Page 1 of Black Sea

Prologue

I had a bad feeling.

It felt like a winding tingle crawling up my spine. The wind was so hot that it drained the oxygen from my lungs with each breath, carrying a suffocating, burning smell. The ashes still swirled in the air, coating the walls of my throat.

But there was also something else.

An obscure sensation descended over me, as thick as the dark clouds that had covered the sky since dawn. A sensation that seemed to whisper in my pointy ear like an eerie sigh.

Like a call.

Crouched down, I drove the fingers of one hand—covered by an iron bracer up to the knuckles—into the charred and, unbelievably, still warm ground, my eyes roaming what had once been the lushest meadows and hills I had ever seen. Now, this land was a bleak, black desert scattered with the remains of carbonized trees and animals.

And in the middle of that dreadful landscape, more than three miles from our camp, rose a terrifying black onyx fortress. It was made of sharp edges and pointed towers that stretched up to the sky, as if to tear it open and pierce the sun, casting us into perpetual darkness.

Mornon, the greatest enemy the people of the Lands of the East had ever faced, had been living there for more than three thousand years.

Born from the forbidden union of an elf and a witch, Mornon had lived among the elves for many years without problems, although the magic in his veins was so different from our people’s ethereal magic.

Until the day he’d met Calien.

Queen of the Elves and my paternal grandmother, she was the kindest being. She enjoyed walking barefoot through our realm’s villages, blessing harvests, houses, and children, and offering help where she already knew it was needed.

Because Calien had the gift of foresight.

But not only that. The Spirits had granted her another power. With their blessing, Calien was able to breathe life back into the dead.

And when Mornon had seen her resurrect a butterfly that a child from his village had accidentally crushed while lying in a field of daisies, he was struck.

His admiration for the queen had quickly turned into a true obsession, causing Mornon to follow her every move whenever she left her palace in Aegel, the capital of the Kingdom of the Elves.

For he longed for Calien’s powers more than anything.

Over the centuries, Mornon had secretly enhanced his dark magic, becoming so powerful that he single-handedly took the palace. Wiping out anyone in his path and driving back my father and his sister, Tìnuviel, he reached Calien and fought her, aiming to tear the power from her and make it his own.

Realizing she stood no chance against the ancient evil that was pervading Mornon, the queen had decided to sacrifice herself. With the assistance of the Spirits, who appeared that one time to cast Mornon out of the Kingdom of Elves, Calien used her final energies to transform into a crystal. She poured her magic into it and entrusted it to her descendants to protect in the ages to come.

My aunt had then become the keeper of Calien’s Crystal, and our skilled blacksmiths crafted it into a pendant she could always wear.

After centuries of absence—likely confined in his hiding spot to gain even more dark power—Mornon had come back, more powerful than before, now accompanied by a small army of monsters summoned through black magic.

Unfortunately, he won that day.

And right before my father’s shocked eyes, Tìnuviel died as Mornon ripped Calien’s Crystal from her neck.

Confident in his victory, Mornon had retreated and destroyed the lands where we now stood to build his terrifying dwelling.

But things hadn’t gone as he hoped. Since then, he had never been able to absorb Calien’s power. His cries of rage and despair had echoed across the Lands of the East for millennia.

And for millennia, my kind had failed to take the Crystal back, struggling to overcome the barriers of demons Mornon unleashed against us while remaining inside his fortress.

But today, we would force him to face us.

And we would defeat him once and for all, as we were no longer alone. After centuries of failed attempts, my father ultimately succeeded in forging an alliance with the current rulers of both men and witches.

And now, our three armies occupied the large camp behind me. The harsh voices of the humans, combined with the deep voices of the witches and the melodic voices of the elves, created a cacophony that made it hard for me to catch the sounds coming from Mornon’s fortress.

“Nauriel?”