Page 25 of Obsidian Dream

Talik’s heart poundedas he tried to catch his breath.Sweat beaded across his forehead, stinging his eyes, and he tasted blood in his mouth and on his lips.He should feel euphoric, but something was stopping him.A small voice in the back of his mind whispered there was something he’d forgotten.He shook his head.Taking a step forward, he limped—every part of him ached, and that last kick from Khalida had been brutal.

His watch beeped.A text message from Dante flashed across the screen.He would look at it later.

Khalida walked out of the gym.She held her head high and shoulders back.Sweat beaded her skin.She looked like a goddess and still walked with the haughtiness of her bloodline despite the outcome of the fight.Did he actually win?Talik grabbed a towel and started to wipe his face, to buy time and space.

“We leave for Rome in two days.”She stopped at the door and looked back at him but seemed to be looking straight through him.Sadness tinged her face as she stared at him blankly.“If you have forgotten, it is Sidra’s anniversary tomorrow.”

Sidra’s anniversary.

Talik stopped.All thoughts of having won gone.It didn’t matter anymore, not even close.

His throat tightened as a deep, heart-wrenching pain rushed through him with such force he almost fell to his knees.How could he have forgotten?He tried to recall her face, the way she sounded, even her scent.But it was all fading away until he was left with just a vague, gut-wrenching memory that he could barely grasp onto.

A slow panic threatened to overwhelm him.He usually spent the day before the anniversary, and the day after, too intoxicated to think about what happened, too focused on the self-loathing he wore like armor.

It was his fault.

Sidra had died.And he had not been there to stop it.Or to help in the aftermath.

Instead, Khalida had been left cradling their four-year-old daughter as she died in her embrace.

All because their daughter had taken after his side.Just like the rest of his family, Sidra had been human.

Chapter Ten

KHALIDA

Guards stood at theentrance of the mausoleum, facing outwards.Khalida lit a candle as she walked toward the tomb.She was careful not to make a sound on the sandstone floor.It was the hour before dawn, tendrils of red had begun to mar the brightening sky as the stars slowly faded back into oblivion.

In the distance, a guard slipped into the shadows.The waning moon caught a hint of copper hair and a sliver of silver.Meraki had known her for long enough that she knew to stay away unless Khalida called her forth.Khalida silently shook her head.

The cold seeped through her clothes and into her flesh and bones.She’d hated this place as a child.The stone monuments and enormous tombs had never comforted her.Instead, they reminded her that even with their long lifespan, Atlanteans had no concept of an afterlife.Unlike their human cousins.On dark days like today, what would she have preferred?The human belief in life after death, or the Atlantean dogma that in death they ceased to exist and became nothing but dirt and stardust once again.

It didn’t matter what she thought because in a perfect world, she would not be here.

Only the direct descendants of Lord or Lady Azaes could enter.Anhur had ensured she was given continued access to it, despite having no official claim to the bloodline.Another one of her stupid decisions.