The Huntsman and His Prey

Chapter 1

The town was on fire. The smoke was burning Isa's nose and lungs as she ran out of her house. She heard branches snapping in the dark woods and glanced over. The shadow of a man with horns on his head, sitting on top of a horse is reflected in the light of the flames. "The huntsman" she thought to herself, the fear settling into her bones. She threw her lavender hair up roughly and jumped into the crowd trying to put out the roaring fire before it spread even further. The heat was so hot she could feel it singeing her hair slightly, even though it was pulled on top of her head. Glancing back over her shoulder, over the sound of the embers crackling, she could hear the huntsman laughing with his crew of dark fae. They had been terrorizing all of faerie for years. No one knew if they were seelie or unseelie. Isa tossed him a dark glare. No one knew their names, but everyone feared them and when they would strike next. It's always been random, with no pattern so no one could trace them and where'd they strike next. She threw her shoulders back and got back to work helping the townspeople put the fire out, the water fae doing their best to put as much water on it as possible. The fire controlling fae trying to control it to stay in one spot, everyone was struggling, and Isa? Well, she was an oddity, she controlled more than one element: both fire and earth. After a few hours they finally got the fire simmered down and under control enough to put it out. Isa was covered in soot and ash, plus she smelled like smoke. Her hair had come out of its messy ponytail sometime in the last hour. She said goodbye to the rest of her people, and on the way back to her house she heard more branches snapping, but before she could even react there was a prick in the side of her neck, and everything went black.