Prince of the Vale (Silver Crown Chronicles #2)

Prologue

“Mother would never make me clean out the chicken coop,” Reuthe grumbled to herself, shovel and bucket in hand.

Though in truth, Reuthe didn’t have a mother, never knew one. She had her father Ólff who was keeper of the temple at Sorasaen and mostly a loving father throughout her life.  Sometimes he put his foot down and insisted Reuthe go do her chores, and in such times Reuthe would fabricate a mother she had always yearned for.  Her mother would never force her to do chores, especially a few years shy of her twentieth year.  Her mother would understand things her father never could.  After all, Reuthe had to have gotten her brilliant shock of snow-white hair from someone, and it definitely was not inherited from the mousy-brown head of her father.

But there she was, dragging her feet to the chicken coops as she made her way to the farmhouse across the road from the Temple of Saint Hubertus.  Mucking out the nest houses was not her favorite task.  It hurt her back and made her shoulders sore.  The smell was an atrocious matter of its own.

She shoveled, careful not to breathe through her nose, and noticed that while the hen house once held ten chickens, Reuthe could only count eight.  She paused and counted once more, coming with the same result.  She looked around the fencing for any sign of entry made by a fox or other predator and saw none.  No stray feathers or other sign of the missing hens.  Reuthe finished her work quickly and rushed to inform her father.  Her shovel and bucket were left abandoned next to the coop, and as she ran across the road, her eyes darted suspiciously between the various villagers of Sorasaen.

Reuthe needed no harbinger to enter.  She burst into the temple library where she had last seen her father.  “Two of our chickens are missing!  I think someone has stolen them,” she informed Ólff conspiratorially.  It was only when she was met with a stern silence and a hard gaze did Reuthe think she had interrupted something.

Ólff was entertaining a visitor, and Reuthe saw who it was from the battle-scarred leather armor he wore.  She was easily familiar with the visitor’s blood-brown stubble and the pale white scars on his left cheek.  His name was Freki, and Freki was from the fortress-village of Haradrop, a half-day’s journey from Sorasaen.  He often visited Sorasaen for food and supplies for his family.  He was often met with resentment and occasionally open hostility from the Sorasaen merchants and grocers, for Haradrop was a suspicious place full of wizards and dangerous werefolk. No one knew if Freki was one of those, but his money must have been good enough, because the merchants and grocers still sold to him.

And secretly, Reuthe fancied him for he was kind and gentle, despite his rough appearance, and she suddenly found herself acutely aware of the smell of chicken dung that clung to her clothes and hair.  Freki held her eyes as Ólff scolded her for the interruption.

“Reuthe, please leave us for the moment,” he said.

She reluctantly turned her eyes to her father as her expression fell into a scowl.  She loathed being dismissed.  “But the chickens—”

“Leave us,” he snapped.

Reuthe glared and made sure to slam the library doors behind her to show Ólff her temper.  She returned to the chicken coop, kicking up the dust road with her boots as she cursed her father’s inability to listen to her.  How woeful it was to be a burgeoning teenager!

She counted the chickens again but this time, noticed a trail of large wolf tracks leading away from the coop.  Reuthe examined them closely before deciding to investigate.  If her father would do nothing for their plight, she would have to take matters into her own hands.

The tracks led her into the Pirinac Forest, where she hesitated before pursuing them further.  Father warned against the evils of the forest, but Reuthe decided if there was such evil, an absence of trees would not stop it.

Her path turned beyond the trees, and she quickly found herself facing a man, tall with thick, dark coils for hair.  But ultimately he was nude.  Reuthe stopped, checking herself.  She modestly diverted her gaze to the ground, and there she saw the mangled carcasses of their two missing chickens.  Blood and feathers surrounded the man’s feet.  And quickly, her modesty gave way to rage.  She squared her shoulders, meeting his gaze, and ignored the condescending smile he used with which to greet her.

“Those were our chickens!” she informed him angrily, pointing.

“You are either brave or foolish to come into the forest.”

“I do not care much for thieves,” she hissed, crossing her arms.  “My father will find out, and we will get the Kanetalm Guard—”

But he was laughing, unimpressed with her display of moral upstanding.  He began pacing around her.  “Your father?  The guard?  It matters not.  No one is around to hear you scream—”

And at this, he lunged, ripping into Reuthe’s shoulder with newly enormous fangs.