The Poison Prince

Chapter I

THE forest floor was soft beneath her feet when she landed. Xylia could hear her uncle's voice inside her head as she took off down the beaten track, scolding her for landing recklessly, jumping from the high trees.

"If you break your ankle, what will you do then? No healer can touch you. No healer would."

She had told him that he worried too much, but that didn't change anything. Her uncle was a worrier and she was a hunter. She had been given little choice in her life. Living on the outskirts of a tiny, almost forgotten village on the edge of Lyris, Xylia was an outsider amongst the people for a good many reasons. Her uncle had told her at a young age that she needed to find something to make the people keep her around or else she would be left worse off than she already was. Her Uncle cared for her in his own unique way and that meant sending Xylia out into the forest when she was twelve and telling her to go as deep as she could, until the trees stole the light from the sun and the darkness ruled strong. Only then did he tell her she might try to return home. It had taken Xylia three years to make the journey and when she appeared at her uncle's door at fifteen he almost didn't recognise her. Soiled with dirt and wounds from the forest, her fair hair had turned dark, the remainder of her innocence hardened into something fierce. Her clothes had been torn to shreds by the elements, now held together by whatever she had been able to find, and makeshift weapons were the key to her making it home again. And all her uncle had to say to was; "Girl, you reek of the filth you came from."

Xylia had come back tougher, and with a means to survive. She could hunt in the forests surrounding the village. Sometimes she could hunt further in than the men themselves dared go and come back with juicier riches of fatter rabbits. Still, no one paid her too well or praised her for her talent. She was a mutt in the village of the proudest race of Lyris. The Draca descended from the beasts of the fiery sky and the blood in the veins gave a rare few the power to control the flames still. Creatures of legends like the dragons and leviathans no longer existed, killed out centuries ago in a war that shook the world to her very core. The Draca were one of the few tribes left who had links to that time and it was the blood in their veins. It made them different. It also made them complicated. The Draca were as weak as they were strong. More susceptible to disease, healers knew little about their bodies and often one would die before help could be found. It had never been said by anyone in power, but the Draca knew that they lived on the edge of Lyris to be forgotten until they were just a legend like the beasts they had descended from. The only thing that upset The Draca more than the idea of being forgotten was when one of their own had a child with someone who was unworthy. Those children were shunned, but few lived long enough to face the humiliation of it. The dirty blood often poisoned them before they were out of infancy. Xylia had defied the odds though, and now she walked alone trying to prove herself worthy of The Draca.

Crouching down, she examined the kill she had made from her hiding place in the tree. Hunting with a bow was quicker than stalking her prey with the dagger she never left home without, but Xylia's aim was often not perfect. There had been times when her kills had been kept for herself and her uncle because she had torn through precious meat with an arrow and knew that no one would pay for the kill even if it hadn't come from a mutt. This was one of those times and she cursed in the old language as she shoved the rabbit into her satchel and swung it over her shoulder along with the homemade oak bow. The only thing she had that wasn't of her own creation was her dagger. That had been her gift for her surviving the forest, given to her by her uncle with a gruff explanation that the blade had once been her mother's and that she had died with it still in her hand, protecting the mutt she had birthed. No one was quiet about the fact that Xylia's mother had given her life for Xylia's or that they thought Xylia ought to have been taken instead of her. Tatyana had been a warrior of the Draca, one of the elite few who could control fire, and though she had been nearly exiled when she gave birth to Xylia she was hailed as one of the greats in her death. Xylia had no memory of her, but her uncle told her often that she had the same stubborn temperament and ice cold blue eyes as she did. The rest, he insisted, he didn't know where she got it from.