Ash, Dragon Heart Series Book 1

2

Gwel climbed up the creaky stairs and pushed aside the curtain that hid the now restored interior of the coach. It was well-equipped and quite cozy, suggesting that the owners of the caravan were planning on being away from home for quite a while. During their travels from one continent to another, they had managed to acquire enough goods to attract the attention of the heretics.

On the floor, in a pool of dried blood, lay a once beautiful woman, the one that the Fiery Fae had been guarding. At least now it was clear from where all that fire had come from.

Locks of raven hair were still smoldering. Pale, thin limbs were bent in unnatural angles, and her cheap, but beautiful dress was eaten away by the flames and reduced to ugly tatters.

“My dear, dear girl,” Gwel said, sitting down on a stool that rushed over to her from the other corner of the room. “Didn’t your mother tell you that you’d never come back home if you go with the Fae?”

Using the end of her staff, she removed the rags from the woman’s abdomen and groin. Closing her eyes and shaking her head, Gwel sighed.

“Couldn’t have left the woman to die with dignity, you vile beasts... To violate a pregnant woman... Oh my dear, dear child... What have they done to you?”

With her third eye, she saw a faint glow emanating from the woman’s womb. And although she had been dead for several hours now, the child... The child had miraculously survived. No, not by miracle, God’s didn’t like bestowing anyone with those. It had survived to spite them, and to avenge those who had murdered its mother.

Gwel pulled a curved dagger from the folds of her robe and kneeled by the woman. “You just might live a better life than your predecessor, little one... They were born dead.”

The blade slid across the swollen stomach, easily slicing through the bruised skin. Blood trickled onto the floor, filling the cracks between the planks and dripping onto the already red soil. Without even flinching, Gwel reached into the slit and pulled the baby out and into the light. The boy looked disgusting covered in slime and blood, but it was a life worth saving nonetheless.

After cutting the cord, Gwel removed the scarf from her head and wrapped it around the child. Her thick, silver hair fell over her shoulder, revealing a burn on her forehead ― the mark of a slave.

The child didn’t cry.

“Hm, seems to be dead...”

Gwel was about to abandon him and leave when she noticed a thin, clean trail on his cheeks. The boy wept and breathed, but he did not scream.

“Isn’t it funny, if not frightening, that the first emotion the newborn feels is pain?” Gwel asked no one in particular and got out of the wagon. Her staff, as if it had come to life, leaped after her as she cradled the child in her arms. “The world immediately warns it that it’s a cruel and dangerous place, but children never listen...”

Once again, she stopped by the young warrior in torn chainmail. The steel rings were biting into his chest and the crows that had gathered on the branches were looking greedily at his exposed ribs. They’d soon fly down and feast, but for the time being, they’d observe the priestess and listen to the sound of the approaching hooves.

Someone seemed to have noticed the smoke rising above the treetops and called the guards to go and investigate.

“What do you need, you blob of flesh?” Gwel asked, noticing that the child was trying to reach its hands toward her.

As it turned out, she had stopped right next to the body of a Fae. Its inhuman, black eyes were glassy and body drenched in scarlet. Most people still didn’t believe that they existed. Then again, people didn’t believe in a lot of things, but that didn’t prevent them from bowing to idols and touching the marble floors of the temples with their foreheads.

“A sign?”

She looked down at the child and saw in its eyes not only its fate but that of the whole world. Its barely opened eyes were of different colors ― one brown, almost black, and the other bright blue.

“Half-breed,” she hissed and nearly dropped the child in disgust. “Thank you, little princess... You’ve awarded me in my old age...”

The child continued reaching upward, making the priestess grimace and wave her cloak. The staff, frozen behind her, flew over to its mistress and the trio disappeared into a black haze, dispersed by the wind.

When a party of horsemen led by a knight arrived at the scene of the m******e, all they found was a caravan destroyed by an angered Fae.

Chapter 2

299 A.D. Age of the Drunken Monk, Somewhere on the border of the Middle Kingdom

“A

sh, you stupid little dumbass!”

The boy was sitting in the hallway of a house so small that it looked more like an oversized shed. The woman called out for him again, but he didn’t hear her, being too busy watching the sky and feeling the wind caress his hair gathered in a tight tail tied with a leather strap. Stroking the air with his fingers, he observed the clouds, as if trying to reach them. He felt as if they were talking to him, but he knew that that was nonsense as clouds couldn’t talk.

“Ash, you spawn of demonic lust, I’ll tear you apart!”

Gwel, on the other hand, could talk. Too much and too often. Sometimes he wished that she’d shut up for a little while. No, not wished. He would’ve preferred it if she’d shut up forever. Perhaps one of the kitchen knives ran across her throat would make her quiet down?

Ash got up and went into the room that smelled of herbs and old age. Gwel was sitting in her chair and staring at the cauldron hanging over the fireplace. Over the years, she had grown so old and ill that she could no longer move or see on her own, so Ash had to drag everything over to her or her to wherever she needed to go. As there was only one bed in the small “house,” he preferred to sleep outside.

“You little cretin,” she hissed, “I should’ve left you in your w***e mother’s womb who thought it wise to lay with the beasts.”

“Yes, mistress.” Ash nodded although he didn’t understand what she was trying to convey with her insults. Then again, he didn’t understand what anger was. He didn’t understand concepts like “contentment,” “envy,” “sadness,” “joy,” “hate,” “desire,” or any other “emotion” many others seemed to be experiencing. Gwel had said that that was because he looked at the world through the eyes of the Fae and not those of a human. But Ash didn’t understand this for he seemed to himself very much human. However, he’d often feel like his soul was split in half. And until the two halves found harmony, he’d walk this earth as an animated doll, devoid of emotion.

Long story short, the old woman was senile and spewing gibberish.

“Throw the grass into the cauldron,” Gwel grunted.

“Yes, mistress.”