King of the Dark Forest and the Green Woodlands, Guardian of the Fire Stone, Commander of the Five-Kingdom Alliance.
* * *
I work until midnight,only considering stopping once stress is winding her fingers through my neck, tying knots in the muscles of my shoulders. I curse my father for the fiftieth time that day for having me, and for dying too.
Being King has been the bane of my life.
I sit and listen to the scouting review for the week, offering input here and there, but mostly my mind is empty. Mostly I just think about the pain. You'd think after seven hundred years I'd have learned to live with it.Our pain never shrinks, we just grow around it, my mother always said. And she’s right, it hasn’t shrunk, but I haven’t fucking grown around it either.
"There's a rising threat in the far south," says Cetresar, delivering me my five hundredth headache of the day as his finger taps the Cataclysmic Flats on an old map that sprawls across the desk in my study. Bad things dwell in the south, but their evil litters itself across the earth like a festering plague that we can't rid ourselves of. Spies cross my borders every week.
When I finally finish my workday at one in the morning, Ascan appears in the hallway with a letter. "My lord—“
"What is it?" I snap, my patience fraying. I see my four-hour sleep shrinking before my very eyes.
"It can wait unt—“
"You've already bothered me, Ascan, so just read it out."
He blinks a little but squares his shoulders. It's been three hundred years since he joined the palace staff. He's used to my changeable moods and unlikeable nature.
“A messenger just delivered this. It's the Shadow Commander—they'd like to know whether their invite to the gathering has been lost in the post."
“Is that what they said?" Seems awfully polite for a Shadow Hunter, notoriously the rudest people on earth. Ascan blushes, handing me the small, dirty letter.
Is my invite stuck up your arse like the rest of your kingdoms' heads?
Yours,
R
Commander of the Shadow Hunters.
I read it aloud, the temperature of my blood rising just a little.
The Shadow Hunters; otherwise known as the single greatest migraine on this earth. A mixture of Evergreen immortals and human mortals, they're a cocktail of outcasts and assassins that have formed some sort of alliance. They live and hunt where they choose; sometimes in the south of my Dark Forest, sometimes in the shadows of the Hela’s mountains.
Credit where credit is due, they do far more than their fair share of killing evil creatures, but they more than make up for it by causing never-ending drama amongst the Five Kingdoms.
I can't remember who their current commander is. Between them usually being mortal, their dangerous lifestyle, and the fact that half of them kill each other, they change far too quickly for me to keep up with.
I dismiss Ascan, tossing the letter onto the dining table in my quarters and hurling a knife at a beam in the wall. I'm losing the will to live here.
I'm bored, and I don't mean in the short-term sense.
My entire life, my whole existence, is boring me. It doesn't matter if I'm out hunting, or in a meeting, or pulling someone's fingernails out in my dungeon, or working in my library; I'm bored whatever I'm doing. I feel like my world has been in black and white for so long now, I've forgotten what it is to see colour.
I pour a glass of rich red wine, my thumb running over my lower lip as I wonder who 'R' thinks he is, and how I am going to convince him not to come and cause trouble at the gathering.
Chapter2
The Huntress (Renna)
Alarge hand encircles my neck, pinning me to the creaky wooden wall of the dilapidated inn as hungry lips cover mine.
I let out a soft moan, running my hands up and down his arms, walking him back to the bed in the corner of the guest room I'd bought for the night. I regret parting with a silver coin for it, but I've got my eyes on the gold ring that's fighting for its fucking life on his swollen finger.
It'll auction nicely.
