Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

1

My Bible, Chapter 1, Verse 1

Never submit.

Kyra

With wild laughter on my lips, I hit the edge of the Forest of Malice, skidding to a halt just yards away from the edge of the cobblestone streets.

I turned back towards Therian, panting as the castle guards stopped, not daring to cross that tree line.

They didn’t want to risk it. Being killed by a demon was a torturous, excruciating death, one they wouldn’t face even on the High King’s orders.

The precious High King could never waste resources on such a petty thief. Even if that thief was one who had been hauntingthe city since she was 8 years old.

I lifted my chin, daring them to come after me. I knew they didn’t have it in them and there was no harm in taunting them. They would never catch me no matter how hard they tried.

The men grumbled and huffed, the one closest to the woods even lifted his spear and pointed the tip at me. A promise.

I merely leaned back against a tree and waited. I would not turn my back on them. Cowards or not, I knew they would waste a weapon just to kill me, even if that did get them in trouble with Raphael Gerodia.

Seconds turned into minutes. When twenty had passed, they finally gave up and turned away from the woods, shouting obscenities at me that went in one ear and out the other.

I waited until they had disappeared before finally shoving away from the tree and heading deeper into the woods.

The demons that roamed these woods were misunderstood. They only attacked when their way of life was threatened, it wasn’t any different than the kings and their armies. Besides, they had owned these woods longer than Terigard had been its own continent.

But perhaps it wasn’t just the demons they were afraid of, maybe it was the silence too.

For my entire life, there hadn’t been even a rustle of movement, not unless it was a demontryingto make itself known, which they did from time to time. There weren’t deer or birds. There weren’t any insects, not a single one.

Everything I knew about the animals had come fromthe library. Unless I traveled close enough to the castle to see a bird, or I just so happened to run across a stray dog or cat rummaging through trash bins.

Other than that, not a sound.

I had read once that crickets used to fill these woods. Over a thousand years ago, long before the Fall, the little insects would sing through the trees in competition with the birds that gifted their beautiful songs to anyone who would listen.

I’d never heard a cricket before, I could only imagine the music it would make.

Some days I wondered why the gods and goddesses had allowed the demons to be here. Back then, they had still been alive, but then again, they never cared about the people they had created, so I very much doubted they would have done a single thing about it.

The Forest of Malice was dark. The trees were so thick, the branches overlapping enough that the sun couldn’t get through save for a stray ray every once in a great while.

Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. As a thief the shadows were my friends. An ally. The demons? Not so much. They needed respect, which I gave willingly so long as they respected me.

Beautiful, dark creatures, delicate emotions, fierce hearts, and incredibly dangerous if they were wronged. I loved everything about them.

I had seen them enough that I was able to document those who chose to remain within a five-mile radius of me. They allowed me to draw them, to study them, but in the last year especially, I had been able to sense themfollowing me.

It was a dark presence. A chill on the back of my neck, a shiver down my spine, a feeling of being someone else’s prey. Because I was. I was their prey, and they left me alone out of respect.

I wandered into these woods at only 9 years of age. It was the same year I had found the Impossible Street. Ket, my best friend at the time, had nearly wet himself when I dragged him in here. He was 11 at the time. He begged me not to go, but I was searching for something. Something important. Something desperately important.

Something I hadn’t found wandering onto that street, but I had found it here. I remembered that day as if it were yesterday. He had whimpered the entire time as I stalked through the woods, red eyes flaring from the deepest depths of the shadows, threatening in their silence.

A fawn. That’s what I was to them. A fawn barely able to walk. Sure, I was scared, but I was more scared, more angry, of what I had left at home.

That day is when we came across the cottage. Abandoned in the middle of the woods, not a soul to be seen. Not even the demons had neared it.