The Serpent & The Wings of Night [antikvár]

PROLOGUE ¦ rvl he king did not know then that his greatest love would —also be his ruination—nor that either would come in Jl. the form of a tiny, helpless human child. She was a lone flutter of life in an endless expanse of decay, the only living mortal for a hundred miles. The child was perhaps four, perhaps eight—it was hard to tell, because she was so, so small, even by human standards. Just a frail little creature with slick black hair that curtained wide gray eyes. Somewhere, buried beneath charred beams and crumbled stone, the girl's family likely lay crushed beyond recognition. Or perhaps their ravaged bodies had been left out in the night, taken by predators just like the ones that stalked the child now, looking down at her with the interest that a hawk afforded a rabbit. The humans, of course, were nothing more than that in this world—prey, pests, or often both. The three winged men landed before her, smiling at their luck. Immediately, the little girl struggled against the debris that pinned her. She recognized what they were—recognized their pointed teeth and black, featherless wings, and perhaps she even recognized the uniforms they wore, the deep purple of the Hiaj Night-born King. Perhaps the men who had burned her home had worn uniforms just like these. But she could not run. Her clothing was torn and hopelessly tangled in the ruins around her. She was too small to shift the stones.