Daughter of Strife- Part 2 Read online

  Daughter of Strife: Part 2

  The Nightfall Chronicles

  Karpov Kinrade

  Daring Books

  http://KarpovKinrade.com

  Copyright © 2019 Karpov Kinrade Cover Art Copyright © 2019 Karpov Kinrade ~~~~~

  Published by Daring Books ~~~~~

  First Edition

  ~~~~~

  eBook License Notes

  You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

  To our Nightfall fans, who keep asking when the next book will be out. <3

  Contents

  Important Message to Readers

  1. Part 2 RIVER OF DREAMS

  About the Author

  Also by Karpov Kinrade

  Important Message to Readers

  Dear reader,

  You are the reason this book exists. You and your passion for the Nightfall Chronicles. We know you've waited SO LONG to get the next part of Scarlett's story, and we want you to be totally happy with it. So here's a warning.

  Book 4, Daughter of Strife, is going to be published as a serial before we release it as a complete book. This means they will be novella/novelette length stories published in rapid succession until the book is done. (The first two installments might be extra short, but we plan to lengthen them after that.) We bounced this idea off our KK Coven group (which you should totally join if you haven't) and there was enough enthusiasm for the idea that we decided to go for it.

  Here's our reasoning. The nature of the publishing industry right now is such that we need rapid releases to keep momentum up. We can't do rapid releases of books the length of most of the Nightfall books. They take far too long. We've been wanting to work on Daughter of Strife for ages, but just couldn’t justify it from a business perspective. Well, we're tired of waiting. We had a novella planned for launch this month, and another novella for January, and we thought, what if we just start releasing the book everyone actually wants to read?

  I know most of you much prefer the full book, and will not be thrilled with these mini releases. Some of you may balk at the $2.99 price tag. We get it. Here's the deal with that. If we price lower than $2.99, we go from a 70% royalty rate to a 30% royalty rate, which is crippling unless it's for a sale. Also, we generally have underpriced our much longer books because of what the market can bare, so we figure it all washes out in the end. AND, this series is in KU, so you can read all these as part of your membership, which we STRONGLY encourage. We don't want you shelling out the money for each installment if you can't afford it. You're also welcome to wait until it's complete and comes out in full book form, if you prefer. Please know that by doing it this way, those who choose to wait are still getting it faster than if we continued to delay it to launch other books rapidly.

  We hope you enjoy this. Consider it like a tv show you have to wait a bit for if that helps. Or you can save them up and read in big chunks. Either way, we hope you'll join us on this adventure. For those who do read the serials as they come up, keep your eyes peeled. Eventually we will be providing an exclusive link in the back of one of these books that will take you to free digital goodies related to the series JUST FOR YOU! This is our thanks for sticking with us, even as we do things a bit differently.

  Serials are nothing new of course. They've been around about as long as books. But I know it's not everyone's favorite format. Still, for us, this at least allows us to finish this book and move forward in the series, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

  So thank you for your patience. For your support. For your loyalty to this series and us. We hope you enjoy the continuing adventures of Scarlett and her double life!

  Love and light,

  Lux and Dmytry Karpov Kinrade

  If you haven't yet, be sure to join our email for the latest news on releases.

  Part 2 RIVER OF DREAMS

  My hand still tingles from whatever magical technology opened the door to what appears to be a cockpit, and I rub it against my shorts as I look around.

  The space is a cavernous oblong sphere with intricate gold designs detailing the curved silver walls. The style screams Angel tech.

  "What is this place?" Corinne asks as she takes it all in.

  I shrug. "Not sure. But I think this is the center of control," I say, as I use the palm of my hand to swipe dust off a sleek panel made of what looks like opal. At the contact, it begins to glow a silvery white as if coming to life.

  "Scarlett," Evie says, "I detect a presence here that is similar to your sword. It is as if they are reaching out for each other, trying to connect," she says, sounding as confused as a fairly sentient AI can sound.

  I relay the information to Corinne as I examine the space. In the center is a large pod, cocooned like an egg. I'm assuming most of the controls are inside whatever that is. I walk around and look for anything that might give us a clue how to work this thing. "If the ship wants to talk to my sword, then we should let it," I say, now looking for something very specific. I grin when I find it.

  A large stone—moonstone by the looks of it—tucked into a corner, with a slot in the center about the size of my blade.

  "Huh," Corinne says when she sees it. "Very Arthurian."

  I stick my sword into the slot, and as I expected, it slides in effortlessly. Once it clicks into place, a buzz fills the chamber and the dashboard lights up, followed by the rest of the cockpit.

  "And we have power," I say with a smile, as I swipe to pull up a holographic control panel. I whistle as I explore. "The Hospitallers are going to love us when we tell them about this," I say.

  Corinne grins. "That's good. You could use the extra points in your favor."

  I open my mouth to defend myself, then close it. She's right. I need all the help I can get this quarter. "This was a ship," I say. "And it looks like the cargo had some kind of medical supply."

  Corinne's eyes light up. "That's incredible. It's been ages since we found anything like that, and the last time we did we cured a whole host of diseases. The strides we could make in medicine with this are astronomical."

  I nod. "It's pretty amazing," I say, though my voice is less enthusiastic than I intended.

  That fact doesn't escape Corinne, who raises an eyebrow at me. "What's up?"

  I shrug. "Doesn't it seem hypocritical to you? That humans born without the Zenith gene treat Zeniths like property, but then they use the Angel tech they find to make themselves just like Zeniths. Just like Nephilim, even. Just like us. But they would see us dead for being what we are."

  Corinne's lips turn down, a line appearing between her eyes. "That's what Nightfall aims to change, isn't it? And maybe if our technology advances enough, everyone can be strong and long-lived and powerful and no one will be discriminated against. We can go back to the good old days when we discriminated based on skin color and gender instead," she says with a self-deprecating laugh.

  "You're right," I say with a sigh. "If human history has sh
own us anything, it's that people aren't happy unless they're scared and miserable and aligned against 'the other' in some way. But we can't give up hope. Just as there are always people ready to fear any that are different, so too have there always been people ready to fight for the rights of all, to defend the defenseless, to align with all. So we persist."

  "I hope Evie recorded that. It would make a great motivational speech for your groupies."

  I roll my eyes. "Please don't call them that."

  "Fine. Nephilytes. Same thing."

  "You know I don't like that part of this," I say, feeling uncomfortable. Being worshipped and revered as a god is not what I want, but it's a byproduct of being who I am and I have to live with it. I just don't need my best friend joining in on the action. Though she probably understands it better than anyone, given she will someday be queen of one of the most powerful countries in the world.

  My stomach gurgles and an unpleasant pain builds in my gut. "Oh crap," I say, feeling a wave of discomfort slam through my intestines.

  "What's wrong?" Corinne asks.

  I can't answer. I cover my mouth with my hand and run out of the cockpit and back into the tunnel before I find a corner and unleash the demons that are now battling in my abdomen. It's ongoing and constant and pulls from me everything I've ever eaten since I was born. While I'm dry heaving the nothing that now lives in my stomach, Corinne joins me, emptying herself of all food as well. It takes us a good twenty minutes before we are done, and we both look like we died and were resurrected by an amateur who didn't know what they were doing.

  "We have to hurry," I say, dreading the next phase of the poison.

  Corinne is still vomiting when I return to the control room to figure out how to get us back to our friends before we fail our Trial.

  Failure means expulsion. And while Corinne is a favorite and a queen-to-be, and my grandfather is Chancellor, I don't want to test whether we have enough strings to pull to keep us in the training if we fail.

  I get back to work hacking the system and am rewarded when something beeps and my sword lights, the moonstone it's stuck in glowing a soft pulsing white light. When the egg pod cracks open, I stand in awe, staring.

  There's an Angel inside.

  I step closer, my stomach gurgling, my body perspiring, my gut clenching.

  The Angel is clearly dead, if the stench wafting from the body is any indication. Likely their armor is the only thing keeping their body together. It's heavy gold armor with detailed carvings, similar to the Angel who killed my parents.

  The similarity is jarring, and memories of that night flash in my mind. I see them in color now, my parents, and that whole night. It's strange, to look back on my life with color and realize the memories have changed, that my brain fills in the blank, coloring in my life after the fact.

  I shake myself out of my memories and study the Angel before me.

  Their sex is difficult to determine, as their head is covered and they are slumped forward against a control panel. Their gloved hand rests on their lap, and within it I see something gold peeking out. Trying not to breathe too deeply, I tug on the wrist, dislodging their hand. A golden disk falls out, round, about the size of my palm, with ancient glyphs of some kind carved into it. I reach to pick it up, and as soon as my hand makes contact with it, a new kind of power surges within me.

  My breathing becomes labored as my hand involuntarily clutches around it. Electric pulses ignite in my body. In my blood. I feel on fire. Like my molecules are fighting to create a new reality within myself.

  Panic builds as the growing power threatens to explode through me, filling me, luring me, enticing me, and I shove the disk into a pocket, where its effects dim now that it's no longer in contact with my skin.

  Corinne walks in just as I hide the disk, a curious expression on her face. But the movement shifts something, and the Angel falls to the side, their other hand slipping off the panel as they do.

  The movement appears to activate a holographic message that projects from the pod. It's the Angel, only they're not wearing a helmet. They're female, with skin the color of night and eyes the color of the moon. She looks worried. Scared. Determined, as she fills the space between us. Her wings spread out behind her, golden and glowing.

  "I am called Jinda, and I came here to stop the apocalypse of humanity. The Four Horsemen have been awoken, and the first of them was sent to strike the earth and begin the countdown of the end. But not all of us agreed with this path. I was sent to stop them. I stole a Seal from the first Horsemen, but I was struck down before I could complete my mission. I will die here, in this tomb of my own making. But if you are watching this, then you must stop them. More are coming. And it will not end well for humanity. Destroy the four Seals before they can be used to destroy you. Only a Horseman or one with their blood can activate the Seals. Destroy them. Destroy them all. Before it's too late."

  The holograph fades and Corinne and I look at each other.

  I'm assuming the disk that's practically burning a hole in my pocket is the Seal in question. I'm also pretty sure Corinne saw me take it from the Angel. Before I can decide if now is the time to talk about what the Angel said and what it means that my touch seems to activate something in the disk, I notice her rash.

  And then my own rash hits suddenly and painfully, and we are both scratching ourselves raw, or making a miserable attempt not to.

  "The next phase is going to be the worst," she says, scrunching her nose. "We should probably—"

  A wave of gut cramps clenches my abdomen, and I double over, my eyes widening in panic, my skin suddenly clammy with sweat. "Find a place to shit!" I say, completing her sentence as we both run out of the cockpit again.

  There is no really fantastic way of shitting out all your guts in a cave without proper bathroom facilities.

  But I'm in so much pain I honestly don't even care. I find a corner, drop my shorts, and let it all flow out of me. Flow may actually be too mellow of a word for what is happening to my body, actually. It's more like explosive devices are being set off in my ass. It's violent and painful and loud and smelly, and I hear in the distance Corinne moan as she faces her own dark night of the soul.

  I'm balanced on the balls of my feet, leaning the side of my face against the cold stone, propping myself up as best I can as my ass explodes everywhere.

  It's probably the least fun I've ever had in my life, or close to it.

  When the spasms finally fade, I search for something to clean myself up and find a dirty cloth that was left behind. Better than nothing. Doing what I can with what I have, I handle my business, pull my shorts back up, and with the all the strength of a newborn kitten, make my way slowly back to the cockpit.

  The poison is definitely hitting us, and we're going to need that antidote soon.

  I figure we have about ten minutes before the bubble hiccups start. "Evie, what did Corinne say happens after the hiccups?" Maybe it's best not to know—there's a reason I put it from my mind in the first place—but I ask anyway.

  "The progression of this poison will lead to paralysis and then death within a few hours," Evie says. "I strongly suggest you find a way out quickly, Scarlett. Your vital signs are less than optimal and getting worse. You do not yet have access to the mushrooms, and you only have one antidote vial between the two of you."

  "Yeah, I know. I'm working on it."

  An idea began niggling my mind as I was stinking up the cave. The Angel that killed my parents appeared in a ball of light in the sky, but they must have been in a ship prior to that. It would make sense, at any rate. So what if there's some kind of technology that gives them the ability to beam themselves to specific destinations? That's the theory I'm working with as I gently scoot the Angel off the pod seat, trying very hard to keep whatever remains of their body inside the armor. I studiously ignore the ooze leaking from her as I prop her against the wall and take her place in the pod, connecting Evie to the heart of the ship. I explain to Evie my th
eory. "Look for anything that might be used for teleporting," I say.

  Corinne comes back in, clutching her stomach and supporting herself against the doorframe. "Any luck finding a way out? We aren't going to make it much longer."

  "I have an idea. I just need—" I pause as a ball of gas forms in my gut and rolls its way up my esophagus and out my mouth in the vilest tasting burp in the history of burps. A giant bubble emerges from my mouth, popping in the air before me as another begins to form in the bowels of my body.

  It's not long before Corinne begins burping up bubbles as well.

  "Scarlett, I've found it," Evie says with no time to spare. "I can teleport you and Corinne to any destination within a two-kilometer radius."

  "That's great. But we can't leave the dig site or we'll lose the Trial. We need to find a place within the site to teleport to. Somewhere near our friends."

  Corinne pulls up her map, pointing to a section of the tunnels. "Right there. They won't be in this area, so they won't see how we arrive, but they'll be close enough for us to find them and get the antidote."

  I nod. "Agreed. Evie, all set?"

  "All set, Scarlett. Both of you place your palms against the center console and I will activate the transmission. Word of warning, the ship requires blood to utilize the teleportation."

  "Blood? How much?"

  "It does not appear to be a lot. Just enough to confirm you are of Angel descent."

  "But we aren't," I say.

  "But we are," Corinne reminds me. "Nephilim are born of Angels. It all started with the Angels."

  "But will our blood have enough Angel DNA in it to make this work?" I wonder out loud.