The blood Price
Prolouge
Tree after Tree. That was all Elian could see. Her footsteps were uncannily loud on the forest floor. Almost as loud as her heart, which was strumming in rhythm so frantic it blurred into a single, agonizing thrum. Branches pulled on her dirty dress as she ran through the thick and wild woods. No, they didn't just pull; they clawed at her like hungry fingers, desperate to pull her in. To swallow her whole. Every step felt like a bargain she hadn't agreed to yet, like the forest was thirsty for something she had to offer in return so it let her pass. Her breathing was heavy and every against the silent dark woods. Everyone had warned her her whole life to never set foot into these woods. The blood root wilds are a strange place, full of the corrupted blood of the Grounded One. They had always said. But now it wasn't her decision to be here. The woods had called her and offered sanctuary from what had happened on that road. Away from the blood that painted the gravel red. Bandits blood, soldiers blood, her blood….
Warm dark reddish colour upon brown. The same shade that the forest seems to glow in. Dark red on black and green. Her bare feet stumbled on a root and with a loud scream she felt the earth come nearer. Was this how the grounded one felt when he fell? The forest ground was unforgiving and hard, the collision pressing the air that was left in her outside. She laid there in branches that pierced her skin, moss that was neither soft or well to look at and cried. Her sobs were the only sound she could hear. No bird was singing, no signs of life in this labyrinth of Trees. Her tears fell upon the earth in tiny droplets. The scent of salt mixing in with the iron and wooden scent that surrounded her like a suffocating blanket. As soon as these drops fell on this earth she could feel something shifting. Like a weight had been pulled off. Suddenly she could feel the forest breath. Sitting slightly up she looked around in wonder. It felt more alive, the trees had stopped clawing at her, the wind was slowly dancing through the trees making them moan and ache in movement. The shadows had gotten lighter. In the corner of her eye she saw something move, as she slowly turned her head a shadow pulled away from a giant old oak. The tree was bleeding reddish tears from claw marks in its bark.
The shadow didn't walk or move anything like a living being. It seemed like he was gliding just above the forest floor. With every centimeter he came near her she could see him more and more. Slowly two giant antlers formed from the shadow and something like a black cloak made fully out of shadow draped over his form. “ What little lamb do we have here?” his voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It sounded like rustling leaves in the wind. But somehow it didn't scare her. The shadow expanded his hand and ever so slowly she took it.
Her brother's people had found her two months later on the outskirts of the Blood Root Wilds. Despite having been in the forest for weeks on weeks she looked healthy. Well fed and clean. A dark robe with leaves and a dark cloak warming her in the autumn breeze. But as healthy she was of body so sick was she of mind. Crying she was holding a forget me not in her hands muttering words no one could understand. The forest had taken its toll, just like it always did. A mind for a life.
