Queen of Ashes │ Season 1 │The Journey

25 │The Ivy Forest

Reaching the shore, she let herself bow, kneeling miserably on the wet sand. Her fingers dived into the sharp wetness, hurrying her mind to break the barrier of self-control.

At once, it broke. Suddenly her face was wet not from the mist but tears she allowed to fall. She wept there, gathering sand in her hands as if her fate depended on it. She has never been in a state like that. Nothing broke her so far, but yet, also nothing was threatening her this much. She thought leaving her home and joining the vampire court was a curse, but now she knew it was only the tip of the iceberg. How should she function normally, knowing her days were so precisely numbered? If she was indeed the woman from the prophecy—and she felt somewhere deep inside that she was—she was about to become pregnant. Someday for sure. And once it happened, she would know it to be the beginning of the end.

She never thought about motherhood. She never dreamed of rainbowy love, marriage, and her own children. Freya accepted her fate as a silent servant of her royal family. But now, she realized that she wouldn't ever join her family, but also that she probably wouldn't even see her child—cherish them, and have time to love them.

Her weeping intensified. Although she had no more tears left, she sobbed, feeling burning inside her chest. Her heart was aching, the air in her lungs no longer being any kind of support.

She took a deep breath.

And then she screamed, so loud she could feel her throat tissue break. The echo helped her scream to reach even further destinations. And when she opened her eyes, she could see the mist dispersed. For one moment, she looked confused. She had her eyes closed for a few seconds, how it did disappear so quickly? Then she heard that eerie silence. Everything at once went quiet. And what her short rebellious life spent in the forest showed her was that the perfect silence was never a sign of anything good.

Freya stood firmly. Now, when she let go of these emotions that gathered inside her and made her vision clouded, she checked her surroundings carefully. She didn't even know where her feet led her. Was she far from their camp? Had her company already noticed her disappearance? Fuck. She wasn't thinking clearly, wandering so far completely alone.

The twig snapped, drawing her attention. From the place the sound came, she couldn't notice anything. But then another sound came. And it was the creepiest hiss she had ever heard.

Acting on instinct, she took a few steps back, just then realizing that her feet met only cold water. Not good. She couldn't see a thing, but she had this kind of certainty that something definitely was between the dark bushes. It was close to the dawn, but the sun didn't manage to rise above the tree level yet, so the darkness still triumphed.

Freya turned her head right and left, scrutinizing her surroundings. She had to decide where to go if whatever it was between the trees decided to show. They were hiding in the place where she came from, so that was a big no to go. If she was to avoid them, she had to take a big circle around and then navigate herself somehow back to her companions.

Ah, she was truly a magnet for trouble.

Standing firmly and carefully watching the trees, the Princess decided to go left. This way, she would at least follow their tracks and that would speed up the process of finding their camp. But just as she took the first step, from the shadows the three silhouettes emerged. At first sight, one could tell they were humanoid. But after a few glances, it was clear that if they ever were anything human, that was all long gone by now.

Freya gasped, never feeling petrified as she was at that moment. What were these creatures?

They had the profile of a human, but besides that, nothing else was similar. They had long, very thin gray hair, similar to the old people being on their last breaths. Then, their complexion was so light that Freya could easily spot the veins under the skin. Not even the vampires were this pale. These creatures were almost transparent. To top it up, their eyes were crimson red like they lost all the pigment.