Read Online Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) by A D Koboah - Free Book Online

so hard to believe
we are capable of loving each other?”
    “ Yes, for I cannot
envisage how anyone could love someone who is cruel and totally
without any form of compassion.” Tears sprang to my eyes again at
the image of Julia lying out there in the heat along with the slave
I had murdered.
    He chuckled softly.
“She is cruel,
but believe it or not, she showed you compassion in killing your
wife quickly. She has not been quite so generous to others. She has
let some last days, just to see how much pain she can inflict
before their injuries kill them, or they are driven insane by the
agony. She has been merciful with you. I can’t say the same for the
one who tried to warn you. As we speak, she is at the bottom of a
dried-up well on the plantation. Who knows if she will die from
thirst or hunger. Or maybe the rats will eat her alive before Auria
has the time to fully punish her. It is hard to say which will be
worse, being slowly eaten alive by rats, or being tortured by
Auria. I would personally prefer the rats.”
    I shuddered at the images his words
produced and also in guilt at the plight that had befallen Minny
for daring to warn me. The warning would not have succeeded in
saving us even if we had heeded it. Yet she risked her life to do
so. I looked down when I remembered my reaction when she had taken
hold of Julia’s arm.
    “ To answer your question,”
Emory continued, although I had no wish to hear anything he had to
say. “How can I not love Auria, a powerful goddess who could have
brought death, but instead chose to bestow eternal life on me? I
will never forget the first moment I saw her.”
    As he had done the previous night, he
pressed images into my mind, spreading them out carefully like
cherished keepsakes and I knew they were memories, his and Auria’s
weaved together so I saw the events simultaneously from both of
their viewpoints. It was clearly a memory he had revisited again
and again, and it was rich in detail.
    Auria wore an ivory dress,
her long, dark hair elaborately coiled atop her head. She was
standing in a small house which had only three rooms; she was in
the living area, which also served as a kitchen. Twin girls slept
in the second room, their mother and father in the third. Auria was
looming over the wife, who was covered in blood, but still alive.
She was staring at Auria, her eyes wide with terror, her mouth
twisted in agony. The woman’s husband came at Auria from behind
with a poker. Emory, a skinny, pale child at the time, threw
himself at the man in a vain attempt to protect Auria. Emory was
eleven, and the family's indentured servant. They had been
relatively kind to him, but for some reason he could not bear to
see this beautiful, fearsome woman, who must have been some kind of
a queen, harmed. He was promptly thrown out of the way by his
master as Auria turned around, already aware of the man and what he
meant to do. She and Onyx slaughtered the whole family with brute
force, Auria’s ivory dress dripping with blood by the time they
were finished. The only person she spared was Emory.
    She stared down at him for
a few moments, the bodies of the husband and wife slowly cooling
around them, her expression enigmatic. Then she spun on her heel
and disappeared right before his eyes.
    Emory ran outside and
across the empty plains, searching for them and eventually made his
way to the road where they both appeared out of nowhere, lit by
silvery wisps of moonlight.
    “ The silly boy clearly
wants me to kill him,” Auria snarled.
    Emory’s response was to
tentatively close the space between them, grasp Auria’s hand and
get to his knees, resting his head against her hand. She sighed
softly and dragged him to his feet, holding him aloft by the front
of his shirt as she peered at him in the soft glow of the
moonlight.
    “ I should really kill
you,” she said, sounding bored. “But I’ll spare you. Go back to the
farm and stay there. Someone will find you in