Chapter Thirty-Three
The Unmarked: Book One
Table of Contents:
[Prologue] [Ch.1] [Ch.2] [Ch.3] [Ch.4] [Ch.5] [Ch.6] [Ch.7] [Ch.8] [Ch.9] [Ch.10] [Ch.11] [Ch.12] [Ch.13] [Ch.14] [Ch.15] [Ch.16] [Ch.17] [Ch.18] [Ch.19] [Ch.20] [Ch. 21] [Ch.22] [Ch.23] [Ch.24] [Ch.25] [Ch.26] [Ch.27] [Ch.28] [Ch.29] [Ch.30] [Ch.31] [Ch.32]
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Olive.
Four weeks passed since they had been betrayed. Twenty-eight days, and it still hurt like a fresh wound. Not her head wound, her head was healing. Thankfully, she hadn’t gotten a concussion after her skull had gone slamming into the back of the door to the point of knocking her out. No, it was the intention behind the action that hurt the most.
It had taken the team most of the morning to find her gagged and tied to the side of a bedpost in River’s bedroom. She had been humiliated. The memory made her blood boil. River had pretended to want her. He had gone so far as to kiss her and bring her into his bedroom. All in his plan to manipulate her, attack her, and leave her behind. Leave his team behind. Leave his entire life behind.
All for Dawn’s sake.
Olive hated her for that.
The team had obviously been shocked, hurt, and destabilized. Of course, they knew the feelings River had for Dawn. But, to have him throw away everything he had worked so hard for by betraying the people most loyal to him and going after a fugitive had been beyond their anticipation. It shouldn’t have been. Not for Olive at least. She’d been warned by the Governor that something like this could happen. Seven weeks ago, he had summoned her into his office and appointed her the mission of convincing River to return home, and of convincing the team that Dawn was a dangerous rebel.
“I will bring back Dawn the moment we lay hands on her” Olive had promised. But the Governor had shook his head.
“No Olive” he had said. “You will not bring her back. You will make sure that her treachery ends the moment you find her. She’s escaped me once. I cannot let that happen again”.
“What do you want me to do?”
“End her however you see fit.”
Olive had grown tense. Her hands had become clammy.
“What about River?” she had asked, forcing her voice to steady.
“Whatever happens, you bring my son back home to me. Alive and without Dawn”.
“Yes, Governor”.
“You succeed in this mission for me, Olive, and I promise you that one day River will be sitting in this chair, overseeing every affair in Aura, with you at his side”.
Just as Olive had turned to leave, the Governor had called out for her. “One more thing”.
“Yes, Governor?”
“I have something for you. Just as a precaution, to make sure you never lose track of River, if he were to do anything rash…”
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Olive sat on the floor of her bedroom, staring at the egg-shaped stone she cradled in her arms, bundled in blankets like an infant. She dared not touch it’s sleek, deep blue surface with her bare hands. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. The experience in the Governor’s office had been terrifying. She had felt as if her mind and soul had been torn out of her body and thrown into a foreign vessel. It had taken her several days to recover and feel comfortable in her own skin again.
So much had happened in the past few days. Her world had been thrown upside down. Her body had been bruised, and her heart broken. Olive wasn’t ready to feel like a stranger in her own flesh again. She needed something concrete and normal to hold onto for a little while longer. Until she regained footing on her situation.
The stone made her stomach churn. She saw in it the cruel and stark reality of the world, as if looking into the face of a bastard child. It reminded her that the world was not as it seemed. That there were secrets hidden in the shadows of this existence. Lilly Eromsdaughter, one of the most renowned Guardians in Aura, had been a liar involved with the Rebels. Dawn had pretended to love River and then run off with Wolfe Bloodwood, a man hunted by the Queen herself. River had betrayed himself as a Guardian of Erom all for a foolish infatuation. There were stones that gave people unimaginable abilities. Worst of all though, Olive saw the fact that she wasn’t who she thought she was. In the stone’s sleek surface, she saw her own visage, her features distorted by a grimace: the embodiment of the shame she held inside herself. Shame, because Olive had failed: in enticing River, in bringing him back home, in showing him that she was more desirable than Dawn. In proving to him that Dawn was not worth devoting his life to, but that Olive was.
Anger turned to liquid fire that coursed through her veins and she saw her features distort into a vicious frown. She took hold of the stone, and with all her might, fueled by her hate, she threw it against the wall. It fell to the ground and cracked in half.
The adrenaline in her body dropped so quickly that she blinked several times, trying to reorient herself. She panted and looked down at her shaking hands, then to the stone that lay broken on the floor.
“Shit” she hissed.
Olive crawled over to the stone on her hands and knees. It had broken into two large pieces, and there was debris and dust scattered across the floor. Sunshine filtered through the window and shone on the mess she had made. In the light, the stone’s broken pieces glittered silver-blue. With trembling fingers, Olive reached for the dust. The moment her skin touched the particles, her consciousness was yanked from her body, and she was plunged into a world of grey.
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