Prologue
'A boy had been found in the snow'
Word had spread through the small village like wind in a snowstorm. No one knew anything one minute, then everyone knew everything the next. Some swore the rumor started before the scavengers even returned—though no one could explain how.
A vicious snowstorm tore through the village. The wind howled so fiercely it nearly tore houses from their foundations. The village chief dug through any wreckages until everyone was accounted for. Some were injured more than others, but thankfully no one was left in a life threatening condition. At daybreak, the village sent out as many able-bodied people as they could into the wilderness, searching for anything they could salvage to repair the damage.
But while they were out, they noticed an unconscious boy half-buried in a pile of snow. He was blonde, his face deathly pale—almost rivalling the snow around him, and the tips of his fingers tinged blue with frostbite. No one could figure out how he’d survived in such a state. He had been there long enough for snow to settle on his body. But there was no way to tell exactly how long he had been there. But he wore little more than rags stitched together from leftover fabric so he wouldn’t have lasted long before dying of hypothermia. But what unsettled them the most was that his clothes were drenched in blood—blood that couldn’t possibly be his own. He had no external injuries that blood could have come from.
They hadn’t seen any villages nearby. He was much too young to have wandered that far out alone. The scavenger party concluded that his parents had abandoned him. One of the men brushed the snow from his face, before slinging the boy over his shoulder. He wouldn’t be able to fight off any wolf attacks while he carried him. But they decided to get him back to the village to clean him up.
The boy was laid in a hospital bed and some of the villagers took shifts to watch over him. They gently poured warm water over him to thaw him, but he remained unconscious. Weeks passed and many started to believe he would never wake up.
When he first opened his eyes, he was met with relief by many but suspicion by others. Some couldn’t look past the blood, saying it was proof that he was cursed. Others argued that he was just a child so there was little he could do to cause them harm.
One of the villagers handed him a bowl of soup, which he quickly slurped up. They asked him what he could remember. All they wanted was something to answer their questions and ease their fears. But unfortunately, he remembered nothing—not why he was all alone, not where he came from, not even whose blood he had on him. Only his name.
Damian.
