Prophesied Kingdom (Unbound Kingdom Trilogy Book 3) by J. L. Jackola

Author:J. L. Jackola [Jackola, J. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tivshe Publishing
Published: 2022-08-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Heat seared Xali’s skin. It was unbearable, and she closed her eyes against the intensity. Pushing her body back tighter against the rough wall of her prison, she tried to steady her breathing.

She had welcomed death, remembered falling with a peaceful resignation as the flames and the weightlessness had taken her. She’d woken not knowing why, not understanding why eternal sleep had not claimed her. She remembered the cool tingle, the sensation that she wasn’t alone, that the queen was with her as she’d promised but what she’d woken to was far from death. If this was death, she wanted to go back, this was a fate beyond death, a punishment for the sins of her forefathers, everlasting torment.

Pulling her legs in tighter, she tried shutting out the noise, the loud never-ending crackle of flame, the shift of rock far above, the screams that echoed, some with voices she recognized distinctly.

Her hands hugged her knees, pressing against her belly, bringing a wave of emotion with it. When she’d woken, she’d felt it. Her sacrifice had been of two, the child within her gone, wiped away with a fall that should have killed them both. No more did her belly swell or the flutter resound through her core. It was like the child had never existed.

She’d mourned the loss, countless time passing in a space that held no days. It seemed that moons had passed before she let the anguish fade, the emptiness within her subside. Moons for her to feel anything but hollow.

It still came in waves that would drown her for moments that seemed to last forever, a deep untethered agony for what had been lost. Then it would pass, the grief subsiding, leaving only the residual of hollowness, something missing that could never be returned.

She brought her head back up, staring out at the darkness, save for the fire that constantly roared, the flames like towering beasts beyond her prison. There was no light. She’d lost count of how long she’d been here, given up on her attempts to figure out where here even was. Food had appeared as did a liquid that looked of water but smelled of sulfur. At first, she ignored it, but then her resolve caved to her hunger. A part of her registered that she no longer needed food to survive, that her body simply craved the sustenance. A part of her now recognized what that touch had been as she’d fallen. The reason she still lived, the reason the flames scorched her skin, but the burns did not remain. Whatever path she’d been on had not been completed. There was more, she was still needed.

And she was now immortal.

Cursed by the Fates to live, to feel the desperation that clung to her like a sticky cobweb, at times smothering her so greatly that the need to escape this endless torment was unbearable.

But there would be no escape.

She lifted her head, hearing a faint sound that didn’t fit the usual noises. A scurrying that led her curiosity to pull her from her corner.

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