They say a girl called Saorla was killed in the woods, and she became the forest.
They say when the Forest returned to her village she was disguised as a young woman. She dipped her hand into a well, and poison flooded from her fingertips. Insects burrowed into the living and suffering reigned.
They called her Deathbringer after that.
They say the Deathbringer used to be a thief with broken hands. She stole the lives of every being in that village with a devouring jaw. Swallowing the souls in a single gulp and kept the fingers of the clergy to hang about her neck. Fifty fingers, one for every crime they committed against her. One for every crime she would commit against them.
They called her Wraith, the Forsaken, after that.
They say when the Wraith returned to her village, she shed her skin like a snake. Her body was covered with the bark of the blackthorn tree and cracked like lightning. Human eyes fell from her sockets to be replaced by those of the dead. A swirling milky white. Spiders erupted from her hair and throat.
They begged for mercy after that.
They say the Wraith saved her mother for last. She set fire to the house with a flash of her eyes. Her mother trapped inside. Then the wraith stole her mother's head and cast the village into hell-flame. Nothing grows in that place anymore. Scorch marks remain where that house used to stand.
They wrote stories about her after that.
They say the Wraith lives in an abandoned Cathedral and sits on a throne of skulls. She can alter fate and listen to thoughts.
Some say she is a God.
Some say she is a woman.
They worshiped her after that.
YOU ARE READING
Something With a Prince
FantasyWhat story does the forest keep and what story does it tell? Upon her induction into the king's army, Tallethea Ousin is asked to transport her childhood enemy, the prince of Tuisedor, through treacherous forest in order to protect him from the Bloo...
