Daughter of Darkness (VIRIDIAN DEEP)

Chapter One

The Goblins come for us in the early-morning hours, the heavy cloud cover blocking both moon and stars, rendering them all but invisible. The ertl warns us, its piercing chirp waking us instantly. Harrow and I, lying next to each other in bed, roll out and stand silently facing each other.

Goblins, again. At first it was a surprise; now it is business as usual. You would think we would be done with Goblin intrusions. We thought we had sent the last of them packing almost two years ago-just before the Human invasion led by my father. The invasion that my mother put an end to. Yet here they are, returned once more. Five times in two months.

It was frightening in my early days in Viridian Deep; now it is mostly an annoyance. We don't even know what they are trying to do or what they want. It was me they wanted in the old days. They came for me twice then-sent once by my mother and once by my father. But that is the distant past. My birth parents are both dead, and there were no Goblin threats after.

Until now, when suddenly they've started up again.

But why? What is the point of coming after us now? Who is responsible for these most recent intrusions?

The front door creaks slightly as it opens-something Harrow engineered to give us warning after the first two nighttime visits. The ertl is a further safeguard, and a more reliable one. You can sleep through the creaking of a door, but you cannot sleep through the chirp of an ertl.

The ertl is a forest bird, but it can be domesticated and trained to perform simple functions. This, as it happens, is one of Harrow's specialties. It took him less than two weeks to turn the ertl into an early warning system, and it has paid off. We now keep the bird caged in the house each night, and three times has it alerted us to these Goblin attacks-including tonight's. Goblins have been enemies of the Sylvans since forever, and Harrow and I know them well.

Though perhaps I know them better, for I did spend five years in a Goblin prison.

We creep over to our closed bedroom door and stand waiting patiently. We have trained rigorously for moments like these. We know without any communication what we need to do. The front door closes and soft, cautious footsteps approach our hiding place. They must believe we are sleeping. You would think they might have learned better by now.

I look over at Harrow. His deep-green skin is striped with shadows, and the tiny leaves that grow in his hair are rumpled as if knocked about by a strong wind. Rats' nest. I mouth the words so he can read them on my lips, remembering the term from my time in the Goblin prison. He touches his hair in response and then points to my head. I reach up to find my leafy locks as tousled as his. The momentary look he gives me is one of irritation. His patience with these invasions is at an end. I nod my understanding. Another day, another infestation of Goblins.

We considered moving to a different residence to discourage these incursions, but this has been my home since the first day Harrow found me in the wastelands-an almost twenty-year-old girl who had managed to survive for twelve days with almost no food or water. It was Harrow who first told me of the existence of the Fae and suggested that I might be one of them-even though I did not look it. It was Harrow who later took me back to the Human world and the city of Harbor's End to find out the truth-a truth so horrendous that it nearly destroyed any hopes we harbored for a life together.

But love endures. We loved each other then and we do so now, and we remain committed to the promise we made when we partnered: that this would never change.

Still, so much of my past remains a mystery, so much of who I was before my time in the prisons a dark vacancy in my mind. No amount of effort to discover the truth has uncovered my past; the long stretch between what little I remember of my childhood and my incarceration is a deep empty hole in my life. I have promised myself I will find all that is missing from my memory, but to date I have discovered so little.

And that will not change today.

I focus on Harrow as the footsteps stop at our doorway, and he smiles in quick reassurance. We have been here before. We have survived worse.

The door bursts open, practically ripped from its hinges, and the Goblins surge in. The foremost pair carry nets with which to snare and bind us so we cannot use our weapons, should we have one or two close at hand. Five times they have come at us this way, and they still don't get it. Regular weapons are unnecessary. We have our inish and we carry that inside us-always at the ready, always just a second's thought away from surfacin...