Hot sand burned her bare feet as she sprinted through the desert under the midday sun. She couldn't reach her dragon, no matter how hard she tried. It appeared that there was an enormous stone barrier in the bond.
The poison was quickly spreading throughout her body. She cried in pain as she clutched her abdomen through her dress, a futile attempt to stop the blood from leaking, the once white fabric now red.
He betrayed her.
He, who she foolishly trusted the most.
He, for whom she left her family.
He, who she loved.
He, who stabbed her with a poisoned dagger that made her lose contact with her dragon. She was losing her abilities as well; she could feel her power drain from her in snow kernels. She stared at the barren land, then the sun. She was vulnerable under the sun, and he knew it. The bastard had planned everything.
She had been foolish to believe that he loved her back. She was idiotic, witless, ludicrous and an utterly love-sick woman to believe his honeyed words and sugar-coated lies. She should've known. She, of all the people, should've seen the devil lurking behind the skin of an angel.
How could she be so blind? How could she not know?
Of all the people, how could she ignore the obvious clues?
How––
"There you are," she breath hitched as she halted in her steps. Panting, her eyes widened as she stared at the man in front of her. His midnight eyes pierced into hers. The eyes so dark, those pools of ink devoured light in their intensity. And it seemed as if her whole universe resided in the abyss of the obsidian eyes of the man who betrayed her. Those breathtakingly marvellous eyes broke her heart.
Horrified.
That's what she felt when she saw her lover in front of her.
Holding the same bloodied dagger, he stabbed her with.
Gwen jolted awake, panting as she clutched her abdomen. Her vision blurred as she struggled to sit upright.
She saw him again.
She saw him again. The man who always appeared in her dreams and haunted her. The man who was supposedly the lover in her dreams who betrayed her.
And stabbed her.
She saw him again after years of his disappearance. At first, she used to have mere flashes of him in her visions. Then, as years passed, the dreams became more hazard. More revealing. More urgent. It was almost as if she felt the pain, and not just physically.
She felt as though her heart was stabbed and cut into several pieces. She felt her heart burn in despair. She felt the helplessness, the shame, every time she saw that dream. But this time, it was different.
Before, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see the face of the man. His face just covered with shadows along with his whole existence, promising the darkness and death. The dreams stopped a very long time ago. But it was time that he came back and this time she saw his eyes.
Lightless, lifeless pools of darkness promising death. Promising hell.
She shuddered when she felt a slight zap of pain in her stomach. She looked down and realised that she was digging her nails into her flesh. She removed her grip and sighed, pulling off the blanket and getting out of her bed.
Moving towards the small wooden window, she opened it to let some air in the room. She shuddered as she felt the cool breeze seeping through the thin, old fabric of her night dress. The sun had already set, and sky now clothed itself in a dusky gown.
After scrubbing herself till the water became too cold to endure, she got out of the bathtub and wore her dress just in time when the village healer arrived and healed her bruises and cuts. Tired of the day, she slept like a pig. Well–– she slept like a pig before that dream of hers.
Staring at the dark silent woods, she remembered that she had to depart in a few hours. That her actions in the next few weeks would determine if she would live or die–– or get torched. Any of the three.
'She shall survive. With or without her stone.'
She sighed as she remembered her father's words to Derik. She shall survive. She had to. Or else all this would be in vain. Or else all the efforts her father put into her would be futile.
But she just wasn't sure anymore.
Maybe it was the anxiety due to the dream, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to survive without the stone. The spirits won't save her if a fire breathing serpent decides that she may look better as a meal than its bonded. They won't be able to do anything if she gets scorched by one of those reptiles. And they certainly won't be able to do anything if she accidentally– or purposely– offended an egoistic offspring of a four-star general. Or worse, the offspring of a five-star governor general.
There were five governor generals of Kruvarys, ruling the Kingdom as a whole. Edward once told her that they were cruel and merciless individually, and together, they were indestructible. Years ago, when they succeeded in overpowering the King of Kruvarys, they imposed martial law all over the kingdom and made a horrifying rule that the Kruvarians dread to this day.
Every two years, the Kruvarians mourned the departure of their child. The child who unwillingly sacrificed himself to spare the lives of his family. Some of them turned out to be lucky and survived that hellhole of an academy. The others were either scorched, devoured or murdered.
The rulers of Kruvarys were cruel. Crueler than the devil himself. Yet, some Kruvarians worshipped them. To this day, Gwen couldn't comprehend the reason behind their obsession with those monsters.
The accidental victory of the wrong sperm, father would say.
A sudden movement in the woods caught her attention, jerking her away from her thoughts. She squinted her eyes to a slender lone figure standing right in the middle two trees. She couldn't see its face and it almost seemed motionless if it was not for the floating dark fabric of what seemed like a cape. It was dark. Pitch dark. Darker than the evening sky.
She blinked and it was gone.
She blinked and it appeared again.
Right in front of her.
It's white gruesome face crinkling to form a creepy smile revealing rows of decaying sharp teeth. Its sockets devoid from eyeballs as it came face to face with Gwen, eyeless sockets glaring right at her.
The horrendous hairless, eyeless old hag creeped so close to Gwen that she could practically feel its rotten smell creep into her nostrils.
Gwen rolled her eyes.
"Seriously, Yaga. You need to do better than that," she turned to the small wooden closet, near the wall beside her bed. "Jump scares and eerie serpentile grins are way too old fashioned."
She opened the closet to reveal a brand-new tunic, pants and horse leather boots. Did father buy them?
The creature released an exasperated sigh as it floated through the window. It's voice feminine and strangely pleasant in contrast to its appearance, "You are an outright kill-fun. This eerie serpentile grin functioned just excellently on that healer I circled a few hours ago."
Gwen stopped fanning over the new leather boots and whipped her head towards Yaga, "You did what–?"
It clapped its skinless slender fingers together and shrieked in happiness, the sound coming out more like a loud wail, dulling Gwen's hearing. Gwen tried to shush it, even though she was aware that no one else could hear the creature in front of her.
Yaga was a Banshee. An entity of the night that was known to creep behind the lone travellers and scare the daylights out of them.
The entire village shivered at its mere mention, yet Gwen had some nerves of steel telling the creature to level up its scaring tactics.
"You should have seen his face. By the devils, he appeared as if I terrorized the dickens out of him. For a moment, I thought his hair was about to turn bloodless like yours!" it let out a sharp sound, supposedly a laugh as it clapped its hands again and again. Apparently, that was its way of showing how 'hilarious' the encounter was. Not.
Gwen shook her head as she took out the new clothes, "You know, sometimes I'm concerned that one day you will tell the devil to piss off on his face at the rate you are picking up new words." She slowly peeled off her night dress, revealing her undergarments. She put on the tunic, then the pants, getting ready for the night.
"At this rate, I won't be surprised that you will tell the devil to piss off on his face," the sound that it produced was thankfully a light chuckle, "You are rubbing off on us ghouls faster than the Sleipnir runs in a day! You sure are a renowned human between us," the Banshee cleared its throat and raised its chin in pride, "Behold! Gwendolyn Evegheden, the Oracle of Piss-Chatters!"
Gwen choked on her spit, utterly petrified as she looked at the night being. "The Oracle of–– Piss-chatters?"
The Banshee just shrugged nonchalantly, "Sounds about right."
"Oh? So, a few months from now, all the demonic predators of the dark will be calling me The Oracle of Piss-chatters. Late."
She braided her white strands so that the end of the braid fell to her waist.
Yaga frowned, its creased brow crinkling even further, "Why do you say so, Kruvanun?"
Kruvanun, a nickname the Banshee had for her–– the Banshee. In Kruvarian language, the word translated to bloodless. The first time Gwen saw the Banshee, she was 14 years of age, the creature came to announce the demise of the Royal Family, terrorizing the town's people by her loud wailing. That day Gwen and Edric were hunting in the forest and stumbled upon the weeping socket-less old hag. Gwen could still remember Edric dragging her back to the cottage just because she said that the Banshee was full of life.
What? It was crying. It obviously meant that it was alive, didn't it?
That day, Edric made Gwen swear never to tell anyone about her infatuation with the undead. Not even Edward. The very night, Yaga came to Gwen's window and over the years, it was the closest thing to a friend for Gwen.
Gwen snorted, "Because I won't stand a snivelling chance against those posh army brats."
"You shall survive."
"Fat chance––"
"I am not offering an assumption, Kruva. I am merely stating the truth. The Reaper does not have your name on The Blood Scroll."
Gwen whipped around to face the entity. "He does not? How do you know that?"
"Ways of the wise are confidential," Gwen rolled her eyes as Yaga continued, "All that matters at the moment is that the soldiers have already entered Grimvell and now that you have confirmed that you won't expire for another year, let me explain the actual purpose of my visit."
Gwen was already sweating, nervous due to the fact that the soldiers were mere minutes away from her home. The time of her departure had come. "There is a wraith in that mountain who you need to free–– do not make that face. It is from Ronodin."
Gwen's face pulled up in a scowl, "I thought he didn't like me,"
"That is not true––"
"He calls me a sanctimonious mortal."
"Alright, maybe he is not really heartened by the idea of mortals, but he is offering a bargain." Gwen narrowed her eyes at the tone, "You will have to find the location of the shadow wraith trapped in that mountain and free it. In return, Ronodin will be at your debt. It is as simple as that."
"And why, exactly, should I free it? Did I mention that I will be climbing a mountain, which by the way, is filled with deadly traps and carnivorous creatures and that I may not survive that place without my stone regardless of the fact that my name is not on The Blood Scroll? Did I mention that?" Gwen tapped her boot on the floor, frustrated.
Yaga just shrugged.
Gwen blew out a frustrated breath in utter disbelief of the dumbest bargain to ever exist in all the five Kingdoms of Vadonar.
"So, you are saying, that I must risk my life in freeing a shadow wraith who is God knows where on that mountain and I must manage to survive that hellhole of a place without my stone as well?" Yaga nodded.
Gwen took a deep breath, "Even if I do all of that," she made a gesture with her hands, "What benefit will it do to me?"
"That's for the future but if I were you, I wouldn't leave a chance in having someone as mighty as Ronodin in my debt."
The thought of having Ronodin, the mighty unicorn of darkness, at her mercy did seem tempting, but why make go through all the trouble when he could do it himself? The wraith must be someone important. And there must be a catch. There is always a catch.
"Why me? Why not have someone who is more likely to not die on the way do it instead?"
"You already know that the Mount Percival is protected by wards. Such wards that do not allow creatures like us in. And if we do get in somehow, we are cursed to be forever trapped inside. The shadow wraith on that mountain is an old friend of Ronodin and has been trapped in there for a while now. Who knows what opportunities this adventure opens to you?" The old Banshee gave what seemed to be a soft smile to Gwen. "Your time has come, Kruvanun. I will be taking my leave," soon enough, it vanished into the darkness.
Gwen huffed as she thought about all the potholes in the plan, which seemed ten times the size of the one her shoe got stuck in today. Ronodin definitely did not think it through. This bargain was utterly pointless, except for the debt part. That part was tempting. But there may not be any debt to collect from Ronodin if Gwen died!
Maybe that was his plan. Ronodin never liked Gwen. He made the fact obvious that he found the idea of a mortal to be able to communicate with the creatures of the under utterly absurd. Maybe he just wanted Gwen dead so that his life– or death– or afterlife– whatever, it was he was in to finally be at peace.
The very moment, Edward opened the door to her room. Talk about impeccable timing––
Gwen didn't have the time to think as her father rushed towards her and took her hand.
"Father––" she cut herself off by the feel of wood digging in her flesh. She looked down and saw a bracelet– no– a cuff made of dark Ashwood. A small bronze colored stone was embedded in its center, eerily similar to–
Gwen gasped as she realised what it was. The courage stone. It was considered one of the mildest stones, but even then, it could only be naturally manifested with time.
You didn't exactly find spare stones lying about. Humans were connected to the enchanted cycle of moon stones. Each stone representing its own unique energy and power.
Once manifested, the stone was naturally embedded on the body, and nothing could separate the stone from its bearer. Not even death.
And now that she thought of it, the possibility of separating a moon stone from its bearer was simply impossible. It defied all the laws of magic.
"It is not... it cannot–" she struggled to find words while gaping at the stone.
"It is not." Her father finally spoke, "It is just a replica of the courage stone. Something that will help you to not attract attention."
Gwen looked at her father, utterly confused, "How will that help me?"
He grabbed both her shoulders and squeezed them, "No one must know that you have not manifested a stone yet." Gwen opened her mouth to retort, but Edward cut her off, "No one in that academy is your friend, Gwen. You shall trust no one, except the fire-breather you bond with. You will not let them think of you as any different than them and you will not, under any circumstances, stand out."
Just for a moment, Gwen noticed the sadness in her father's eyes. The helplessness. Just a moment before his eyes hardened. He took a breath and continued, "Do everything right, and no one will notice that you haven't manifested a stone," he backed away and turned around, leaving the room. "The soldiers will be here any minute. Do not let me down."
Of course, it was all about not letting him down. She was not to waste the years of training and hard work he spent on her. She always had to prove herself. That she was worth it even if she was the adopted child. It was always about not disappointing him, always about making him proud. It was never about what she wanted.
A strange bitter feeling bubbled up inside her. The nostalgic feeling of unwantedness. The feeling of not being needed. The feeling that made her want to please everyone around her.
Even though Edward made it obvious to everyone in the village that Gwen was not to be tempered with, that he considered his adopted daughter an equal to his son in every way– an advantage that most people in Grimvell never gave to their own legitimate daughters. Even after he treated her the same way he treated Edric, Gwen still yearned for his affection. Everyday, she tried harder than the day before just so he would praise her. Just so she would be satisfied to please her father whom she loved the most.
But it still hurt to try. It hurt to push herself further and further everyday just to diminish that burden of unwantedness from her shoulders.
So, she never gave herself a choice other than to push herself to a new limit everyday.
Until a day would come when there was no limit to cross.
Until she snapped her thin rope of hope.
But that day was not today.
Because today, she had to survive.