Chapter 1

She opened her eyes, the eyelids heavy, and as a bright light swept through her eyeballs without warning, her body shook violently. She breathed hard, feeling excruciating pains in every inch of her body, as if a truck had trampled on her. Thick, she raised her head up and watched the hot sun's rays sneak through the holes in the quilts of herbs and branches, illuminating the hole that contained them.

She furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding what was happening around her, and closed her eyes, trying to urge herself to understand what was happening with her or to remember why she was here. And when she came back empty, she was terrified and afraid, rising from her shrine, and she was lost around her.

She was trying to get out of the hole by climbing up that wall of weeds, but no sooner had she caught a tender branch than he let her down, placing her on the ground.

Her back returned her to the bottom of the pit.

She sighed in relief at the pain that had gripped her for a moment, fading away gradually.

She listened to her surroundings, hearing the harmonious sounds of nature in a wonderful symphony. The rustle of trees, the clash of nearby waves, and the chirping of merry birds aroused her curiosity.

She tried to straighten her seat, but she was unable to experience the disturbing dizziness that chained her movement. She groaned, soaked in a wave of pain, but she did not give in to her stubbornness to urge herself to stand up again and try to get out of this hole in which she found herself without any idea of the reason, pointing to her eyes with the palm that she extended. Before her, smeared with a dark, sticky, dry liquid, and her tattered clothes stained with the same liquid, blood! Is it blood?

She rose in terror, checking whether she had a wound, and when it was ascertained that she was healthy, she experienced a different kind of panic: blood from this?! Why is she covered in blood without being able to remember anything about it?

She gasped, shedding involuntary tears, trying hard to find something in her mind, only to return empty, anxious, and ignorant, not having an answer to any question that came to her mind!

............

Coming out from under a cascading torrent of icy cold water, he pushed his blonde hair back, revealing his emerald eyes, away from his slender, muscular body jutting out of the stinging water range towards the nearby rocks, where his usual clothes, brown leather pants and a wide leather belt draped over his shoulders, awaited him. The right hand is towards his left waist, and there are sleeves for his weapons that do not leave him day and night.

He bundled him up, wearing his leather boots, which are the afterlife, containing sleeves for his daggers of various sizes, and he walked back towards his small village, which numbered no more than fifty people, as it began two hundred years ago with seven people, and now they are multiplying at a rate that satisfies him to the point of gluttony.

His clique, consisting of his loyal men and their families, swore allegiance to him and kept their oath even after the passage of all those centuries.

They searched for him and followed him after he broke with the rule of Hardin and came out from under his authority, so he became one of the fugitives who demanded their heads at any cost.

So he chose for himself this remote island to be his shelter away from all the memories of the past in which he grew up, a past tattooed all over his body that overlooks him every time he sees the reflection of his face on any surface that crosses his path.

A past that visits him from the depths of Hell, haunted by its spectra with nightmares that refuse to leave him even after all those centuries have passed.

He raised his head and watched the disc of the sun, which was preparing to set behind the horizon, bid farewell to the island, leaving coldness and darkness, announcing the end of the children's play period and the start of the parents" role in guarding the area from the attack of what remained of the savage Sirana.

He admits that what the twins of Kayden, nicknamed the Daughter of the Sun, did aroused his fascination and appreciation. Celine, the daughter of the sun, who unleashed her revolution on Zein and all his descendants, transformed their hideout that had protected them for centuries into a mass grave that contained their remains.

And now they and his males are trying to eliminate the rest of them to protect his village and his family from their brutality and tyranny.

He left the waterfall area and penetrated into the dense forest, which the twilight began to adorn with its calm, serene colours, disturbed by the croaking of frogs and the howling of owls scattered around.

He slowed his steps, slipping his palm towards the sheath of his sword, taking an attacking posture, when his ears picked up the vibrations of malicious footsteps coming from his right, brimming with his senses with a strange smell of unknown nature. Its prey struggles to keep its soul in its bed, feeding the spectres of its hell that refuse to free it.

He was sixteen years old when he was first killed. When he stood on Matthew's chest, his best friend, and blood spurted from all over their bodies, it was an exhausting and even battle between them until Matthew at last gave way to victory.

Jaden breathed out, feeling the fires of hell all around him.

His palm shook over the sheath of his sword, recalling that nightmare that steals sleep from his eyes, the moment he was kneeling on Matthew's chest, raising his rusty dagger, reluctant to take his soul, his eyeballs shaking turbulently and his chest rising and falling at an exhausting pace, and Matthew grabbed his trembling palm and led him towards his chest containing the dagger. empty, not to retreat, not to coerce and relieve him from his hell, but to kill him and prove to everyone that he will no longer be the prey.

On that day, everyone around him was waiting, waiting for him to retreat in order to pounce on them, the mighty king's monsters, who made a vow to themselves to turn their lives into hell from the moment they were born and did so by the most heinous means and ways.

He looked around and saw their thirst for blood—beasts devoid of feelings of kindness and pity, machines made to kill without mercy.

He decided that day to be the executioner instead of the one who was lashed, and since that day killing became his hobby, a hobby he took that taught him the laws of survival, either to be the murdered or the killer, the prey or the hunter, the oppressed or the oppressor, and he decided that everything after the

...............

After a lot of effort, countless attempts, and bruises all over her body, she was able to get herself out of that hole. She crawled out of it, gasping for breath and feeling very dry in her mouth and throat. She needs water now and immediately.

She was moderate, trying to re-arrange her worn-out, tattered clothes that were drenched in blood, evidence that she had gone through circumstances and sufferings, and only the Almighty knows her nature...

She looked around the place to remind her of the reason for her presence there. Questions ran through her mind without finding an answer to one of them:

Where is she?

What brought her here?

What happened to her to be in this body?

Whose blood are you covering?

She listened to the sound of the roar of water coming from a place nearby in the forest, urging her feet to head towards it so that she might find fresh water with which to quench her thirst.

But she took a few steps away from that ominous hole until she found herself facing a gladiator who froze her to the ground, snatching her breath from her chest. She stared at him in terror, stuck in her place, trying to urge her feet to obey her desire to escape in the opposite direction.

She stared blankly, her eyes wide, unable to crystallise what she felt in his presence, a mixture of fear, dread, and dread, striking in her eyes his huge size, his great height, his leather clothes for gladiators, his many weapons, and his sword drawn in her face.

.