The Herald

  The cool waters of the Cherech glittered as a few precious rays of the morning sun poked out from the gray clouds overhead.

  The fisherman from Denev, his eyes bloodshot, sat on the stern of his skiff, fiddling with his net and savoring the river’s peace and quiet. His brother’s laughter rang out from behind him, and the fisherman wondered, What does he have to laugh about? There’s nothing funny about this whole mess.

  Over the last few days, it seemed something had happened at the capitol city to the north. Rumors from the nearby villages spoke of everything from dark magic cast by Grand Prince Igor, to a catastrophic flour fire. Only a messenger bearing Belnopyl’s bear sigil who came to Denev a week ago seemed to know the truth, but he had come and gone quickly, speaking only to the boyar Zinoviy, who remained silent.

  Still, the fisherman noticed how things had changed since the messenger’s arrival. The boyar’s soldiers, once content to idle in their lord’s keep, now patrolled regularly around the outskirts of town. And more worryingly, boyar’s scribe had come down to count how many hearths were in town, how many freeholder families there were, and how many of those families had young fathers or adult sons.

  War. Gods damn it, it’s a war!

  The fisherman wanted to silence the townfolk’s mindless gossip with his suspicions, but that would have only caused the tension hanging over Denev to snap into panic. And the last thing anyone needed was panic - Denev was a quiet town, its people were humble and hard-working, and its boyar decent enough. Besides, even if the townsfolk did know of the coming war, there was nothing they could do about it. The freeholders had sworn their oaths of service to boyar Zinoviy when they took up residence on his lands, and the thought of fleeing the call to arms and going outlaw was only a foolish dream.

  Most of the men in Denev were young and untempered by war - if called, they would likely jump at the chance to seek out glory in battle or wealth from looting their boyar’s enemies. But those were the thoughts of young men, their heads filled with stories of valor. But the humble fisherman, at nearly fifty summers old, longed only for a life as peaceful and quiet as the Cherech.

  “Look!”

  His brother called to him - it seemed even the peace of the Cherech was to be intruded upon today.

  “What?” grunted the fisherman, turning to see his brother holding something in his hand.

  His eyes widened at the dull shine of a gold coin stamped with the Belnopyl sigil. Golden coins—zlatniks—were a rarity for most folk, merely imaginary figures in merchants’ ledgers or the boyar’s taxes. Most went their whole lives only ever dealing in silver, as was the way of the common folk. To see a zlatnik in person, much less hold it, was surreal. Trembling, the fisherman unconsciously reached to touch the treasure.

  “Where did you find this?” he gasped.

  “In the water,” his brother said, pointing to a dark chunk of wood that bobbed past their skiff. “It was just lying there.”

  As they looked north, more pieces of wood drifted down the Cherech. It wasn’t just stray debris—it was wreckage.

  Soon they were surrounded by the wreck - painted boards, soaked carpets, and other debris. One large piece of wood, painted with a maiden in white, floated past. Its eye sockets gaped like wounds.

  “Look at all this…” whispered the fisherman to his brother. “Do you think a merchant’s vessel sank? We haven’t had any storms lately but maybe-”

  “Brother, over there!”

  The fisherman looked out into the distance, squinting as he struggled to make out what his brother’s sharper, younger eyes had spotted.

  “What is it?” the fisherman asked as his eyes scanned the water.

  His brother pointed out at a large cluster of floating debris. “Look there! A lady in the water! She’s holding on to something!”

  The fisherman rowed the skiff carefully, angling the boat so they drifted to a near stop right next to the figure in the water. The woman was dressed in a strange, foreign garb that was once rich, but now tattered and covered in blood. She looked as though the smallest lap of the waves would send her sliding off the fragment of debris she held onto.

  “Careful with the net!” shouted the fisherman as his brother tossed it over the woman’s corpse and dragged her to the edge of the skiff. “Pull gently - we don’t know how long she’s been in the water. You’ll rip her to shreds the way you’re pulling her in.”

  “Her damn hands are stuck to the board!”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Then pry them off! It’s the death grip.”

  The skiff lightly dipped to one side as they wrenched the woman free from the pull of the Cherech, dropping her onto the floor of the boat with a great splash.

  “Gods above, look at her!” cried his brother.

  Turned onto her back, the woman’s dark-gray guts were on full display, hanging from her open stomach like in the grotesque tapestries. Her chest was malformed, caved in by a blow that shattered all her ribs. A dark red line traced across her pale throat.

  The fisherman resisted the urge to gag, but his brother could not, and he retched over the side of the skiff.

  He drew closer to the woman’s corpse. Blessedly, her eyes were closed. If it wasn’t for the gruesome mauling of her body, the fisherman could almost pretend she was simply asleep.

  Something dark gleamed in her chest - a thin black crystal, thrust straight into her woman’s heart like a dagger. The fisherman prayed the crystal was the first blow, a mercy killing before whoever murdered the woman chopped her body up and dumped it into the Cherech.

  The woman’s garb suggested nobility, though her face and style marked her as a foreigner. The fisherman’s mind raced at the implications of a murdered foreign noblewoman, but he stopped short. He was only a fisherman, and all he wanted was a life peaceful and quiet. Dead nobles were not his concern - after all, this woman had really turned up in the domain of his boyar, and it was Zinoviy who would need to investigate what had happened.

  The fisherman looked to his brother, who looked green as algae. “We need to take her to Boyar Zinoviy. He’ll know what to do.”

  “There might be more bodies out there.”

  “And we only have one boat. We’ll bring this one to Zinoviy, and his men can search the river for any others.”

  His brother fell quiet as they covered the woman with a damp cloth, and then turned the skiff back towards the riverbank. Denev was near the river, and the boyar’s home was right in the center of the town. As they neared land, the fisherman instructed his brother to disembark and fetch help - a cart and the boyar’s druzhina. His brother was much faster than he, and more uneasy around the dead woman - he sped off without complaint.

  Soon the riverbank was quiet once more, and the fisherman took a seat on a mossy log next to the laid-out corpse. As he sat he felt his mind begin to wander, thinking of the dead woman even as he tried to direct his thoughts elsewhere. But try as he might, he felt his curiosity slowly getting the better of him. Once he was certain no-one was watching, he examined the body again.

  A jade amulet hung from her tarnished silver belt. It caught the light beautifully, and the fisherman slipped it into the folds of his footwraps after a moment’s hesitation.

  His eyes then fell on the crystal in her chest. Up close, he saw that it did not reflect the sparse morning light. Instead, a strange, undulating murkiness lurked within - splashes of purple, blue, and vibrant yellows appearing and disappearing beneath the sharp surface.

  The crystal was no longer a curiosity. He needed it.

  The fisherman didn’t even realize he was already reaching for the crystal - his hand moved of its own accord. It felt as though a strange force was directing his grasp, but strangely, the fisherman found that he did not mind. His thoughts felt cloudy - a suffocating fog blanketed all his senses, and the only thing that mattered now was pulling free the crystal.

  No concern. No fear. No confusion.

  He surrendered comfortably to the strange force invading his mind, turning him into a spectator of his own body's actions as he pulled the crystal free from the woman's chest with a wet schlick - then placed it against the quivering bump of his throat.

  Invisible hands wrapped around his chest from behind in a soft, unseen embrace. Cold lips pressed against his ear, whispering a terrible truth into his mind as the force controlling his body gave its name.

  Vaal, Mistress of Water, Font of Life.

  In an instant, the world swirled before the fisherman - swallowing up the view of the colorful trees and gray skies and plunging him into a dark, distant corner of his own mind as his hands moved by Vaal’s will.

  He saw the swirling muddy darkness of the Cherech river, and then the darkness shrank into the eye of a small fish curled up inside an egg, its heart pulsing with blood and the promise of vibrant life.

  The egg broke apart as the fish struggled free, and in the blink of an eye he saw the fish grow into a mighty female sturgeon, swimming through the Cherech. She swam, she mated, she released her eggs, and then she surrendered to the cycle of life - but not before setting the stage for the cycle to begin anew, again, and again, and again.

  He saw a thousand-thousand repetitions of the cycle, stretching on and back for eons, his mind pulled apart in two directions through time as the fisherman opened his mouth in a silent scream into the void. The visions of the future and the past, the visions of life itself, flashed through his shattering mind in an instant that lasted forever - and then it was all over.

  Hot blood spurted down the front of his shirt, trickling down his chest and dripping onto the dark, moist earth. But for the fisherman, there was no pain. Only the endless cycle of life, where there was no beginning and no end. Life for life, and the cycle continued on and on.

  The cool dirt felt like a blessed balm on his burning skin as he collapsed to the ground.

  As he took his final strangled breaths, he felt the strange being leave his mind - leaving him to die alone in the middle of the woods, where animals would eat his corpse, and the mushrooms and moss would strike a prosperous domain from his decomposed remains.

  The cycle continues on and on.

  Where one life ends, another may begin.

  Rise, child of the stars.

  The eyes of the fisherman from Denev fluttered shut.

  And Khariija’s eyes opened.

  BOOK 1 END