Crown of Shadows and Whispers

Chapter 1

I have always had dreams about killing. The blood running through my fingers calmed me. These dreams never scared me. I knew they were showing me a future, a future I knew no amount of kindness would change.

I was taught to be good and caring and use my powers to help others. To ignore the urge to kill.

I am the Chosen One, after all. It's my duty to protect those who cannot defend themselves.

I was chosen by a God, sharing my mortal body with them. One body, two minds to create the ultimate killing machine to save my people.

The stories say a Chosen comes forward when their people need a saviour. The last Chosen was a knight of noble blood. He saved our people over two hundred years ago. And peace had continued. Until now, that is.

I should have stepped forward when the war had started. I should have saved my people from the demons attacking our shore.

But I stayed hidden.

My parents feared that if I were let loose, I wouldn't be able to stop killing. The God inside me would kill everyone in sight. They feared those men in charge of this kingdom would use and abuse me until I wouldn't be able to contain those urges. So, with the help of our small village, I stayed hidden.

I have been chosen since birth. In our small village, Old Hern, when a child is born, our Sharman uses their seeing powers to look into the future. They use this knowledge to help the child grow. Technically, the art of shamanism is forbidden. Any kind of magic is not allowed. Something about the King fearing that if someone were more powerful than him, he would have them killed before they killed him.

But the Sharman saw death in my future, so much death that he ran into the forest for a week to pray for the safety of this world. After his short absence, he came back with the advice for my parents. I was brought up to be kind, and any signs of murder, and my parents responded with kindness. At the age of six, the Goddess finally spoke to me.

Erena, The Old Goddess of death and the carrier of Souls. And yes, she is as scary as it sounds.

There was another problem.

Centuries ago, the humans that inhabited this land worshipped Old Gods. Those Gods were brutal and cruel, so cruel that their own children killed them. Their Godly children took their place, and those eight Gods and Goddesses are who my people worship now.

When an Old Goddess turned up inside my head, everyone was terrified. Rightly so.

But Erena assured me that all she wanted to do was survive. To hide from the New Gods that replaced her family and friends. She was powerful but had to be careful against all the new Gods.

And so I hid. I stayed locked up in my village. Away from the world I longed to explore, and Erena wanted to destroy.

I had a relatively normal childhood. I went to the local school with my friends. The only difference was that after class, I stayed behind and practised my new magic skills. We were learning to work with Erena to control the powers that lurked under my skin.

And at the age of twelve, I killed my first man. He had tried to steal from a friend, and so I ended his life. He was the first of many. I used my skills to protect my village from bandits and thieves.

I even fell in love with an ordinary man as I got older. Conan. We had been friends since birth, as our mothers were friends. As the war started, he declared he would join the army, and I fought him about his decision. He wanted to make a better life for us. He wanted to be a better man for me. So before he left, he asked me to marry him, and he promised we would marry when he returned.

That was the last time I saw him. I don't remember the few weeks after hearing the news.

And so, I hid.

I spent the next two years protecting my village and the small villages. I hid my face, mainly working at night to help conceal my identity. I needed to stay hidden. I needed to remain secret to keep my family safe from the invading army that inched closer to home.

But that all changed one night. I was doing my usual patrol in the forest until I encountered a young boy. His father's sword in his hands as he sliced into a tree. It was amusing watching a child who couldn't be older than eleven, holding a giant blade, striking at a giant tree.

Normally, I would continue, but that night was different. I introduced myself and asked what he was doing.

"Practicing", he simply replied, not looking at me. "So the knights will take me,"

"Stay at home, you're family will be safer with you by their side,"

And what he said next, freeze and question everything.

"What about everyone else?"

Everyone else?

Guilt set in as I left that boy that night. And after spending the rest of the night convincing Erena that we should at least try to save everyone else, We decided. If the knights came for us, we would not argue. We would not hide. We would go with them and save everyone else.

I suppose I became more relaxed with hiding my identity after that.

And I suppose that's what led them to me.