Blood splashed across the white marble steps leading up to the lord of Light’s monastery. Doubling over, the queen of Light grasped her quivering, protruding stomach and held her breath to keep back a scream.
Two short steps ahead of her, the bright red ribbon marking the threshold of the main monastery gate mocked her. Shadows crept toward her from behind. The lord of Dark’s ghouls honed in on the blood of their deceiver, revealing the true nature of the life she bore.
Throbbing pain radiated from her lower back, seizing her stomach like an unrelenting vise.
“Two more steps,” she pleaded, both to the babe, who needed to wait for safety to enter this world, and to herself, who needed to find the strength to finish what she’d begun.
A brown-robed man appeared on a distant balcony.
“The bells! Ring the bells!” she heard him cry.
A single step up ripped the air from the queen’s lungs. She could barely stay upright. Nausea washed over her as the sweat on her arms chilled her in the breeze.
Bells tolled in the tower above, rousing the holy men from their peaceful dreams to face the queen’s waking nightmare. A hunched ghoul with the body of an oversized, balding feline hissed at her, swiping at her skirts. Its transparent claws passed through her leg as nothing more than smoke, and it startled backward with a low growl.
That’s right! she wanted to shout at the creature who now knew she was of the darkness. I’m not who they think I am!
Another wave of pain brought her to her knees. The monks’ footsteps pounded the pavement. Chipper songs of the earliest birds rang out all at once—a choir for the lord of Light’s servants. The songs turned the queen’s stomach, and she wrenched her gaze to the skies.
The darkness of night was fading to a faint blue. Whisps of white clouds trailed above in disquieting calm.
“M’lady!” an old man’s voice cried from just inside the gate.
Shadow creatures reared to lunge for the monks, should they take one step outside their protective barrier. The red ribbon separated the two worlds that were never meant to mix. And yet without the safety the light offered her daughter, the only true heir of Predoni would perish at birth.
The queen’s head fell, along with her hope. These men couldn’t help her if she didn’t find a way up that last step before sunrise. They couldn’t cross that accursed ribbon, but she didn’t have the strength to go on.
“Lord of Light, this is your child, too,” she whispered, hating herself for the treason in her words. “If you will this babe to live, help me!”
For a moment, everything stilled. The birds’ songs choked off mid-melody. The breeze fell flat. The monks froze, reaching for her. Around her, purple light shimmered like waves, enclosing her in an aura of stillness. A tall man in a shining white robe and hood approached from inside the monastery gate, pausing just under the entryway.
“She is much more than you know, Moira,” the man said, holding his hand out to her.
Raising trembling fingers, she laid her soft palm in his calloused one. She dared not look at his face. The golden ring on his outstretched hand, emblazoned with a tree in full bloom, spoke volumes. This was the lord of Light himself.
He grunted as though injured when she touched him, but pulled her to her feet all the same. Sparks shot through her as he tugged her upright and drew her across the ribbon. Only a breath away from her, the lord leaned down until his cheek brushed against hers. She froze, every hair standing on end at the proximity to the being she was sworn to hate most.
“All is forgiven,” he whispered in her ear, citrus lingering on his breath. “But consequences weigh heavier than you know.”
Before she could respond, the purple aura around her faded into the pale blue sunlight of dawn. Behind her, the lord of Dark’s creatures vanished. In their place, ghastly creatures with ghostly green skin, spikes, and horns ambled up the steps toward the queen.
Unlike their nighttime counterparts, these could do very real damage to her very quickly. Had crossing the ribbon saved her?
“M’lady!”
Relief washed over her as an Elder Knight of the holy order ran to her aid. A white sash around his thin waist displayed his retirement from the only militarized sect of the temple, though his wizened eyes and wrinkled face were indication enough of having completed his military service.
“You there, squire!” the gentle old man shouted after assessing the distraught queen’s situation. “Clear a bed and summon the other Elders!”
Seizing the queen around her waist, the Elder lifted the laboring woman with surprise ease for such a seemingly frail man—and one of over seventy springs, from the looks of him.
Her eyes darted frantically to the creatures of light just outside the ribbon. To her surprise, they—like the ghouls of Darkness—did not cross into the monastery grounds.
“Where are your guards, m’lady?” the Elder asked as he brought her safely inside the monastery’s walls.
“Dead.” She grimaced.
She knew the Elders needed an account of their missing King’s Guard, the most skilled of the Elder Knights’ order. As another contraction seized her, though, the pain was all she could focus on.
In minutes, the Elder leaned her against a plain, small bed draped in a pristine white sheet. The room bustled with younger monks and Elders, all buzzing about things the queen couldn’t focus on. Building pressure between her legs announced the impending arrival of her firstborn child.
A second, older Elder with balding white hair placed a comforting hand on her back, leaning forward to look her in the face.
“Yer doin’ well, Highness,” his calm voice soothed her. “We may not be midwives, M’lady, but we’re no strangers to births. Breathe now. That’s right.”
With an Elder on each side, she barely noticed a third Elder rushing the younger monks from the room and barking orders for things like clean towels and warm water.
The queen screamed as her babe fell safely into the arms of a fourth Elder, who smacked the newborn’s buttocks twice. A choking cry broke out in the otherwise silent room. The Elder carefully handed the child up to meet its mother.
Sobbing, the queen looked down into the face of the only loved one left in her life. Long pale lashes blinked up at her from a bald, round face. On the babe’s right shoulder, a tiny golden sun caught the candlelight and glistened, almost as though it was metallic. The sight of it relieved the queen’s heart for the second time in the past hour.
“The mark! It’s the lord of Light’s heir!” the Elder who’d met the queen at the gates announced.
Cheers erupted through the room.
Beaming, the queen turned to show her newborn off to the others, her knees shaky but adrenaline renewing her strength. The Elders poured over the heir of the throne and lord they served, ecstatic to meet the first heir to be born in almost fifty years.
“Wait!”
The Elder who’d cleared the room of younger monks pushed his way over to the child.
His face grew pale, bringing panic to the queen once again.
“It can’t be,” the Elder whispered, reaching out to touch the child, but stopping just before making contact with the baby’s head.
“What’s wrong?” the queen asked. “Is something wrong?”
The Elder could only point a shaking finger at the back of the baby’s other shoulder in response. One look stilled the queen’s breath.
A small, silver moon glistened in the light.
“The great treachery,” the pale Elder whispered, stepping away with hands raised.
“Lords have mercy on us all.”
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