Blood of Gold

Chapter 1 - Khthonia

That cliff fall should have nerfed the fuck out of me. 

That was the thought that ran through the hidden figures mind that stood on the castles highest peak. As she stared over the Elven Kingdom, silver eyes scanned over the scenery and watched everything that happened beneath her. She watched the loyalties and she watched the people, only turning away to rest the small of her back against the rim of the balcony. Salvitar was a beautiful place once the chilling name was placed second hand to the scenery. It had been about seven years since she had arrived at the Kingdom of Salvitar cold, bloody, and mindless of who she was. Her clothes had been torn from the weeks of running through woodlands to escape an anonymous presence of danger that pushed her to run non-stop. Her exhaustion had eventually stunted her pace, causing her to slow to her pursuer. She had almost given up until she had fell... the water below had caught her body instead of the wicked rocks beneath the cliff—only to render her unconscious. She didn't remember much from that either. The only thing she remembered after hitting the water was waking up with an arrow threatening to puncture her skull. She had called Salvitar home ever since.

Her gaze turned back towards the city of Salvitar and she released a breath she hadn't known she had been holding on to. Again, Salvitar was a beautiful place once you got over its dark name. The kingdom was surrounded by trees and enchanted lakes that traveled for distances unmeasured. There were four lakes to represent the four directions: Lake Heldrang in the south, Lake Keilhm in the north, Lake Ashvirnth in the east, and Lake Ghnauthet in the west. Each was sacred to a specific ancient Elven figure that had come before their people. They were their peoples first and now resided upon the sacred mountain of Crystlven. The people of her home found it important that these sacred places be respected. Those that disrespected these places in any sort were quickly executed. Sometimes right then and there. No one was to swim in these beautifully pigmented lakes at any time. Those found doing so were met with a faith worse than death. As she watched the sun reflect off the lake of the east, a thought popped up into her mind. Funny, she exhaled softly. I had washed up in the river of the South. It was true. The mysterious girl dressed in a silk white gown once resembled that of shit, or druthg as the Elven people called it. When she had washed up on the sands of the lake of Heldrang it was the talk of the kingdom for a while. She had been half-dead, frail, and utterly weak. The Elven King had seen her arrival as a message from the Creators and decided to have mercy on her, saying that no one had ever just appeared in the Sacred Lakes. Looking back on it, she figured death would have been better than being mindless. However, she managed to achieve a feat that no person native to the land would ever dare. She survived the Lake of the Sacred

The next beautiful thing about Salvitar was its wooden areas. As told to her, the Elves descended from four Elves of different origin. The elf that became the ancestor of the Salvitarians was a winterwood elf. He had claimed the woods as his own amid the worlds originating freezing temperatures and built his people a home. Which would attribute to the forever cool temperatures the area possessed. It had taken her a while to adjust. Aside from the temperature, however, they were glorious above comparison to any other thing that the silver-eyed female had laid her eyes on in the eight years she had resided in the kingdom. But it's not like she could compare it to much—she hadn't left her newfound home since she was given a home. Her brows furrowed as she thought about that fact. Her entire time of being in Salvitar had been like a prey just waiting for its predator to finally attack them. Just waiting while it feasted on berries and wine, fattening itself for the kill.

A reoccurring thought processed through her head as she fully turned back towards the balcony railing. Why was she here? Where was she truly supposed to be? Why did she have no idea who the hell she was? Aside from the nightmares she suffered every night filled with screams and please the girl had from her past life. Everything seemed so empty. It was a true blank that never made any sense to her. A blank that left with plenty of distant faces and unrecognizable voices. She had no idea of anything of her past except for her time in the King of Salvitar. Just of the three stones that were embedded in the back of her neck and the small of her back along with the intricate markings on her body. They traveled around her ankles and up her legs, wrapping around her thighs just to travel to her torso along her stomach and disappeared against her back where they trickled down her arms and rested at her wrists. Dots lined these beautiful, white swirls as if they were coded for something. Something she would never figure out. Again, the only things she had were her stones and markings.