Hearts of Wrath and Ruin | Throne of Glass | Fenrys

Prologue

"She swung the burning sword.

Maeve's mouth was still open in a scream as her head tumbled to the snow."

A tremor went through the world, like a ripple of stone on the surface of silent waters. A great and terrible power finally realising it's hold with the death of a dark queen.

And in the wake of that tremor a different ancient power awoke in a dark tomb hidden beneath Doranelle's foundaitions. Waterfalls that disguised the entrance to the caves roared louder, birds and beasts cowered in the safety of their dens, the ground itself seemed to quake from the wrath of the one who was awoken.

She was nothing. She had no feelings, no memories, no senses. No body and no soul. She was one with nothingness in wich she dwelled.

She was trapped in a place where space and time didn't exist. Only an endless void of darkness ecompasing her body, mind and soul. She didn't know what day, month or year it was. She didn't even remember her own name.

But then there it was. An ember of light.

She was alive.

That light grew and gew until an ember turned into a flame and she could once again think, feel and use her senses. The flame became a fire and her memories crashed into her one after another until she could remember. And with the memories came pain and rage the likes of wich she never knew before. It thretened to suffocate her and made her bleed from wounds long since healed.

She was alive. And she was furious.

She screamed.

An explosion shook the ground of the City of Rivers, the cobblestone lining the streets quaking in it's wake. Glass in the windows trembled, ornaments decorating walls in homes and shops went tumbling to the ground, the lights flickered on a phantom wind.

In her grief she likely had no idea she just caused an earthquake. Even if she did, it wouldn't matter. The moment she started remembering nothing else mattered anymore except getting out of the dark pit she had been imprisoned in for Gods' knew how long.

The explosion she caused took out all the remaining obstacles on her way to freedom and now she could finally see the light of day and hear the roaring of many waterfalls around her. She stumbled forward, her legs barely remembering how to walk. She gritted her teeth, willing her body to obey her wishes and fueled by pure determination broke into a run. Every muscle in her body burned in protest, her lungs screaming at her to stop, but still she didn't balk. She only pushed harder, run faster, until she could smell more than dust and ancient stone, until she could feel the wind on her face and the breeze from the waterfalls on her skin. And when she reached the end of the tunnel and then the egde of a platform, slightly jutting out from the smooth surface of the rocky cliff, she still didn't slow down. Instead she sprinted just a little bit faster before she made the jump. A cold mass of water slammed into her when she threw herself off that cliff and through the waterfall bloking her way out. The icy water made her feel alive once more, the freefall finally waking up her long-forgotten instincts.

A sound like a thunderclap went through the air, a boom of mighty wings once again feeling the song of the wind. She always thought every living being deserved to experience flying and the feeling of freedom that came with it. For a moment all the pain, rage and grief faded away as she reveled in that feeling. She loved the way the wind caressed her face, her wings. She could hear it singing to her, beconing to fly, to catch a current and soar as high as her body would let her. Higher than the clouds and into the pure light of the sun or the moon and the stars. But as she was rising higher and higher, someting else caught her attention. An enormous castle made of stone. The fury she felt moments before slammed back into her with all it's might and sent her diving towards her target.

She didn't stop when she heard the royal guards screaming nor did she slow down to avoid crashing into glass windows encompasing the throne room. She remembered every room in that castle, like she was roaming these floors just yesterday.

The impact made pain burst in her already strained body, glass shards embedding themselves in her skin and slicing through the delicate membrane of her wings. She didn't care, not anymore. She landed with a mighty boom, her body seamlessly falling into a fighting stance thanks to the instincts she honed through many centuries and battlefields. She was ready for revenge, ready to die if only she could take her enemy with her.

But the queen sitting on the mighty throne in the middle of the dais wasn't a dark-haired ancient beauty, her eyes didn't glimmer with promise of violence and there was no reek of death coming from her very essence.

No, that female in front of her had flowing silver hair and vivid green eyes. And someting about those eyes seemed familiar. Memories from so long ago it seemed like another lifetime resurfaced, at first slowly and then all at once. Memories of another pair of green eyes and silver hair, one that belonged to the person she loved the most in this world. The realization struck her like a punch in the gut, her arms slackened at her sides and shock must have been clearly written all over her face, because the female whose features were previously painted with terror, was now looking at her with utter confusion. But that moment of enlightenment had cost her as she stopped paying attention to her surroundings for a few seconds. The last thing she remembered was a sharp pain at the back of her head.

And then there was darkness once again.