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Author’s Note: This is a stand-alone book, and it is actually the very first full-length novel that I ever wrote. The original was all hand-written on computer paper (the old kind where you had to rip the strips off of the sides) and this pink paper my dad brought me home from his work. Seeing as how I wrote the original when I was ten, I completely overhauled the book, but the heart of the story and many of the concepts remain the same. Please review, even if you hate it. I would love some feedback!

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Prologue

The Beginning

Calista shoved a thorny branch away from her face, her eyes half-closed to shield them from the hot sting of sweat dripping down her face, her vision blurred by pain. Still she saw him, fading into the shadows up ahead as she struggled to keep up. She tried to remember what had led her to this point, but the clenching pain in her back and shooting down her legs was so intense right then that all rational thought scattered. Part of her sensed that something was wrong, and that if she did not stop walking soon something would be very wrong.

“Please,” she pleaded. “I must rest.”

“If we rest, you die!” the man in front of her shouted back.

“If I do not rest, then I will die anyway.”

He stopped. When he turned to her, she could see distress in the expression on his face, but she could tell nothing from his eyes. Those eyes…just the sight of them made her shudder in absolute revulsion. At one time she had been drawn to his eyes, but they had just been an illusion to trap her. She made no attempt to hide her loathing for the man in front of her, and her glare rewarded her with a look of devastation.

Calista leaned against a tree for support before slowly sliding to the ground. As soon as she sat, she was quite sure she would never be able to get back up again. The weight bearing down on her was immense. All she wanted was release, but she knew that she still had hours left before that would come.

“Are you in a great deal of pain?” He asked this hesitantly, loathe to incur her wrath yet again.

“I just need a minute,” she assured him.

“Try to think of something else,” he suggested.

Something else…something else…Calista wanted to dredge up some sort of happy memory to fill her resting moments, but the only one that surfaced was what started this whole business in the first place.

The beginning…

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She came from Valamer, born and raised in the vast country spanning the southwest of the land of Bek. This country existed in a delicate state of peace with its two neighboring countries—Alva to the north and Derg to the east. Valamer bordered a vast desert to the west, the likes of which no one had ever dared to cross, or if they had, they never returned alive. Thus it had the advantage of having a corner to be backed into in times of need, albeit a very hot and uncomfortable one.

The land of Bek boasted a great diversity, but moreso prided itself on the relative peace and harmony that existed between these diverse nations. Rumor had it that over the ocean of Fa in the east, people lived who could not tolerate the sight of someone who looked different from them. This was not so in Bek—to a degree.

Valamer was a country of Humans, and part of the reason it was so large had to do with the fact that Humans were the largest group of people inhabiting the land. Humans had a reputation for being base, emotional, bloodthirsty creatures who also possessed the ability to devise some of the greatest and most innovative inventions in all the land. Like indoor plumbing. Leave it to a Human to look for better ways to dispose of its own feces.

Because Humans themselves were diverse, Valamer’s countryside consisted of a mixture of hills, valleys, plains, and even a few mountainous regions mostly along its eastern border. The people existed in a part-democratic, mostly autocratic state of life. One king ruled all of the people; however, before the king could make any vital decision, he first had to consult with his council of nobles from all across the country. The duties of this council included: sitting on one’s rump in one’s luxurious estate, preferably in a well-cushioned chair, while one listened to the petty complaints of one’s local inhabitants. Thus the partial democracy.

In Valamer, as in any other country, the ruler was required to appoint both a High Mage and High Magress (female mage, in case there is any confusion). The duties of these two important people would often vary from country to country. Human mages tended to have more of a penchant for destroying things, and thus the High Mage and Magress of Valamer’s main duty was to protect the king and his castle.

Alva, in the northwest, was a partially forested area consisting entirely of Elves, humanoid creatures with pointy ears. The Humans of Valamer did not particularly like most Elves, mainly because the pointy-eared creatures had a fondness for trickery and deceit. Their magic dealt more with illusion and tomfoolery than anything of great use. Thus their High Mage and Magress served as entertainers for the elven ruler, who humbly called himself the Great One. This Great One had ruled for the past fifty years or so under the pretense of being the oldest Elf in Alva. Instead of succession, age was the factor in determining a new leader. This typically led to a lot of leaders in a short amount of time, but the current Great One ruled completely and absolutely with such great tenacity that his people were beginning to doubt he would ever die.

Two different tribes of Dwarves shared the country of Derg, though most people would say they did not share very well. The northern Dwarves lived amongst the trees and mainly kept to themselves, leaving the slightly mountainous region to the south in control of the other tribe of Dwarves, a tribe that everyone wished would keep to themselves. Since neither tribe could seem to come to an agreement on anything, they tended to have absolutely nothing to do with one another. The southern Dwarves, however, had a nasty habit of stealing people of other races, mainly Fairies, to use as slaves in their mines. The Humans of Valamer were constantly trying to control this addiction of theirs, if only to keep the peace in the east.

When it came to magic, Dwarves knew very little at best. The short, bearded creatures dealt mainly with the earth—rocks, dirt, gems. They could not only sense something earthly nearby, they could connect with it. They had a High Mage and Magress for each of the two tribes, and they served the unimportant purpose of locating the best and most expensive jewels. They would then trade these with the Humans for nearly twice their worth, when it had taken them little to no effort to find them.

In the far east, on the border of the Fa Ocean, lived the Fairy people. The Fairy people were not the typical Fairies one might expect to encounter—they were much the same size as Humans, in fact. They did have wings, but they could only fly for short distances and at very low altitudes. The Fairies never found a use for naming their country, so most people referred to that region simply as Fairy Land. They had no ruler, no clans, no social order of any kind. They just…were. Fairy magic involved healing of various kinds, but they had no formally appointed High Mage or Magress to oversee these powers.

To the east of the elven country of Alva was a very dense forest that no one dared to enter, partially because no one ever had any need to travel through it, and partially because of the legendary folk rumored to inhabit it. When traveling from country to country, there were specific routes that one could take that generally did not involve going anywhere near this particular forest, dubbed Fatum Forest. Aside from that, a people inhabited that forest that was more terrible and fierce than any other race in the land. This, of course, was based entirely on folk legends, as no one had ever actually seen one of these mythical people before. They were named Leithels, and no one knew much else about them except for the fact that they were supposed to be absolutely terrifying.

The very last area of the land of Bek was the northeastern region. Mountains higher than the eye could possibly fathom covered this portion of the land, and very few people had ever dared to venture up them, or even through them. The weather was terrible; it snowed constantly and never reached above the freezing level. For some reason the sun refused to shine, perhaps because of the dense fogs surrounding the mountains, perhaps because of the evil creatures associated with that region. Rumor had it that the mythical Griffons inhabited those mountains, though few had ever actually been spotted, and no one had ever spoken personally with one of the giant bird-beasts.

Interracial relationships among any of the mythical creatures of Bek were strictly prohibited. It was part of the reason, each country felt, they had managed to keep peace in their land for so long. The way things were, the lines between Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Fairy were very distinct. If a Human committed a crime in Valamer, the Valamerian king would dole out his punishment. If a Human committed a crime in Alva, he would be sent to the Valmerian king for the appropriate punishment. Everyone had their point of origin and their laws to follow. Although laws denied the right to mix races, every now and then the odd halfling would appear. The typical punishment for such a crime against nature was death, for both the parents and the child. In some rare instances, people accused of race mixing could avoid punishment by fleeing to the northeastern mountain ranges, though it was widely believed that they only went there to die. No one could survive in such an inhospitable land, after all.

Which brings us to the beginning of Calista’s story.

Calista was a Human, and a very independent one at that. Her parents had died when she was but thirteen, leaving her to manage their large farm alone. For many years she had managed to maintain the output level of her farm by hiring various locals to assist her in the work. However, when she discovered at the age of seventeen that she knew magic, she fired them all so she could work the farm herself. Knowing magic could sometimes be like having an extra six pairs of hands.

When Calista turned twenty, she realized that her magic was much different from that of most Humans. Not because she knew any different spells or skills, but because she knew every spell and skill any Human had ever been able to use. In addition to the vast knowledge existing within her mind, Calista possessed the unheard-of ability to cast multiple spells at the same time. Since spell-casting typically consisted of creating a complex weave of thoughts and emotions that required a great amount of effort, most humans could only cast one spell at a time. Calista, however, could cast many different and complex weaves at once.

At first she considered this an asset. Who else could plow a field, plant seeds, collect the harvest, and store the harvest while lounging in a chair on one’s own front porch? But then people started to ask questions. And the more questions people asked, the worse it was starting to look for her.

King Stefan of Valamer’s High Magress, Ellia, was at least seventy years old. Typically Humans did not live that long, and most people believed that the only reason Ellia stayed alive was to spite everyone else. She was a very testy, unforgiving individual, and the country very much wanted to get rid of her as soon as they possibly could. Unfortunately, unless a High Mage or Magress could be proven unable to fulfill his or her duties to their full extant, only death would make a replacement possible. In spite of her personality flaws, Magress Ellia was a very competent magician.

However, with the end of the old witch’s life drawing near, King Stefan had begun the search for a new Magress to begin training to take her place. Anyone with any degree of magical talent was to travel to the capital to begin the selection process for the position of Magress. When the people in Calista’s area discovered her incredible talent, they immediately had the residing noble send word to the King.

Calista did not, under any circumstances, wish to become the High Magress of Valamer. She had been to the estate of her local noble only once in her life, and the purpose of her visit had been to join a petition for tax relief. Normally she was not politically active, but her parents had just died and left her with very little money to pay the taxes for that year. So she figured if she could help get the taxes lowered, then she might actually have enough money to survive the year. This was the first step to Calista’s disillusionment with her country’s government. In spite of the intelligent, well-thought arguments of those in favor of the tax relief, the issue was never even presented to the King. And from her one day in the estate of an exalted noble having to deal with all of the pomp and circumstance, Calista knew that she never wanted that life for herself. If life would be unbearable at a mere noble’s estate, she could only imagine how terrible her existence would be at the castle.

So, when Old Man Harrell announced to her that she had been selected to represent their region at the capital for the High Magress competition, Calista decided that it was time to leave her farm for good. There was no other way around it. If she simply refused, then the locals would drag her out of her house and to the capital where she would be forced to either participate in the competition, or die. If it came to that, Calista already knew that she would choose death, but she quite preferred to live if it was at all possible.

The day before she was to leave with her local noble for the capital, Calista packed as much food and as many useful items as she could carry and headed off to the north.

She would find no welcome from any of the neighboring countries. None of the other races would dare conceal someone sought after by the king of the powerful Humans. And she did not believe that she had the fortitude to survive in the mountains of the northeast. So her only hope was the Fatum Forest and a reliance on the total inaccuracy of old folk tales.

When night fell on her small town of Forksmouth, Calista left her farm and began her journey to freedom.

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What a fool I was, Calista thought to herself as the man reached down to help her to her feet. To think that I could evade fate by running away.

“We need to keep walking. If we do not get out of this forest soon, they will find us,” he warned. He held tightly onto her hand now as they walked, as though that small amount of physical contact might offered her renewed strength.

Calista did not want to be strong anymore. She wanted to just sit down on the ground and give up. She wanted to be able to walk without feeling like her entire body was going to split in half. And what she really wanted was to be sitting on the front porch of her farm overseeing the daily chores as she used to.

Instead, she found herself following this man, this creature, through the forest towards the Fijell Mountains in the Northeast.

None of this was her fault, she kept telling herself. There was no way she could have known. No possible way.

The more she walked, the more her legs grew numb until she was quite positive she could no longer feel them at all. There was such a chill to the air that she was certain her nose would soon freeze right off of her face. They had to be getting close.

She had been in pain for so long now that it had become nothing more than a dull ache in the back of her mind as her thoughts drifted to her arrival in Fatum Forest nearly one year ago…

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“This is ridiculous,” Calista muttered as she tried to hack her way through a thick cover of vines that clung from tree to tree. This entire forest seemed to be a maze of vines and tricky underbrush that served no purpose other than to hinder her advancement. No wonder no one ever wanted to travel through the Fatum Forest. It was damned near impossible.

As far as she could tell, no one had followed her into the forest. That was a step in the right direction, anyway. However, now that she was actually in the forest, she was beginning to have doubts about its safety. Every time she took a step she could have sworn she heard it echo somewhere a few feet away. She was certain that someone had to be following her, but she had been traveling for two days now without seeing anything but small animals and a great number of trees. So far she had not used her magic; part of her was afraid that if there were magical creatures in the forest, they would sense the energy. She had plenty of food and knew how to build a fire on her own, so it was entirely unnecessary.

By the time night started to fall on her second day, however, she was beginning to wonder if she could not cast some sort of spell to determine who, or what, was following her. The echo had been going on too long for it to simply be a figment of her imagination. She stopped walking and closed her eyes to concentrate, but before she could even summon the source of her magic, she heard a loud footstep behind her. Slowly, she turned around to look upon her intruder.

It was a man, and a handsome one at that. His long, ebony hair was pulled back from his delicate, aristocratic face. Dark eyes, impossibly large, looked down at her gently, but she was not about to be fooled by a mere expression. Something felt…different about him, but Calista could not quite place her finger on it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said to her in a musical voice.

“Do what?” she retorted with a frown.

“Cast a spell.”

“How did you know…”

“I could sense it. Any magic user within a mile radius would be able to sense you casting a spell,” he explained.

“So? You are the only person I have seen in this forest, and I have been here for two days now. Is using magic against some forest code?” Calista demanded.

He shook his head slowly. “No, but if a Leithel senses a Human using magic in this forest, then it could be dangerous.”

“Leithels are just a Fairy tale.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “How would you know? Have you ever seen one?”

“Have you?” she shot back.

“Yes. Plenty of them.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The stories said that Leithels eat Humans. How could you have seen them and still be alive?”

“Stories are just stories. Leithels do not eat Humans, I can assure you of that. But they do not like them, either. As long as you keep from using your magic, however, it will be difficult for them to sense you. Leithels do not have the same sense of vision as a Human. They see the world in shapes and colors. All people look the same to a Leithel unless they use magic, but then they can sense from that person’s magical aura what they are.”

“How is it that you know so much about these people?”

“I have lived in this forest my whole life. I make it my business to know,” he explained.

“Can you help me, then?”

“Depends.” He walked a little closer to her, an almost wistful smile touching his lips. “What do you need help with?”

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“Do you need to rest again?”

“No. We should keep walking.” She held on tightly to his hand, only because she was afraid she would not have the strength to keep moving on her own. With every tree they passed, her heart started to beat a little faster in fear that something was going to leap out of the branches at them again. He had nearly killed the first creature that attacked them, and she wondered now that he had not. Instead of punishing the beast for assaulting him, he had simply knocked the creature unconscious and continued onward.

As she glanced at his back, she winced at the sight of the dark blood that stained his shirt. No sword had caused the marks on his once flawless skin, and she could only imagine they had come from a pair of claws. She had never even seen the attacker coming. But he had. She was the intended target, but he had shielded her with his own body.

Part of her felt like she should thank him, but most of her felt so utterly betrayed by him that she was debating whether or not she should even let him live when this was all over with.

When this was all over with…would she even be alive?

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“I found this for you.”

She looked up at him and smiled. His name was Kirkan, and he had to be the most wonderful man she had ever met. By making himself so helpful these past few months, Calista feared that she would no longer be able to function without him. Within days he had taught her everything in the forest that was edible, as well as those things one should never eat. He helped her to build herself a shelter, something that could be taken down quickly just in case a Leithel should find her. And he had stayed with her, every minute of every day, to make sure that she did not want for anything.

And now he was holding out a beautiful flower to her, one with silky, dark purple petals and a bright orange center.

“What is this for?” she asked. “I have done nothing to deserve this. I should be the one bringing you gifts.”

“It seems I have been alone here for so long,” he explained. “This is for withstanding my company.”

“Your company has been all that has kept me going since I reached this cursed forest,” she told him honestly. “But thank you for the gift.” She paused from where she sat just inside her squat little hut. “How long are you going to stay here?”

He shrugged. “As long as you need me.”

“Even if it was for a very long time?”

“How long are you planning on hiding in this forest? One year, two?”

“Forever.”

He raised an eyebrow, his expression filled with worry. “Do you think that you can hide from them forever?”

“You said that you have lived here your whole life. You have obviously managed to stay hidden, so why can you not keep me hidden as well?”

“One person is easy enough to hide. But two…” His voice drifted off as he ended with another shrug.

Calista looked away from him sadly. “I understand. You may go whenever you like then,” she whispered.

She heard the sound of footsteps, and she thought for a moment that perhaps he had heeded her advice and left. Then she felt something brush against her cheek, something soft and smooth.

The flower.

“I will stay with you,” he whispered quietly in her ear. “I will stay forever.”

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She fell. The pain was too great now.

It was time.

“Calista, are you all right?” He immediately stopped walking and knelt down beside her, and as she looked up at him, she hardly even recognized him.

The hair was the same ebony black, but his eyes were much larger than that of a normal Human, and there were no whites. They were completely black, a great contrast against his pale skin. His ears were pointy like an Elf, but they pointed back instead of up, and they had two distinct ridges at the very top of each. And his hands…as he reached out for her, she could see that his nails were long and pointed, more like claws than real hands.

“You lied to me,” she said through her tears. “You lied to me, and now this is happening.”

“Calista…”

“You should have just told me to turn back. You should have told me to go home, and then none of this would have ever happened.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I was in love with you.”

She glared up at him with all she was worth. “I hate you,” she spat. “I hate you for doing this to me.”

His lips tightened into a thin line, and had she been able to see the emotion in his eyes, she had a feeling they would reflect a deep melancholy. “I cannot change the way you feel about me now. But I can do one more favor for you. I can help these babies.”

Calista looked down at her swollen belly and cried out in pain. They were coming. It was time.

“I know a place in the mountains. If I can get there quickly enough, then perhaps these babies will have a chance to live.”

“These babies,” she said angrily, “deserve to die with me. They are an abomination!”

“They are children!” Kirkan shouted back. “No matter what they are, no matter what blood was mixed to create them, it was not their fault. Do not punish them for my wrongs.”

“And if you reach this place in the mountains, what then? Do you think they would even accept one of your race?”

He shook his head. “The people who live there would not accept a Leithel, but I know someone who can help me. I’ll be damned if I want his help, but there is no other choice. I can cast a weave on us, a complicated spell to make the children appear to be half-bloods, mixed with the elven race. Only someone with very strong magic could detect this spell, and as normal halfbloods, we will be accepted without question. Please, Calista. You need not do this for me, but you have carried those children for eight months now thinking they were pure. You have loved them for eight months without even seeing them. How can you take that love away now that you know what they are?”

“As easy as my love for you died when I found out what you were,” she said coldly.

He looked down at her, as though trying to surmise the situation. Then he sighed deeply and moved a little closer to her. “You leave me no choice, then. These are my children, too, and I will not let them die.”

“What are you going to do, cut them out of me?” she asked him with a mocking little smirk.

The fierce look he cast her made her shudder. “You will die in childbirth, anyway.” From his belt he drew a small dagger, and when he looked back down at her she could almost sense his regret. “I am sorry, Calista,” he murmured, and she watched with patient resignation as the blade slowly descended towards her stomach.

If only she had never left her home. If only she had never accepted the help of the strange man in the forest. If only…

Calista was swallowed by darkness.

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“What is going on here?”

Faylinn, half-Fairy, half-Human, glanced over her non-winged left shoulder at the Elf standing behind her. Master Balavar. He was not a full-blooded Elf, though no one had ever really figured out what the other half of him was. They all assumed it was Human. For almost twenty years he had resided as leader of the Forbidden Caverns, the realm of the halfbloods. No one knew who had discovered the intricate cavern system located within the mountains, but when Balavar and the other two Masters arrived, the halfblood society living within was nearly extinct. Since that time, the Masters had changed the Caverns into a liveable, indoor haven that all halfbloods were encouraged to seek.

“Tsubasa found them at the foot of the mountain,” Faylinn told him nervously. She had never stood so close to the great Master Balavar, her only sightings of him during large public gatherings. Faylinn was fifteen years old, but since Fairies aged more slowly than Humans, she still had the mind and body of a child. She had arrived at the Caverns alone exactly one year ago. Ever since that time, she had taken to playing just outside the opening of the Caverns with the Griffons that guarded them.

To most people, Griffons were great, hideous, feathered beasts that could rip someone to shreds with their beaks and claws. To the halfbloods, they were friends. Faylinn liked playing with the Griffons because they could fly. She had always envied them that; because of her heritage, she only had one wing. She would never know the joy of flight.

On this particular morning, the largest and mightiest of the Griffons, Tsubasa, had risen from the base of the mountain with a man on his back. From the looks of him, he was a full-blooded Elf, and in his arms he held two small bundles. As Master Balavar approached them, one of the bundles started to squirm.

“Babies,” Faylinn whispered. “What should we do, Master Balavar?”

Balavar’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the Elf, as though he could see something Faylinn could not. “Take the babies, child. We must get them inside where it is warm. I will carry the father,” he finally replied.

Faylinn obediently walked over and picked up the squirming bundle first. She situated it on one arm before she hesitantly bent over to pick up the motionless one. Part of her feared that the child was dead, and she was loathe to touch it if that was the case. But when she lifted it into her arms, it started to cry.

“Two babies at once,” she mused as she started to walk through the pitch-black tunnel that led to their home. She could hear Master Balavar walking behind her, straining a bit under the weight of the Elf. They did not have very many fullbloods in the caverns. Those that did live with them were there either because they had halfblood babies, or because they desired a peaceful relationship with someone of another race. This was a haven for those who were discriminated against.

Faylinn looked down at the crying baby and smiled. She did not know much about babies, but she thought the gesture might help. Oddly enough, the baby instantly stopped crying and looked back at her with wide, innocent eyes. For a brief moment, it looked as if the infant returned her smile.

“Will we keep them?” she asked Master Balavar, absolutely enchanted.

“They are halfbloods. Of course we will,” he grunted.

“I should like to keep them,” Faylinn whispered, and then kissed the smiling baby boy on the forehead as she followed Master Balavar through the darkness to the place they called home.