The Huntress and The Devil.

Prologue

The darkness engulfed Jacob as he ran down the hall. He peered hopelessly into the gloom before him, pleading for a glint of light from the door, but the hallway stretched out endlessly, coated in the black tar of the night. Behind him, the figure kept pace, seemingly unaffected by the ferocity of the chase. Jacob's own heart beat a death march in his ears. Somewhere ahead, the doorway lay waiting, taunting him. The night had taken a turn worse than he ever foresaw. Not an hour earlier he had been tending to the dishes in the castle's kitchen. An hour before that, he had been with the boys in the hall, serving, as he did every night, at the lords table. The maze of regret and betrayal tangled in his mind, his life at the castle was drawing to a close not a month after it begun. Tears burned in his eyes; this was the price for seeking mercy. The rug slipped under foot and he careened off course. His skull rung like a belfry as he collided with the suit of armor. It toppled over him with a powerful crash, knocking him off his feet. His shin burned with the thick heat of his blood breathing in the cruel air. He watched, eyes wide with terror, as the cloaked figure advanced.

"Why? Why!?" he shouted, but the figure spoke not.

He pushed himself to his feet, his leg burning with the weight, and started off in a sprint. The air seared his lungs, his muscles were on fire, but he had to make it, he had to tell the others. Ten feet from the door he could smell the cool air of the night, if he could just reach it...

Suddenly, he was weightless, lifted into the air by an unseen force. The figure's hand closed tight around his fragile neck. Jacob clasped at the broad fingers that pressed into his throat, crushing the pathways of his blood. The pressure in his ears swelled, pulsing with his failing heartbeat. He choked on the silence as the figure stared, indifferently, into his eyes.

"Please," he mouthed, "I'll tell no one."

The snap of his neck echoed down the hall, and the boy's body went limp. It fell to the floor with a dull thud; the sum of his life's efforts. Under the cold eyes of the portraits lining the hall, the figure dragged the corpse toward the dungeon. How sweet and easy it was, to deal with such trivial problems. The child wouldn't be missed, no one would ask after him, there would be no need for a grave to grieve at. He would fade, into nothing, with the others.