Heir Of Silva

Chapter 1

Life as a scullery maid must be the most boring of all.
Victoria sighed deeply as she warily eyed the tower of dishes she had to do. The Traveller wasn't like the other inns where the maids had no job to do, other than trying to make the place look like it's not dusty.
This inn was the busiest of them all and she wasn't as happy about it as she should be.

"Listen up girl, if you aren't done with it sometime soon, you might have to skip dinner" Etoile, the innkeeper, warned her as she cleared a table of some ale mugs.

Victoria, already exhausted to her bones, just grunted a yes and sunk her hands into the soap water, hoping to finish the pile in time for dinner.

She absolutely had no idea which gutter she would have ended up in, if not for Etoile! That woman had literally given her an unimaginably easy life by giving her a job and a roof to live under, otherwise she would've probably been dead ten years ago, died a lonely and miserable death of an outcast. A seven year old outcast.

Even after ten years, the wounds were no where close to be healed. Anger, cold blooded rage still burned in her veins when she thought of her parents, whose face she could never recall even after several attempts. They had abandoned her when she was merely a child and left her to rot in the woods of Silva, an act so cheap that she found herself wondering if they ever managed to live with themselves later.

Etoile had found her dangerously close to death and had chosen to raise her as her apprentice, hoping that she would take after the Inn that was a family heirloom.
In the years that passed, she had indeed become a part of her family. Her only family.

It was odd though, a tender hearted woman like Etoile ought have married long back and certainly not be single in her mid thirties! She had a good idea just about how many men would've have shaved their head off for her, but the woman had denied any feelings for anyone.

Victoria chuckled to herself at the idea of Etoile bickering with her husband and suddenly realized with a jolt that the Inn was eerily quiet.


She turned around to find that almost everyone had retired to their rooms in the upper floors and only Etoile along with two other maids were clearing up after dinner.
She cursed herself for taking too long to finish off the dishes and rushed to their aid.
The bar table was the worst of all! Some barbarian had spilled all of his ale in the table and it was now sticky and smelled revolting! Someone had broken a glassware and the broken pieces gleamed red, and to her dismay it was one of their best wine glasses.

Just as she wiped the table clean off ale, a loud bang sounded right outside their door.

"What in the Silva was that?" Cried our Barbara as she met Victoria's eyes in alarm.

Vitoria could only guess the look on her face as she met Etoile's eyes. She looked as petrified as her.
There were rumors about the Queen's guards patrolling the nights, they were supposed to do it to safeguard the town but mostly it was just to live off of others' earnings. They had generously looted one of the confectioneries down the street last week and it looked like their greed wasn't satisfied yet.

Victoria found herself moving towards the door as she wiped her sticky hands on her apron. Maybe they wouldn't be pleased to see the heir of "The Traveller" looking down on them trying to loot the most treasured place in all of Romavek. She masked her fear with shrewdness and gave a haughty tone to her voice and she swung the twin doors open, expecting to find a drunk guard and his patrol.

But to her eternal surprise and horror, she witnessed one of the most horrible moments of her life.

It was raining heavily in the pitch dark night of the new moon and as the wind howled and thunder clapped her eyes fell on the onyx black stallion at their door and it's sleek skin coated with dried blood patches dripping red from the rain . Not it's own she realized as she beheld the rider's condition.
A huge and heavily armed figure was dangling precariously from saddle. Judging by the shape, she decided it was a girl. Her mouth was slightly open, blood dripping from it and her clothes torn and covered in all sorts of roots and weeds. She was cloaked and hooded, but it did nothing to conceal her warrior's built.

And to Victoria's horror, the young lady almost about the same age as her, slipped from the saddle and landed on the pebble stones with a loud and crashing thud.

"My goodness! Etoile! We need to help her!" She cried out as she dragged the awfully heavy girl into the Inn, the black stallion did nothing but huff and stomp its hooves and shifted itself closer the Inn so that it wasn't drenching in the rain anymore.

Soon Barbara and Emilia were both dragging the girl into the Inn and she could hear Etoile running towards them with a bucket in her hand.

"Good heavens! Here, lift her up to the couch!" She said as she lowered the bucket of water next to couch for their wealthy customers.

Victoria's muscles were screaming in pain by the time they managed to get the girl to a resting position, even with the help of two of her friends.

"Ugh, she reeks like a rotting sewer!" scowled Emilia, trying to dust herself off the leaves and roots from the strangers clothes.

Indeed. She did reek of a sewer and to Victoria's dismay, she looked like she was in this state for a very long time!

There was little to see beneath the hood and the cloak, but the lower part of her face was in view, revealing a chaffed pair of lips almost devoid of color and a tanned skin with shallow cuts here and there.

"Should we try waking her up?" Barbara asked Etoile, who had quietly sat there watching the stranger.

Etoile slowly nodded but made no move to try so bracing herself, Victoria slowly reached out to lift the hood with her shaking hands.

But before she could do so, faster than anyone she had seen, a cold,wet and calloused hand held her own in an iron grip and halted her mid way. Victoria yelped and took her hand away which was now stained red with blood, only to find the stranger slowly lifting her hood with her other hand which wasn't bleeding profusely, just enough for her golden eyes to meet hers.
Even in a dire condition close to death, they seemed to be brighter than the Sun as they stared up at her.

The stranger slowly sat up, wincing now and then from her wounds and when she did, her hood finally fell back completely.
She looked roguishly stunning with the deep almost blood red hair and fiery golden eyes. Her features so angular and her cheeks hollow probably the result of several hungry weeks. There were cuts here and there and Victoria noted with a gasp that there was a prominent scar on her left cheek which she had no doubt would've have been painful to acquire.

There was a collective gasp from all of their mouths and it was most definitely because of the way her ears had a particularly long, pointed finish to them and the previously unnoticed canines peeking from beneath her lips.

Every strand of hair in Victoria's body stood up as she realized that their wounded stranger wasn't human at all!
She was Fae, one of the creatures of mythology long believed to be extinct.

She was a living myth, breathing and bleeding right in front of their mortal eyes.