[Fantasy novel, completed ✓]
In a world filled with magic, dragons, witches, demons, deadly creatures and other magical beings, the life of the king's daughter Victorine changes with a single blow when her kingdom is attacked.
She loses not only he...
I have licked the fire and danced in the ashes of every bridge I ever burned. I fear no hell from you. - Nicole Lyons
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- Hekate -
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My footsteps crunched on the leaf-covered forest floor. It was lonely nights and days out here. Alone, in the middle of the forest, cut off from my sisters and my family.
Every time I looked at the cabin in the woods, I had to remind myself that I had volunteered for this. After all the time and all that my sisters had done for me, I too had to contribute something to our welfare. I, too, had had to take on a task, even if it was killing day in and day out, alone, at night. For five whole years.
Claws stabbed my shoulder as a crow landed on me and let out a guttural cry. Sighing, I continued on my way, with a heavy bird on my shoulder, but a little less alone.
I entered the cabin and got ready for my task. It had been pleasant to have had someone else with me last night. Especially since I hadn't been back to the Underworld for three whole days before that, and the hellish creatures had piled up all the more.
My tired old bones cracked as I stretched. Then I closed my eyes until everything around me grew warmer, the air stuffier, and the roar in my ears a little louder.
I rolled up my sleeves and began to look around. But even after an unusually long time of waiting, still no infernal creatures had appeared that usually tried to fight me immediately.
What was going on today? It was hardly possible that no new beings were awaiting death after Victorine and I had wiped them all out yesterday. I put one step in front of the other and walked through the stuffy, red, sandy desert of nothingness. I walked until I wondered if I had walked far at all. Everything here looked completely the same. Immediately I had lost the orientation about how far I had already run.
Frowning, I stopped, looked around and listened. The whole time I had heard nothing except for the slight roar and the pressure in my ears. But now I thought I could hear fast, pounding footsteps. I turned around, looked into the distance, and squinted my eyes.
Demons were running across the hot, dusty ground at incredible speed. However, not toward me, but in a direction that completely bypassed me.
Instead of destroying the creatures, I followed them. There were not just two or three, but a good dozen. And more and more were coming. The closer I got and the longer I ran in the direction to where the demons were also running, the more beings I discovered. Humans, demons, wendigos, and shadowy figures. They were all streaming toward the same destination from every possible direction, completely ignoring me.
My steps quickened as my heart began to pound harder. After an infinity of wandering, my head and gaze stretched toward the sky. What I saw instantly turned my stomach.
