Chapter One

"Death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death. If we took eternity to mean timelessness, not infinite. Then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

My world is very different to the ones told in storybooks, the myths and legends created for children. The stories of dragons and quests, and the magic of true love in which can heal the deadliest of poisons or the most fatal of wounds. These stories are made with happy conclusions. My story does not have a once upon a time ending, in some ways you could say it never ends, in others you could say it never truly begins. Some people say they never have a purpose to live, that they sit there waiting wondering how they would die. I could die in every single way imaginable and always live on. My purpose in this world has not been explained to me, sometimes in life it never is. People live their lives not knowing if they’re meant to make a change or to be something a bit more significant. However, for everyone that passes through me, something is not complete. There is no such thing as a pure heart or an untainted soul, but that does not mean everyone is cursed. Religion is far from the truth, doing bad things is not going to curse your life or send you to hell. You are the person you want to be, not the one somebody else tells you, you are. When somebody says you only live once, laugh at them. Tell them everybody lives a thousand times before they die, but only if they want to.

In this life, I am Liva, daughter of Sir Alpha Karmon, a simple mutt first in line to run the pack of Rofdale. We are a noble pack, turn once a full moon, feed only upon animals, all of the decently hearted traits my father enforces. Rofdale was a place created by wolves and faeries. Wolves protected the magic in which the faeries carried, whilst faeries break the curse upon every new-born cub, a simple and peaceful treaty in which has been working for over seven hundred years. Knowledge like this is known by everyone, beast or man. It is taught in schools as a basic history lesson, because knowledge is pure power.

"Liva"

Confusion and worry parted his lips in the form of my name, once again I turned to see a miserable poor soul parted from that which formed him. He stared at me with pistachio eyes fill to the brim with fear and clouded judgement. Running a hand through his sweating wind swept hair before our eyes both drifted to his chest. A small but sharp, wood cutting axe laid deeply wedged in-between his ribs.

"Sir Lux, I hope it wasn’t too painful" I spoke calmly and sincerely as he lifted his head and started walking towards me. Sir Lux was a friend of my father’s and a very honourable person.

"So the stories are true?" He spoke, "You are the bridge between here and the next, showing yourself to me in a friendly form?"

Stopping in front of me, I place my right hand upon his shoulder, "I’m as real as the stories, but not as scary and this is my true form, for now" as he listened to my voice my job began. Tracing his shoulder with my fingers releasing my power, it flowed through his body unnoticeably until it reached the blood that drenched his cotton top and the axe that had cracked his bones. Turning them into dust before his eyes, I disconnected his soul from the world he once belonged whistled letting his death scatter around us like a pixies ceremonial dance. His pain had been quickly forgotten.

"Liva I’ve known you since you were a child?" As he questioned my realness, the dust of his death drifted behind me in a spiralling formation to create a glass door to the other side, "Liva, how?"

His eye looked behind me at the door and completely still, this hold body went. I pulled him in to a hug, "The Bridge jumps from one body to another when its vessel is unstatutable. I have no choice in who I become, but my job stays the same, it is now your time to move on"

Moving back from him a sweet but sad smile passed between us. Sir Lux was harmless to me; I could tell he would past smoothly, so I gave him a moment to make his own way to the door, instead of bring it to him. He turned his head back to me as he place a hand on the glow frame, "I didn’t get to say good bye, tell them I love them, please?"

Seconds after my agreeing nod Sir Lux stepped through the door and I was back in reality, which was history class with Miss Shimmer. I have to say Sir Lux’s passing was one of the easiest ‘bridge’ moments I had ever experienced, especially because I knew him.

“Liva” Miss Shimmer called my name, she like everyone else in the class was staring right at me, “I was asking why we have axe men?”

Spreading my fingers along the rosewood table before me, I released my answer was going to have to be intelligent. I didn’t like being stared at, but when it was because I had a ‘bridge’ moment it just made me mad.

“We have axe men to protect the nectar of magic that runs through the hawthorn trees”, I started, “They are wolves that once called to duty get a mark that appears upon the left wrist…”

Axe Men

When Rofdale was formed, the wolves wanted freedom from a curse in which created them in to monsters, whist the faeries wanted to protect the ten hawthorn trees that gave then there powers.

Therefore, a treaty, created to protect both wolves and faeries, this produced the ten axe men. Ten family lines where the oldest son once turned of age would love nothing more than to protect one hawthorn tree until he passed.

The mark of the axe men would appear upon the chosen once left wrist once his father passed, or he comes of age. These ten men keep the balance between the faeries and wolves by protecting the magic that helps them both.

“…this treaty is what keeps Rofdale and all that live within it at peace” I finished and saw wide eyes and opened mouths, maybe a little too much information.

“Have you even taken the time to read our history book?” Miss Shimmer questioned me. I nodded at her, but that only seemed to make her angrier, “How then dear, do you know more than is within our own history books?”

A smile spread across my face. Sweet Miss Shimmer was a very good teacher but like mostly everyone else in Rofdale, she was blind. The elders had something planned and it had already taken action. The last time I was here only small fragments of the Rofdale history had been forgotten, but now it seemed a lot more had been lied about and changed. Life after life I see things change, some harmless and good, some much like this scenario changing history and messing with the trust and balance.

Normally is it my job to live my life and see things planned out how they are meant to, because I am only ever as powerful as the vessel I am placed within. That power is sometimes nothing, but this time I was not just going to stand by, not when it is the place I helped build.

“As I said before Miss Shimmer, I am a lost soul I was there seven hundred and forty nine years ago,” Speaking with a clear voice, my words echoed through everyone’s thought. People thinking if I was lying or if there was a possibility of truth in my words.

“Are lost souls real?” The girl behind me whispered to her friend.

Although it was a whispered, both Miss Shimmer and I had heard those words. The hesitation that she didn’t want was now building in her class. I had nothing against teachers or Miss Shimmer, but she was on the elders circle and that was what I wanted to destroy.

“Liva, please keep your own history views to yourself from now on” Miss Shimmer spoke as calmly as she could fake. Then took everyone attention off me and continued with her lesson. However, I had done all that was needed and for the next couple of minutes I listen to the whispered passed around the room. If it was this easy to make a classroom of sixteen to eighteen year olds question the place they lived within, then the whole of Rofdale was not going to be too hard.

I turned to look at the boy sitting next to me. It was now my time to keep my promise to his father and if I didn’t say anything soon, the boy would know by the appearing of his mark. Miss Shimmer just gave me the right way to mention it.

“Alec, as your father is an axe man do tell the class how many axe man there are at only one time” She asked him.

Alec Lux is a seventeen-year old wolf, born in to the Luxintroff bloodline, he is the first born of his family with a younger boy and sister. Alec was my friend, a close one at that. He was a sweet guy and reading the way he responded to Miss Shimmers question he wanted nothing to do with the axe men.

“There are ten at this moment, and always will be” He responded, very cleverly hiding his true feeling on the matter.

“Was” I whispered, but only so he could hear me. He did, looked right at me and swallowed very heavily, taking a deep breath I cut Miss Shimmer off from what she was planning on saying and spoke loud so that all could hear, “At this moment in time there are nine”

“Liva, what did I say about…”

Ignoring Miss Shimmer plea to shut me up, I turned to Alec and with utter disrespect for my friend I spoke, “Your father is dead”

“LIVA” The teacher bellowed across the class room, whist Alec’s eyes were focused on me, “Get out of my classroom, NOW”

For a second, I thought Alec had loss all trust in me. Maybe he thought I was pulling a joke over him, until he looked at his wrist. The axe men mark had appeared before his eyes, eyes in which now looked lost. Alec just sat there as his wrist shined bright and formed the classroom in to a field of whiteness. With everyone hiding their eyes I stood over Alec and lowered my head in forgiveness. It felt like forever before Alec’s hand touched my shoulder, but his face didn’t tell me I was completely forgiven. Taking his hand I stood him up and led him to the door just as the brightness began to fade.

I was just about to leave the room as Miss Shimmer called after me, “Liva if you leave this room, never come back”

It was not the first time I had been told to leave and it was not going to be the last. Throughout my lives I had been; banished, left for dead and cursed, so a little warning like that was going to do nothing. I turned my back and walked right out the door with Alec steps behind me. I wasn’t trying to be a rebel, but listening to fools was not how I was going to spend eternal life. Leaving the vicinity; I led Alec far from the school grounds. We headed North, went around where the hawthorn trees were protected to the deepest, quietest part of the forest. It was called the unforgiven lake. People would wonder within its mists and never find their way out, trapped forever until death by age. Unless aging didn’t affect you, now that was another story.

Alec had been silent the whole time, not questioning where he was or looking up. He was stuck in a bubble of depression and shock. Maybe telling him his father was died in front of everyone wasn’t the smarts of moves, but mistake are made and now I had to fix them.