Fire Weaver (Fall of the Fey #1)

Chapter 1

Carmel's boots crunched against the gravel path as she slid off Gregoria. She patted the large willow-wood deer's white speckled shoulder absently before walking over to what had prompted her to stop. Stopping in the Miskas, even on the path, was not recommended, but she felt compelled to help the wounded man. She approached him, her surroundings making her cautious of a possible trap. Her spine tightened when Gregoria snorted and stomped her foot. Carmel guessed that Gregoria was just as eager to leave as she was.

The Miskas was quiet; not even a cricket sounded in the woods. The trees completely covered the sky and the only light to reach the floor was shadowed and murky. Carmel kept an eye out for the telltale glow of the Dir'dre's predator eyes as she knelt beside the man.

Carmel winced in sympathy at the deep gouges on his shoulder blades, which oozed a steady stream of dark blood. She gently turned him over to see if he had other injuries that needed immediate attention. There had been many naked males in her homeland because not all of the Fair-folk enjoyed the comfort of clothing as her clan did.

She hadn't, however, seen anyone as wounded as the man who laid before her. She could see him bleeding from as many small cuts as large ones. Patches of his skin were swollen and blotched with black bruises. Carmel was considering the merits of leaving him to the Miskas when he opened his eyes. She stared at the crimson colour, his irises much larger than the human eyes she had seen in books; they were so large they swallowed the whites completely.

He instantly tried to move and gasped, collapsed back to the ground, his hands clutched at a particularly deep wound in his side.

'Where am I?' he asked her, his gaze caught hers again. His long black hair swayed as he turned his head this way and that, so she caught glimpses of large, black horns on either side of his widow's peak.

'You're on the path in the Miskas.' She answered him. Her voice lilted around the letters of the human language in a way that made the words sound like water moving smoothly around stones in a river. His eyes narrowed as he considered her closely and she blushed at the inspection, a pink stain on her prominent cheekbones.

'What are you?' He asked her and she raised her head with pride as she answered.

'I am Carmel, a Fire-weaver, first in line to ascend to Fire Warden of the.' She realised he had fainted and deflated instantly. Fire-weavers were hard to come by even in the Willow-wood, her home that resided in the middle of the Miskas, which had its own people, the Dir'dre, and their savage culture. The path was the only way the Fey were able to move from their settlement to the human lands.

'Gregoria, come here.' Carmel said and motioned impatiently for her doe to join her, 'we'll take him with us and camp outside the Miskas.' She pursed her lips as she considered him and moved some of his black hair off of his forehead as she continued: 'Someone doesn't like you.'

Gregoria knelt down, so it was easier for Carmel to haul the creature on to her. Carmel grunted under the heavy load as she pulled him up by the armpits, while Gregoria shook her head and her ears flicked uneasily. The doe stood hesitantly when Carmel told her to and Gregoria stomped her foot when he didn't fall off. Carmel ran her hand along Gregoria's neck before she grabbed the reins and led the doe onwards.

She talked to Gregoria as they walked through the eerie forest, chipper, even though she was further than she had ever been from her home. It took a day to get from her home in the Willow-woods to the other side of the Miskas.

She had started on this journey just after dawn that morning. Carmel had watched the sun rise from her terrace that overlooked the town square. The sun lit up the white domed roofs of the other buildings, turning them gold. There she had sat until Vivalda, her teacher, and current Warden of Fire, called for her. Carmel was the first in line to succeed her and today was the start of the trial to prove that she was ready and able to become the next Warden.