Amit the First (special preview)

She looked me over and sniffled again, hiding her face behind the cloth. “It is much different than that.” She held out her hand to me. “You have a cut,” she said. “Let me see it.”

I had received the wound just the day before. I had been training with my men and one of them had landed a successful blow on me. The girl grabbed my arm and, had I been smart, I would have been shocked by the strength she held for someone supposedly saved from death. She rubbed her fingers along the cut and the dried blood crusted in my fur became fluid again. It rose like red beads and gathered in clusters around her fingertips. I watched as the cut sealed over and disappeared into my fur.

Once the girl let go of me, I looked over the skin, barely even seeing a scar. The droplets of my blood stilled hovered around her fingertips before she gasped and they dissolved in the air. 

“I’m sorry!” She recoiled from me. “Please, I’ll leave right away, just don’t tell anyone about what I can do!”

“Hey, it’s ok,” I coaxed her. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I whisper. “And I have been studying since I was young. I’ve never been able to heal like that.” I grinned at her and leaned in close. “Who are you?”

Her sweet smile was my doom and quickly became my greatest weakness. “Balafelamona.” A soft blush covered her pale cheeks. “You can call me anything else. I know it is a mouthful of a name.”

“Balafelamona,” I smirked at her. “Weclome, my name is Amit. I would greatly love to learn more about your powers. If you are willing to teach me, I’ll keep you here.”

Balafelamona giggled and dipped her head down. “It would be safer here than anywhere else I have been.” She looked back at me with an eager grin on her face. “Perhaps, in exchange for my lessons, you could teach me a few things as well.”

Her words were suggestive, but I was eager to keep her around. This small girl already had me tightly wrapped around her small fingers. Balafelamona stood out in the tribe for many reasons, not just because she was a human. She worked her way into the village, as well as my heart. She took care of the sick, healing them and using her Blood Magic in ways I could only dream. She taught me things about her powers, and while I was able to learn and integrate them in with my own abilities, I still didn’t have the raw power that she did.

One day, I took her down into what now is the catacombs of the kingdom. In my day, there were underground caverns where we buried our dead under the dark stone. She had asked to see it, as she was curious. Down below, she came across the stone mounds where our dead were buried. Immediately, she approached the one that belonged to my father. 

“Why do you bury them down here rather than above?” She asked me.

“Most of the ground around here is either sand or earth we need for gardening,” I told her. “Down here, the caverns are cool and dark, and people can still visit their loved ones.”

Balafelamona turned back to my father’s mound. “They are not here, you know? What was them is long gone forever.”

I’m a bit shocked by her sudden morose and rather cruel tone. “Not forever. They will be in the afterlife waiting for us.”

“Do you believe such things?” Balafelamona turned and looked up at me again. “Another world after our own? A place where we all meet up again and what? We continue to live?” She frowned at me. “It is selfish to think such thing. Once our eyes close for that final sleep, we are gone. We no longer exist.”

“Bala,” I took hold of her shoulders and she forced me away. She ran through the underground, winding up in a room where light shone from above in the corner. She stood there in that room as I approached her.

“You do not have to fear death if you believe in another life,” Balafelamona hissed. “But I don’t believe in that and I am terrified everyday.” She covered her face with her hands and wept. “When I was left out in the desert, I was so scared everyday. I was going to die alone and forgotten, unloved and empty.”