A War of Silver and Gold Read online

  A War

  Of Silver

  And Gold

  Book One

  M i n e r v a J. K a e l i n

  Copyright © Minerva J. Kaelin 2018

  The right of to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by her accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of bindings or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 9781977065940

  To my Sister, my mother and to my father

  But wishes are only granted in fairy tales.

  Simone Elkeles

  The City

  1

  Once, an old priestess said that death keeps no calendar. For Cassia though, Death kept drawing white curlicues on black paper counting her days, one by one carefully.

  She grunted, her arms and legs sore from running hours before the sky turned cerulean, but still, no sunlight broke through the forest. She cursed and the trees around her hummed in disapproval. She needed to stop and draw a breath. She couldn’t stop, though. Not when the growling lycan approached her, snarling and barking like a feral beast. The wounds on her legs stung like ice rubbed on skin; her silver blood marred the white snow, leaving a trail of blood whenever she took a frantic step.

  Fangs, sharp of knives, enveloped her right leg. An animalistic growl echoed from behind her. She fell forward, landing hard on her front, bones crackling underneath her heavy clothing and the daggers strapped on her belt. The lycan squirmed at her feet, pawning and dragging her further down on the snow. She thrashed and twisted onto her side.

  Pain.

  So much pain enveloped her.

  Her blood fought against the lycan’s bane struggled its way through the wounds on her legs. With a yelp, she kicked the creature’s face. She winced, feeling the wolf’s bane coursing through her.

  She raised her head, looking skyward, praying to Ramos, the God of Afterlife and Sunlight. The soreness spreading through her leg up to her hip. The prayers, mere grunts on her lips.

  A hawk’s gnarl reverberated through the forest. The brown feathered creature flew over them eastward.

  Her eyes followed the bird. The hazel hawk gave another final snarl before it disappeared through the forest.

  To her left, a noble tree had freed its roots from the ground as if the gods had finally listened.

  She grabbed onto the roots, the hard bark cutting her palm through her leather gloves. The wolf barked and pawed the wounds of her leg. She braced for another assault. She didn’t give up; she couldn’t give up no matter how bone rumbling the pain was. She threw a tentative glance at her belt, searching for proof that her daggers were still safely strapped on her belt.

  The silver shone under the fading light in the forest, but she couldn’t reach them.

  Her mind shut down, enclosing itself in a cocoon of white spider threads. Instinct took over her, overwhelming her senses and warming her chest. She hit violently its face with her boots, praying not to die a disgraceful death on a lycan’s fangs. She swallowed the nasty essence of death that grasped around her.

  The cocoon around her broke.

  She snarled at the creature.

  It was either the lycan’s life or hers.

  Sweat ran cold down her spine, on her sides and over her gloved, bloody palms. The breeze composed a foil of frost over her skin. Her breaths clouded around her in white pillows of mist.

  The roots in her palms gave away slowly. The wood cracked and broke in several places as the lycan grabbed her leg tighter between its teeth and gave her skin a violent bite.

  Her mind snapped.

  The sound of hooves and paws pulsed through the forest ground. The breeze carried the awful smell of lycans over to her. She winced again. The stench came closer and closer to her.

  She prayed. She prayed again to Nature and Ramos. She could barely do something else. She prayed that dawn would come sooner and the lycans would stay away, would burn on the face of daylight, and would turn to iridescent stone. The thrumming of her heart, a stentorian drum inside her chest, was barely audible as the lycan’s growls seemed to blend with her own.

  She let go of her one hand around the root of the tree in an attempt to save herself. She grasped frantically around her waist, fumbling on her belt. Her fingertips wrapped around the dagger hanging from her left side.

  The beast growled and glided her on the forest floor. She flexed her muscles and took a faltering breath, trying to find equilibrium in her thoughts.

  My life, or the lycan’s.

  She reminded herself.

  It was the honour of a witch against the honour of a beast.

  Kill or be killed.

  She clawed onto the walls of her remaining strength, urging it to surface and spare her.

  She bent her body up, her moves swift as the winds around them, and planted the dagger firmly onto the lycan’s heart. The creature screamed, growled, winced, and dug its teeth further into her skin, but she remained unmoving.

  She could feel her dagger treacherously sheathed into the furry flesh of the beast.

  The piercing of the flesh and the crushing of the bones sent a surge of old, withering memories back to her mind. She growled as the skin tissue ripped in two, felt the blood as it ran abundantly onto the land. She smelled the thoughts that emitted from the stench of the monster’s blood.

  She smelled it. The odour of death.

  The monster stopped moving and its jaws relaxed around her leg. Its blue eyes lifelessly stared up at her and cold breeze rushed to her side.

  She exhaled and pulled the dagger from its heart.

  Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment at the realisation that she cheated meticulously on Death again. She cleared the blade against the creature’s grey, furry flesh.

  Filth. Monster. Beast.

  It was another sacrifice before Death’s altar, a sacrifice that spared her another day. Time, out there in the wild, was of the essence.

  She sheathed her dagger, kicked the monster one last time between the eyes with her good leg and stood, wincing at the pain that shot through her right leg.

  The snow began to shimmer like little diamonds around her, sparkling like precious gems, the gems of Nature.

  Dawn had come at last.

  It had come.

  She shook her head and reached for her satchel. The pack of lycans was moving away, attempting to hide in their caverns until nightfall again. A never ending circle.

  They were afraid of the Sun and for that, she could not have been more grateful. She pulled the satchel over her back. There was no time for taking a look at those nasty holes where her skin was ripped.

  She twisted on her feet, glancing at her writhing prey on the snow. The lycan had transformed, turning back to being a man, golden haired and fair skinned and broad shoulders and long limbs. His eyes must have been blue like his lycan’s.

  Lycans were a threat to her territory, a threat to her, to her temple. They were savage monsters.

  The castle was near.

  She could listen to her courtiers singing prayers, to the running waters of the waterfalls, to the fuss of the halls, to the twittering of the morning bird. She could see the first dark smokes of the chimneys; see how the roofs glittered with the remnants of snow.

  She shook her head again, dissolving every thought of peace. She bent down, placed her hand on her injured leg and concentrated her energy on healing the sliced flesh. She stood a
nd lunged forward, grabbing the dead flesh of the lycan’s legs, willing herself to harden and not pity the creature. Through her mind, the words of her mentor priestess echoed. ‘A monster must always be returned, dead and hanging upside down from the hunter’s hands to the altar.’

  It was a way to preserve that her power was to last above all the elves in her court. Human, lycan, fairy, elf, dwarf, a monster of the night, a monster of the day, all were a threat if they roamed around her territory unannounced; all were to face death from her blade, from her hands. Cassia had to kill to let her people know that she was their ruler, that they were safe under her careful hand.

  She had never failed to kill a monster.

  She was a general of the King, a cold-blooded killer.

  She grabbed the monster from its legs, bound them with a silver rope and pulled it over her shoulders. The blood dripped from its mouth onto the snow, leaving a trail of red filthiness. She leant down and grabbed her silver sword. The leathery grip of her sword felt clammy and slippery in her hand from all that sticky blood coating her skin.

  She pushed the sword into the sheath hanging from her waist and began down the path to the city.

  She could listen to the blood of the lycan drizzling onto the snow, drop by drop, freezing everything around her. The trees were uneasy as they woke up from their night slumber; the winds were cold, colder than they should have been.

  That was enough, she had enough. It was the fifth lycan for the month that she had to kill.

  The curse of the North had been unleashed onto the lands.

  The gods were plotting something.

  2

  Cassia winced. The path back to the city was not an easy one and her leg was throbbing.

  She was the Great Huntress of the Northern beasts.

  Blood caked over her clothes and skin. That title was nothing more than a child’s dream.

  A few years ago the King of All Nevdori Elves had given away this territory to a female elf. Had she not proved herself to the King and she would have rotted in some random elven prison.

  Her kin, amongst the most despised of Elves. The gods called them Nevdori meaning darkness in their language.

  Cassia was a mere half-breed though, shunned from most territories of the Adanei –the Elves of Light- because of the Dark Blood running in her veins. She was darkness remade.

  She shook her head, disgusted from the turn that her thoughts had taken. Her leg gave another throb. She stifled the pain and took another glance towards the city.

  The sun gleamed over it, splaying its brightness over the walls and the high roofs of the buildings. She was the only female Nevdor that had ever ruled over a city, a pang of pride rose in her throat, but she swallowed it and continued down her path.

  She pulled the decaying beast behind her, she walked past the Iron city gates; the few elves that had woken up and decided to have an early start about the city roads turned their eyes towards her. A Lady bathing in the strange miasma of lycan blood and her own blood. They glanced at her from afar, myriad emotions flaring towards her.

  She cleared her throat and tipped her chin up in an attempt to suppress her fractious nervousness. I had killed, she reminded herself and she continued to do so fearlessly of the consequences that might befall on her soul. She ventured out, every morning, patrolled the lands about the city and killed potential threats in the dark. Darkness never terrified her; it never made her crawl away. Instead, it allured her and called to her with a sweet voice and tender hands.

  The males around her wore their everyday uniform of leather and iron; they clapped every time she returned to the castle with the body of a lycan or a beast clinging at her feet. Their culture was savage, savage and unyielding. None of them would have endured the cold and desolate place of these lands if it was different. They would have died from Adanei blade, a most ungrateful death.

  Cassia was brought up in court, with ladies and lords and silks and gold. Deep down, though she hated every moment of it, waited until the end of her tutoring with alacrity. She had been afraid that tomorrow was not to come. She knew what it felt like to be imprisoned. She knew how death smelled and tasted.

  She stepped towards the white, circular altar in the centre of the City. The windows of the temple were open to welcome the sunlight. The old building shone like ivory against the light. The dark, yellowing marble seemed estranged that day, like something dark lurked inside.

  Cassia lowered the lycan onto the ground before the altar. The heavy restraints around his legs landed with a thud. She grabbed the dagger from around her waist. She could have skinned the creature alive and never come to care, but her hands guided the dagger back to her belt as if something nudged her inside and prevented her from further hurting the wilting creature.

  It was the easiest kill she had in a while. Other lycans would crawl after she had sliced them with her daggers, they would scream and howl and gnarl for their pack to save them.

  The blond male before her had done no such thing.

  The City around her awoke slowly, the small streets bursting to a silent form of life, then the buzzing of people took over the land, and the warmth of the sun approached Cassia. The glow spread over her face, seeped into her skin, calmed her soul. She stood towards the sun, collecting the lingering rays of contentedness it sprayed over her.

  The dark, tall walls of the houses and shops illuminated against the gentle light of the morning sun and the incandescent blue of the sky.

  The temple’s heavy door grunted open, gliding against the ground. The skies above were silent that day as if something had happened, or waited to happen, Cassia’s instincts told her and her soul whispered to her ears.

  “Catastrophe!”

  Cassia’s eyes snapped at the approaching priestess wearing her pure, white frock. She debated whether she should draw her dagger and attack the priestess instead, but she shook her head, dismissing the thought in an instant.

  “Tragedy, my Lady has befallen our bright City.”

  Her white legs unafraid of the cold morning bite flashed from her long chiffon dress. The necklace around her neck shone as the sun’s rays hit the red garnet in the middle. She walked, skimmed the stairs before the temple and stood before Cassia, her staff at hand, the top of the wood carved and shaped to resemble a serpent head with green eyes.

  The blond hair at the priestess’ head billowed with the winds, her flawless features, sharp and devilish, made Cassia’s stomach turn. Priestesses as Nadeer had no position in Cassia’s noble court.

  She had never been religious, never, not once, but having a temple full of those charlatans in every Nevdorian City was considered a blessing from Nature.

  “Tragedy!” Nadeer shouted. “Nature spare us!” She fell on her knee, grabbing the lycan by the hair, smoothing back the dirtied blond locks like a loving mother. “You killed a creature of Nature again, my Lady.”

  Cassia clenched her jaw, her hands idly searching for her dagger again, and said, “It’s the tradition, Nadeer.”

  “Tradition or not, I do not know how this monstrosity was achieved.”

  Nadeer bowed her head in a silent prayer and extended her hand towards Cassia. Her breath hitched as Nadeer’s intentions dawned on Cassia. She was going to save the lycan. Hot, willing rage flashed over Cassia’s mind. She would have never allowed such a thing, not in her city, not in her court.

  “Lady, give me your dagger.”

  Cassia shook her head again, a snarl surfaced over her lips, trying to intimidate the priestess. “Now, that is something I cannot do.”

  “He is alive, Lady, whether you like it or not. He is alive, a miracle, but he is.”

  Cassia gripped the handle of her dagger tightly between her fingers and gritted her white teeth. “These beasts do not deserve my kindness.”

  “But that is something that must be done, or else our city will perish. It’s gods’ will.”

  Cassia grabbed the dagger from her waist, infuriated at the priestess p
estering around, throwing her religious hogwash towards Cassia’s citizens and award curses to the elves that refused her shelter. Cassia meticulously nudged the edge of the blade at Nadeer’s chin, she pressed slightly, the skin didn’t break, but Nadeer winced. It was all Cassia needed to see and understand that her message was rooted in that brainless blond head.

  “Then your gods better not mess with me, Priestess.” Cassia flickered her wrist and straightened her back, the dagger safe at her hand out of the vile creature’s reach. “Cry for the monster all you want, but if you dare heal its wounds, or preserve it in the temple, I will know and your world would stop being as prestigious as it is now.”

  Nadeer glanced up at Cassia, spite filled her senses and her soul. “Cruel you are, cruel your way may be, Lady Cassia.”

  “Then may it be. It had never been easy anyway.”

  3

  The feral, silver crown on Cassia’s head irritated her scalp and she fought the urge to move it away, dispose of it from her head and hold it in her hand.

  The council chamber had been silent, unnervingly silent. The eyes of the Stewards in the chamber were glued upon their Lady, sitting on her throne in the middle of the room. Cassia could feel their heated, hateful glances pawning all over her, infecting and infuriating her.

  She pulled her eyes away from the ebony floor and looked back at the elves, the embers of hatred burned fiery in her glance, dark and uninviting. After all, she had a reputation to uphold.

  Most people in the room had seen the heinousness she had committed during the Great War. She couldn’t remember a time in her life where she possessed clean, unbloodied hands. Her palms had ever been coated in crimson and brown hues of dried blood. She had taken enough lives to make her live for an eternity.

  The Stewards around her bowed, but only when she looked at them and almost snarled, baring a pair of ivory, elongated canines. She was the notorious Hybrid Lady, fangs, wings, monster and half blood human.