Prologue
A blanket of thick fog cradled the village of Lakshir, blocking the distant views of the land; suppressing the sounds of distant screams.
Blocking the distant views of the land; suppressing the sounds of distant screams.
Lakshir’s infamous flock of
Grass parted and broke in two as a young girl wandered through the thick mist, making her way to the river bed she’s grown to adore.
Even the fish knew that the other side of this river was forbidden. Not only was the cloudy water separating the kingdoms, for there was a great wall of thorns of which would pierce anyone or anything within their reach.
“Those who get pricked by the thorns become one with the thorns themselves,” The girl vividly heard these words from the memory of her grandmother’s hollow voice.
The girl looked at her wavy reflection in the ripples of water that rushed by her. Her eyes matched the colour of the river, greyed blue. However, her eyes were unfocused on her reflection as one of the salmon strayed away from its school; It waded toward the blackened thorn wall, without the slightest idea of where it was.
The girl let out a scream, for one of the thorns on the wall had grown in an instant, piercing the salmons middle. Then it once again rose, but instead of extending forwards. It grew outwards. The fish had become one with the wall, just like her grandmother had told her before. The salmon’s death had caused the girl to trip over a rock, which her mother had sewn herself with cotton her father had grown.
The water moved with the wind to the left of the girl. That’s also where her village was. Though, she did not dare o into its depths to find out.
‘The rocks are floating,’ she thought. The smell of the river seemed less pure today, more of a putrid smell. She was watching the large waves of water crash against the seaweed-covered stone. The bitter girl tip forward towards the water’s edge. She peered over to one of the many rocks and watched as a bodiless head slowly turned it over in the water. Her first thought was to scream; instead of being rocks, they were bodiless heads, greyed. The idea to be seaweed was a head of hair.
He tightened his fingers on the back of the girls strawberry hair, and pulled her head back, causing her neck to be exposed. From his pocket, he grasped a silver dagger and pressed it against the girl’s throat, and slit it across the skin with a force, opening her arteries, dying within seconds.
