Legacy (Daughter of War #2)

Prologue

Music is Crumbling Lies from the NieR: Automata OST, composed by Keiichi Okabe. Play it!

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The girl was insane.

At least, at this moment, she felt insane. Who in their right mind would travel across leagues and leagues of nothing but ocean, just because a voice in their head told them to do so?

No, not insane, the girl reminded herself. This is the right thing to do.

Clinging onto that thought, she screwed up her courage and took her first step. Out of the docks and onto Thiruthian soil.

Her very first step on foreign land. It was disconcerting. It felt like only yesterday when she'd stolen away into the night with nothing but a pack of bare essentials, abandoning her homeland, her family. Everything she knew and lived for, thrown away in the blink of an eye.

Her confidence wavered for a moment. Perhaps she was insane, and she just didn't know it. No one in their right mind would even dream of running headfirst into hostile lands. Insane people didn't actually know that they were different, did they? Besides, normal people didn't frequently have visions of past lives attacking them, nor were they innately gifted with ancient magic.

"Oy, watch it!"

A rough shoulder bumped into her. She startled, blinking rapidly and shaking herself awake. It was one of the dock workers. His nose was crooked, evidence of it having being broken once. Scars criss-crossed his face, and he looked like he could snap a ship's mast into half. His countenance resembled most of the people around here—mean, bad-tempered, and ready to jump on an excuse to gut someone.

She wasn't helpless, but she backed off anyway. "Sorry," she mumbled, before scurrying off and blending into the crowd.

The man yelled profanities after her. 'Sun-baked whore', 'Heretic' and a multitude of other curses Ghaeleria had given to her people. She'd picked up the terms during her passage on boat, when the sailors had first treated her as though she were no more than a stray mongrel. But coin won out in the end. And they had been smart enough to realise that she could render them helpless by literally sucking the life out of them. Not that she'd like to though.

Unfortunately, she couldn't afford to bribe every single person in the port to ignore her. Eyes shifted towards her. They couldn't help it. She stood out painfully with her white ajab, bronzed skin and dark, lilted eyes. They all hissed and recoiled from her, forming a circle with two fingers and placing them over their hearts. A ward-evil sign, courtesy of Pst. Phenofrey.

At least they didn't try to bind her and put her to the stake. Her Abba had once told her a story of one of their tribesman, who'd refused to be bound to their part of the world. So he'd set sail for a far-off land—Ravürk, if Abba had remembered correctly—eager to have his first taste of adventure. 

Only, the moment he set foot on the country's shores, he was hauled off in chains and bound to a pyre. The barbarians set fire to the wood; let it burn him and laughed when he shrieked for mercy. As if being burnt to death wasn't torturous enough, the barbarians would douse the flames with water after the poor tribesman couldn't take anymore of the pain, wait till the wood went dry, and repeated the entire process. The tribesman lasted for three days before he'd died.

The girl shuddered when the story came to mind.

It wasn't the only tale of misfortune that met the Marshems whenever they intended to explore other nations. Everywhere, they were met with hostility, and often sentenced to brutal deaths. All because they didn't follow the Others' religion. All because they were different.