ooo. prologue
WALFLUCHT IS A CURSED PLACE, A DARK LAND FILLED WITH CREATURES OF STORYBOOKS AND FABLES. Wandering into these woods is dangerous, traveling alone is a death sentence of your own making. The creatures of Walflucht are deadly tricksters, and the human girl inside is much worse.
The young girl received the name Arcke by the Mother of the Wood herself, the deity that protects Walflucht with her magic and power. Arcke has been raised to do the same, to protect the spirits and pixies of the woods. When she is found by a group of royal guards, she is dragged from her home kicking and screaming, begging to return to her mother.
The men bring her to an orphanage where she is raised by a cold woman and surrounded by others her age that loathe the very sight of her and her scars. There, Arcke is hidden from who she truly is, the woman who runs the orphanage filling Arcke’s drinks with a poison that buried the powerful magic she knows nothing of.
At the age of eighteen, all orphans are given the choice to join the military or leave the orphanage to make a life for themselves. Unlike the others, Arcke is forced to join the military and given no reason as to why. Almost immediately, she is met by men with big mouths and a few who want her gone.
At the camps, Arcke discovers more than just the truth. She is faced with a new power unlike any other, more powerful than a single being known to man. Being pulled from her home at a young age was difficult to handle; being dragged to the home of the King is much worse with so much more at stake.
