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"What are they?" I asked while stuffing the hard candies into a protected pocket. My new running leathers were tough from their newness, and I was eager to stretch them out during this first trip. They were made of a thicker leather than my old ones, much better quality and smoother to the touch. But they were still black to conceal us in the darkness cloaking the world outside.
"A blessing from our queen.” Fenris offered a small shrug in exchange for an explanation. “They may not look like much, but they could save your life out there."
"Noted." I ran my hands around my face, pinning any loose hairs against my scalp and along the tight braid coiled against the base of my skull. There was nothing more distracting than a lock of hair constantly tickling my neck with every stride. But not a hair was out of place today, and my leathers fit perfectly against my thin-framed body. My hands fell slack to my side, and I shook them out to remove the tension in my shoulders, my neck, and my heart.
I jumped a few times, tossing my weight between each foot to wake up my joints for the ride ahead. They answered with a decade of litheness, springing against the gravity of my nerves. The desire to run overcame me, informing me it was time to go.
Without giving myself a chance to hesitate any longer, I pushed off the balls of my feet, ducked under the water falling from above, and ran courageously into the world beyond.
I started along the path I mapped out, not letting myself get distracted with sightseeing just yet. The cavernous rock surrounded me on either side, so it was easy to focus only on what was ahead. It was two miles through the valley, about twenty minutes at my warmup pace. My strides quickened in anticipation of shortening the duration, to chase after the only thing I had ever wanted—to see the outside world with every part of myself.
I glanced over my shoulder, back toward the mountain I’d been trapped inside for twenty years. It was, by far, the grandest peak among the scattered tips nearly scraping the night sky. On the outside, it appeared peaceful, even benevolent to the eye. One would never guess the horrors made real buried beneath the craggy surface. It was as beautiful as it was cruel, as violent as it was lovely. I didn’t so much as acknowledge a goodbye as I turned away from West Mirth and set my eyes ahead, never looking back.
I don't know why I was so worried the world wouldn't measure up to my wildest fantasies, because there was no way my imagination could have competed with the one that met me. It started with mountain peaks dwarfing, their summits barely visible from my view in the valley. The hills carved harshly from the earth descended gradually as my strides lengthened, eager to leave the shadow of my granite home looming further behind.
The valley widened as the sky unveiled behind the hilltops, and I lost my breathing pattern entirely when it fully revealed itself. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't form a single thought as I took in the world before me. My pace faltered to a complete stop.
Hundreds of thousands, maybe thousands of millions, of sparkles flecked the black canvas above. Their number was infinite, standing guard around two moons paired together like two lovers embracing in the sky. They glowed defiantly against the night, their illumination like a beacon, strong enough to reveal a hundred miles of wastelands before me.
A forest was coming up along the path, or the graveyard of a forest. Only the bones of the trees remained, the flesh of their leaves withered away with the last rays of the sun. But I found beauty even in their death. There was something about the white wood curling and stretching its arms toward the sky like they were worshipping a long-dead god of their own.
The parched earth was nothing more than rock and dust, but the textures felt soft and natural beneath my covered feet. I reached down and let the small pebbles and withered plant matter sift between my fingers, finally bringing my hand to my nose to smell the earth and all its wonders. Slipping through my fingertips was life and death, moments in history, and an era of secrets hiding in the ash filled earth. A slight breeze touched my face, wrapping me in its embrace and filling my lungs with its riches.
Fresh air.
I felt it, smelled it, touched it, tasted it. And I knew, no matter what happened on this journey, my life was complete. If I died in the next mile or the next minute, I would die the happiest woman in the realm.
But I still had time to make the most of, so I found the unmarked path leading southeast and ventured on through the splendor of a decaying world.
The first leg of the run flew by quickly. I was so distracted with devouring the scenery I hardly noticed I was running at all. It was twenty-six miles to Grimsbane from West Mirth, the closest and most prominent of all the lower kingdoms. There was no doubt the queen was sending me on this short run to test my quality as a Chosen. I could run twice this distance, all the way to Vasseri, which lied in the center of the map, and go the same number of miles the next day to Edan lying at the far corner of the realm. My body was perfectly conditioned to travel whatever distance I needed it to cover, a finely tuned instrument created solely for this purpose.
But I was grateful for the short trip. It made the mission a little less overwhelming and much more enjoyable. It was also an opportunity to visit the infamous citadel housing our soldiers, the unlucky ones who were trained to fight the vampyres and defend the goods transferred between kingdoms. For what it was worth, I was glad my family sold me to the queen. They could have been cruel and offered my services to the Dark Army, who apparently paid more for unwanted children.
How humble they must have been.
The families in the lower kingdom lived and worked for the specialty they were assigned. I had no idea which kingdom I was born into; the mountain had been my home since I was old enough to make memories. It didn't matter anyway—once a family sold their child, for whatever reason, they could never contact them again. There were no records of where we came from, who sold us, or a hint of who we were before the mountain. I didn't care, but sometimes, I was curious.
I had maybe six miles left of the last leg, and I finally noticed the faint glow of the citadel beaming in the far distance against the darkness. The world I marveled at stole my precious attention away from a large group of trees along the path, distracting me from the subtle change of terrain.
The ground held a meshwork of old roots, and over time, those roots had rotted and disintegrated, leaving patches of holes in the earth. It only took one fatal step for my foot to find one of these pockets.
The ground shifted under the weight of my stride and sand ensnared my foot, pulling me down into its hollowness. I muffled a gasp of surprise before the sound called the hunters preying in the dark, but the crack of my skull against a stone in the perfectly wrong place echoed deceivingly into the eternal night.
A thousand curses drowned sensible thoughts, and I slowly shifted my hands underneath my chest to push off the ground. Sitting up, my trapped foot twisted at an odd angle, and a pulsing throb formed on the corner of my temple. I pulled my foot free, letting the soot shift back into its trap and into the breaches of my leathers. My toes wiggled and found the stray grains of sand making a new home in my shoe.
I took a deep breath to relax, thankful just to be whole and unbroken. My warm muscles ached at the sudden stop, and I knew if I didn't get moving soon, I would lose my endurance entirely. But then the worst of it manifested. Something hot dribbled down my face, and I had only one hopeless guess as I reached two fingers to touch the silky wetness dripping down my forehead.
Blood.
There was also another rule my kind adopted, but it was so ingrained into our survival that it was unnecessary to make it official. The night demons could not see, but they could hear. They could also smell and taste, and human blood was their favorite. I had just broken perhaps one of the most sacred rules of all.
Don't bleed.
A screech wailed in the distance, somewhere north beyond where I was sitting. The high pitch cry sent an icy sensation through my body, setting the tiny hairs on my skin at attention. I glanced down at my fingers and winced as crimson caught in the moonlight. They matched the streaks running down the side of my face, streaks pouring relentlessly from the vascular area I’d struck. I brought a hand to the throbbing spot, but stopping the bleed was no use. I had only one option at this point if I wanted to live.
I scrambled to my feet and ran faster than I ever had before. My legs were a blur underneath me, their muscles burned to object against the prolonged quick pace. I gritted my teeth and forced myself not to think about the pain in my body, my lungs, or my head. I set my eyes on the glow of the citadel, the tower growing larger as I closed in, and didn't dare look back at the creature currently tracking my bloody trail.
I heard it moving in the distance, the only sound alive in the world besides my own figure hurtling through the darkness. Judging by the pounding of its footsteps, the creature was on all fours, racing toward me at a supernatural speed I wasn't trained to outrun. My only hope was that I had a large enough head start to maintain a healthy distance between us.
