17-year-old Avera Ibori is a girl who has always longed for a life of adventure, but when her father mysteriously vanishes, she gets more of it than she can stand. Thrown into a hidden world of magic, intrigue, corruption, and kings, Avera must choo...
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''I've never seen so much blood...'
There was a scream, then another, and his ears grew tired of the droning of the locusts' wings as they flew, hopping about and latching on to their victims. The scene was dark, the torment of the people on the blood covered streets only visible by the red light of the blood moon and the orangey glow of the crackling fires all around him.
He breathed in. His nostrils filled with the scent of blood and fire and smoke. He breathed out.
'Why? Why am I here? What is it... hatred? But I don't hate these people. I have no reason to. No, not hatred. Perhaps... indifference. Perhaps.'
He pondered the question.
'But then... perhaps I shouldn't think on this now. The time for self-introspection may be long behind me.'
He twirled his sword and skewered another of the fleeing citizens of the war-torn town, listening to the terror stricken man as he gasped painfully to draw his last breath.
'There...' he said inwardly, looking to Kallida, 'there's another one. No shortage of blood for your spells now, is there?'
He pulled back his sword, and the man fell lifeless to the ground. He looked down at him, his body lying there limp, and his eyes widened.
'How many is that now I've killed? There was him and the other... and four besides... and the woman and her child. And then there was... no. ...I've lost count.'
There were other men there, soldiers and officers, having been assigned the same task of providing blood to the magicians corps, and he heard the screams as they hunted the citizens and slew them. They rushed through the pools of blood which lined the streets, uncaring to tread upon it as their dark boots became covered in the thick red liquid.
The sound of the screeching of night terrors and the powerful beating of their monstrous wings could be heard from the skies above Elkshire. They were large dragon-like creatures, living shadows born of darkness. Their eyes were black as their bodies, and they moved like arbiters of death through the night, drawing near and raining fire upon the city below them. These creatures would, on occasion, dive down, plummeting towards the earth with a swift and silent descent, and they would fall upon men, tearing them limb from limb as the beasts relentlessly devoured them.
Kelvin looked on, thinking that he saw one drop, a streak of black against the darkness, but he was uncertain of it until he heard the sudden screams of the man in front of him further down the lane. He watched as the monster's teeth sunk into the man's neck, beginning to devour him, and the blood ran down as the flesh was ripped away. The beast's claws held the man tight, wrapped about his body, tearing his garments and sinking into his skin. He was in the grip of darkness. Kelvin watched wide eyed with horrified fascination, and he felt his stomach flip.
"Gah!" he gagged, throwing himself forward with the sudden onset of repulsion and nausea.
