Herel Grey

▮BACKGROUND

Herel's life began under an omen of darkness. Born in a lonely village upon a moonless night, the witch boy was denied the power of his race before he drew his first breath. However, even before his birth, the wheels of fate, luck, and fortune were against Herel. His father—Aroun, a raven-haired human—had become a vampire only months before, and out of fear his mother—the powerful which Nirra—forced the man she'd loved from their home. So it was that shadows of evil hung about the house when Herel entered the world.

Frail and lacking the power to defend himself, Herel spent a wretched childhood hiding from the bullying of the children who should have been his payments. His mother did her best to comfort him—caring for his wounds and wiping away his tears—but her love was not enough to stop darkness from growing in his heart. Ridiculed, taunted at every turn, denied all that he wanted, Herel soon burned with the need for vengeance.

Setting his eyes upon the Black Book of Guardians—three ancient volumes of potent magic—Herel began to plot. Each book was kept by a different tribe; however, the keepers of the books were all elderly, and like all others, they saw Herel as a pathetically weakling. Each midsummer all the clans gathered together, participating in powerful and mysterious rituals of elemental magic. Herel waited until the gathering was over before taking the lives of all three keepers and fled the village with the books. Using the power of a midsummer night lit by a full moon, he chose three spells bound to bring both agonizing pain and great power.

To manipulate the force of life.

Enhancement of pre-existing magical abilities.

And the ability to take knowledge from the dead.

Such powerful magic, however, is not meant to be used so lightly. Written in another age when the creatures of magic fought with one another, the spells in the Black Book of Guardians were to be cast upon a male in times of need. Few survived the agony brought on by the spells—most dying by their own hand after protecting their people in time of need—and well the body might endure, the mind was always broken.

Herel—like many before him—lost his mind and soul to the pain. For three years, Herel traveled the world, leaving behind him death, grief, and the blood of innocents. He took the life force and knowledge of those he killed, convinced that someone possessed the knowledge to end the pain consuming him. However, as time passed, Herel slowly returned to himself and remembered the beloved mother he'd left behind in the village where he'd been born. Weary and unable to attain his goal, he began the long journey home.

The village much Herel had left it, and he passed among the people who'd scorned and beaten him unrecognized. Finding his childhood home empty and filled with the dust of long neglect, he sought out those in the village to learn of his mother's whereabouts. The Elder with whom he spoke told him of her death—murder—nearly to years passed with the calm pride of one who believes a deed well done.

Grief mixed with anger and fueled by resentment flared in Herel's heart.

He killed the remaining Elders and those who'd maltreated him as a child.

Leaving the village in flames, he again fled armed with a powerful spell.

For, among the relics of the Elders collecting, Herel had found a warn bit of paper upon which was scribed a rune to subdue all others. This magic—ancient is the mountain lakes and just as elemental—allowed the bearer to make others' magic their own. With this horror added to his arsenal and his blood still burning after taking vengeance, he began another reign of fear and blood.

The Nymphs—wild creatures of nature and power—were the first to fall. Herel ruthlessly slaughtered them, gaining a vast well of knowledge, life-force, and untamed power from each body. His conquest, however, did not stop with the eldest of races; he continued to shed the blood of those possessing magic until his body was numb and pain of any kind no longer mattered to him. His raven hair—inherited from the father he'd never known—turned the color of freshly fallen snow and his eyes—blue as the midnight sky—became those of a monster. A snake's eyes, people would later mutter, yellow slits filled with deadly malice.

A thought accrued to Herel as he wandered the grey world; if he was alive, then there must be others like him who'd survived as well. The books that had lead him down this path—books he long ago destroyed—had been used upon others. He searched forgotten regions, at last finding and killing three like himself.