Hello everyone, and welcome to the first volume of my series "The Heirs of Fire."

This first volume, titled "Bound by Blood," is currently being rewritten. The words you are about to read are by no means final.

A French version of my text is available on my profile for those who might be interested.

The chapters with a title have been rewritten.

If you notice any typos or inconsistencies in my writing, please do not hesitate to let me know! Also, if you would like me to delve deeper into any particular topic, just tell me!

In summary, feel free to share anything you want with me! Your disappointments, your expectations, passages you liked or didn't like, visualization issues, etc.

Please remain kind :) Honesty does not mean cruelty!

Happy reading, everyone!

[The prologue is undergoing the beginning of a rewrite; the text is still not final :)]

I hope that returning readers will see the progress ;)

⁎⁎⁎

"Let's walk in the woods while the wolf isn't there. If the wolf were there, he would eat us!"

In the night, this nursery rhyme echoed. A man sang it, gloomy, like a soul in torment.

This brave gentleman, who was walking alone, was a fifty-year-old lumberjack who had fallen a bit behind on his workday. He walked slowly, whistling on a lost path deep in the heart of the forest. His ardent lantern made a slight swinging motion between his swollen fingers.

His heavy and regular gait made the light of his small lamp flicker, and his heavy steps occasionally broke the dry, thin branches lying along the dark path.

The path he was taking was paved. Pretty ocher-colored stones covered it. They muffled the footsteps of those who walked on them and made the iron shoes of the horses clatter when they came. They were beautiful, flanked by the coats of arms of the owners of these lands, meticulously carved one by one. A monk's work.

Unfortunately, they were littered with twigs and rotten fruits that had fallen from the trees. It's normal, you might say. Yes, indeed. But it's a shame. The lumberjack couldn't enjoy it. He walked on, and all that his weak lantern illuminated were those pieces of wood.

The lumberjack walked.

With each step, the faint, feeble flame struggled not to go out. So small, it was disturbed by the fine evening breeze and the rough breath of its master.

It danced, waltzed, chaining the movements of a minuet and a forlane. It twirled, graceful, but it was getting exhausted. It was an infinite pantomime. A relentless struggle against the invincible. An eternal, inexhaustible enemy.

It constantly deformed its burning trunk, sometimes reduced to almost nothing, to avoid being overwhelmed by the wind. Zephyr itself loved to make the flame sing, and to silence it when it had enough. An unpredictable tyrant, a scourge.

Cruel Zephyr. Indomitable Zephyr.

The wind, the fire.

A perpetual seesaw,

under the yoke of our lumberjack.

He didn't seem too concerned about the glow of his lantern or its fierce battle against The Breath. He continued to roam the forest alone, his well-sharpened axe resting on his broad shoulder. He hummed a cheerful tune and let his mind wander.

Not only that, but he could hardly see anything, the contrast between the brightness of his small lamp and the omnipresent darkness of the night disturbed his vision.

His eyes had increasing difficulty focusing, not knowing on which light source to concentrate.

The path he was taking that night, he knew it like the back of his hand. He had taken it since his youth, with his father, just as his father's father had before him, and so on for generations.

He had also acquired extraordinary knowledge about every living species in these woods; the deer, the marten, the gray wolf, and the pine marten. Animals that, like countless others, populated the forest ecosystem of the royal woods.

The man was not used to coming so late at night; it was not the ideal time to cut wood and handle a sharp axe. In the dark, it was very difficult to work well, due to several factors. The risk of injury was much higher, and the accumulated fatigue only heightened this danger.

But today, there was no other choice. He was behind schedule, had a family to feed, and debts to pay. It was exceptional; he could deal with it.

To his great surprise, he enjoyed being there, alone, in the darkness. It was an aspect of the forest he had rarely seen. He was like a child in front of a light show; amazed.

He could occasionally spot the shadow of a rabbit hopping along or hear the tawny owl perched on its high branch, hooting as the lumberjack passed by. He couldn't see well, but he guessed and recognized the animals that surrounded him. The man was no longer whistling; he was laughing, euphoric.

Earlier that evening, he had left his friends at the bar. When they heard of the lumberjack's plans, they hadn't stopped teasing him about the dangers of the forest at night.

They said, their faces flushed with alcohol, that creatures might attack him and devour him whole! They even called him "the little red lumberjack"... How embarrassing!

It started as a joke, of course, but the old men, even as drunk as pigs, were genuinely worried about their friend.

They remembered the dark times when it was not uncommon for a wanderer to get lost in the brush and never be heard from again. There was talk of a set-up, a serial killer, murders, or sectarian conspiracies, without ever having anything concrete. One fine day, nothing happened anymore, to the great surprise—and relief—of the region's inhabitants.

Although the event hadn't fortunately happened again for ages, the septuagenarians still didn't like wandering alone after nightfall.

But the proud fellow didn't think much of these rumors and old tales of murders. Never since his birth had there been an accident. It goes to show that times had changed!

Moreover, the forest belonged to the royal family; it was undoubtedly protected. No need to worry.

He stopped to observe a small fox that had approached him. The man crouched down and extended his pudgy fingers, rubbing them slightly together.

The little Vulpes approached timidly and hesitantly sniffed the lumberjack's fingers. He didn't linger. As soon as he decided that his interlocutor had no food to offer, he backed away, turned his head towards the dense, dark forest, and dashed away in no time.

The man, disappointed, straightened up and continued on his way, resuming the whistled tune he loved so much. He hadn't walked ten meters before something tickled his ankles. Then he heard dry branches breaking to his right. He stiffened.

What worried him wasn't that a piece of wood broke—no, in the forest, that's very common. What chilled his blood was that he heard hundreds of sticks being trampled at once.

He quickly heard the sound of footsteps and hooves rushing towards him.

The man, desperate, scanned the surroundings with his lantern, hoping to find a large rock that could protect him from all this.

Fortunately, he saw the shadow of a huge stone facing the noise. He quickly slipped behind it, raising a slight cloud of dust, and pulled his knees to his chest, panting.

The smell... They were coming.

The lumberjack didn't even have time to catch his breath when a horde of animals, jostling each other, passed by him. At times, he could feel a strong vibration on his back, probably an animal that, in the rush and darkness of the night, hadn't seen the rock and had impaled itself on it.

The noise was infernal. The fifty-year-old saw his world overturning at times, and he felt like his head was being hammered every time a new animal cried out nearby.

Up, down. The ground and the sky. Nothing made sense to the survivor. The black spots dancing before his eyes also invaded his mind. He could no longer think. He couldn't string two words together, whether inside or out.

Breathe.

After what seemed like an eternity, the animals became much rarer, and the lumberjack urged himself to come out. He slightly pushed his little lamp aside, leaned on his trembling knees, and dared to take a peek behind the stone.

He instantly regretted it. A moose was rushing towards him, bellowing with all its might.

He immediately got back behind his rock. His heart pounded horribly hard at his temples, and the hammering in his head resumed with a vengeance.

The gigantic animal fell with a heavy crash beside our lumberjack. Fragments of its imposing antlers shattered on impact and struck the lumberjack without consequence.

Face down, moaning in pain and struggling against who knows what, the poor animal was violently dragged backward. The poor man, who was petrified and witnessing the scene, held his breath, stunned. If the predator of this beast could drag it, he had reason to worry about his life.

The man, still behind his rock, witnessed this scene without making a sound, his hand pressed against his wide-open mouth, preventing any sound of terror from escaping. The taste of blood had already filled his mouth for quite some time. His cheek was in shreds. His perforated tongue had nothing to be jealous of.

He no longer had a visual on the situation; he was still leaning against his massive rock, and the moose had been pulled behind it. So much so that he could only listen to the animal's agony and its sorrowful cries.

He swallowed his bile with difficulty. Then, he once again tore the inside of his mouth. A few drops of blood slipped past his lips and fell with a soft plop onto the royal coat of arms.

The lumberjack, paralyzed by fear, hadn't noticed the screams cease. When his blood reached the ground, something slipped behind him. He only realized it when a sharp pain slashed across his shoulders.

The lumberjack felt a warm liquid trickle down his chest, and by the light of his lantern, he saw a few scarlet drops splatter on the earth, mingling with their counterparts. He writhed a bit from the pain and froze when a warm breath ruffled his nearly nonexistent hair.

He slowly raised his head and blanched. An enormous abomination loomed above him, foam at its lips.

In the darkness, it was perilous for the man to discern his attacker with precision. But what he could see filled him with terror.

In the candlelight, towering over the fifty-year-old, a long and wide silhouette flicked its tongue.

In the night, its massive, curved horns reflected the glimmers of the lantern on the ground. Its large, round eyes glowed with a bluish hue unlike any other, illuminating its hideous face.

This monster—because it was neither human nor animal—was grotesque. Its body, though concealed in the darkness, was made up of a tangled mass of something constantly shifting. It could have been branches, perhaps roots, or maybe something else entirely.

The color of this abomination was quite peculiar. It was completely black. Not just any black—no, this black was very... thick, letting no light pass through, making it nearly impossible to distinguish in the darkness.

The lumberjack was paralyzed. Perhaps it was due to this hue that the monster bore, but he could feel its oppressive, dark aura feeding on every ounce of hope left in its prey.

He shuddered.

The atrocity lowered its head and stared intently at the man, who was frozen in terror. His lower lip trembled uncontrollably, and his irritated eyes slowly filled with tears.

He wanted to run, to flee, to believe this was all just a nightmare and go embrace his wife and little girl.

But it was impossible. The creature smiled and flicked its forked tongue again. The man murmured his child's favorite nursery rhyme one last time.

"Let's walk in the woods while the wolf is not here. If the wolf were here, he would-"

It lunged without hesitation at its poor prey, sinking its long, still-pristine fangs into his tender flesh.

The lantern tipped over onto the ground without a sound and extinguished as if by magic.

In the night, a piercing scream echoed. A man was dying, a soul in torment.