Castle of Vines

Chapter 1

Coating the Southern Coast, a thick fog blanketed the skies, mountains, and through the trees of nearby forests.
   Elodie was heavily dressed in armor, glinting against the moonlight, her cloak hanging adrift in the hushed wind. Known as The Guarding Tigress, her eyes a flashing weapon to many, and her fiery, tangled curls colored with scarlet. Her handkerchief was tied around her neck to remind others where she'd come from.
   A Niczebec guild.
Plunged into the depths of hell there was the dead whose spirits never rest. The Niczebec offered war, and the bearer of light, who held their title, Torch, readied its piercing arrows. They whizzed, Niczebecs hiding underneath the soils of a long-lost land. Their guild represented the lost and who needed guiding.
   And none have helped.
Tendrils of her anger rippled until she walked past by the river, light dancing in them. Her lips were blue from the breeze and decided to keep walking. She was almost there. Almost. Headed to the Northern Continent, there awaited her hunt for a fugitive, whose felonies were more than an act of evil. Worse than the Niczebec Kings. A beast was loosed upon the soils of the Northern Kingdoms, and wherever he'd traveled with two feet, and her guild had assigned Elodie as an honorable surrogate for the royal assassin.
   The glinting plate that had been curved intricately laid by her foot.
   She wasn't sure if the guild was playing with her head, but she could've sworn that it had been a pool of blood blanketing a beheaded soldier---
   She... Was she here? Why back in her camp? No one seemed to notice---
   And...
   Usually, by moonlight, there would be bellows to welcome her presence. Now there'd been none. Strange, but the soldier before her made her panic instantly. A soldier supposedly guarding the fronts of her guild's camp. It sent her leaping, sent a trickle of sweat down her brow. Memories blared in her ears, the voices of her companions, the ones who've pierced her with glares when they betted on the worst things. Resisting the urge to shout, she veered to the left, as the wind guided her through her swift movements.
   She bit back another cry. Her body angled to every direction. Left. Right. Right. Left. The branches were left fractured after putting a single step on each of them. The leaves rustled through and through, warning her to turn back. But she wouldn't. Couldn't.
   The acrid air seeped into her lungs, singeing her nose as she fumbled for her sword. She descended from an overtowering oak tree--- one that marked her guild's territory. A sensation lingered in her chest, nearly drowning her in the dark. No light peered through the path. Her blood thrummed every minute she was tugged into the territory, going deeper, like someone beckoned her to look. A call slipped out of her mouth, a loosened cry following from her. It was dark, and she saw no trace of light, nor did she hear a gale of laughter.
   Elodie's hope collapsed in the unending darkness until a smell of stale bread pervaded the air. Markets were open during the mornings and that's when the second group patrolled the secured area, monitoring the bystanders. She hadn't realized they brought dinner for the guild.
   A tunnel of light blinded her, looking in. She dashed to it, every step thudding and echoing in an untamed wilderness. The name of the forest had been forgotten, someone rumored, and that anyone who neared it, stayed rather, would be dead before their first night.
   No. No, no, no, no.
   The breeze of pure nightfall kissed her face in greeting, but it wasn't as welcoming as her guild was now entirely made of ash and ember. The flags were angled, the sky painted with vermillion clouds, a maroon stark on the Niczebec banners. The piled bodies were rotting, protruding bones oozing with burnt mortal flesh. To Elodie's surprise, her knees were steady.
   Her mouth trembled, but her body froze. No tears came out.
   No, no, no, no.
   This was her only home; she had nowhere else to go. Tangled tendrils of her shattering conscience were barely awake by the view before her. Her vision dimmed blink after blink, to ignore the bile burning her throat. How would she bury her friends?
   Her family?
   The guild had been engulfed by a forceful calamity, but she believed it had to be someone. One person who could've done the conflagration. Her jaw tightened at a presence standing idly from behind. Smothering herself in the living atmosphere, she turned. But as soon as he opened his mouth, Elodie lunged at him with the sharpest dagger in her hand.
   An arm flashed around her neck and pinned her down in seconds.
   Her body thrashed in rage, consistently scrambling her legs to kick. Her chest heaved when she gave every tendril of her power to resist the strength of the person cloaked in the darkest hood she'd seen.
   "I'm. Going. TO KILL YOU," she hissed through her teeth.
   Eyes of lush greenery met hers, curls of beige dangling down a broad face, with canine teeth, and chiseled cheekbones.
   He smirked. "You can try."