Excerpt: THE ART OF LIVING FOREVER by A.T. Rainach
A centuries-old rivalry is reignited in A.T. Rainach’s dark romantasy debut, which follows the ancient God of War as he discovers the reincarnated soul of the woman he once loved.
Read an excerpt from The Art of Living Forever (US), on-sale November 3rd, below!
PROLOGUE
Beachy Head, England
22 August 1485
By the time the God of War reached her, she already belonged to death.
He stood before Honorée’s body in the shadow-draped room. Candles flickered along the walls, their fragile light straining to penetrate the velvet blackness. Death had refined Rée’s beauty into a serene cruelty. It drained the warmth from her cheeks and fixed her features into a porcelain stillness.
Corpses were familiar to him, broken and bloodied from the battlefield, but hers was different. She lay as if merely asleep, unmarred and flawless. There were no missing limbs, no gore, only emptiness.
“The servants said yours was the last name she uttered,” a voice murmured from the shadows.
Aris turned to Nox, who lounged in the darkened corner. His brother’s long black hair spilled over his shoulders, half-tamed by serpentine braids. But his expression revealed nothing of the death before him.
Aris clenched his hands into fists.
“You were here?” he demanded. He had never trusted Nox, though the distrust between them had no origin he could name.
Nox’s gaze remained cool. “She was gone before I arrived. The sickness took her swiftly.” His fingers traced the carved arm of the chair. The wood darkened under his touch, blistering and splitting before collapsing into rot.
“Swiftly?” Aris snarled, stepping closer as his pulse hammered with familiar rage. He had ridden straight from Bosworth, still slicked with mud and the blood of lesser men, driven by a force that split his bones. He’d felt Rée’s last breath steal from her lungs in a flicker of life snuffed out.
He’d known. Yet he’d hoped to be wrong.
“You, God of Death—too ignorant to know where she’s gone? Or too weak to bring her back?”
Nox’s lips curved into a saccharine smirk. “Mortals get sick. Mortals die. ’Tis the way of things.” His brother briefly looked to the body on the bed, his jaw tightening for the barest moment before the cold mask returned.
With a growl, Aris tore off his chest plate and hurled it at his brother. Nox caught it effortlessly and rose. His fingers curled around the metal, and where he touched it, the steel darkened. Rust unfurled in tarnished veins, devouring the bloodstain and polish as it ate through the strength of the armor. Then the breastplate sagged in his grasp, flaking into brittle ruin before falling to the floor in a scatter of red dust.
“There was nothing to be done.” Nox’s voice softened into a feigned gentleness. “It was her time. Whatever she stirred in you, let it die with her.”
Aris’s vision flushed red as heat surged through him. He strode forward and closed his hand around his brother’s throat, forcing him back into the chair, pressing until the God of Death’s breath faltered.
“You felt it too. I saw visions with her. She was more than mortal.”
Nox’s expression remained calm, though his skin beneath Aris’s grip reddened as heat rose in waves between them. “I felt nothing. I saw nothing. I remember nothing.”
Aris tightened his hold. A furious warmth bled from his palm searing against his brother’s throat in the faint scent of scorched skin. Slowly, Nox lifted his hand and laid it over Aris’s wrist.
A chill sank through flesh and into bone, leaching the warmth from him. Aris’s skin beneath Nox’s touch dulled, paling to gray as brittleness spread inward.
His brother’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Go on,” he said, gripping Aris’s hand harder. “It will make you feel better.”
Only, the heat in Aris’s hand faltered. His flesh began to rot beneath Nox’s hold, stinking and peeling as his strength drained where decay settled.
He hissed and tore free, reaching for his sword with his other hand. “You don’t understand what I felt for her,” he snarled.
That was the cruelty of it. He had felt something in her, seen what he could not name, and now he would never learn why.
A shadow danced across Nox’s face, but it was gone before it fully took shape. “Do you think you’re the only one to ever lose someone?”
Aris laughed, gripping the hilt of his blade. “If you have, I wish I’d been there to mock you.”
A venomous cruelty darkened Nox’s pale gaze. His words dropped to a low, dangerous whisper. “You’re always so predictable.”
Metal flashed as Nox’s hidden blade carved a bright line across Aris’s face. Blood welled and spilled from his lips, dripping down his jaw.
Aris staggered and ran his tongue across his mouth and tasted the split. A deep, jagged wound cut to his chin. He grinned anyway.
“Desperate are you, brother?” he asked.
“Consider it an improvement.”
They circled each other in a deadly symmetry. It was a ritual, this fight between them. A timeless dance etched into their bones, fueled by a hatred older than memory. Aris lunged, and their steel met in a shower of sparks.
“Do you ever tire of this?” Nox asked, deflecting a fatal blow. “How many times must we bleed, and rot, and char each other dry?”
Aris grinned wildly, pressing his face close enough to smell his brother’s familiar scent of cedar and snowmelt and the first breath of a tomb opened after centuries. The chill seeped from Nox’s skin into the air around them. “Not nearly enough.”
Then with a roar, Aris plunged his sword forward, steel meeting flesh in a sickening crunch as it buried in Nox’s chest. Bound by flesh, even the God of Death yielded to the fatal wound. A twisted smile carved on Nox’s lips, blood spraying from his chest and bubbling down his chin. A final spark of defiance lit in his eyes as he sank to his knees.
“See you soon, brother,” he whispered with a crimson smirk.
Aris stood over him, rage bleeding out of him slowly, a hollowness filling the space it left behind. He watched the light leave his brother’s ice-coated eyes, watched Nox’s infuriating smirk go still. Then, in the quiet that followed, a thought arrived that he had no answer for.
Where did the God of Death go when he died?
CHAPTER I
Grace
East Sussex, England
15 October 1805
It should have felt like excitement, like the rush of new beginnings, as I stepped from the carriage to join my fiancé’s sister, but instead a creeping dread twisted through my bones.
The fog clung to the air in a dense breath across the morning gloom. The path to the tent was lined with shadows and the slow crackle of torches, but it wasn’t enough to chase away the cold that settled into my skin.
Somewhere above, a lone raven called in sharp discord, its cry cutting through the eerie strains of music seeping from the tent. The hounds whined from their chains as the horses shuffled and stamped, restless and eager for the hunt to begin.
“Grace?” Caroline’s voice floated toward me as she stood waiting beside the carriage. She had already disembarked, a footman’s hand offered politely for support, though she hardly seemed to need it.
Even on the muddy grounds of the hunt Caroline was the image of aristocratic grace. Her auburn hair, dampened slightly by the mist, had been swept back and tucked beneath a dark riding hat adorned with an elegant feather. A few loose tendrils framed her face, their copper tones catching the gray light. Her blue eyes, severe as the cold breeze that swept through the field, stood out against the pallor of her porcelain skin.
Standing beside her, I was painfully aware of all the ways I did not belong. My ashen hair refused to hold shine, and strands already clung damply to my temples. I didn’t have to see my reflection to know my dull gray eyes gave away far more of my unease than I cared to show. My brother always said my face was ill-suited to cards.
Autumn on the English isle meant the wind carried a bitter sting of chill, and the sun struggled to break through the weight of the clouds and fog. It was strange to think this had come so close to being my new home, my new life. I could hardly imagine myself tied to this place—tied to him.
My breath quickened at the thought, and I forced it down, clenching the folds of my riding coat tighter around me. Today, everything I had planned for would finally set me free. Today, I would leave it all behind, escape this engagement and run. By nightfall, I would be on my way back home to America.
I’d die in this marriage if I didn’t run. Perhaps not physically, but in every other way that mattered. I could already see the slow suffocation, crushed beneath the weight of societal expectations, of duty and a lack of love. How had Caroline accepted it so easily? She spoke of her older, future husband and their upcoming nuptials with a hollow look in her eyes, the sparks of hope and desire already extinguished.
But I wasn’t like Caroline. I couldn’t be. I wouldn’t survive that emptiness.
I scanned the other arriving carriages as we walked to the marquee, my heart thudding in my chest, but I still didn’t see my fiancé. The Prince of Wales was hosting this hunt, and it seemed every lord in England had gathered, their laughter and conversation weaving smokelike through the fog.
“Our hunts at home aren’t quite like this,” I said, trying to ground myself in conversation as we followed the flickering torches toward the tent.
Inside the marquee, it was like stepping into another world. The fabric walls were heavy with rich tapestries, and vibrant summer flowers bloomed from tall vases, spilling color like fireworks I had once seen in Philadelphia. The memory struck a painful contrast to this world of stifling propriety, where every corner seemed too crowded and every glance too curious.
The eyes of the crowd were on me as we entered. I was an object of curiosity and my skin prickled under their smiles, and the urge to run twisted tight within me. I had come from a life of privilege in America, but this was another world entirely.
“We need a drink,” Caroline said, handing me a flute of champagne.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Caroline only smiled.
I lifted the glass to my lips, willing my hands to stop shaking. The bubbles burst on my tongue, but the lightness it should have brought never reached me.
With practiced grace, Caroline led me through the crowds, stopping at group after group, our conversations all polite murmurs of gossip and titles. I smiled when I was supposed to. Nodded when it was required. Laughed when I felt their gazes linger too long. After a while, my cheeks ached from the effort of pretending to belong. Each polite interaction only heightened the growing sense of claustrophobia.
This was their world. Their life. And I was on the verge of being trapped inside forever, neglected of the love and autonomy I sought.
“You’re Henry’s fiancée, the American?” an older woman asked, her voice dripping with condescension as she eyed me over the rim of her jeweled lorgnette. Her face was painted with too much rouge, her neck and wrists weighed down with an excess of pearls and gems, all of it absurdly out of place in the foggy, muddy field. She reeked of wealth and pretension, her style lost somewhere in the borderlands of the ostentatious.
“Yes, my lady,” I replied, forcing a smile and a curtsy, though my grip tightened around the delicate stem of my champagne flute.
Caroline leaned in smoothly. “This is Gracienne Louisa Bingham, Your Grace. Grace, this is Her Grace, the Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a dear relative.”
I nodded, dropping into another curtsy. No matter how many months I had spent in England, I could never shake the feeling that I didn’t quite belong in this world of titles and formalities. They expected something polished and perfect, and I was a rough stone in a box of jewels.
The duchess eyed me again, her gaze assessing beneath her heavy lashes. “What does your family do, my dear?”
It was a question I’d grown used to, though the slight sneer in her voice made my skin prickle. “Shipping and trading, mostly, Your Grace,” I said as evenly as I could manage.
“Wonderful,” she drawled, pausing to sip from her glass. “Well, you’ll make a lovely wife for our Henry. He is such a special boy.”
Special. I suppressed a snort. The mention of Henry was an anchor in my chest. The doting wife of a special man: another mask, another role I was expected to play. I smiled, nodding along as the duchess turned her attention back to Caroline, their conversation flowing effortlessly. It was clear from the way they spoke that Caroline and I were perhaps the only ones who might venture out to join the men on the hunt.
I took the opportunity to scan the crowded room. I hadn’t seen Henry yet, though I knew he wouldn’t miss a hunt, not with his cousin, the Prince of Wales, hosting.
“Yes, this is the American, Miss Gracienne Louisa Bingham,” the duchess said again, pulling me back to the present. I looked up just in time to see that she and Caroline had drawn the attention of the prince. He was standing directly in front of me now, smiling faintly as he extended his hand.
“Miss Bingham, pleased to have you joining our family,” the prince said, taking my hand in his. I dropped into another curtsy, struggling to maintain my balance while still holding the champagne. “A pity your betrothed is late. My cousin never seems to be on time.”
“Your Highness,” I murmured, lowering my eyes. The words were strange on my tongue, and I glanced up to study him. His face was fuller than I’d expected, ruddy cheeks betraying his indulgences. There was something faintly unsettling in the way his smile stretched with an insatiable hunger.
“His Royal Highness was just telling us about the delegate he has from Rome today!” the duchess chirped. “How exciting! Such a gathering of distinguished nations, wouldn’t you agree?”
I tried to smile, but the tightness in my chest had returned. My attention drifted past the prince and caught upon the man standing just behind him. He was taller than the others, with golden-olive skin and dark hair that fell in loose waves. There was a stark intensity about him that set him apart from the gilded brilliance of the room. His shoulders were so broad they seemed to devour the air around him, yet he stood with the quiet ease of a man accustomed to control.
His eyes landed on me and I focused on that single, impossible shade of green. They were not mild, nor were they gentle. They burned bright as spring hills before a storm, vivid and alive beneath the sweep of thick lashes. I tore my gaze away, but the awareness of him did not lessen. It lingered at the edge of my vision like thunder gathering beyond the horizon.
“Not quite delegate, Great-Aunt,” the prince corrected with a light laugh. “Business consultant to the crown. I thought he needed to experience an English hunt.”
“Well, we are delighted to have him.” The duchess’s voice shifted, noticeably lighter. Was she… flirting?
The tall man was smiling politely at the duchess, his expression distant. I hadn’t realized I was staring until a flush of heat crept up my neck, and I snapped my mouth shut, embarrassed that I’d let it fall open in the first place.
He was, without a doubt, the most handsome man I had ever seen.
Then his eyes caught mine and the intensity in them froze me in place. I couldn’t bring myself to break the connection, nor did I want to.
“Where in America are you from, Miss Bingham?” The dark-haired man’s voice cut through the air. His accent was unfamiliar and much too elegant a cadence for English.
“Pennsylvania,” I all but whispered. His eyes remained on me, and the way his hair swept around his sharp features made my stomach flutter. A long, jagged scar ran across his lips and down his chin.
What kind of life left a scar like that?
His expression turned solemn as we studied one another, and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. “Lord…” I began, unsure how to address him.
“Notaras,” the prince interjected when it became clear the man had no intention of answering. “Lord Notaras. His family traces back to Alexander the Great himself.”
A murmur of approval rippled through the group, but the prince’s words stirred something deeper in me. There was a vague recognition I couldn’t place: a dream upon waking, fragments slipping through my fingers the harder I reached for them.
“Forgive me, miss,” Lord Notaras finally said, his voice quieter now. “You have a European air about you.”
I swallowed, trying to steady my breath. “My mother was French,” I answered, stumbling over the words. “Perhaps that’s the likeness you recognize.”
“C’est possible,” he replied, but the shift in his tone, the way his French came so naturally from his lips, made my pulse quicken.
“Oui, monsieur.”
His lips curved slightly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Très bien, mademoiselle.”
There was something far too familiar in the way his lips curled, as though the smile reserved for me belonged to someone he knew well. Did he know me? He must have been mistaken. There was no way I could forget someone like him.
I would never forget that scar.
“Good morning!” A boisterous male voice rang out from behind us. I turned toward the entrance of the tent where the master of the hunt, Caroline’s uncle, stood, his voice as bright as the sudden break in the clouds. “What a beautiful day for a hunt. Let us mount!”
In the rush of movement, the crowd surged forward, and before I could look for Lord Notaras again, Caroline tugged me into the flow of people. I craned my neck, straining to catch another glimpse of him, but the sea of bodies swallowed me.
For the better. Such a handsome man would prove too distracting. I had a fiancé to escape from, after all. A new life in America to start.
The moment I stepped outside, the sunlight hit my face, warm and unexpected after the coolness of the marquee. I closed my eyes for a breath, letting the warmth soak into my skin. The damp, rich scent of earth hung in the air, as though the day were waking from a long sleep.
Following Caroline, I stopped just beside the bay mare I was intended to ride, my fingers instinctively trailing over her neck. I let them twirl in her black mane as I inhaled deeply, the familiar smell of horseflesh and leather wrapping around me.
There was something about the scent of a horse that was universal—no matter where I was, no matter how far I’d traveled, it always brought me back to one place.
Home.
Closing my eyes, I was back in my summer home in Charleston. The warm sun was on my back, the rush of wind across my ears as I raced across the lavender fields, my brother beside me, laughing as we pushed our horses faster and faster, until the world blurred around us. My brother’s face in the sunlight glowed with the unbridled joy of freedom.
“My lady.” A groom’s voice broke through the memory, accompanied by a short bow. He stepped forward to help me mount. I adjusted myself, sitting sidesaddle, the familiar strength of the animal beneath me a welcome comfort.
“Apologies for my absence. I was—er—detained,” a voice on my side cut in, lacking any warmth. My fiancé, with his usual entourage of noble boys, all mounted and laughing among themselves.
Then, with a grin, Henry added, “But alas! My lady does love a good hunt.” He motioned toward his friends, who chuckled on cue. “She took me on a hunt at her father’s estate.”
As he leaned closer, I caught the pungent scent of sour whiskey on his breath, and my stomach turned. “But,” he murmured, his voice conspiratorial, “it’s best to get this adventurous streak out of your blood. You won’t be riding much longer. Your job is to produce heirs. Don’t forget that.”
My stomach twisted, a wave of nausea rising. I turned away from him quickly, hoping my disgust wasn’t plain on my face. How could anyone endure a lifetime of this?
Beside me, Caroline seemed tense, her expression tight as she stared straight ahead.
“Are you all right?” I asked softly.
“I’m not entirely fond of horses,” she said with a small, forced laugh, her orangey-red hair a beautiful contrast to the bright green she wore. “But let’s give this a go, shall we?”
If she had heard her brother’s crude remark, she pretended not to. She was good at that, far better than I would ever be. The way she could smooth over the ugliest words, as though they were nothing more than a passing breeze. I envied her for it.
“All on!” The whipper-in’s shout rang out across the field, signaling that the hounds were ready. The pack was already alert, restless, their bodies tense with anticipation. They whined, eyes trained on the master of the hunt, waiting for the moment to spring into the field.
I sat still on my horse, hoping to avoid any further conversation with Henry or his friends. The last thing I wanted was to listen to them boast about their exploits or mock the very event they were about to enjoy.
The eager dogs panted in front of us. Noses in the air, ears alert. Foaming maws and hungry eyes as they anticipated the thrill of the hunt. The chase.
And too quickly, a knot of unease formed in my stomach.
The poor fox.
It had no idea what was coming. Ripped from its burrow, chased through the fields by a pack of hounds and a cavalcade of riders, terrified and running for its life.
Not unlike my own fate.
My heart beat faster.
Henry was deep in conversation with his companions, laughing as though this were just another game. The knot in my stomach grew to my chest, but the nervousness wasn’t the kind of thrill or longing a woman should feel when she looked at her fiancé.
Once the hunt began, no one would notice if I slipped away. If I guided my horse into the woods and disappeared. From there: Brighton. I would reach the port, find passage on a ship bound for America. I had plenty of jewelry with me that I could sell, enough to journey back across the sea and settle into a new life, one that was mine, in a place that was of utmost comfort to me.
I gripped the reins a little tighter, my heart pounding. Freedom was right there, just beyond the trees.
This was it.
I was going home.
A centuries-old rivalry is reignited in A.T. Rainach’s dark romantasy debut, which follows the ancient God of War as he discovers the reincarnated soul of the woman he once loved.
He could never forget her. Not in any lifetime. Not even after a thousand years.
Grace is desperate to escape the future planned for her—a forced engagement to a vile English lord an ocean away—when a mysterious stranger who looks at her like he’s known her for lifetimes catches her eye.
Aris is bound by a past he cannot escape. Haunted by a woman with eyes the same gray-blue as a raging sea, he is determined to have her back. No matter the cost.
But in the shadows of Napoleonic Europe, Grace finds herself caught between a love she is only beginning to understand and a darkness that has been waiting for her, setting off a millennia-old conflict between two powerful gods.
