Page 1 of The Divine Lies We Weave

PROLOGUE

Heartbreak had never felt so vengeful and full of mourning all at once.

She let the scream tear from her throat as she was forced to her knees on the edge of the Awakening chasm. The three realms stared back at her. The earthen realm with its lush greenery and the Netherworld, where golden rivers flowed beyond it with monsters waiting to tear at her flesh between the whimpering smoke.

“No!” she begged. “Please! I don’t deserve this.”

“Farewell, my queen. Perhaps life in the Netherworld will serve you well,” a sultry voice said, dragging against her skin like the tip of a blade.

She didn’t need to turn to know who spoke. It was a voice she’d come to fear and run from, as her betrothal to him had brought about her downfall.

Lips kissed her ear and hands gripped the back of her neck, locking her spine in place. “You will never know love. Not when the monsters will eat at your bones. You will know heartache like I know pain. Over and over again.”

Before she could speak, she was shoved over the edge. A massive bellow rang around the earth as her spine smashed through the ground. Her body tore through the earth, dirt and grass flicking up in all directions. Roots dug into her skin and pulled at her hair before she fell into the several layers of the Netherworld. Air escaped her lungs. Her screams echoed as she plummeted to her damnation. A damnation she didn’t deserve, but men held sway over everything.

She fell until she smashed into a golden rock.

Until she saw and felt nothing but the blood spilling from her.

Sunlight kissed her cheeks. Tears blended with the blood as she heaved. Her fingernails gripped the earth, filling with dirt. But the pain was inconsequential. The thorns of betrayal writhed within her, burrowing deep and suffocating her.

All she’d wanted was to tell her lover none of it was true.

But he didn’t listen. None of them did.

Golden light blasted her from all angles. Groaning and blinking against the light, she rolled over and gasped. Lying on the edge of a cliffside, she overlooked the expansive land. Beautiful stretches of green with blossoming spots of white flowers dotted in between. Giant trees with glistening, sparkly fruit were among the beauty, but the most stunning things were the giant lustishas, their giant, heaving forms with multiple-heads scouring the plains.

“Oh… Oh my…”

She was in the Netherworld.

An Awakening Flame had pushed her over the edge and sent her to the place where no Flame had ever been banished to.

She screamed, again. She gripped her hair as chunks of golden strands broke out of her scalp. Her throat grew raw, lungs tight.

She was abandoned.

Alone.

Thrown from her throne.

Over time, the monsters ate away at her skin. Furybeasts buried under her flesh. She ran from the lustishas and tried to escape the bite of an angstent. Screams ripped her apart and pulled her into a swell of vengeance.

Over the centuries, sadness turned into heartbreak. Heartbreak splintered into rage. Rage turned into a thirst for revenge.

Revenge.

That was the only thing she could think about as the monsters licked and bit at her skin. Sometimes alone. Other times as a horde. Tearing at her flesh and digging into bone. Pulling her deeper into the Netherworld.

Over.

And over again.

But the need for justice kept her sane. It made her persistent. It made her think of how to enact it so she could wreak the best havoc.

Tears had long turned into anger, burning and as poisonous as a viper. One day, they would feel her wrath. They would wish they had never crossed her. She would split the realms wide open, brew monstrous storms, and curse anyone who ever spoke her name.

Oh, yes, she would damn them all.