Dark Empathy Archibald Bradford (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📖

defenses by bringing the memories of her childhood to bear.

But he didn’t enter her mind.

She waited, but it didn’t happen.

When she finally looked towards him she saw that he was holding her heartstone anklet in his palm with the closed fist of his opposite hand hovering over it like a hammer waiting to drop.

Though she didn’t like to talk to him more than necessary, it was fair to say she was curious.

“I haven’t got all day.” She prodded blithely.

“If I cross this line, she might kill us both.”

Yana frowned, her gaze drifting back to his closed fist, still hovering over her heartstone.

“Whatever you attempt, you will fail.”

“No.” He shook his head; “I’m certain this will work, but the cost might be too great, even for her.”

She rolled her eyes at him, she couldn’t help it, she had long since stopped taking him seriously.

“You’re deluding yourself. Though that wicked creature will surely kill you someday, and probably me as well, you will fail. You know that you can’t break me, I’m-”

His head snapped up and he glared at her with his dark eyes.

“Enough! I’ve had enough! I’m done trying, I’m so sick of all of this! I just want it to be over!”

Yana froze as she heard a faint clink; his fist had opened and dropped something into his palm next to the anklet when he shouted at her.

Her eyes widened when she saw that it was a pitch black heartstone, darker than any she had ever seen.

A chill she couldn’t account for ran down her spine, as if she was staring into a dark gateway within which lurked some terrible danger.

Her mouth opened to demand answers, but after taking a moment to collect himself he turned to the ever vigilant Tenebrae around them and gestured towards her chains with a nod of his head.

“Bring her.”

Naturally she struggled, but the other monster girls had every advantage as they bodily dragged her into the room with the sleeping Evadne.

Jonathan slipped over to the bed and gently traced one finger through the monster’s hair.

After a few seconds he planted a whisper of a kiss on the side of her brow and turned to face Yana again.

He held the black heartstone up so that she could get a good look at it, working it between the pads of his fingers slightly.

“Maybe you have endured far more than I can imagine. But I doubt you’ve endured more than she has.”

Yana’s eyes widened but before she could say anything Jonathan was once again pulling her into her mind…

Or at least, someone’s, mind.

__________

The desperate Chimera’s heart pounded in her ears while the muscles in her back strained as her wings battled the air. In her heart she knew there was no hope, but she could not accept it and raced through the sky anyways.

As she crested the ridge and looked down into the ravine the air suddenly stopped fighting her.

The silence around the village was deafening and her mouth fell open at the sight of the place as she glided towards her family’s den.

In the twilight caused by the human’s device she could see her people, her friends, now nothing more than frozen statues of ash littering the various shelves of the broad canyon.

Some had already crumpled in on themselves to form little piles of grey dust.

“No no no no. Maybe, maybe they got to safety, they are safe, they have to be safe.”

She swooped down to the shelf where her mother first taught her to fly, where she was teaching her own eager children that very morning, where someday they would teach her granddaughters.

But as she rushed inside her heart grew cold at the eerie silence of the place.

“K-Kaylen! Petra! Mama!”

She called for her family as she stood in the rough ovoid front room, dominated by the thick rug her great grandmother had made.

A soft squeak from one side made her heart skip and drew her attention to the kitchen.

In that moment Evadne would swear for all time that she heard the faint sound of her children laughing in the eerie silence.

She stepped to the door and pushed it open with one hand.

The creak of the heavy wood door swinging open was the sound that heralded the end of her world.

Her mother was sitting in her usual rocking chair by the stove, while at her feet were Evadne’s children.

Statues of ash.

She fell to her knees, a hoarse sound tearing from her throat as her new reality overwhelmed her.

Pain struck her midsection as her body rejected what her eyes saw, her stomach heaving as she fell to all fours and vomited on the stone floor.

Once her convulsions seized, she crawled forwards until she was inches from Petra’s frozen features.

With one shaky hand Evadne reached out, intending to caress her daughter’s cheek, desperate for any hint that the child somehow lived.

But with the faintest brush of her finger Petra crumbled before her eyes, closely followed by Kaylen and their grandmother in her chair.

With a clipped scream Evadne scrambled to hold their remains together even as hope died inside her.

She could taste the ashes of her children on her tongue.

__________

Hours.

Days.

A toxic mixture of sorrow and guilt wracked her heart and suspended it into forever as she wept and clawed into the floor, leaving deep gouges in the solid granite even as her claws bled.

Her vision faded, going black around the edges as grief was all she knew; no longer could she even see the cold kitchen where her children had died.

This was her fault, all of her family, all of her people, were dead because she trusted a human. She could feel the shame darkening her soul.

The only course left to her was