Song of Blood and Silver

𝐢.

IKARI'S FORESTS WERE darkest at night.

Canopies of overlapping trees coaxed the slender curves of moonlight to stain the skies in a shudder of silver, though there was still hardly enough light to illuminate the thin path snaking through the jungle of foliage. I peered at the fractured shadows from my vantage point between the crook of two protruding tree branches, focusing my gaze on the score of Hunters silhouetted against the pale background of white and gray. They were scanning the darkness for any sign of movement, eyes cautious and burning.

Behind them, a single cage rolled along the path, scattering dead leaves over the steady earth. Hunters guarded each side of the cell, hands inches away from the broad swords swinging threateningly at their waists. I didn't look twice at their weapons.

Within those strong bars of the crate knelt our target, bruised and cuffed with the same material used to fashion her cell. She was dressed in nothing but torn rags, and too weak to even shake the hair out of her scarred face. Frail limbs, bound behind her small back, trembled against the hold of the powerful Beveiron strapped around her wrists. Those chains would slowly drain the magic from inside her, depleting her energy and sucking her tainted blood dry.

Those were the very same chains which had taken away my mother.

The humans hated us Maga — magic-wielders able to manipulate the flow of our surroundings to our will forced into hiding ever since the Extermination took place, a rite which had rid most of the lands of our kind and murdered all human men and boys who had been accused of treachery against the kingdom during the process. I'd been taught this violence had all been the result of unrelenting envy and scorn, and the fear that we would always be more powerful than them.

Even as we still fell prey to their rage and hunger for more.

I tightened my grasp on the sturdy bow between my fingers, brushing the tendrils of my hair back. Far below, the entourage traveled deeper into the depths of the forest, undergrowth concealing any tracks they left behind. Yet with their stiff and ready postures, they were, however, blatantly unaware of the darkness watching their every move from up in the distraction of trees.

My hand slipped over my shoulder, reaching for an arrow.

On either side of me, I heard the soft creaking of wood straining in the night. Pairs of eyes, all tinged with a startling blue marking our cursed bloodline, turned to me, asking for permission I was to give.

I slipped the arrow into place, carefully lowering into a crouch, and stretched back my arm exactly the way I had practiced for many moons in my lifetime. The view of the Hunters, the people who had snatched everything away from me, had never been so clear.

My blood roared in my ears, beckoning me to release the weapon, beckoning me to slaughter those men like they'd slaughtered my kin, not thinking twice before they sank their swords into flesh and bone. There had been no pity or remorse when their blades pierced through the children, when they'd hunted fleeing Maga down like animals — nor when they'd grabbed the women roughly from their husbands and used them as forms of entertainment, dirtying them with their shameless behavior.