This chapter is a prologue. The rest of the book will be from a different character's point of view, so, uh, yeah. Just thought ya'll should know :)
Before:
The smoke billowed off of the smoldering buildings and felled trees while the warrior watched from the edge of the woods. The guards dragged the citizens of the town from their homes and into the town square, forcing them on their knees. Desperate children wailed and screamed as they were ripped from their parent’s arms.
The warrior’s face revealed no emotion as he turned his back on the carnage he had caused and walked into the woods, his steps light and unfaltering.
He reached a clearing and stopped, breathing in the cool winter air. All was quiet, and the forest seemed to be watching… waiting. Holding its breath as the people of the town were taken and butchered.
A stick snapped and the warrior turned. A sickly-sweet smell of fear became a beacon in the dark, cold forest.
His eyes scoured the clearing and landed on a small pair of dark emerald eyes. The owner of the eyes was a small human girl, no older than fourteen. She pulled her tattered red cloak tighter around herself, as if it could shield her from him. She looked at him, defiance in her striking eyes. His gazed traveled up and down and he chuckled, a low rough sound. He should leave her, she wouldn’t survive the cold anyway, but as he turned to walk away, he caught another scent.
It wasn’t human.
He slowly turned again, and this time, the girl was gone. Where she used to be, her cloak sat piled in the indent of the snow that her body heat had created.
He took a step towards the cloak, but a sharp pain in the back of his head made him turn. The girl had snuck behind him on near silent feet and thrown a rock at him.
A girl. Throwing a rock. At him, a warrior five times her size and one hundred times her age.
A dangerous smile crossed his lips, but she just stared back at him. That smile had made soldiers drop to their knees and plead for mercy, but this small girl just looked at him.
And then she turned on her heels and ran.
Her small form passing through the trees was easy to track, and with all the shrubbery in her way, he easily gained on her. She tripped over fallen trees, her clothes catching and tearing on stray branches, but still she ran.
He chased her. Through the forest, her footsteps echoes, but he didn’t go in for the kill. Not because he couldn’t catch her, but because he was the cat, and she was the mouse, and he enjoyed this kind of hunt.
The girl couldn’t go very fast. Barefoot and weak with hunger, the forest was not her friend. He heard her steps start to slow, and then they stopped. His face turned upward into a gruesome smile,
and his scar tugged at his lower eyelid. She came into view, her small form trembling from fear and cold. The scent of it calmed the warrior.
He could hear her heartbeat pounding even from where he was fifteen feet away, and as he approached her, he saw why.
A cliff stood in front of her, with no way around, and boulders shouldering her in, and as she turned to face him, realization crossed her eyes.
She was trapped.
Her dry lips pushed into a line. As he advanced, she backed toward the cliff’s edge, toward her only option. She looked down at the river far below and then back up at him, and as their eyes met, she took another step backward.
And disappeared over the edge, her eyes going wide and her mouth opening in a silent scream.
The warrior lunged, his fist closing on empty air, and he looked over the edge of the cliff and saw the girl slowly getting smaller as she neared the raging river. He doubled over as a terrible pain in his abdomen flared up, and he looked down, expecting to see a knife hilt, but there was nothing there. A force crashed into him from behind and pushed him over the edge.
The wind whipped his hair from his face, and he saw the girl. Still falling. He tucked his arms in and plummeted down towards her. The pain in his gut slowly receded, but a small tugging sensation tightened as he neared the small flailing girl, his arms reaching out, but still too far away.
She was so close to the river, and so close to death. He didn’t know why, but he threw out a tendril of his power and slowed her fall right as she hit the water, him following seconds behind.
His immortal body didn’t mind the cold, but still he could feel it nipping at his skin as he was dragged down to the riverbed. He saw the girl’s still form drifting in front of him, and he threw his arms into long graceful strokes, going with the current and trying to reach her. When at last he grabbed her arm, he tugged them both up to the surface, gulping air as he broke the surface of the water. He looked down at the girl.
She didn’t move.
He dragged both of their bodies up onto the rocky shore and let his power cocoon them in a pocket of warmth, shielding them from the frigid winter air. He tried to rouse her, and when that didn’t work, he drew the water and ice from her lungs and replaced it with air. No breath passed her small blue lips, and no pulse beat through her small body, but still he tried. He gathered the power of the storm in his hands and placed them on her chest, calling the lightning to his aid.
A shock tore through her body, and her chest was lifted from the ground by the force of it, but still, her heart slumbered. He brought the heat of the wildfires to thaw her frozen body, but still, she did not move. He pinched her nose and leaned in, and only when he lightly brushed his lips to hers and breathed, did her chest fill with air and her eyes snap open. She gasped, coughing up the water from the river still in her lungs. He helped her into a sitting position, and only then did she seem to realize that she wasn’t alone.
She looked up at him and took a breath to scream, but he gently clamped his hand over her mouth, stopping the noise from escaping. He extended his power and felt her heart pounding. The fear in her eyes sent a tendril of shame down his core, but slowly, he lowered her heartrate until she fell asleep, limp in his arms.
He stood, her small body dwarfed by his, and started walking along the bank. Soon, he came to a bridge, and followed the winding brick road into a town. The main road was lined with bakeries and inns, shaded with tall maple and oak trees, but as he walked the length of the street and saw shopkeepers starting to set up, all he could think of was the way that her eyes had looked at him, and the way the silence of her heart on that shore threatened to swallow him whole.
He reached the end of the main road and approached the local chapel. He hadn’t set foot in one since he was a small child, and he sure wasn’t going to now, but he took off his cloak, wrapped it around the girl, and set her on the front steps with a bag of coin around her neck.
As he walked away, he realized he didn’t even know her name.
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