Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fantasy

If you haven't read the history to this you don't have too, but it would make things make sense as the story progresses.


I run my fingers through my, freshly cleaned, navy blue hair and put it in a ponytail, needing something to do with my hands besides shaking them like a madman. Taking a deep breath, I close my bright, piercing electric green eyes. "It's okay Zem, it's only training. You've done it a thousand times before." Yeah, but never out of camp before, I retort, fighting out the mental battle waging in my head, and losing. I slam my hands on the sink and open my eyes greeted by the reflection of my tan face as I stare into the mirror. "I have nothing to fear! I was specifically chosen and trained for this mission!" I nod and force a confident smile on my face, taking my hair out of its ponytail I let my long, wavy locks fall around my shoulders and end at my mid back.

Walking out of the bathroom, I step into a pure white room with a single metal chair in the middle. I never did like this room, as a child, it always felt like I was being watched. I used to think that these white walls held secrets that nobody should know. Sitting down, I take slow deep breaths and try not to focus on how it feels like the walls are caving in on me. I’ve never been one for closed spaces, or rooms without windows, or, you know, this room. Pure white, no windows and nothing around except for a chair. Most of the time this damned chair isn’t even here.

I’m not sure why or how I developed this fear, but I can’t shake it even if I try, and believe me, I’ve tried. I remember locking myself in here as a kid and refusing to let myself out until my fear was gone. Of course I started to cry and darted out of their faster than a scared cat. It feels like I have been sitting in this cold chair forever, my anxieties not giving me the chance to relax. Soon after my anxieties kick into full gear I see my beautiful mother walking over with her auburn hair hanging over her shoulder in a braid. It's funny how her very presence can ease all my anxieties and fears. It's like she's the very essence of calmness and serenity. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Mother looks into my eyes, her own purple ones searching mine for any doubt about what I'm about to do. "It's not too late to back out, there's no shame in it, sweetheart."

The worry she holds in her eyes reminds me of how much respect I have for her and my desire to be strong like her. I can't help but smile at my over protective mother. "Yes, Mother, there is shame in backing down, I’ll be fine." We grip each other's forearm in a sign of respect, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear with her free hand, she holds a look of pride in her gaze. She walks away from me, tears brimming her eyes. A shadow looms over my small form as Dimitri, chief of our village, slowly approaches, limping and leaning on his cane, taking the place of my mother.

Dimitri is tall with a large build, his short gray hair and pale blue eyes give him an ancient look as if he is hundreds of years old, despite his real age of only fifty.The scar on his cheek help’s make up for his age by giving him an air of intimidation. I suppose that happens when you grow up in the city, I can only imagine how he got it. "Are you ready?" He asks, stopping in front of me, his pale blue eyes peering down at me in a questioning manner. I nod in determination and Mother wheels in a small table with a large box on it, two tubes, and another smaller box on top of the large one. "Let's begin," Dimitri states simply, turning away from me and grabbing one of the tubes off the table.

After awhile I find myself standing in front of a mirror, staring in shock and awe. I touch my now freckled face, it's like looking at a complete stranger. My once blue hair is now jet black. My old electric green eyes are now a vibrant blue. I put on the old ragged, torn cloak that was given to me for the mission and look at the label. It’s a tree, not just any tree, it’s the tree of life, a supposed perfect representation of mortals. Dressed like this I am no longer Zmiena Alæra, the Chistyy, the hunted, but Kate Mull, the human, the weak. 

I walk out of the mirror room and my mother gasps, covering her mouth with her hands, making me smile. "If I hadn't raised you up myself I wouldn't know that it's you!" She touches my temporarily dyed hair, stroking it gently. "I still can't believe you're going to the city all on your own! It’s so dangerous and risky, you remember the stories, don’t you?" Of course I do, how can I forget them? It’s silly, hearing the greatest warrior in our village, my mother, calling something dangerous or risky.

I shake my head at the tears welling up in her eyes once more, you’d think I was never coming back. Mother has always over exaggerated for as long as I can remember, except when it comes to important things. Then it’s all business and no emotions, not even a smile at her favorite joke. "I will be fine," I roll my eyes at her, a small smile creeping its way onto my face. “Come on Mom, I know the city is dangerous, but I'm a big girl now! You were the one who begged me to accept the mission anyway!” Dimitri walks up behind my mother and puts his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"Zmiena, do you remember your objective?" I look at the chief and nod, confidence and pride swelling up inside of me.

"Yes sir, I’m to find Daniel, get my necklace from him, and bring back documents regarding the city's current state." I repeat my orders to Dimitri, trying to keep my voice from shaking, remembering all the times I've repeated those words to myself in the mirror since I accepted the mission. He nods, eyeing over my body carefully.

"What's your profile?" Dimitri stands there like a statue, no emotion on his face. This is normally how he acts, I should know, he helped raise me after all. I don’t know my real Father and Mother doesn’t like to talk about it, so Dimitri took on the role of Father in my life when I first arrived here as an infant in my mother’s arms. He never fails to remind me about how as soon as I opened my eyes, he knew I was special.

"I’m Kate Mull, I’ve known seventeen winters, labeled as a human, servant to Master Daniel." Dimitri nods approvingly at my new identity.

“Good, I think you’re ready. Just two more questions what is the profile of your master and what does he look like?”

“Master Daniel, thirty years of age, labeled as a downworlder, current rank is a doctor. He has the bottom half of a moose, with cheetah fur, a torso of a man, large black wings, and two ram horns,” I bite my bottom lip in hopes I've recalled his information and looks correctly. He nods in approval and I release a small sigh of relief, my shoulders sagging visibly.

“You did good, just stop biting your lip and don't sigh," I nod in determination and straighten up my back, hoping to remember his words when the time comes. He gives me a sack of food and water for my long journey. “You better get going,” Dimitri jerks his head towards the door, then ruffles my hair. 

“Hey!” I pout and fix the now tangled mess, wrinkling my nose up in distaste, he often did that when I was a child or when we’re play fighting.

“Remember, stay safe, okay? I’m proud of ya kid.” I nod and walk out to see all the villagers waiting outside the door. Once they see me, cheers run through the crowd, people wishing me luck. As I make my way through the large gathering, people reach out to touch any part of me they can while whispering silent prayers. Stopping at the tree line, I look back at my small village home one more time before walking into the woods.

After walking for a few hours and drinking half of the water, I stop in my tracks, the outline of buildings and the dim glow of city lights coming into view. I stare in shock at all the noise and the bright lights emitting from it, the buzz and hum of electricity reaching me even from this great distance. Shaking my head I try not to get distracted by it all and put up the strongest barrier I can manage to block the electricity from my system, Thor knows I’ll need it. Come on, stay focused on the mission, don’t get distracted by it’s false beauty, the city is evil. Nodding in determination I walk to the city, my head held high in confidence.

Once in town, I can't help but to look around in wonder. I run over to a small store and look at all the items on display. I quickly scold myself and keep walking. Keep it together Zem, stay focused and keep your mind clear, you never know who can read thoughts here with all the different species. While being in the city is dangerous and and dreadfully terrifying, it’s also very exciting! I’ve never been outside the woods of my home before. This is the first time I’ll get to see people that aren’t Chistyy. Where am I supposed to meet Daniel again? I don't have the time to remember before I run into someone, or something, hard and fall to the ground.

I curse seeing my only supply of food and water spill all over the dirty ground. “I'm so sorry, are you okay?" A deep males voice asks me, not a hint of sincerity in his words. I huff in anger and frustration at his idiotic question.
    "Does it look like I'm okay? That was my only supply of food and water, now what am I supposed to do?" I reply, clear annoyance oozing from my words. I’m about to scold the man but stop when I look up. The person I ran into has the lower body of a moose with cheetah fur, his upper torso is a man, large black wings spread out behind him, and his hair is a golden chestnut brown.

His eyes are also brown and on the top of his head set two ram horns that pierce the sky. Taking his outstretched hand I let him pull me up. “Are you, by chance, Daniel, the doctor?” His body becomes rigid as he looks down at me, his warm expression turning cold and hard. Just like Mother, all business when and no emotion when it comes to work.

“Are you, my patient?” I nod at him, my own posture stiffening as I recognize the code Dimitri told me to say when I meet him, just to make sure everything is safe. Safe from what, I don’t know. I just think it sounds ridiculous. “Come with me,” he orders, grabbing my wrist harshly and dragging me behind him. I fight not to wince in pain at his strength.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask as we go across streets and past buildings. I try to take in everything as we go in hopes to memorize it, and partially for guilty pleasure, but all I catch are glimpses of dirty streets. Where did all the people go?

“My house,” Daniel answers loosely in a boring monotone voice, making me wonder if he was truly on my side after all. “What's your name?” He asks, finally letting go of my wrist.

“Kate Mull,” I reply hesitantly, rubbing my wrist. Daniel looks back at me, his calculating gaze making me fidget nervously.

"So, you're the one they felt worthy to wear my precious kouzlo," he finally looks away, "we'll see." I don't say anything about his strange remark, normally I would have confronted him about questioning my abilities, but for some reason, it felt wrong. "Kate, right?" Daniel stops in his tracks and turns to look at me.

"Yes, sir," I nod my reply to his simple question, not missing the way he looks over me, not in the checking me out way, but more of a speculation and analyzation kind of way. That look was no doubt given to me out of mistrust, not that I could blame him. Is this a habit of his? Just staring at people and giving them the cold shoulder.

"Close your eyes," he orders in a hushed tone, finally looking away from me once more. I raise a brow in confusion, my nose wrinkled up in distaste.

"What, why?" I question, eyeing him over, my own mistrust washing over me. Daniel's eyes harden at my defiance, clearly not happy that I’m so willing to go against him. I mean, he can’t expect me to trust him, he has given me personally no reason to do so.

"Do it," he growls lowly in a clipped tone, trying to keep hold of his temper. I nod and grumble in defiance, deciding not to piss off the man Dimitri and Mother rely on for information. Closing my eyes as ordered, he gently cups my elbow and guides me through the streets, careful not to let me run into anything. During my moments of blindness I can hear screaming, cheering, and the sound of clinking metal. I try stopping to listen, but Daniel pulls me forward, "keep moving." Once out of earshot of the strange commotion he lets go of my elbow and I open my eyes in response. Whatever it was, that must be where all the people went, considering how loud it is anyway.

"What was that?" I ask, jogging alongside him, trying to keep up with his long strides. "What was that?" I question Daniel again, glaring as he continues to ignore me. "Is it that fighting rink my mother always told me about? Does that mean the Feyri are here?" The fighting rink, a death trap is what she calls it. Humans coming from all the kingdom to kill each other in hopes of winning their freedom and everyone, even the royal family, would gather around to watch. Mother was forced into the games by her old master who had grown bored at her defiance, somehow she managed to survive all three games. She won her freedom, but was still a lowly peasant, she found another Chistyy and they had me. The Fae found out and tried to kill us, Mother managed to escape with me in her arms. At least, that’s the story she tells me.

"Do you ever stop asking questions? And here the Feyri are called Fae." Mumbling my apology we continue our walk in silence, noting that he didn’t say no to my question. "We're here," Daniel stops in front of a small run down old house. He opens the old door, it’s hinges squeaking as it does, and I walk in with him coming in behind me. "This way," Daniel says, leading me down a hallway and to a door that most likely leads to the basement. Walking down the stairs, I find myself correct.

The basement is huge, well, kind of huge, there's a small glass table, beside it is a silver tray holding, what I imagine, are the tools of his trade. At the back wall is a large gray filing cabinet, and next to it a big neat wooden desk. "Cozy," I mumble under my breath as I look around the cold dreary basement. I hear Daniel chuckle as he moves over to the glass table. I follow him, watching as he grabs strange looking things off the tray, putting them on the table.

"You know, you remind me of someone," Daniel states randomly with a hint of amusement in his voice. It was so sudden that I have to think about it for a few times before what he said actually sinks in. Deciding to have some fun, I reply to him in a teasing manner, the right corner of my lips twitching upwards ever so softly as a grin tries to escape. 

"Well, that can't be good," I comment, the grin from earlier turning into a sly smirk. My statement just makes him laugh, the smirk grows into a smile and I shake my head at his contagious laughter.

"Vniz tigri," down tiger. He states in the tongue of my people, a sudden wave of homesickness washing over me. "You remind me of myself. You’ve got heart, but you need to learn to keep your mouth shut. It will cause you a lot of trouble if you don't," I simply nod and watch him work, pushing away the unwanted emotion.

"How exactly does this work?" I ask, hoping to distract myself, my eyes following his every move, I furrow my brow in confusion.

"Well, Kate, once I get done enchanting this," he holds up an oaky brown wooden sphere, "I will take some of your blood, drop it on the sphere, and it will form into the necklace that suits you most." His words holds pride as he speaks. He really loves this, doesn't he?

"How much of my blood will you need?" I look at him wearily, I’ve never been fond of needles, even the thought of it makes me crinkle my nose in distaste. How anyone can enjoy sharp needles stabbing into their skin is beyond me. They are like really tiny and thin knives!

"Not much, just a couple of drops, hand," he orders and I hesitate for a moment before giving him my hand slowly. Daniel flips it over, palm up, and pricks my finger, flipping my hand back over he squeezes my finger, letting a couple of drops of blood fall onto the sphere. My eyes grow wide as my blood circles the sphere, engraving and changing its color. When it stops, the wooden sphere has transformed into a fiery red, circular dragon, with its tail in its mouth, and two onyx gems for eyes. I run my fingers over the engraving of the scales, to my surprise it is no longer wood. It's metal! "That's quite a kouzlo you got there," Daniel lifts it up to examine it, clearly not as shocked as I am. "I believe the humans called it Ouroboros. It is meant to signify a self-feeding circle of power, in Norse mythology, when the dragon let go of its tail destruction and chaos would be released onto the world."

"They really believed this necklace would bring the end of the world?" Daniel nods, putting a chain on it, then he puts it around my neck, the cold metal setting against my warm chest causing cold chills to rake across my spine.

"Now that the hard part is over and done with," Daniel sighs, rubbing his hands together as he walks over to the filing cabinet. He opens a drawer and lifts up a false bottom, causing things in the drawer to shift around.

“Isn’t that a little much?" I smirk as he grabs a file then closes the drawer. My smirk soon falls when he turns to face me. His eyes have turned cold and his muscles have stiffened as he glares at me.

"I can't risk anyone getting ahold of these," he hands me the file while looking down at me with so much intensity in his gaze that I feel he might burst. "Protect them tigri, if anyone gets ahold of these, everything we work so hard to protect will be destroyed." I nod, gripping his forearm with my free hand as he grips mine in return.

"I swear to you tovarishch," I swear to you comrade, "nothing will happen to these as long as I live," Daniel squeezes my forearm a little tighter before letting go, walking me up the stairs.

"Wait, before you go I have something to give you," he walks over to his living room. A few seconds later he returns with a small silver chain. "If something goes wrong and the chain to your necklace snaps. Use this as a replacement, it’s a strong metal. Sometimes the necklaces like these will activate and something will happen, causing the chain to snap." I nod, opening the door, amazed and curious about the magic this necklace holds. "Ne uniray tigr," don't die tiger are the last words I hear him speak before closing his door behind me. I put the chain he gave me in one of my pockets, releasing a heavy sigh. It's finally over, all I have to do now is go home. Strangely, despite my earlier homesickness, I don’t want to leave without exploring. As I walk away from Daniel's house I once again hear cheering and screaming. With curiosity getting the best of me, I pull the hood of my cloak up, making sure it covers my facial features and walk over to the sounds of people.

While walking, a large circular fighting rink comes into view. So it’s true, the games, they really do it. My eyes go wide as I see people in stands and around the rink releasing sounds of cheers and boos. I slowly walk closer to see a giant wolf pin down a tall pale vampire against the cage of the rink making it rattle. I barely stifle a gasp when the vampire bites the leg of the wolf.

Glancing around the stands I see people with smiles on their faces as the two in the rink rip each other to shreds. I shake my head wondering how people could be so inhumane. Casting a glance through the crowd once more, my eyes meet a pair of grey, almost silver ones. Neither one of us dare break the gaze, the world fading away and the sounds growing quiet until they are non existent. His eyes seem to be hiding something, something big and important. Someone walks through my field of vision, breaking the eye contact with me and the stranger. I quickly back away and run, not stopping until I reach the edge of the city. What the hell happened to me back there? It almost seemed like I was in a trance!

I duck into an alleyway and pant. Did he follow me? Am I safe? I look around the corner to check and sigh in relief when I don’t see a pair of grey eyes hot on my trail. I don't know what it is about them, but there was something that made me want to run, and I’m not talking about the trance like state that happened either, it was something else. Thinking back, it could have been the hidden fierceness in his eyes, or maybe it was the lack of any real human emotion, it was like an empty void.

A cold chill runs down my spine as I take one more deep breath and walk out of the alleyway just to have my hand grabbed and pulled back in. I get pinned against the wall by my wrists and my head gets slammed against it, causing black dots to cloud my vision and pain to ring out in my head. Instincts kick in and I brush away the pain, focusing on getting away from the strange situation. I lift my legs, pressing my body weight against the wall and pushing my hands into the attacker's grip, I kick my attacker in the kneecap as hard as I can, which isn’t as hard as I would have liked at the moment, but it’ll work. I hear a loud crunching sound and a curse of pain as they release their grip on me, crumbling to the ground. Jumping over the fallen assailant, I run into the woods, only stopping when I can no longer run and my head is pounding so hard I can feel it pulsating.
    I hide behind a tree, leaning against it as I cover my mouth to muffle my harsh breathing, just in case any demons or monsters lurk nearby. Was it the same guy? No, it couldn't have been, our eyes only met for brief seconds before I ran off. I sigh removing my hand from my mouth. Then, who was it, and what did they want? Groaning in confusion, I walk the rest of the way home trying to sort out my thoughts.