{A Wattpad Featured Book}
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Her heart or her people. Only she can decide.
Hated, cursed, outcasted. It was Eleena Asterin's life ever since she was blamed to have betrayed her village. So when she is offered a task to earn back her honour and prid...
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My heart had calmed down enough for my hands to stop shaking by the time I started my trek to find Kallistê. I pushed my hand against the trunk of an ancient maple tree, propelling myself forward. I should have known the adrenaline from before would have worn off a long while ago. Weariness would soon catch up with me.
Each step grew more and more sluggish as I clambered up a steep hill, digging the tip of my bow into the ground to pull myself up. A right, then straight all the way, to where Kallistê would be.
But my heavy breathing and little strength did nothing to prevent the fact that I had killed a faerie. I had felt its blood spill on my hands, where it still stayed, drying and flaking off my skin. Yet I suppose if I were to kill the Imperial Lords, this was merely a practice. A practice to see if I had the guts to kill. If I had the mask of a cold-blooded murderer.
It had been a predator, yet a prey as well. And I realized then that this was an endless cycle of chasing, a game of lives and deaths. A gamble of chance and fate as the faeries wanted myself dead as much as I wanted their Imperial Lords. It was just the matter of carefully bidding our time now, waiting in the shadows for the other to fall into a trap. It was a death ploy, and I had walked straight into the heart of it.
I brushed off the uneasy thoughts as I waded my way through the thick brush. Green blades of grass tickled my ankles as I made my way through, my knees buckling with every foot forward. I didn't know where Kallistê was, where she might be as I finally entered the clearing. The last I had seen her was when she was atop her horse, before that creature ambushed us.
I wiped my moist hands on my blood-crusted pants while stopping in the middle of the clearing. So innocent—these woods were so innocent, yet it was ironic how creatures of death roamed free in it. A glamour I suppose, to trick a mortal's eye to believe all this was real, to snatch our life away before we could blink.
My eyes scanned the willowy birch trees that surrounded the clearing, hoping for a glimpse of long golden hair. A snort escaped me as I found none. Of course there wouldn't be—it was ludicrous of me to believe she would give up a chance of having me killed.
Though just as I was about to retrace my way back to the manor, to where it was safe, a warm hand gripped my shoulder. Whirling me around and pinning me against the trunk of a birch tree with such force, my breath was knocked out of my lungs. A loud thud of my head against the tree trunk had blood trickling down the side of my face. Bright stars gleamed and danced in my vision.
"Oh," a feminine voice said, almost sounding—relieved, "it's you."
Only then did I open my eyes a fraction, seeing the familiar blond waves and depthless sapphire eyes. Kallistê released her hold and stepped back. Blood, red as rubies, stained her once-spotless white dress.
"It got away," she said, wiping her dagger on the skirts of her dress, "Determining by your state, I am guessing that there were two of them. Did you kill it?"
