𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙚

Chapter 1

Hollin 

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     Winter had not yet reached the isles, but the bite of cold was tangible in the ocean breeze. I was glad I'd decided against finery as I buried my nose a little deeper into the warm coat.

My gaze remained trained on the blackened castle that beckoned us from the mist surrounding Daesmire. It was an eerie sight to behold in the early twilight. These rocky waters were forbidden territory, and with good reason. I ignored the uneasy feeling settling in my core as the small ship docked to the single wharf on the entire island.

     Dark sand crunched beneath my boots when I took the leap to solid ground, testing my strength as quietly and swift as I'd been trained to. I felt oddly heavy.

The queen had warned me what it would be like, but I doubted anything could have prepared me for the weight that pressed down on my shoulders as soon as I began my journey to the glowering mouth of the prison. The captain, my sole companion on this trip, remained back at the ship, unable to leave if he were to join me.

I'd never considered my human blood useful. As a halfbreed, I'd spent most days of my life fighting harder than anyone at court might ever dream of, but it was my human blood allowing me to carry out this secret mission: a quest the Seelie queen herself had given me precisely because of it.

     I knew little of the cursed isle, other than the fact that this was where they put the monsters worse than the most malicious of fae. Faeries, when punished, were exiled or forced to serve and slave for decades at the time, executed if the crime was truly severe...

I suppressed the harrowing shiver that caught up to my trail of thoughts. The creatures banished to this place were sentenced to a fate worse than death.

Shaking the idea, I ground my teeth, rubbing a comforting hand over the hilt of my sword as I climbed the final flight of sleek stairs up to to the main entrance. Nothing welcomed me, save for a silence reserved for graveyards. 

     There was no need for guards. The castle was made by men, back when they still possessed magick of their own, a true example of raw power. Anyone with human blood remained unbound by its cursed claws. 

Mortals had been driven from the lands of faerie for centuries now, but this ruin of what they had once been capable of, still existed. It belonged to neither court, and standing at the foot of the mountain--sized castle, I could imagine why. 

The queen had been generous enough to provide me an artifact that would keep the inhabitants away, and I found myself touching the stone around my neck warily as I strolled inside.

A great many knights would have pissed themselves as the absence of light enveloped me into a long and narrow corridor. Out of the frigid wind, another cold was quick to settle in its place. The icy throbbing pierced right through my skin and stuck to my bones when I stopped to take in my surroundings. 

     Not even the light of faestone worked inside this magickless place, I'd been warned as much, but as someone who'd spent a good part of his life without advantages, I was familiar with a torch to light my way.

My eyes were not entirely useless in the dark, but I drew comfort from the fire, even if it seemed to do little to warm me. I had no idea where I was going, but the amulet at my throat did. 

      After the initial honor of being chosen by the queen to perform any kind of task, I had wondered if she'd indeed gone mad, as some of the gentry claimed.

Daesmire was a story parents would tell their disobedient children, a tale of horror so great even the fey considered it sinister.

Straightening my posture at the idea of what frightened the fey, I continued forward, trying to keep my heartbeat as slow as I could manage, unwilling to attract any predators. I was told they lost their power as soon as they were abandoned to the isle, but I wasn't about to see what harm they could still do.

It wasn't like I didn't feel their presence coiling around me, their strange curiosity and hatred, the silhouettes of what they'd become making the hairs on my arms stand out and skin crawl as I kept my eyes set on the staircase in front of me - even when they tried very hard to grasp my attention.

Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.

A cackling laugh, high enough to make me wince, was the last one to trail my footfalls until I'd reached the staircase.

     I waved the torch to the sides, studying the structure a bit, catching my breath as I did. Had I been any more mortal, I'd have emptied out my stomach by now. Whatever had been stalking me, they'd retreated, and I wasn't sure if I should be glad for the peace or fear the reason why they wouldn't go up there with me.

I didn't grant myself another second to reconsider, forcing one foot in front of the other, my free hand relying heavily on the iron railing for stability. Even covered in layers and layers of musty smelling dust, it gave me a burning reminder that this wasn't a fae-friendly place either.

The tedious ache was enough to center me, I needed it to push through the human dread that had started to spread throughout my body. A small voice in the back of my head beseeched me to run back to the ship and never return. It was a powerful instinct.

I thought of the Seelie queen instead, and reminisced the years and years of struggling at the bottom of the court. I thought of what would change if I could carry out the one thing the queen had asked of me, and persisted.

The stone led me roughly halfway up,  where it went absolutely rigid. 

Peculiar runes had been etched into the corners of the heavily marked door that greeted me, the language behind them alien. I wrapped my fingers around the talisman once more, the stone coming to life under my asking touch. I laid my other palm flat against the frigid door, caressing its surface rather affectionately. 

It would not respond to my magick, but to this old force it seemed to croon, almost in a welcoming way. I watched in genuine fascination as the entrance to the cell opened before my eyes. It needn't tell me what to do, I simply did, unaware that I was opening a tomb.