Fireheart

Part I: Prologue

Visk Manor, Jutland

Daryn raced up the grassy knoll, his lungs sucking in the cool air in quick bursts. His mother bounded up the hill ahead of him, her white dress and golden hair flapping in the wind. When she reached the peak, she came to a stop on the stone ledge that jutted out over the fields below. It was their special place. Only the two of them came up here. She twirled in a circle with arms held wide. Laughter bubbled from her mouth like notes of music. With the northern sun on her face, she looked like an elf spirit.

His mother sank to the ground with a swirl of her skirts and waited for him. Daryn ambled up the crest and fell to the ground beside her, his eleven-year-old thighs burning. She pulled his head onto her lap and the two of them peered over the edge at the land that spread before them. Indigo mountains on the horizon framed the rolling fields that led to their stone manor in the distance. She pushed the hair back from his sweaty face. His mother won again. She always won.

"When I grow up, I want to run as fast as you can." Breathy pants punctuated his words.

Daryn's mother chuckled. "I suspect you will be much faster than me one day."

"I don't know..." Daryn said. "I think you might be faster than the cat!"

"Then, Daryn Visk, I promise to run up this hill with you until the day you win."

Daryn nodded his round head, content with their agreement. As they watched the clouds float by, he imagined a ship sailing through the icy blue expanse. A plump, red bee corkscrewed through the air. It aimed for the clouds as though sweet nectar could be found in their fluffy depths.

"Mom?"

"Hm."

"Are elves real?"

His mother paused and chose her words carefully. "There was a time when elves lived freely in the Realm," she said.

"Where did they go?"

His mother's sigh floated on the breeze. "No one knows."

A deep sadness ached inside of Daryn's chest. "I wish I could see magic."

She stroked his hair and was silent. After a while, she spoke in a soft voice like honey. "When I was a young girl, my father called me into his study and told me a story. It was the story of our ancestors, passed down through generations. He took a silver necklace from around his neck and gave it to me. Whoever wears it is the guardian of our bloodline, charged with passing our history to the next generation-but also with seeking out our destiny.

"A long time ago, my ancestors sailed across the Palltian Ocean on a ship that could swim with the whales. They were in search of a new home when they landed in Jutland. Magic flourished in the Realm then, so it was hard to distinguish what was conjured and what was real. There exists borrowed magic, that which one gathers from the land for spells, like a bucket of water from a well. But then," she whispered, "there is soul magic, a magic produced within oneself, an internal source that only magical beings possess."

Daryn looked up at his mother with wonder. "Like elves and dragons?"

"Yes, sunshine. Like elves and dragons and unicorns and tygers." His mother rubbed the large silver pendant that hung around her neck. Her voice lowered into a hush and he strained to absorb every word. "Every once in a while, a Raine descendent has the ability to whisper. Some whisper to trees or animals. One could make the sky rain at will."

"Those tales you told me were about us?"

"Yes, they were. But there is one story I have not told you. There were a precious few, Daryn, who could whisper to another soul. Not just any soul, it had to be the soul of their true mate. It was as though their consciousness would merge and become one. They could feel each other's emotions, locate one another...communicate."

"Can you whisper?" Daryn asked. He looked at her as though she could call up a herd of centaurs.

"I used to wish that I could. It has been generations since a Raine could whisper. I would talk to trees and rabbits, hoping that one day it would work. Finally, I tried love." A shadow passed over his mother's face. "I met an elf once after I married your father. He told me that only true love can trigger the connection." She reached around her neck and pulled the silver chain over her head. "Even in those not born with the ability to whisper, magic will blossom in their soul once the bond is Forged with a Raine. Find your true love, Daryn, and you will see magic."

She pulled Daryn to his feet and looked into his eyes. Her deep blue eyes were identical to his own and they swirled with emotion. She placed the chain over his young head, straightening the pendant on the front. It hung down to his belly button.

"Now you are the Raine guardian. Seek your destiny, my son. Seek your love."

As they walked back to the manor, he peppered her with questions. She regaled him with every legend of a Raine couple who could whisper. It was a beautiful day he would never forget. He was buoyant and excited and when they reached home, he ran up to his rooms to write down every word of her story. As he slid around the corner of the second landing, she smiled up at him from the foot of the stone staircase.

That was the last time he ever saw his mother alive.

When she did not come down for supper that evening, a servant found her by the window of her sitting room. Her forehead rested against the windowpane. Her still eyes stared at the rocky hilltop where she sat with her son hours earlier. Her death was sudden and it left Daryn hollow. The healer found no cause, but Daryn blamed his father's black heart for finally draining the last of her Light. From that day on, the pendant never left his neck. Despite his father's rage, he adopted her surname and became Daryn Raine.

Her words on that day would haunt him for years. At first because they were her last, but by the time he was a teenager, her words became a prayer. Daryn believed them with every fiber of his being. He searched for love in the face of every girl he came across, searching for the key that would unlock the magic within him. After each heartbreak, his trusting soul was unbearably resilient in its search. He never found it. As a man, his mother's words faded to a mere myth concocted by a gentle soul to delight the imagination of a boy.

Until one day, theywere no longer a myth. One day, he would wish he had never heard them at all becausethey spelled his happiness-and his eternal sorrow.

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Greetings, fellow fantasy and romance lovers! FIREHEART is my debut novel :) Prologues and epilogues are always my favorite part of books. They give me that warm buzz of anticipation that just makes me....::sigh::

This is Book 1 in the Fire Maiden series and a full-length novel (~112,000 words), available now at all major online retailers, in case you don't want to wait for the chapters to come out on Wattpad! And if you sign up for my newsletter, you have a chance to win one FREE copy of the novel every day to celebrate!

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