Prologue
Prologue
The night exhales frost like a dying god, cloaking the forest in a shroud of whispering fog. It slithers between branches, a pale serpent of mist that wraps the world in silence. The scent of blood coils through the air—rich, metallic, alive. Too much of it. Too warm. Too real.
I should tremble.
But the moon, full and merciless, hovers above the mountain like an eye that never blinks. Its light spills across the land in silken ribbons, enchanting, unnatural. It doesn’t soothe—it summons. There’s a hunger in it. A promise.
My body stirs, not with fear, but with something far worse.
Anticipation.
Then it comes—the sound of skin tearing. Mine. Subtle at first, like paper splitting beneath careful hands. Then sharper. Wet. Final.
They’re feeding.
Pain sinks its teeth into my wrists, my ankles. It blooms like fire through my nerves, glorious and unbearable. I cannot move. Not even to flinch.
Their voices rise, a chorus not meant for human ears. A chant carved in bone, older than language, echoing inside my skull. My heartbeat stutters, then races, a frantic drum beneath my ribs. It drowns out thought. It becomes everything.
“Stop...” I gasp, barely audible. A thread of breath lost to the fog.
“Sto—” The word fractures as my spine arches with invisible fingers trailing down it, cold and electric. My skin prickles. My soul clenches. I feel it all—every drip of blood, every breath of air—and yet my limbs betray me.
I am awake in a corpse.
My throat tightens, strangling the scream before it ever finds voice. No one hears me.
No one will.
Who would I even call?
Who can save me from this beautiful hell?
When I—I—was born to rule it.
“…Help.”
interesting