The Emperor of Evening Stars by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 3 The Angels of Small Death

254 years ago

It takes a day for me to bury my mother and another to leave her.

She rests among the ruins of Lyra, one of the oldest temples dedicated to the goddess of new life, her body nestled amongst Lyra’s undying flowers. The story of the ancient goddess was always one of her favorites.

I stare at the freshly turned earth, my jaw locked hard.

She shouldn’t be buried here, in an unmarked grave in the land of Flora. But I can’t go back to Arestys, and that’s the only home I’ve ever shared with my mother. So I leave her to her final sleep in a land I’ve only ever read about.

As I fly away from her grave and the distance between us grows larger and larger, my anger and pain smolder deep within me.

I feel my identity tearing apart, refashioning itself into something harder, colder. There’s no more room in my heart for softness. I have one reason for existing, and one alone: to kill the king.

My mother wanted me to seek asylum in the Day Kingdom, but that was before, when my mother had saved up riches to give the King of Day. What are the chances that he’d take me in now, when I’m penniless?

I already know the answer.

She wouldn’t have saved up the money if I didn’t need it.

Which means that the last fourteen years of her savings, of us living off of beet stew and sleeping in Arestys’ caves was all for nothing.

All. For. Nothing.

The unfairness of it burns through me.

I’m a wanted man, and there’s no place for me to go—

My wings almost freeze mid-beat as a realization slams into me.

Of course.

There is a place that might welcome a bloodstained, penniless fairy. A place where violence and vendettas are born.

The City of Thieves. Barbos.