So many monsters, each turning away from the fortress and instead gliding over the streets. As she watched, one dipped low and then rose, a struggling person clutched within its claws.
The flames blurred as her eyes filled with tears. The creature in her house screamed as smoke seeped into the building.
She had to run. Flee from the fires like her father had said. But how could she?
She had just destroyed her home. She had killed all those people who’d sought haven in the fortress, and her father would die alone in the street, burning to death.
“No,” she whispered. “Anything but this.”
There were no other endings, and her father had been right. This was the only choice to make. But her heart didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. Her heart wanted to punish her hands for the blood now on them.
She curled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms until they sliced through flesh. Blood dripped between her fingers. The simple pain wasn’t enough.
Run, her father’s voice echoed in her mind. Whatever it takes, run mon ange.
She had to be numb. Amicia turned and sprinted through her smoke-filled house. At the door, her boots awaited for gardening, but they’d do best in the forest. She ran until she was on the streets and could dodge the burning buildings. She ran until she reached the wall, where a small door would let her out into the wilds beyond.
Her mother’s door. The door where she would sneak out and run wild in the forests, before she got sick. She would always bring Amicia back a single wildflower for her hair.
Even this door would burn. Heat burned her spine, the fires chasing her even now. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Then she slipped out into the unknown.
Chapter 2
“Master, it is done.”
The shadows on the walls stretched and warped as one of the Dread made its way up the stone stairwell leading to the top of the chateau. Hunched and misshapen, the creature tried to make itself small and unnoticeable.
The King of the Dread wondered which one it was. They all looked the same to him these days. Hundreds of people turned into monsters living in the towering rookeries behind the chateau.
This highest tower was his haven, and the only place he traveled to when he needed space to think. All their voices echoed in his head. The torment of a thousand souls, each one screaming within the body of a monster they had never wanted to become.
Up here in the fresh, chilly air, he could stand above all the sounds. Their thoughts couldn’t pierce through the clouds, stars, and the moon casting silvery strands of light down upon him. Here, he wasn’t the King of the Dread.
Here, he wasn’t a monster.
He slowly turned toward the single Dread who stood behind him. The crumbling walls that used to surround this tower in carved arches silhouetted the beast. One of the Dread’s wings hung at its side, and there was a chip in its right horn.
Each detail should have been enough for him to know which one this was. A name. Perhaps even an occupation. And yet, he remembered nothing. Not even his own.
The King let out a low grumble. “And so, the last bastion falls.”
“Indeed, it has, Master.”
He waited for a moment. For the release of tension in his chest telling him to conquer every city and make it bend to his ways. This was the last hope. The last kingdom to remain untouched by the Dread.
The dark desire in his chest remained unsatisfied. He never understood the desire to conquer, only knew it was part of his being. The King of the Dread was made to force the world onto its knees, and he’d done so time and time again.
Why did this one feel as though it should have been different?
He lifted a clawed hand and waved it in the air. “Good. You may go.”
The Dread hesitated. It took a step forward, a dangerous move when it walked toward the largest of their kind, and the only being who could destroy it. Its broken wing slithered along the stone, the rasp making his ears ache.
The creature hissed, “The others are wondering, what is next?”
He didn’t know. There were a thousand other countries he could conquer. So many more he could force onto their knees and yet… he grew weary. He’d spent so long fighting and battling, and what had it done?
Perhaps he was merely dreaming, thinking he could do something more than just fight. Perhaps he’d thought after all this was done, once Little Marsh was his, that he could rest.
“The humans have fallen,” he replied with a low growl. “There will be time for decisions such as that.”
“Not all the humans,” the Dread replied. Moonlight caught on the chipped horn and cast a jagged shadow behind the creature. “One got away.”
“One?” He huffed out a low breath, rage consuming him. “Who?”
“We don’t know, Master. A woman burned the city to the ground and escaped us. The others… did not survive.”
So many lives. So many people he could have added into his ranks, and a single woman had destroyed it all?
He closed his hands into fists, claws digging into his palms and slicing through leather skin. Drops of blood struck the ground like rain. He stalked toward the arches and lashed out.
His fist collided with stone that pulverized underneath the power of his strike. The bones in his hands rattled. But even granite didn’t cut through his skin. Nothing but the claws of the Dread could.
The arch gave one last groan before its final support snapped. Wind whistled through the stones that plummeted toward the earth, then struck the ground with enough force to shake the chateau.
This woman was the reason his soul hadn’t found its peace. She was the reason he hadn’t felt the ease of tension in his chest and continued to harbor the horrid desire to hurt more and more people.
Glancing over his shoulder, he snarled, “Find her.”
Chapter 3
Amicia stumbled through the forest. Twigs yanked at her hair, tugging her backward like claws caught in the dark strands. She tried to go slow. Noise would only bring them to her faster, and fear convinced her they would hunt her down. But she couldn’t stop the thundering of her heart or the way her muscles twitched to sprint.
The forest was far more terrifying than she imagined. Dark trunks surrounded her and she swore faces peered around their bark. Rustling leaves and breaking twigs threatened there was more in this forest than just monsters. But animals as well.
She’d only been outside the city limits a few times with her father and never close enough to touch one of the trees. He’d always said this was the land of the Dread, and she was never to go in
Now, there was nowhere else for her to go. She couldn’t follow the road leading to the other cities. The Dread could fly. They would see her, swoop down, and pluck her off the road as easily as a hawk snagging a chicken.
Night had fallen, and somehow that made it more terrifying than before. The forest came alive at night. What little moonlight remained, served only to spear beams which made the darkness all the more deep and mysterious.
Her thoughts drifted back to her home. Back to Little Marsh and what she had done.
The screams still echoed in her head. She could hear them, the people who needed help and all she had done was destroy. Why had her father wanted her to do that? Why would he rather see the kingdom burn than the Dread capture them?