"´Idhra´ chapter 0 (prologue)" by J. lawrence

Prologue

Suddenly there was a sickening hiss of fire meeting water, and her father’s body slumped dead to the floor. There was steam rising from his back where the red-hot arrow had met his flesh, and three-dozen archers appeared abruptly out of nowhere, their bows nocked with little spears of fire waiting to be let loose.

Then Kamin came forward from the darkness, thrusting his sword through the heart of his victim, just to bloody the blade, and she wondered as she watched in horror, how she could’ve been sleeping peacefully a mere fifteen minutes ago.

“My dear,” said Kamin, “you’ve seen what I do to my enemies, and I must know. Where do you place yourself?”

She ran.

The archers let her pass through the gaps in their rankings, and Kamin laughed at her running, barefoot through the night with her hair undone and flying in a mass like a great kite of bronze waves.

She looked back for an instant to gauge how long it would take her pursuers to reach her, but there were none. Kamin was still laughing in the moonlight with his archers surrounding him, silently poised and eerily beautiful with their shining arrow tips exactly matching the blood that covered their master’s shining sword.

The land dropped alarmingly while she looked the other way, making her stomach rise to her throat. But in reality it was no more than three feet of a fall, into the clear black waters of the lake. As she stood again, ripples spread away from her body, turned silver-blue by the moonlight.

On her way again, she quickened the pace, watching her feet rise and fall on the soft earth. She chanced another look toward home, worry blooming in her mind when there still was no one following, and a chill snaked up her spine as Kamin’s eyes momentarily reflected the moonlight.

Despite his insanity, he was quite a handsome man, she thought. His dark murderous ways hadn’t marred his thoughtful blue eyes, square jawbone, and golden, goblet-sized curls.

The gate was drawing nearer, and she almost doubled over in fear. Kamin would have a guard stationed there to kill her! But he didn’t. The only guard was the one her dead father had hired, his head smiling insanely from the middle of the road, and body slumped in a chair with a wine bottle crashed on the ground.

Then a drumbeat sounded through the night: a slow, deep, resounding rhythm. The beats would be heard for miles, and the message would be passed through all Fransk. Whether the receiving parties understood it or not, it would be sent.

And then it was repeated: Noble. Intend. Retain. Girl.

She could picture him smiling in the drum tower, as he beat the words in his calm, cool way of doing things. Waiting patiently for her.