To the Edge of Burning Shadows (The Infernal Realms #1)

Prologue

Nina

People in my village had a habit of disappearing.

Some went out in bizarre, tragic accidents, whether crushed under fallen trees or swept away in floods, while others vanished quietly, like stars swallowed by dawn. Stranger still, the village forgot them. Every trace of them faded away.

Some memories stuck with me, like the girl with golden hair who taught me knots and the boy who carved animals from oak.

It was as if the world decided what deserved to be lost, but I wasn’t ready to let go.

Once, I saw it happen.

To the west of the forest, where the trees gave way to the thick, treacherous wetlands, I’d watched a man with a bent nose and scarred hands stride into the fog during a hunting trip. He wasn’t the type people missed: cruel and manipulative, with a slimy laugh and leering grin.

When the fog cleared, there wasn’t a sound or footprint in sight. Funny how someone so foul could leave such a heavy silence behind.

I couldn’t remember his name.

Good riddance.

But I remembered the way he looked at me and the danger of the wetlands. I never went hunting there again.

My mother used to say life had a cruel sense of humour. I figured she was just being dramatic.

Then I died.

I thought that was the end (which, spoiler, it wasn’t). Death, I quickly learned, was rarely simple.

My damnation began with fire. And it would detonate in a finale loud enough to rattle the gods, courtesy of the Demon of Temptation. He was the turning point of my fate, one darker and more twisted than anything I could have imagined.