The Heir of Aiwan--Book 1

Prologue

My heart hammers wildly behind the red hot burning of my lungs, the pain sears. Small glimpses of green underbrush streak by in a blur. My eyes search for some hope of escape among the dark and blurred details. The forest is only growing thicker as my feet pound forward and the scant moonlight that has managed to penetrate the leafless canopy refuses to reveal anything of use.

Focus, I need to escape, or at least find a reprieve from the pain of my achy muscles. Frozen ground rejects my bleeding feet with every stride, but I use the sensation to keep pushing faster, farther. Thorns tear at my bare legs, I can feel the dribbling of blood ooze over my calves but I explode forward through the tangled masses of brittle undergrowth, only losing my step for a moment. I never cared for running. It always seemed like a waste of energy. Survival however, now seems a practical use of this energy and the irony is as crippling as the pain. There is no need to look back. I can hear them, almost feel them getting closer. I won't be able to outrun them much longer. My feet begin to carry me faster than feels possible, the energy of my ancestors surging through my veins. Finally, I think I can put some ground between us when I shriek with newfound hopelessness. The frost-hardened bark of a branch I judged to be higher than it actually is tears across my face, the force of it knocking me back.

For a moment, the darkness becomes complete. Did I lose my eyes to the branch? Before I have a chance to panic the night seems blindingly bright as if the sun rose in the instant my eyes had failed me. Squinting, I push forward into a run, I make out an opening beyond the trees. Stumbling into the clearing, I trip and fall face first sliding past ten of the last fifteen feet of snow covered ground before me. On my hands and knees at the cliff's edge I blink stupidly in shock. My eyes begin to adjust to the light and despite the blood and tears now streaming down my face I can plainly see that there is no sun on the horizon.

The panorama is vivid and detailed as if it was day but the colors are wrong. The scale also seems impossibly large, how tall can this cliff be? I'm still breaking free of my daze when three figures appear at the edge of the woods behind me. I can sense them there, wordlessly they begin to approach. Slowly, deliberately, I lift myself up from the crimson snow into a standing position and they halt their advance. As I turn to face them the middle figure seems as if he is about to speak when I raise my finger to my mouth in a silencing gesture. The last thing I see is the desperate, hopeless gesture the middle figure had made trying to reach forward as if he could grab me from across the clearing. Turning, I take the last two steps in stride and push my toes off the edge. I close my eyes waiting to feel the fall but all I hear is the beating of wings...