A Kingdom Scarred by K. A. Riley EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: K. A. Riley
- Language: English
- Genre: Fairy Tale Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
MorTALs CALLED it the Breath of the Fae.
The poisonous, encroaching mist fell upon the town of Dúnbar from the
north, cascading like a torrential waterfall down the sheer, daunting mass of
stone known as the Onyx Rise. It lapped at the town’s edge, threatening
then retreating, its deadly tendrils never venturing far from the cliff.
According to dark legend, one touch of the vapor to a man’s skin was
enough to melt his flesh away until nothing was left but pristine bone.
Hand-painted signs littered the dead-end streets and alleys that came to
an abrupt halt just before the cliff’s base:
S B, .
The message was simple, yet several of Dúnbar’s drunken fools had
died wretched, painful late-night deaths over the years, arrogantly
convinced they could make their way to the cliff’s summit without
succumbing to the vicious power of the Breath.
Though the mist faded to near invisibility under the glare of sunlight,
those who had attempted the climb under the light of day had been no more
successful.
Some said it wasn’t the Breath that killed you, but wicked creatures
known as Grimpers—malevolent beings of shadow and bone who swiped
razor-sharp claws at any mortal foolish enough to attempt the ascent.
I had never seen such a beast. Nor was I entirely certain that I believed
in their existence. Like many in Dúnbar, I had told myself from a young age
that they were nothing more than legendary monsters invented to keep
curious children from approaching the Onyx Rise.
Still, the tales had proven effective, and Dúnbar’s youth had grown up
over the centuries to fear the Rise and those who had inflicted it upon us—
the Fae who had once ruled our kind from the realm known as Tíria.
Once counted among the Five Realms of Kalemnar, Tíria had, for many
centuries, been accessible to the Low Lands’ mortals—though even in those
days, few dared venture up the Onyx Rise for fear of being stricken with
some magical curse or other.
The Fae were said to have been hostile and judgmental, looking down
on us for our perceived inferiority. Still, they had tolerated us well enough
in those days, and for the most part, they allowed mortals to roam their
lands…so long as our kind didn’t hunt their wildlife or fell their trees.
But one day a thousand years ago, the balance of Kalemnar’s power had
shifted.
It was just after the competition known as the Blood Trials, held only
once a millennium, that the Breath of the Fae had first begun to cascade
over the Onyx Rise, separating human from Fae and altering our lands
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