Chapter One
Some time during the purple haze of pre-dawn, a lonesome figure hurried through the ghostly mist that hung about the fields and meadows of the countryside. Night sounds filled her ears in the near darkness—the whistle of the wind as it swept through tall grass or rustled tree branches, bugs chirping as they crept from blade to blade—and she crouched, paused. Listened with strained, pounding ears for an indication she’d been pursued afterall, and they had closed the distance. Then the moment would pass, she’d straighten, and Elene Halithersis would continue fleeing westward, to one of the few places open to her.
Her strawberry blonde hair was stuffed into the hood of the old-fashioned cape about her shoulders, something from a good century ago with silk lining and a fur collar. Something elegant and expensive that had been worn when there were still monarchs in the Maughian capital. It fluttered behind her as she hurried over small hills, brushed across the tops of quivering, delicate wildflowers. The clothes underneath, however, had seen hard labor; the coveralls were frayed along hemlines, the bottoms of the legs scuffed across the ground and dusty, and there was a large, oil-black stain right in the middle of the chest. Beneath that was a simple white shirt. It was as if she’d been in the middle of a work shift when an old fear grew unbearable in her belly and made her flee.
Now and again, with her breath puffed out in front of her from the pre-spring chill and her jaw muscles sore from chattering teeth, a rapid cacophony of barking would split the night violently, spit flying. The barking, however, she’d quickly recognized as those sharp, territorial snaps of Maughian hounds—mythical creatures whose eyes pierced the night in vibrant shades of blues and greens. These hounds she did not fear, only the bays and yelps of domestic dogs employed by the latest political regime hellbent on securing her cooperation and assistance in the country’s affairs.
The one problem, of course, was how close this took her to The Wilds. She’d tried her damnedest to skirt the edge of the ancient forest with enough breadth to be beyond its sentience. Elene knew she’d failed in this endeavor when its green-tinged, mossy voice brushed along the back of her mind, like a vine sweeping across the ground.
Elene, It said with all the eagerness of an old friend. It has been so long, Elene. Where
have you been?
With a sharp inhale of breath, she closed her eyes for a moment, rolled her head to the side as if to dislodge something from the top of it, and then curled inward and kept moving. The voice followed her, whispering to her mind, growing progressively more insistent the more she ignored it, yet quiet as she drew further and further away from The Wild’s border.