~ KINLEY ~
The bumps of the cobblestone road are barely noticeable underneath the rubber wheels of the limo. It's the first time I've been in a car, yet I suppose I don't really know that. I've lived three lives that I know of. There's no telling how many lifetimes I lived before Marianna and the Prince started telling me the truth. How many different wonders have I seen?
The color of fire pushes against the darkness that lingers from the night as I continue to watch the sunrise. It's like two Titans waging war for the sky, knowing neither will be victorious for day cannot exist without night.
It would have been nice if Tristan had answered how old I was instead of telling me how he captured the angel that grants me life.
Wait, he did tell me just enough.
The Fifteen-Year Envor. It was in the last thing I read before Tristan found me behind the drapes.
Finally, my years of sneaking into the Royal library are going to pay off.
From the Prince, I know angels last roamed the lands before the Great War, or the Fifteen-Year Envor as some call it. No one would tell me when that was, just that it was a long time ago. But the book told me in big, bold letters.
The Fifteen-Year Envor 675-690 V.
Year 675 on the Valderan Calendar is when the war broke out, which means I'm older than the written history of humans today!
"Is everything all right?" Adalynn places her hand on my forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You seem distracted."
"I'm sorry. I'm not much company." I shift my focus to Adalynn instead of the battle happening in the sky. "Must be because I didn't get any sleep." Or the fact I'm old as dirt itself.
The first matches of the tournament commence today. The city center of Borasnia where they are being held is three hours from Valderanna. Two to three days if you go by horse. We've been in this limousine for over two hours, and I don't think I've said but ten words to Adalynn this whole time. I wonder what she'd say if she knew I'm pretty much as old as time itself.
"I couldn't sleep either. It's been two years since I've been outside the castle grounds." Adalynn's attention drifts to the window I've been looking out toward the mountains in the distance.
"That's right. You grew up not too far from Borasnia."
Adalynn shakes her head. "I'm not from here at all. I was born in the Americas and brought here during the month of the sate moon."
"Sate moon? I thought you said you were from Cistoca."
"I assumed because you lived among them, you knew what it meant when I said I was from Cistoca."
"I'd never heard of Cistoca before you. I know it's near here because I found it on a map in one of the books from the Royal Library. Is the month of the sate moon a human festival where there's a big feast to celebrate the harvest?"
"It's a month of children being taken and death." A faraway look contorts Adalynn's expression, anguish and despair scrunching her blemish-free complexion. "Every night, screams and the cries of mothers fill the streets. No one is sure how the armies choose who stays and who goes. If the taken children are lucky, like me, they're shipped off to Cistoca where there's at least plenty of food and they are safe under the Prince's protection."
"Now that the war is over, things will be better for the human faction."
Adalynn pulls back, her hand slipping out from underneath my hands I placed over hers. "Do you really believe that?"
YOU ARE READING
Beast of the Damned #2
Paranormal~Kinley~ For a thousand days and a thousand nights, he and his army shed the blood of the humans that thought they ruled this earth. It has been a hundred years since the world of light fell and darkness took over. They call him the Beast of the Da...
