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A memory.
I am still alive,I remind myself.
Pressing my hands against my throat, my skin tingles as if those dark, dagger-like nails are still dancing on my skin, still suspending me in the ocean. Minutes pass before I can stop panting long enough to get to my feet.
It’s been two weeks since I nearly drowned in the ocean between the mainland and the Elven Islands. Two weeks since our ship was attacked by some creature of the deep. It’d wrapped its scaled tentacles around the deck and splintered the wooden hull to pieces as if it were a twig and not made from the strongest trees in existence.
Elven ships don’t sink. At least they didn’t before the boundary around the Realm of Monsters came down.
In the two-hundred years since that realm-sized cage broke open, we’ve lost more ships than we have in all recorded history. Merchants refuse to cross the waters. Goods stopped coming in and out of Vanderlyth. And for a group of islands that are composed predominantly of crystals and stone, we rely on that trade. There’s only so much food we can grow in the crystal rich soil.
Pushing up from the dewy leaves, I dust off my clothes and pull the suede cloak tight around my shoulders, warding off thefrigid night air. On the bright side, I’m in the southernmost part of the mainland. It doesn’t get nearly as cold down here when the hell flame is gone. Had I been in the north, I’d be frozen solid by now.
“Two weeks,” I swear under my breath as I sheath my microscopic dagger into my boot. I’ve slept with it in my palm every night since leaving home. Though, whoever’s idea it was for my betrothed to give me the tiniest dagger known to elvenkind, wasn’t taking into consideration the possibility of being stranded in a realm full of demons. Not that I’m in any hurry to be rescued. In fact, I’d rather not be.
I’d almost drowned. If it weren’t for the reaper using his magic to chuck my body at the mainland, I might’ve taken death as a way out of my impending marriage. That monster attacking our ship saved me from a lifetime of misery.
Still, I can remember the way whatever spell the reaper cast gripped me. The next thing I knew, I was being catapulted out of the water. My body skipped across the open ocean like a stone, and I’d landed in a heap that was far from graceful. I’ve never thrown up so violently before, and I can’t say whether it was due to the need to expel water from my lungs or from my brain being jostled in flight. But none of that mattered becauseI was alive.
I don’t have the slightest clue why the reaper had shown me mercy. Maybe it’s because I knew him. Maybe it’s because of the bargain he made my mother long ago, but whatever the reason be, I’ll forever be grateful for it. Even if he could’ve been gentler about his approach.
Everything was getting on just fine here. I’d adjusted to living in the wreckage of the old castle, to forging for food and water. The wards within the keep were active and when I used my magic to turn into light, it allowed me to slip inside undetected. Most importantly, it was safe from the things that roam the woods at night.
Hell, some are bold and wander about in broad daylight. I’d come across a couple of those wolfish creatures during my time here. They’d chased me into the keep and it was a godsend that the wards could hold thosethingsout.
Now, I’m not sure where to go. Worse yet, I don’t have my crystal and therefore, I'm powerless.
Themanhas it—whoever he is…Whateverhe is.
I’m certain he’s demonic, those endless obsidian eyes were proof of it. Yet, he seemed likemore. The only time I’ve felt power like that was when the current King of the Seven Realms came to visit the islands. My father made me stay in my room, but I felt when he entered the castle. The king’s power, even stories away, pulsed over my skin like a lover’s caress. It made the little hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck raise. It’s a feeling I won’t soon forget.
The man in the keep’s power was just as intense. He houses more magic than I care to know or ever see again, and it means he's more thanjust a demon.
There’s a chance he descends from a strong bloodline. There are demons born from the gods who roamed these lands long, long ago. Though, it’s more likely he’s nephilim… and I really hope I’m wrong.
Creatures like nephilim have little to no limitations to their magic. It comes from their soul and the more they wield the more risk there is to destroying their morality to fuel their spells and magical whims, just like the infamous Prince of Death had.
Stories of how he went mad are told across all Seven Realms. They’re used as a warning—an example—to use magic only when necessary in the elven culture. Even though elves need crystals to use their fury-given gifts, instead of our souls, like the demonfolk, power can still warp the mind. It can make weak individuals greedy and crave more.
So, we scare our children early with tales of the Prince of Death. We tell them about how he snapped, and in his fit of rage, tried to kill his father, the late king. In doing so, he murdered countless innocent people within Hell Hold’s castle.
The shadows of his victims are still burned into the walls of that castle. Those poor people never knew what hit them and didn’t even have bodies to bury. The magic had leveled them to nothing more than free floating souls and painted silhouettes on the dark stone hallways.
The sitting King and Queen of the Seven Realms are nephilim. That’s why I could feel his magic when he visited our lands. Everyone within the royal family or of nephilim blood has the capability of going mad, of letting the power snuff out their morality. All they’d have to do is draw a tad bit too much on their magic and they could destroy their soul for good.
It’s why my father wishes for them to step down, to allow someone else to hold the throne. In his eyes, no king or queen should have that much power while teetering on the edge of morality. And from what I understand, or from what I knew prior to being shipwrecked, his cause is only growing.
Allowing the monsters from the prison realm to go free after the war was the tipping point for several lords on the king’s court. They’ve been planning to overthrow the crown ever since.
But if that man was in fact nephilim, I might’ve already driven the nail in my coffin by stabbing him… There is nowhere to hide from a creature like that. All they need to do is picture your face and they can step through the layers of time and space and appear before you in a blink of an eye.
The best thing I can do is get my crystal and run like hell. I’ll need to find somewhere I can ward against demons and nephilim and hope and pray he forgets about me.
A trickle rolls down my spine at the thought of going back to that abandoned keep, but what choice do I have? I need mycrystal. Without magic I’m a sitting duck to all the other things that go bump in the night.
If what I know about his magic is true, he couldn’t have hidden it far. It’s likely still in that keep. And considering the amount of poison on his blade, the scent of it alone had singed my nose, it would’ve been enough to render a full-blooded god immobile. At least for a bit.
I don’t dare try to lie to myself. I’ve worked with enough poisons to know pix root won’t kill an immortal. Not outright. They’ll heal over time as long as something else doesn’t get to them first. By now, that poison is likely deep in his veins, and I should be able to get in and get out with my crystal without him being able to stop me. It’s my only shot.
