Not arrested.
Selection day is always filled with the stench of terror in a selected, mortal territory. Every human dragged across miles and mountains to reach what remains of the capital dreads this day more than any other. A day their families will either be spared or torn apart.
At least I have no one left to lose.
A dark hopelessness weighs the people of Westfall’s movements, from their downturned eyes to the hunch of their shoulders. I both pity and envy them, those families who don’t know what it’s like to be victims of the Selection yet. I slip through little pockets of whispering as they huddle away from the Reapers who patrol this razed city.
The capital is barely more than heaps of ruins now. It used to be the jewel of the mortal kingdom of Vexamire. But it was in Kravenish, the territory closest to the immortal realm, so it had been the first to fall. The wreckage of a courtyard is still visible where the seraphs brought down their power. White streaks of lightning burned across the broken tiles. Tattooed into the dirty façade.
Thousands were said to have died in seconds. The mortal uprising never stood a chance.
Still, my bounty is plastered to the few standing walls, unavoidable. My moon-white hair, light brown skin. I have to hand it to the artist, they got my scowl right. They even captured the gold in my eyes with nothing but parchment and ink.
I need to get the hells out of here.
I hike up my hood and tuck back my voluminous curls, weaving through the masses. The last thing I need is some antsy asshole looking to make a fast coin by turning me over to the Reapers. I’m not looking to waste out my days in a human prison, or worse … be returned to the Lord of Westfall after my hasty escape. But luckily most of the people here lookexhausted from the travel, hunching against each other, avoiding eye contact with any passersby. Their worried whispers snag my attention.
“The druids are the worst of them,” a young man whispers to another, eyes red. “Sorcerers, all of them.”
It’s true. The seraphs have their brute strength, the elves their persuasion, but the druids’ magic is the most daunting.
“Rune?”
The sound of my name halts me in my steps, but it’s just a street merchant, peddling runic talismans, a scar across his lip. “Spare you from the Selection? The druids can’t stand them.”
I roll my eyes as he tries to shove one into my hand, expecting gold for it, and pull my hood up.
“I doubt that.” Humans can’t do magic, not without dying, everyone knows it. Whatever he’s carved into those polished stones is nonsense.
“You sure? Who knows what the druids will do to an innocent girl like you.” The vendor tries to leer past my hood.
I shove by him before he can get a look on my face. “Try your tricks on someone else,” I grumble. “You’ll get no luck here.”
He mumbles something before shuffling off to prey on a new pocket of trembling humans.
I brush by a young woman asking her group, “I heard they always pick people our age. Do you think that’s true?” She gnaws her nails as she clutches her cloak tighter around her.
They take anyone they damn well please. I’ve witnessed their wrath myself.
Then spent six years struggling to survive the ramifications, stumbling into the service of the Lord of Westfall. A fate worse than death. I experienced hell to prepare for this moment, to have a chance at being strong enough for whatever is beyond that Wall. For them to finally hold no power over me.
I ran that day. I won’t run again. But my hands still sweat as I shoulder my way toward the front. Screw this, I’m done hiding.
The crowd thins as I move forward. A hundred people will be chosen from this mass of thousands, like every other year, and taken to one of the three immortal realms on the other side of the Wall, as penance for the uprising that happened nearly fifteen years ago. I was only five then and barely remember the Great War. Not that it would matter if I did—we’re forbidden to speak of it. But the only way to cross into their kingdom is the Selection. It’s a weakness they don’t even know they have—and I am about to exploit the hell out of it.
I take in the Wall. It’s enormous. The immortals guard their precious magic behind its swirling granite stone, hoarding it like a dragon with gold. Crimson sands gather halfway between us and it, containing magic in every grain that no mortal can cross.
I know, I’ve tried, but it only left me unconscious, and I woke hours later with a terrible headache and a nosebleed. No, the only way over that Wall is by getting Selected. Which is exactly what I’m here to do.
A memory filters back, a rhyme my father taught me. We were walking along the beach on the Isle of Riches. I was maybe five years old, and he’d handed me a bright bloom from a flame tree, the red petals framed around one white lick of fire that flared inside them. He recited the words: “Beware the druids of fire, who use humans in their games, their magic devours desires, mortal souls they seek to claim.”
I clench my fists at the memory, my gaze narrowing at that insufferable Wall. They have him on the other side of it.
The immortals take turns deciding who gets to Select each year, like some twisted game, and this year it’s the same druids who stole my mother for refusing to play. I’m done letting the Selection toy with my life, my fate.
I’ve lied, cheated, turned myself into a weapon to survive. The girl who ran from the cottage died when she put herself in the service of the formidable Lord of Westfall. I first met him when I was fifteen, a year after my mom was taken, snow bitten and scared, and he’d promised the one thing I desperately needed: safety. Then the one thing I wanted: strength to overcome my fear of immortals. But it had a price—everything always has a price. And each act of service demanded more of my soul.
I’d started small—collecting secrets, blackmail on certain lords or ladies. With each passed whisper I’d climb another rung, until I earned the title of Wraith, the Lord of Westfall’s supreme spy. But sometimes he had me do worse things, too. I never enjoyed hurting others though, no matter how guilty. I hated obeying him and then eventually loathed myself, too.
