern shore, but when a disastrous turn of events leaves them stranded in the icy plains of the north, they find themselves in trouble once again.
How many times can they roll the dice, before it catches up with them? Can they warn the rest of their world about the darkness in time? More importantly, how is Kiera still breathing?
How does a person survive a breath of dragon fire...?
Be careful who you trust. Even the devil was once an angel.
Beginning’s End Series
Beginnings
Curiosity
Scrutiny
Foresight
Disavow
Trickery
Wisdom
Decree
Influence
Prevail
Dignified
Honored
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Eternal
Everlasting
Unceasing
Evermore
Forever
Boundless
Prophecy
Protected
Foretelling
Revelation
Betrayal
Resolved
The Omega Queen Series
Discipline
Bravery
Courage
Conquer
Strength
Validation
Approval
Blessing
Balance
Grievance
Enchanted
Gratified
Contents
Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
Find W.J. May
Decree Blurb
Beginning’s End Series
The Queen’s Alpha Series
The Omega Queen Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Influence Blurb
Beginning’s End Series
The Queen’s Alpha Series
The Omega Queen Series
Find W.J. May
More books by W.J. May
Chapter 1
There was a whole lot of shouting, I remember that.
The sky had gone dark, and the world was on fire. Not the world, I realized, but me. I was the thing that was burning, the offering that had gone up in flames. The feeling I remember most was being surprised. Of all the things that might have gotten me, I wouldn’t have guessed it would be something as cinematic as a burst of dragon fire atop a desert cliff. More likely it would be a snakebite, or a fall, or one of my companions finally deciding to kill me. They had threatened often enough. But it was the shouting that broke through—one prolonged, ringing cry.
Oh, Jesse, I thought. He’s going to be so sad.
A sudden, smacking thud. I must have landed. On what, I couldn’t be certain. I hadn’t been aware that I was falling. I didn’t seem to be aware of much of anything anymore. The fire had yet to consume me. It had yet to even hurt, past that initial flaming sting. My mind was wandering, like a kite pulling restlessly on its tether.
My death, I suddenly remembered. Death by dragon.
A novelty, to be sure. Then again, there was a certain symmetry to it. There was a dragon at the beginning of it all, there would be a dragon at the end. The only thing missing would be me. My mind blanched at the thought—the lack of thought. It reached for something further, some next step, but came up grasping on air. At least, those were the stories I would tell myself later. That amidst my untimely execution, I was grappling with some existential gems.
At the time, I could only remember thinking...it smelled like smoke.
“SHE SMELLS LIKE SMOKE,” Jesse said quietly, staring at the beautiful girl sleeping peacefully in his arms. “It’s been almost two days...she still smells of it.”
Given the violence of what they’d seen earlier, that shouldn’t have been surprising. But the shifter had been attending her with an unspeakable amount of care. What could be fixed, had been fixed. What could be cleaned, had already been rinsed away. He’d would not leave her covered in soot, baring testament to those ungodly flames. He had meticulously removed every trace.
Eden flashed the barest of looks, having answered many times already.
“It was dragon fire, Jesse. And we are in the middle of a desert.” He lifted his gaze to the sunbaked plains, stretching endlessly in every direction. “You have done the best you could.”
He could say this for certain. The shifter had taken the last of their water to do it.
That part hadn’t seemed so terrible in the beginning. Given the circumstances, it had scarcely even registere d. Those raging sands had ripped apart the desert with the fury of a living thing, churning them up and spitting them out, reshaping an already troubled map and littering the ground with pieces along the way. Jesse had a broken arm, and had been concussed so badly, he was no longer walking straight. The fae himself had been pressed so far into the sand, he almost suffocated before he was able to claw his way free. But for once, the worst had been the vampire.
Unlike the others, who were swept away with the first gusts, Evander had been able to cling to the ground, one of those pale hands reaching straight into the earth. He’d tried to catch the rest of them, using his own body as a tether, before the winds shifted and drove him into the ground.
His chest had been crushed. Most of it was still torn open.
It had felt like ages before they were able to find each other, but in hindsight, it must have been mere seconds. Jesse fell to his knees and retched up an ocean of sand, while Eden sprinted across the dunes to the vampire and promptly ripped open a vein. A single drop fell to the ground between them before Evander took hold with both hands. His fangs sank in a little deeper.
That was when they heard the dragon.
There were a handful of sounds that would make a group of people turn around at exactly the same time. The men had no way of knowing, but this was one of those sounds.
With a precision that looked uncanny, given the backdrop, they forgot what they were doing and lifted their eyes towards the rocks. There were only three of them, when there should have been four. There were only three of them, and each was keenly aware the last time they’d seen the fourth, she’d been running in the opposite direction. Away from the storm, to those very same canyons.
Eden cast a swift look at Jesse; never had he seen such an expression.
It was as though some invisible cord had been struck between them. The shifter and the mountains. It didn’t matter what had happened. As long as she was there, he would be there as well.
Then he’d started running.
The vampire couldn’t keep pace; he didn’t even try. He merely released the fae’s arm and waved him onward. He was in no urgent danger, it could keep. Together, the pair had sprinted towards the rocks, while he limped on behind them—reaching the base of the canyon the instant the dragon rose into the sky. It must not have seen them, so blind in its victory. Its lips curled back in a leering smile as those wings struck the air beside it, lifting the men onto the tips of their boots, before slamming them into the ground.
The image had gotten blurry then, both of them hurt in ways they didn’t yet understand.
Jesse recovered himself first, casting a look to make sure the fae was breathing, before tearing up the jagged slopes. An arm touched down every few steps for balance. A trail of blood followed behind. Eden tried to get up, but his arms buckled and he fell back down. His head was pounding like those winds still fought against it. He could no longer tell whether he was hot or cold. A smell drifted toward him, curling over the stone. Smoke, he would swear it. The corner of his eyes prickled, catching the hint of a flame. A single thought drifted through the haze, quiet and sure.
This is why Jesse is running so quickly.
He was on his feet a second later, his body moving of its own accord.
He didn’t know how it could be stopped, but he was determined to stop it. He didn’t know how it could have possibly happened. How after so many months of careful vigilance, he’d let the girl out of his sight. But he was getting ahead of himself. She could not have been killed by a dragon, she was hiding somewhere, just fine. She’d most likely ducked behind a rock, scared out of her wits.
Yes, that’s what happened. Surely it’s not—
It was the look on Jesse’s face that told him. That look was the first thing that caught his attention when he scrambled up the side of the rocks. All of that devastating momentum that had propelled the wolf across the desert had abruptly vanished, freezing into perfect stillness on his face.
Please, no...
The blaze was so incredible, the fae didn’t understand what he was looking at, not until the image shifted and he caught a glimpse of Kiera’s face. She was upside-down. Eyes shut and fiercely illuminated. Almost peaceful. All except for the ball of dragon fire haloed around her delicate frame.
The sight of it had stopped him completely, stealing all breath.
How many times had he woken up in the night, compulsively checking on the safety of his young companions? How many weeks had been lost to rumination—cursing the fragility of mortals, obsessing over the seemingly endless ways in which they could break? And now this...?
Done, before he could stop it. Dead, before he could say goodbye.
His hands floated into the air in front of him, reaching for something already gone. Jesse was on both knees beside him, lips parted open, tears pouring down his face.
He didn’t understand why she wasn’t burning.
It seemed cruel, the fates would let her linger there so long.
Hadn’t she given them enough? Crawling from the remains of her desiccated village, only to lash herself to the same unthinkable cause? Steering them across a map with unflinching bravery? A girl who loved stories, risking her life for a generation of people who would never hear the tale?
To escape that blazing inferno, only to perish in a cloud of dragon fire all the same?
He let out a sharp breath and lifted his eyes skyward—to those fates the bards said were always watching. Too high and distant to smell the smoke. He realized suddenly, he hated them.
A single cry rang out in the canyon, a wolfish howl from a mortal throat.
Jesse lurched from the ground and staggered towards the fire—reaching without thinking, reaching through tears. The fae leapt after him, grabbing around his chest a second before he could throw himself upon the flames. The heat alone was unfathomable, melting a layer off the nearby rocks and blistering the skin on the backs of their hands. With an involuntary shout, both of them leapt backwards, falling hard upon the scorched granite. Kiera fell down a moment later, splayed like a disjointed doll—arms flailed and legs crumbled beneath her, that lovely face tilted up to the sky.
“Let me go,” Jesse gasped, still scrambling to reach her. “Let me go!”
Whether he was intending to save her, or merely bind himself to the pyre, Eden would never know. His eyes were wild, but at the core of them was something steady. Something that could easily go either way. But whatever the boy had wanted, there was clearly nothing to be done.
She had been doused in dragon fire. She had been lost forever.
Except...she wasn’t.
“Wait,” Eden whispered, unable to summon the necessary breath. His eyes were fixed on the delicate hollow beneath her chin. “Jesse—wait. I think...I think she’s breathing?”
The flames were beginning to dwindle, licking like feathers over the top of her skin. Her clothes were gone, even the soles of her boots had melted into the ground. But the girl herself...?
“Please tell me what’s happening.” Jesse closed his eyes, shaking against the ground. “Eden, I swear she has a heartbeat. I can hear it. Except...that’s not possible. Tell me it’s not possible.”
A pang of silence ached between them.
...is it?
There wasn’t a mark on her body. Not a burn, not a blister. There wasn’t even any damage from the storm, although she had been dropped from the greatest distance. Her body was slender, and pale, and undamaged—as though the dragon had been nothing more than a dream. Even those crimson locks of hair remained intact, haloed in flaming tendrils over the ground beneath her.
“I...” the fae stammered, unable to believe his eyes. “I don’t...”
There was something almost frightening about the sight of it—that blazing inferno, quieting into something so perfect and still. There was something about it that made him want to kneel.
Jesse let out a silent breath, then pushed off the stone.
With the caution of someone poised on the edge of a great fall, the shifter crept slowly across the stone, wincing involuntarily whenever a pocket of steam hissed under his feet. The jagged slabs of rock darkened and smoothed the closer he got to Kiera—like she was lying at the center of some dying star. His entire body trembled as he knelt beside her, burning the tops of his knees.
