A Court Of Storms And Death

chapter 1

The trees were on fire. The ground was on fire. My entire body was on fire. Everything was on fire because I was in hell.

Or maybe it just felt that way because of the poison coursing through my body. My dress was torn and bloody, and I could see the gashes the talons of those creature thingies had left.

If the poison didn't kill me, then the memory of their mum-awful bad breath will. Seriously, it reeked. My eyes had stung as I ran away from them. 

Despite the fire in my bones, my flesh, my soul, it was cold. So, so cold. It was the cold of a gaping wound. The cold of a foreign land. Not the cold I was used to.

Snow fell in thick clumps all around me.

Distantly, I could hear the gurgle of a stream. Water. If I  could only get to it, I could heal myself. I tried to get up, to stand.

And managed it for a few steps before falling and crawling the rest of the way, the stream within viewing distance now.

I sighed as the water flowed through my hand and onto my injuries. The gashes closed halting the flow of the blood. I could feel the poison starting to slow down too.

Not fully rid of it. But good enough. My advanced healing powers came from the fact that I could control water, but I wasn't a healer.

Being a healer required patience, and unfortunately I didn't have any.

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. Crying won't get me back home. I tried to stand through the throbbing ache. I could almost hear my uncle yelling at me to make the pain my bitch.

That just made it worse.

I glanced at my reflection. My hair was matted, its silver sheen dulled by the coating of dirt and blood. My eyes - my mother's eyes, my eyes, my mother's, mine - had a crazed look in them.

I cleaned myself up the best I could and donned the nifty cloak that I had nicked from someone, its thick fabric hiding a measly

It was cold. Snow fell in soft tufts as I tucked my cloak in tighter and made my way out of the woods. The fire that raged in my heart kept me from completely freezing, but I was drained.

The poison had worked too well. My legs ached with each step but uncle Aedion's face came to mind again, this time joined by Fenrys yelling at me to make the pain my bitch.

I told my brain to shut up as I trudged my way out. My stomach grumbled, almost angrily. I told it to shut up too.

I was near the base of a large mountain. But there was something inside it. Life. Thousands of them. I could feel life thrumming out from it. I almost fell to my knees in relief.

And confusion. Why were people living in a carved mountain? To be honest, it was pretty cool but also really weird.

I found the entrance, a huge set of stone doors, carved with the images of some great serpentine beast. Guards were flanking the doors, fae guards.

I couldn't place it, but they weren't like the fae back in my home. Back in my world, I guess. This wasn't my home at all.

I threw my shoulders back and willed my face into a simpering smile. I didn't know why it made people uneasy until Fenrys had told me I looked like a serial killer in the middle of her bloody rampage. All the better, I guess.

The guard's eyes had widened at the sight of me. I didn't blame them.

I was gorgeous.

I flipped my hair at them as I strode through the doors and into the gloom of the carved mountain. Something about the place made me extremely uneasy. It felt almost cruel.

I walked through the cleverly sketched out path, interconnecting various homes, some of them huge mansions, all carved into the mountainside from the rock itself. It was an architectural marvel. I longed to find out the designs, the mechanisms by which they carved onto the rock.

A few people were milling about, none of them paid any attention to me. Strangely enough, they spoke the same language I did. Maybe because it was a variation of the Old Language.

I heard two fae talking and keeping to the shadows decided to eavesdrop on them like the little shit that I was.

A fae with long dusty brown hair was saying to his friend "......... I mean the High Lord of the Night Court is a monster, but it is his heir that terrifies me. There's something about him that makes even the Steward uneasy. The boy smells like Death itself."

His friend agreed, "Dark power far greater than both his parents........"

I didn't get a chance to hear the rest of the conversation, because then a scream from one of the stone houses cut through the air. Not even a blink of the eye from the people that were loitering about. Something was seriously wrong.

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