CHAPTER 1: In the Wilderness

In the midst of the raging sand dunes somewhere in the fringes of Soccora, violent gusts of wind engulfed her mother's face. Shia cried and screamed, but even those were lost in the winds. She was terrified - too terrified for words. But her mother's face was calm and reassuring as she turned to her and said her last words.

"Remember, my daughter, you are strong. Stronger than you think you can ever be..." She whispered.

And just like that, her mother’s lovely face turned into sand and faded away with the howling wind...

Shia sat down immediately as wakefulness pulled her from the grasp of her constant nightmare. Cold sweats racked her frail body, and they made her olive skin shiver against the night sky as more and more tears rushed down from her face. Her silvery flowing hair clung to her face as she subdued her sobs and fought away the tears that flowed so generously.

Despite seeing the same nightly vision for months now, the shock and fright of her family’s death still loomed so freshly upon her soul, and every day was a life of torture...

She quickly looked around to see if any of the ruffians guarding the pack saw her wake up from the dream, but thankfully none seemed to do so.

She could just imagine the beatings she would take if they found her awake from her nightmare once more. But then again, they had been beating her every night since they captured her as her nightly screaming and thrashing would cause a ruckus, so even they must be too tired to do it again that day.

All at once, she wiped her tremendous sweat with the hem of her oversized shirt and rested her head on the rock once again while she pondered in the dead of the night.

The tragedy happened three months ago, but everything was still so fresh in Shia’s memory.

After running away with her family from Tightwater as a young girl, all she had known was the life of a wanderer. She was no stranger to the perils of constant hunger, the weather changes, and the need for good hunting tools and skills.

At seven, she had become adept in the arts of medicine and hunting. She can recognize plants and treat any common ailments even when she was half asleep. Her father would jokingly say that she can live on her own at ten.

Now, it seems such a rueful thought. Even though she will be eighteen by the next full moon, she wondered how she could continue living after losing her whole family from that massacre in the sand dunes.

What else could it be if it was not a massacre? Before her whole family turned into sand and became one with the sand storm, she sensed nothing.

The sky was bright and clear, but in a minute, it turned dark and gigantic blobs of sand appeared. After that came a stench similar to a million rotting corpses. The smell was so overpowering that Shia’s body began to tremble and sweat. She felt so nauseous, and she started to vomit violently.

Surprisingly, no one – not her parents nor her younger sisters and brother seemed to be bothered by the smell. Everybody seemed surprise to see her get sick in the midst of a brewing storm.

The wind became thicker with more sand as the storm approached them. Suddenly, in the midst of the spinning dirt and stones, Shia saw a figure approaching.

Is it a man, a person? Surrounded by a purplish tinge of putrid smoke, Shia saw an entity whose face wore a glowing red stone.

As the entity approached, the red blood stone gathered more light and everybody came to look at it. At that moment, Shia saw her father, her siblings, and her mother turn into sand almost simultaneously, and they became one with the storm.

Just like that, she was left orphaned and alone.

‘What was it? What kind of imp was it?’  She thought impatiently as the night deepened. Was it a real person? Was it a cursed one just like her? It had to be, right? It had to be a cursed one too. Only a cursed one could have turned her mother, father, and the rest of her family into pillars of sand...

Several moons ago, on the day after Shia turned five, her father discovered that she can make all kinds of plants magically appear from the ground if she wills it. At that point, his father decided that the whole family must leave their village in secret and must begin to live a life in hiding.

Ever since the appointment of King Caldwell, cursed ones – people like Shia who could do unusual feats – must be immediately reported to the Imperial Palace and be killed.

An old prophesy foretold of the fall of the Kingdom of Gascone in the hands of a Demon King – a king that possesses a power so vast and a heart so ruthless that he will bring upon the destruction of all the kingdoms of the earth with his bare hands.

When some people began to miraculously gain special powers, everybody thought that the prophecy might soon be fulfilled. They started believing that cursed ones were tainted by the devil himself and that they would stand beside the Demon King in a war that would break the world.

Shia’s father used to laugh at the thought of killing cursed ones. He cannot even bring himself to call their skills as ‘curses.’ Over the years, he had witnessed how friends, neighbours, and people he had known were torn from their families and killed to prevent a silly prophecy. They spared no one – nobles or slaves, the rich or the poor.

In the Imperial Palace’s eyes, everyone who is different is tainted with evil. But how can her sweet, young girl who can grow pretty flowers become the pawn of the devil?

That was the very reason why the whole family left their small quaint village in Tightwater. Her father could not risk his child, his firstborn, to be reported to the Imperial Palace and be slain just because of a stupid prediction. Moreover, he made sure that no one would be able to harm her without risking his or her life.

From childhood, he trained Shia as well as he could in the art of fighting – sword fight, fist fight, and archery, but she fell in love with dagger throwing the most. If Shia ever finds herself dragged against her will one day for possessing a curse (or a gift, as his father sees it), his father said that she had to make sure that she would give them hell first.

Shia carried the dagger that his father had given her since they left their hometown at five years old, and it had become like an extension of her hands and body ever since.

Just to keep her alive for eighteen years, Shia’s father, her mother and four younger siblings had to go from place to place and live the life of a nomad.

All her younger siblings were born to her mother while they were travelling. They never had a normal childhood. They did not have any other friends nor were they able to stay at one place for fear of Shia getting caught. They had to conceal their identities and forget any kind of comfort just to keep her safe from the grasp of the army and the king who believed in curses.

And now, because of a cursed one like her, all of those that she had loved – her kind mother, her quick witted father, her cleaver brother Ran, her twin sisters, Alia and Noran who always asked her for pears, and her infant sister, Aram – all she had ever loved and cared for - were gone...

Becoming the lone survivor of the tragedy made it all the more painful for Shia. Why does it have to be always her? Why did she have to be the reason they suffered in life and be the one to witness all of their deaths? Why didn’t she just die with them?

In her heart, she felt she deserved all of it. Her family had long suffered because she was born. Now, they had all died and left her without anything or anyone, so it was perhaps the way of fate to make her suffer.

She hated herself more than ever, but there was one person she hated more than anything else...

Full of vengeful thoughts, Shia grabbed her fist so tight that it felt light blood would come out of them.

“I swear, whatever you are in the sand storm – person or not - I will kill you. I will kill you a thousand times over and bury you in the sand. And then, I will go for the neck of your blood thirsty king...” Shia muttered under her breath as she slipped into another uneasy slumber. Such are the thoughts that had kept her alive until now.