Hollow (Crown of Hearts and Chaos #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

My nights were filled with haunting music, spun from a tongue I’d once known to whisper jokes and pass gossip from ear to ear. The words struck chords in my heart which stung when I woke and ached throughout the days until finally I succumbed to slumber and her songs found me again.

I dreamed of trees so tall they blotted out the sun, their bark a rough and anciently marred map to the one and only want I held dear.

Sometimes I found myself running between those wicked trunks, calling out to a girl who ran ahead of me, her song just out of sight, always coming from beyond the next bough, next branch, next bramble.

Of course, I’d never truly set foot in the cursed forest. The path was barred to all; the trees and the magic tangled through them made a wall of the forest’s border which was utterly impenetrable – unless the trees chose to admit you.

And they only ever moved at night. But I knew better than to risk approaching them in the dark.

The lyrics which knotted with my dreams turned to screams when the sun went down and the wicked nature of the forest was unleashed to its fullest. I’d considered risking it; I’d planned to sit at the edge of the forest while the sun set and allow the trees to claim me, but I’d found reason in the one thing I truly trusted.

The written word never turned me wrong. And if there was one thing all of the tomes and scrolls I’d scoured agreed upon it was that facing the trees at night was nothing less than a death sentence.

The blood smearing those cursed branches on the nights the forest found prey was proof enough of that.

And I was no good to anyone if I was dead.

The song I cherished and loathed wrapped itself around me in my fitful dreams, her words both a caress and a warning.

“Come to the trees where their faces grow pale,

Lean close to hear secrets of terror and scale,

My worth was well measured, my journey awaits.

You’ll only come find me when we un-bar our gates.”

It was painted in the whispered words of a child, its lyrics like a river which changed course and spun secrets, never the same yet always pulling me in one, unchanging direction. And I was done resisting the draw of the current. It was time I dove in and let it carry me away.

Music of another kind carried across the town, the jolly tune at odds with the knotted dread in my gut and drawing my thoughts back to the present.

It was finally here. The day of the Great Hunt.

It had been fifty long years since the last of its name and for eight of those, I’d been bracing for the impact of its arrival.

I swallowed. A shaky breath skipped down my throat, and I fought the urge to forget everything I’d been planning and simply accept the fate which had been dealt to our family all those years ago.

This path had been laid out for me for far too long to allow doubts to turn me from it now.

“Are you ready?” The firm banging of my mother’s fist against the weathered wood of my bedroom door jarred me out of the daydream which had seen me standing before my window, peering out at the not-so-distant treeline.

“The drums are already sounding and the Bradeys will be wondering where you are,” Mother hissed, pulling my inner turmoil from fear into disdain.

I couldn’t give a withered fig what the Bradeys thought of me one way or the other.

The panicked screams of my past faded, the frantic scouring of the village, the despair, the horror, the grief; all of it slipped back behind that mask my family wore, never to be spoken of, never to be acknowledged.

I glanced at the small pack I needed to bring with me, a lie silently forming on my lips, the rehearsal giving me something to focus on as the door was predictably pushed open.

Mother bustled into the room, her brown hair perfectly coiled, her deep blue dress recently re-fitted and trimmed to appear almost new.

She stalled on the threshold to my room, looking me up and down while working to choke down the words I knew were expanding in her chest. She managed to contain them for an impressive six seconds before they inevitably burst free.

“You chose the green?” she asked, though what she really wanted was to ask me why I’d ignored the pale pink satin she’d laid out.

“I’ll wear that one later,” I told her, barely even flicking a glance at the new dress and wishing she hadn’t wasted so much money on it. “It rained for half of the week, and the Hunt is launching right outside the town hall where the mud is practically a swamp. The green is more practical.”

Mother pursed her lips, the sense of my words colliding with her desire to impress the Bradeys.

I knew she expected the marriage proposal to come at the feast tonight.

I knew she wanted that life for me, the comfort, the security.

And truly, Axel Bradey wasn’t the worst option in this forsaken corner of the human lands, but I had no intention to wed anyone.

Not yet. Not until I’d followed through on the promise I’d made to Rissa.

So yes, the gown I’d selected was plain compared to what most of the women in attendance would have chosen, the mossy green colour of it like a reflection of the forest which awaited us at the edge of town.

Though truthfully, it wasn’t the edge any longer – the forest had devoured eight homes and the inn this last month, and we all knew we didn’t have long before we would have to abandon Arringfall altogether.

Our town was one of the last still standing between here and the cities which lined the coast where the last hope for humanity lay.

Beyond the cliffs at the southern border of Rathian, there was nothing but sea.

If the trees ever made it that far, we would be faced with a choice between them and the waves and both, were certain death.

The skirt was long but not voluminous, the fabric thick but not too heavy.

I’d always favoured it for that fact. It was practical, easier to move in, run in if needed.

And it was needed all too often with the forest creeping ever closer to our border and the Hollows haunting us in the space between breaths.

“At least let me fix your hair,” Mother begged, and I conceded, sitting on the edge of my small bed and closing my eyes while she worked my warm brown hair into a braid.

I breathed in the scent of our home as she worked, the hint of lavender from the sprigs of the plant Mother hung in every window to ward against foul spirits, and the underlying warmth of pine from the beams which held the whole place together.

It wasn’t a grand home, but it held the memories of all I cherished in this world within its walls.

“There are whispers that the Fae have selected twenty-five of their greatest warriors to enter the Hunt this time,” she said, drawing my focus away from the ache of this place. “Perhaps this will be the final hunt. Perhaps all isn’t lost…”

She didn’t need to say more than that. The cursed forest – or the Taking Trees as we called them – had spread further in the last few years than ever before and all the realms surrounding it were suffering, pushed to the edges of the land, resources running thin, their people plagued with hardships which layered upon one another until the weight of them had become suffocating.

I didn’t know whether to be pleased about the Fae investing so much into the Hunt or not.

Their kind had turned their backs on us a long time ago – hundreds of years before I was born.

They’d built their walls of dark stone and kept their borders well-guarded, leaving the humans to suffer the wrath of both the forest and then the Hollows without aid.

Resentment for their kind had bred into hatred once the sacrifices had started.

The cursed forest placed many burdens upon us but none so cruel as the Offerings it demanded.

The Fae had been quick to decide that the humans would be the ones forced to pay the price each year when the blood moon rose in its fatal demand.

A price which my family had been selected to endure.

My breaths grew thin and faltered as the weight of that truth pressed down on me. It didn’t matter how many years passed. It still felt like yesterday.

I’d seen a few of their kind, the ones who deigned to travel to our lands and trade with the lowly humans.

My people were too desperate to turn them away and too weak to refuse them regardless.

But I was never sure what exactly the Fae got out of the trades they made with us.

The ethereally beautiful males and females I’d caught glimpses of had seemed better nourished than our kind and clearly far wealthier too.

I’d often wondered why they travelled our lands, suspecting their deeds were motivated by far darker desires than they pretended.

The Offerings proved they were capable of anything after all but despite their part in those atrocities, I’d never seen a single human stand against one of them.

The reality was, we needed all the help we could get out here, and the fact that they were able to dispatch Hollows in our land waylaid any questions the humans might have demanded of them.

We weren’t strong enough to stand against Hollows regardless of our hatred of the Fae, so we scowled and muttered curses at their backs but did nothing to stop them passing through our realm whenever they deigned to.

Still, there was no explanation as to why they never came in force or why those who did travel through our realm never stayed in one place for more than a night.

They never spoke of their own lands or offered much communication at all.

They wanted stories in payment for their wares more often than not, and there weren’t many willing to deny them what they sought in favour of pride.

Though I’d have spat in their faces should any ever dare to ask for a tale from my lips.