Between the Moon and Her Night (Between Life and Death #3)

Prologue

Aurelia

I was created just over three hundred years ago.

The heart which beats inside my chest was a sacrifice made on my behalf, something that was necessary for my body’s creation. It was taken from the God of Life, rinsed in the Selenian Sea, then planted in the womb of my mother moon. When this body was strong enough to house the divine, my soul was placed in it, and from there, I was born.

Fully made as a woman and delivered into the embrace of the God of Life.

Aurelius. Son of Sol and the King of the New Gods. The Lord of Light, and I, his lady.

For a time, we loved one another.

At least . . . I thought we did.

You see, even though my husband carried the title of king, I was never addressed as queen. I wore a crown, yes, but my status never surpassed that of princess. I was always expected to stand beside his golden throne, never to sit beside him as an equal. I was never allowed in court meetings or given any role that was of any importance in serving the two realms Aurelius ruled over.

I had but one job—produce heirs for my king.

And at that, I failed. I couldn’t even give him one . Quite the predicament for the so-called Goddess of Life.

But my failure was not my own.

Before my creation, before Aurelius’s, there was another god who ruled, a much older, stronger, more sinister one—the God of Death, King of the Old Gods. He was the first king of the Three Realms—the Immortal Realm, the Living Realm, and the Spirit Realm—but under his control, they started to deteriorate. So, the omnipotent Creator removed two-thirds of the God of Death’s kingship and gave the Immortal and the Living Realms to Aurelius. As one could imagine, this did not sit well with the God of Death, and like a venomous snake, he coiled in the shadows, waiting for his moment to strike.

On the day of my making, I was given all the parts a woman needed to create a child, but when the God of Death caught wind of my creation, he stole me into his night. There, he placed his massive hand, adorned with black ink and silver rings, upon the flat of my stomach, and with a wicked gleam in his starless eyes, he cursed me with his touch of death. Like frost kissing the petals of a delicate flower, my womb began to wither. Not only this, but so did my ability to create any other forms of life—no animals, no plants, nothing. The God of Death stripped me of all that I was, and then he forced me to crawl back to my husband, to tell him that I was barren.

For years, I believed that was the day that the first fracture was made in our seemingly perfect marriage, but I was blinded by love and unable to see that it was full of hairline cracks that had been there all along.

As time continued, and I was unable to fulfill my divine duty—to create—I became sick with a horrific fever. It felt like my body was strapped to a pyre, eternally burning, the flames never ending, never ceasing. Not once. Aurelius tried everything to help me, whether it be procedures like bloodletting or drugs like dwale to drag me under, but nothing helped to end my torment.

At least, not until the darkness returned to my side, sweeping me into his strong, steely arms and taking me away with his shadows. Amongst my screams of pain, I found a sliver of solace—his cool rings were euphoric against my blazing skin.

I awoke lying on the floor of a cabin, the mountainous God of Death seated in a chair beside me, an apple in one hand, a knife in the other. As he cut the red fruit, he told me that he would make a deal with me to end my suffering. He would give me an apple seed so that I could create life with it. I was so desperate for relief that I accepted. But his deal was conditional. Whenever the fever returned, he would give me a seed to plant, but I was to plant it directly outside of the bed chambers I shared with my husband. It was a diabolical plan, because whenever Aurelius looked outside, he would be forced to see the trees I had planted, created from what the God of Death had given me. It served as a silent reminder that Aurelius was ruling land that once belonged to the God of Death.

Years swirled into decades, and decades caved to centuries. Thousands of seeds stretched up from the soil, growing into tall, mighty trees, until a grand orchard stood outside our bedchamber, spanning for miles in swaths of glorious green laden with ripe reds.

And so, instead of children, I had given my husband thousands of trees. Trees that were born from the God of Death’s seed and my labor. As they grew tall and fruitful, Aurelius’s affections for me withered. If that had been the God of Death’s plan to destroy our marriage, well, he succeeded. In truth, though, Aurelius had played the bigger part in its demise, by never treating me as a woman deserves to be treated.

But before I realized that, before I realized my worth, the God of Death brought war to our doorstep. Aurelius and I put our marital problems to the side as we looked to defend his kingship.

The Immortal War spanned decades.

When it was over, our side had lost.

The God of Death enslaved the New Gods, one by one, leaving me to be imprisoned last. On the day he came for me, I was still fighting on the battlefield, unaware that our side had fallen, until the bastard stole me from the warzone and told me that we had lost. There, on the cliff of the mountainside, I made my final stand against him. I gathered what little strength I had left, and I shoved my blade into his stomach—targeting the same place he had touched when he stole my ability to create. Blood, as red as a mortal’s, seeped from his nasty, deep wound. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, for I was no stranger to the rumors—

The God of Death could not bleed .

And yet, somehow, he was.

The face he made was one I would never forget. Surprise. Confusion. And something much, much darker. Something . . . possessive.

He told me he was calling off the war.

Disbelieving, I asked him why, and that was when he said, “Since the dawn of time, I have spent millennia searching for an answer to the empty void inside. And now, at last, I have it. How fitting that she should be the very thing that can kill me.”

Then . . . he left. One black feather was rendered in his wake. It was the first of many that would eventually find their way to me.

True to his word, he ended the war.

Our people celebrated, believing a false lie fed to them by the court that we had won and defeated the monster—the God of Death and his army. One could imagine the horror upon their faces when he showed up at the victory celebration with Aurelius in chains and another deal on his wicked lips. He would free Aurelius, give back the two realms, all in exchange for one thing . . .

Me.

I was to go with him and live in the Spirit Realm where I would become his bride.

Seeing Aurelius reduced to his imprisoned state, it tugged at my fragile, biased heart, and I made the deal.

Later that night, when every immortal with any knowledge tried and failed to break the bonds that the God of Death had imprisoned Aurelius in, I tried to comfort him. But in his jealousy, he turned cold towards me. I crumbled, never having felt such disgust from him before, a male whom I thought I loved. When I picked myself up from my broken state, I charged into his court, demanding to speak with him.

That day was when everything changed.

Aurelius told me that he was going to gather the children of the Old Gods and have them Cleansed from existence with iron and flame, the two elements necessary to end a Demi God’s life. But that wasn’t the worst part of it all, no. You see, fire needs wood, and there was one place nearby where wood was in abundance—

My orchard .

The only thing that was mine .

The orchard that I had tended with such love and care throughout the years was going to be weaponized, used to take innocent lives. I had thought the God of Death was wicked and cruel for stealing my ability to create, but his actions paled in comparison to what Aurelius was going to do.

. . . What he did .

One by one, my trees were cut down, but as they fell to the ground, I did not shatter.

No. Instead, I rose.

Because finally, I had found my voice.

My courage. My worth .

I tore off my wedding band, telling him we were over.

Angrily, he took the ring, forced it back on, and then snapped my finger to the side, the broken bone locking the gold band in place. As he did that, he told me that he would never allow me to leave him. Before he could hurt me further, I let my light take me to the only person who could help me—

The God of Death .

I went to the Spirit Realm, greeted by the fall of black snowflakes and a looming, haunting castle. Inside, I found the male who I once thought my enemy, but when he took my broken finger and healed it, I started to wonder if I had been wrong about him. He told me he would help me free the Demi Gods and give them a place to live in the Living Realm—Edenvale. There, he would gift me a wall of endless mist that would surround the continent and protect them from Aurelius.

When I asked him what he wanted in return, knowing he never made a deal without wanting something in exchange, his answer shocked me.

Nothing.

The maker of deals wanted nothing in return.

And to me, that meant a great something .

But would it be enough for me to move forward from our treacherous past?

That, I didn’t know, but I supposed I was going to find out.