Time Can Heal (But This Won't) A Darkling Series

Chapter One: Look to the Past

The rattling of the mapmakers' wagon is almost unbearable. The only thing worse than that is the chatter of the boy next to you.

You and the rest of the First Army mapmakers have spent hours and even days traveling the Vy, doing your best to maintain your wits on the journey towards Kribirsk. The wheels seem seconds from falling off, long-aged sockets and fasteners sounding like they're giving last wheezes on their deathbed. All of this would be near impossible to manage, but to you, it seems like nothing at all. At least, nothing compared to the incessant whisperings of your fellow mapmaker Milos Gajov.

You can barely go a few seconds before he's peering over your shoulder at the sketch hastily stretched onto a wooden slat on your lap, pointing at still-drying lines and details. This river is too wide, that one is too small to even show up on this map. Why label that town? Why draw that mountain range like that? Were it not for the fact that you're trapped on this wagon and severely outnumbered by the others, you're somewhat tempted to just throw him out and watch him choke in the dust.

Apparently, Milos can't pick up on your barely restrained irritation, because he leans over your shoulder again, jabbing a stubby finger at the southern range of mountains. "There should be a forest over there. The Sikurzoi have a big swath of woods right next to them." You fight the urge to stab your pen into the boy's eye. "I know. I drew them right there." Milos shakes his head. "Yeah, but they should keep going. The forest goes right into the mountains."

Your brow furrows as you consider your map. "No, they don't. There's a gap of a couple dozen miles, big enough for a town. Isn't there that old story that the forest used to touch the mountains and then a lot of the trees were burned down? Ever since then, the woods don't touch the Sikurzoi range. There are foothills there now." Milos scoffs. "Those stories are made up, everybody knows that. Fix your map or Petya's going to have your head."

You raise an eyebrow, pointedly refusing to change your map. Yes, a lot of the old Ravkan folklore about mountain spirits and the comings and goings of ancient towns are nothing but nonsense conjured up to scare children into behaving themselves, but you know this story in particular is real. You happened to be there to see it when it happened, about three hundred years ago.

You were not born of Ravkan blood and build. No, you were a daughter of a much older time, back when Ravka was just an infant country learning politics at the knee of the uncharted world. Your people lived on the islands to the east, a collection of peninsulas and coastlines that have long since sunk beneath the waves. Hellas was long gone, nothing but a memory for those like you. Of those people, the Hellenids, you were the only one left. The last stand of a dead and dying people.

Your gods are gone, the pantheon crumbled away to ash and dust. Hellas has disappeared, washed away by the tide. You were forced to leave your home for newer territories, but that didn't make life any easier. You wandered from coast to coast, making your living and then disappearing when you didn't age or seem to change even as the years passed by like wheat running beneath your fingertips.

You were on the run for two main reasons: your home and your abilities. As the last of the Hellenids, and as the daughter of witch goddess Hecate, you had magic springing from your fingertips in leaps and bounds. You knew spells and words of power before you could even walk, a power that was desired by many who had heard stories of the people of Hellas and the gods who walked and spoke among the men. If you wished to be safe, you would stay by yourself, always running, never staying too long to grow roots or settle down.

They had a name for you, one you'd heard in pieces and snatches as you wandered the length of the continents. They called you Hecari, from your goddess mother Hecate and the Hellan word for daughter, κόρη, or kóri. The rumors grew like fog, spilling out wherever you went. You could tear a building down with a twist of your wrist. You were the reason the sea swallowed your home. You could kill a thousand men without even blinking. The stories went on and on, growing more ludicrous with every word.