The Shattered Lands Novels & Stories

~ Liana ~ The moment I slammed the door of my hotel room, the tears started flowing. My legs gave way, and I found myself crumpled on the floor, my back pressed against the cold wall. The robe from the bed hung around me like a heavy blanket, offering no comfort from the storm brewing inside. With trembling hands, I reached for the remote control. I hesitated, not wanting to face anything that might judge me further than I already felt—but there was this nagging need to see it. I had to grasp just how far my life had spiraled out of control.

Chapter 97 – The Book She Wrote The house was quiet again, but this time it was the kind of quiet that hummed with purpose. The kind of quiet that filled the room with possibilities rather than emptiness. I sat at my desk, pen in hand, notebook open, staring at the blank page for a long time before writing the first words. “Shattered Vows,” I whispered to myself. The title alone made my chest tighten, a reminder of everything I had lived through—the love, the lies, the heartbreak, the forgiveness, and the slow, painstaking rebuilding of myself.

A PAWN & A KING ~ALICE’S POV~ I was still standing there, staring at the door Noah had just walked through, trying to piece my sanity back together. But that was the thing about sanity. Once it cracks, it doesn’t take much to shatter. A low groan cut through the silence. I turned slowly, my stomach flipping as I saw Edward stir on the floor. Another groan, and he rolled onto his side, wincing as he dragged himself up onto his elbows.

“That’s right. Keep fighting. You know I don’t mind hurting you. You’re nothing but some dirty whore who can’t even fuck right.” I can’t scream because of his hands. I can’t fight because of his weight. I can’t do anything to stop him. Maybe, just maybe, this time he’ll kill me, and it will be over. No, I can’t let him win. I bite down on his hands hard, and he pulls back. “HELP, HELP. SOMEBODY HELP ME. HELP ME! “SAM, WAKE UP.” Somebody’s shaking me, but I can’t escape.

The Shardlands were unlike any place Aria had ever seen. Shards of crystal jutted from the cracked earth like the spines of a great beast, each one refracting not just light, but memory. Beneath a sky of fractured moons and bleeding clouds, the landscape shimmered with a thousand versions of itself—past, present, and future folding into one. It was a place where time bled, and the truth shattered. Aria stepped forward cautiously, Kael by her side, Lena and Tarek trailing close behind. Their Rootbound allies had refused to come this far. Even the flame-warded scouts had turned back at the edge of the crystal border.

He was so skinny that he looked bony, his face was ghostly pale, and he was so frail that a gust of wind could knock him over. When I arrived, I saw a spark of life return to his eyes, like an old fire rekindled. Still, that tiny ember vanished the moment I spoke. "I used to want to marry you here more than anything." Saying it now, I didn't feel pain anymore. Maybe, when the end is near, your heart just gets lighter.

Not destroyed like wastelands. Warped. Bent. Twisted. Reality itself undone. Mae shivered. Skin prickling. Every nerve screaming: You shouldn’t be here. Nothing should. This is the fracture. Riven stepped out first, boots crunching against ground that looked like crystal shards pretending to be grass. Mae followed, careful. Every step deliberate, like the ground might collapse if she trusted it too much. Riven glanced back. No grin. No swagger. Serious. Sharp. Watching her. “Alright chaos bomb,” His hand swept wide toward the broken horizon. “All yours.”

The rift had grown impossibly wide, a jagged tear in the Void where multiple realities collided and overlapped. The fragments of shattered worlds spun chaotically, colliding and folding as though the universe itself were convulsing in pain. Shadows deeper than night stretched across the fractured landscape, writhing like living smoke, probing for weakness.

Eeeeeeeee. I fell. I fell through the floor of the world. Through the darkness of the Void. My stomach dropped into my throat. The wind tore at my skin. I landed on a plain of white ash. Thump. The sky was bleeding. I looked up. The Shattered Moon was no longer silver. It was a deep, clotting crimson. The fragments were moving. Grinding against each other with a sound like tectonic plates screaming. GRIND. SCRAPE. They weren't orbiting anymore. They were collapsing.

“I’ll try. But right now… you’re toxic.” The call cut off. I sat frozen, the word toxic reverberating in my skull until it drowned out everything else. My pulse roared in my ears. My breaths came shallow. Everything I’d built, everything I’d bled for—gone, shattered like glass on pavement. With shaking hands, I tried to call Ethan. He'd know something. He'd know what to do, which string to pull, whom to call. But before I could shift the car into gear, a burst of headlights swerved across my windshield. Tires screamed. A black van cut and pinned me in.