In a world divided into three races since ancient times, there have been three kingdoms. The first kingdom is the kingdom of the gods and sits in the heavens ruling above the other two. The second is called Amaryllis and filled with the prosperous...
Then she came She stripped him of power She made a mockery of us She claimed to be good She claimed to be pure She lied
~Song of the Woods
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"Only cowards run from a fight."
It was the plan in itself that had been bothering Aldwin ever since it had come to him a few days ago when he found himself on the beach in the early hours of the morning before even his sister arrived at the sandy shore and the stars still glared down from the heavens.
He had found the answer that morning, the answer to all of his problems, only he would never dare to speak it aloud, even to his sister, whom he trusted more than anyone else in this world, for she would surely object to this foolish and desperate plan he had formulated over the past few days.
Perhaps Aldwin had never figured it would have come to this, as he stood before the dark and menacing woods, fear coursing through his veins, flooding through his body as he stared up at the tall dark pines. Yet now it seemed like there was no other option.
No matter what his sister had said, Aldwin knew in the darkest corners of his soul if he went into battle, then there would be no coming back. He would die as soon as he got onto the battlefield, just like all the others that would be fighting alongside him and there was something in him that just wasn't ready to die. So that left him with this one option.
It wasn't unheard of for boys to run so they wouldn't have to be shipped off to the frontlines and their almost certain demise, but they had always thought too small and had always been caught. Those boys had been forced to fight anyways, going on particularly dangerous missions until they faced what they had run from the first time, and death claimed them.
Only Aldwin knew the one place they would never look for him, for the horrors that lay within its trees. The Wild Woods. The land of the Mutare.
Now it was to be his only salvation.
Aldwin's mouth was drier than it had ever been before in his life as he looked up at the towering pines his hands trembling in fear. No Lekki could survive the Wild Woods, that much was known, as not even those fighting on the frontlines would go much deeper into the trees than what was necessary since the Mutare never came out.
For some reason, the Mutare stopped leaving the Wild Woods almost seven years ago when the war took a turn for the worse for Amaryllis. It was still unclear what had happened, but the Mutare were different in those trees.
At first, they were thought to be mindless creatures, leaving the darkness of the Wild Woods only to search for Lekki blood, which they all craved. However, in the shadows of the Wild Woods, they became a whole new type of beast. Smarter, stronger, faster.
