CHAPTER 1

The gut wrenching screams of her mother woke her up, she was sweating and her heart raced profusely. No, it had to be a nightmare! But she heard it again, then her whisperings, the voice of a woman about to give up. She sat still on her bed, too shocked to even breath loudly.

The last thing she heard was her name, in a whisper, like a prayer, a fervent breath of grace.

She jumped through the window like a woman possessed and started running. What she was running from, she had no idea, where to, she couldn't tell either. All she knew is that she had to run, and run she did. In a weird way she knew that was what her mother wanted her to, just like she knew she could never have been the hero at that time.

She run for the longest until her adrenaline kicked off, and that's when it hit her that she had run into the white forest. Looking at her sorroundings she realized she was standing at the Smokey ground. It was the immediate land after one crossed the territory borders.

This was bad, this was really bad for her. She was in the queen's territory.

Selva! This was the queendom ruled by Queen Dakota the Dark. It was rumoured to be the only land where peace and order reigned though under a very strict regime. She was ruthless, cold and heartless, but her lands never lacked, of food or peace. The only thing she hated more than disobedient subjects was outsiders.

As she stood there pondering between the rock and the hard place,she missed the whisperings of approaching men. Or the smoke dwellers, in reality no one had ever laid their eyes on these creatures and those who did never lived to tell the tale.

Her throat ached and closed as she screamt loud enough to shake the graves. Upon realizing that she was in the hands of the creatures that featured in her mother's tales, she wished she had met the fate her parents had.

She pushed and fought and kept screaming until her throat run sour.

They were men, but ogres who were like elf ogres, but with bodies that gave out smoke. At touch they had scales, and their faces when she got glimpses looked like what she imagined angels did. They were flawless, curved to perfection, mesmerizing to look at.

Her imagination of angels died with her pleas as the dozen smoke creatures took turns in having their fill of her. Pain, agony, took her out and when she came to, she was in her tattered skirt and remains of a shawl.

The pain in the whole of her body was unbearable, but it surprised her that she was alive. She could hear her mother's last words and when she heard her name, she got up as best as she could. Selva it is, she decided as she wobbled on her weak and bruised legs. But she could only take so much, everything haunted her, " it's because I ran."

"That was my punishment!"

"Mama...what happened last night?"

"What if they are still alive?"

That was the thought that drained the last ounce of strength on her frail body. She fell down as ungraciously as a woman who had been to hell and back would. Smokey grounds was hell, and no one, absolutely no one had ever walked through those lands and lived to tell the tale. Even if she did tell it today, no one would believe her.

She may not have known it, but she had already made it to Selva. She was lying in the lands of the land's Casanova. Poor deary. Selva was her hallelujah, an answer to a prayer but no sigh of relief.