AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Sun
It had never been this dark before dawn.
“Haaaaah…” I stumbled on a stone and slumped against a tree with a ragged sigh. Brushing off my dusty pants, I couldn’t suppress my gasping breaths. I greedily sucked in frosty air as we continued our journey north from the prison.
Mere hours ago, I was filled with righteous rage and determination. Now, on the verge of collapse, I wondered how I’d survive the journey to Yin Valley, let alone face off with the hordes of monstrous creatures resting underneath the frozen soil.
We had walked for some time now toward Tsuki’s stone. Toward salvation. Or, toward humanity’s ultimate destruction if I didn’t find a way out of my bind.
“Sun? Are you okay? Do you need to rest?” Clem asked me as he crawled down Bracken’s shoulder and glided to the ground, falling into lockstep by my side.
Then he gasped and looked down at the ground beneath our feet.
Like a show horse, he lifted his pronged toes too high with each step, mouth falling open in shock. It made me chuckle a bit, bemused by the fact a mere mothian had never had to touch snow if the bewilderment on Clem’s face was any indication.
As his body became more solid, just like the rest of my nocturnal harem, Clem seemed in awe of mundane things, like touching snow as now we were ankle deep fighting against a light storm.
“I’m fine,” I lied, wiping a copious amount of sweat from my forehead, which was odd in the cold. “We move. There’s no time to rest, and we’re still too close to Black Lantern for comfort.”
Pushing aside Clem’s protests as he failed to drag me back to rest, I pressed on.
Indeed, there was no time to rest as the sun was beginning to set. Time was not on our side.
My side, I reminded myself. No matter how much I wanted to consider Kiar, Bracken, and Clem as my allies, they weren’t.
Not with the new knowledge I possessed that their undead king was nearly resurrected, my very soul used to nurture my immortal enemy’s new body.
Freed from bondage in my enemy’s prison, it was time to complete my mission, and end the war on humanity that had ravaged Naran for decades.
I was taught to walk with confidence and follow orders, not to forge my own uncertain path. But now, shunned and bound to the monsters I sought to destroy, I had no choice but to carve out a path no man had taken.
Or, for that matter, survived, seeing as I knew no man who’d kept the company of nocs as long as I had.
Though, that ends tonight, I thought, jaw clenched, as I tripped once more.
Kiar’s glossy black tail shot out and held my midsection as Bracken caught my chest with his enormous, clawed hand. Clem fluttered fitfully beside me.
“Please, Sun, you are tired,” Clem began again. “Let us rest.”
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. So, I pushed them all away and kept walking.
I’d sleep when I was dead. The final phase of this endless war had already begun, and now I had to figure out how to win.
Alhadya, the former king of the nocs, was an obstacle to peace, even in death. My eyes flicked to a puddle of melted snow, suppressing a shudder of revulsion as an inky spider-shaped shadow transformed into a fanged smile.
I smashed the puddle with my foot in rage. His shadow lingered beside me, even as his voice grew quieter and quieter as our journey through the Celestial Forest brought us closer to the valley with each step.
He had to be stopped. And yet, even as we marched through the forest to our destination, I could not think of an answer to my most urgent mission and most pressing question.
I must sever the tether binding our souls or risk revealing my people’s mightiest weapon to the true King of the Nocturnal Kingdom. I knew this. We all knew this, and the uneasy tension in the air was a testament to that fact.
But how was the question at hand? How were we to break the tether? And, afterward, how would I escape from my nocs with my head still attached to my shoulders?
No easy answers came as my sandals dug into dirt mixed with snow until my feet were raw, buzzing in pain before going numb.
My frustration would kill me before the choppy, frigid winds encasing the forest could freeze me to death. My body ached, and so did my flesh, coated in a thin layer of frost, as I pressed in close to the trees.
