🏆 BEST HOOK AWARD - THE CHOSEN DARKLING 2023 🏆
The Woods must be appeased in order to stop the darkness from spreading into the kingdom.
Paris Lerring, a farm girl from the countryside, is chosen as the next sacrifice. Just when it seems like her...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The Woods haven't changed since Paris was saved from it.
Fallen twigs and dried grass crunched with each of her heavy footsteps, earning stern looks from her companions. After departing from the colony, she learned Reimer was the guy with a beard and dark hair while Wharton sported orange locks whose curls were nowhere as rigid and wild as Paris's. Still, judging from the frustrated tongue clicking, he couldn't get it to follow his whim either.
How long has it been since they left? How far had they journeyed? To Paris, the mass of thorns and branches looked uniform and part of the same collective—the Woods. Everything around her was just that. The Woods. Plural yet somehow still staying singular. A complete entity on its own. To her, everything was just "the Woods".
According to what she gleaned from the numerous reports she heard from Joyce and a couple of others, it seemed like the colony had developed names for some places in the Woods. There was the Michfried area where Paris first met Joyce. After asking around, she learned it was originally a place with a minimal number of demons. Even in that regard, Paris had been lucky the cart she was being brought in randomly entered through that area.
Michfried was also the thinnest part of the Woods so the Council was brave enough to send its own people in. If she ever planned on running away from the colony, it was her best and only bet. The other areas were thicker and more infested with demons. Like, say, the Guidstrange area.
"Hey," Paris elbowed Wharton. The man might be a bit lankier and smaller than Reimer but he still packed enough muscle to wrestle an infant Zor'karyen to the ground. He glanced at her from the side of his eyes. She tilted her head to one side. "Where are we? Why don't we just take the wood from the lip of the camp?"
Wharton opened his mouth but a different voice bled out. "Hearpont," Remier said in his friend's stead, stepping closer to Paris as if to drive a point. "Stay close now."
Paris wanted to roll her eyes but refrained. Even in the colony, brainless men who wanted to impress a lady still existed. And promulgated, as it appeared. Even Wharton had been making moves at her that would be known to thrill a local lady. Both of them would push protruding branches out of the way, point at fallen logs, or even clear the way themselves.
For all she knew, they've been leading her in circles since a while ago and actually just planned on wooing her with pointless chivalry. And for all she knew, the rest of the colony was already curling in their sleep against the cold.
Paris strode to the nearest tree she could find. "I don't see why we don't just take this," she grasped one branch and snapped it. The sound was a satisfying melody in her ears. "And make big bunches and carry it back to the colony? We don't need to chop a tree down this evening. We just need enough to get the colony through the night."
Remier looked at her like she had just described her marvelous wings. "Miss, I'm not making the same journey twice in a row," he said. "I don't get why Balwyn agreed to this reckless and apparently thoughtless plan. It's too dangerous and, frankly, we can always do away one night without fire."
