When a storm arrives, some feel it in their bones. Others turn on the television or swipe a screen, glancing at little pictures of suns and snowflakes. In certain instances, you can taste the storm, wrapping the tremor of the sky around your tongue. Even if it appears quickly, in this world, there are signs one can look to.

This was not the case for Zez. One moment, the sky above the rolling hills gleamed with the blueness only a Italian summer can provide. Fluffy white clouds drifted lazily by, like sheep wandering through a cerulean field. She felt the sunshine pour through the windshield and warm her skin. The heat distracted from the throbbing pain in her calf.

She hummed a nameless tune and maneuvered the car around a bend in the road, crawling higher up the hill. The convent sat at the top of the road. She always thought it was so they could be closer to God. Zez snorted, at the ridiculous image on God reaching down a hand, like in a Renaissance painting.

All thoughts of frescoes disappeared as soon as she turned and the sky turned black. She slammed on the brake as the world collapsed into darkness. Her chest thudded against the wheel, as panic crawled across her skin. 

The sky was no longer blue. It was the purest black she had ever seen. Zez froze, her eyes frantically searching the landscape for some explanation.

It began to rain. The darkness appeared to be ink-filled clouds, sagging with their weight. Raindrops plopped upon her windshield, thanking nothing but clear. Zez tried to maneuver the car, to turn it around, but the gear would not shift. Everything in the car had stilled, though the motor still ran and the gas tank indicted it was still nearly full.

"Fuck," Zez said.

The rain began to fall with more anger, smacking down upon the car. The wind began to howl. Zez winced at the wailing and leaned down to rub her bitten calf, but then the car shot forward. She shouted something incoherent as the Fiat began to drive itself, maneuvering itself through the sudden storm. All she could do was grip onto the steering wheel and pray to a deity she did not believe in.

"What the hell, what the hell," she said, twisting around in her seat, and trying to see if the sky was normal behind her. It was not. Everything only seemed to consist of hills and rain and dark clouds.

One cannot think too hard about these things. It's best to just let the storm guide you.

The woman had no power over her car nor any control over where she was going. The storm kept building and building, until violent sheets of rain pounded down upon the roof and windows. Thunder roared and lightning flashed across the sky.

Zez gasped. As the lighting gave some vision to her drive, she was faced with the largest moon she had ever seen, consuming nearly half the sky. She swallowed a scream, feeling a cold sweat break out over her. The lightning disappeared. The car rocked in time to the storm. Zez clenched the wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned nearly transparent.

Another lightning flash and that terrifying moon appeared again, against a sea of twinkling stars. Zez felt tears escape her eyes and run down her cheeks, falling into her lips. Perhaps she was dead and the car was flying her to heaven. Maybe this was like the end to Grease, sans a stupid song and a carnival and John Travolta.

"No," she groaned, as the car took another turn, and seemed to climb higher and higher. She slumped in her seat, resigned to whatever was going to happen. Zez cared tremendously what was going to happen to her, but she didn't have a clue what to do. Once a silvery mist began to creep in, she gave up completely.

Zez squeezed her eyes shut. When she summoned the courage to open them again, she had to blink several times to understand how the world had shifted around her. The rain had stopped completely, the clouds of ink faded, and only the moon loomed in the star-speckled sky. It was as though all the chaos of the storm had disappeared, as quickly as it had arrived.

The world had not gone back to her normal. Her breath escaped as she took in the new landscape of lush hills, large as mountains. Descending from the slope of the tremendous hill were hundreds of trees, their bark whiter than snow and leaves a shining gold. The ivory forest guided the car round the side of the hill, crawling deeper and deeper into the unknown.

Zez leaned forward. The forest grew thicker and thicker, as the climb got higher and higher. Only the light from the moon and the stars, reflected off the pale trees, guided the way. At some point (Zez could not tell how much time had passed) the trees twisted in a different pattern, almost as though they were clearing a wider path.

It was impossible to decipher where the trees ended and the iron began, but Zez noticed how branches seemed to melt from bark to metal, contorting themselves into arches and rows. If someone has never seen an iron and ivory gate before, then it is understandable they may be confused on how steel and nature comfort one another.

Iron and ivory gates are very good at keeping most things out. This particular one must have had a default, because the gate disguised as forest let Zez and her little yellow car right through. It creaked upon, parting like a sea of unnatural design, and the car rolled on through. At this point, Zez was shaking like a dog and her knuckles would probably permanently be white.

The car barely made it through the opening when something thudded loudly on the roof. Zez numbly lifted her head, expecting to see a dent, but there was nothing. She looked back out the windshield and a scream ripped out from her throat.

Staring straight at her was a woman. This woman hung off the roof, dangling upside down in front of the windshield. Her blue eyes were as wide as saucers and her white braids hung down in thick ropes.

The woman did not echo Zez's scream. She blinked those huge eyes and flipped away from the car, landing gracefully on the ground. She smacked the hood and the Fiat ceased moving. Zez scrambled for the stick, for the wheel, for anything that might get her away from this woman and back out that iron gate and far away from this nightmare.

The next thing she knew, she was being dragged out of the car. As her chin hit the ground, she continued to scream. She flailed around like a fish as someone grabbed her hands and tied them with burning rope. She was hauled to her knees and through a blur of tears, saw that at least seven women stood around her. Some were poised with knives, others brandished staffs covered in flowers. They varied in shape and size and skin, but all of them had white hair. 

The one from her car swooped in front of the rest, holding up a staff with lilies twined around the base.

If Zez was not crying so hard, she would have noticed more details about this particular woman. She would have noticed the lilies matched the ones woven in those magnificent, snowy braids. Perhaps she would have seen the curious glint in her eyes or the way her long limbs shifted to accommodate a new thought. If she was from our world, she could have been a Valkyrie. Instead, she was a Maiden.

"Oh, God," she cried. "Please, I didn't...I don't know where I am...I'll leave, I swear, there was-"

"Look at her hair," the main woman said. She swiftly made to stand before Zez, looking like a mighty warrior. "This is but a sign. This is new. This is what Zanya has waited for."

The women then had a swift conversation about things that Zez did not understand. They spoke of vipers and saviors and strange words about manors. Zez felt sick to her stomach. She had taken a wrong turn on the hill. Something was horribly wrong and the throbbing in her calf had returned and she was about to be beat to death by a gang of flower girls.

Only a fool would think of these women as "flower girls," but we must cut Zez some slack. Foolishness often comes with fright and fatigue and frighteningly fatiguing situations.

The leader hauled Zez to her feet. Her ankle rolled and her calf's wound flexed and she yelped. The other women snickered. The leader grabbed Zez by the chin and forced them to see eye to eye. She was nothing but ice and wind, painted in a moonlit face.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded. Her words laced themselves with an accent. Nothing strong. Language was a funny thing in this land. Ancient and vast, flowing freely into Zez's mind.

"I don't know," Zez said, stupid as could be. (There is the expected foolishness, but then there is just idiocy.) "I mean, please...please...I'm Imogen...Zez..inger. I'm from...uh..."

"What is this carriage you arrived in? How did you trick the gate?"

"I didn't...I didn't do anything!" the tears continued to fall down her cheeks, fast and hot and furious. "I'm...I don't know where I am! There was a storm and my car got all weird and now I'm here and, please, for the love of God, don't hurt me."

The leader continued staring at her. Zez could see the blue veins pulsing against her pale skin.

"You are it," the woman said. "Maidens, we must bring her to Mordomus."

"Not to the-" another began to say, but quickly shut her mouth as the leader slammed her staff upon the ground.

"What?" Zez asked, the pain in her leg shooting up towards her head.

The pain in her head only intensified when she was smacked in the back of the skull. She crumpled forward, unconscious. Zez did not see a moment of the journey from the iron and ivory gate to the magnificent manor of Mordomus, which was truly a shame.

~

The idea of being transported from one world to another is not exactly a novel idea. There are countless stories where people fall from one place into a different, more wondrous land. Alice had her rabbit hole, Dorothy had a tornado, those British children had the wardrobe. Time and time again, stories of fantastic worlds have been told.

However, we have never read a story about a twenty-three year old woman driving herself into Tol Tava. This world is not like those others either. This is a world of bloody nightmares and astounding beauty and dark redemption.

Well, alright, maybe it's a little like those other worlds. It's not as though Wonderland was filled with saints.

Unlike those other stories, Zez was not amazed by the world she had fallen into it. She couldn't very well admire the beauty of this land while she was unconscious. The women who had captured her dragged her, quite unceremoniously, through the Garden of Grace. Zez bumped and smacked along the ground, her short hair becoming tangled with twigs.

The Garden of Grace was not a garden, per say.  It was hidden in snatches of the ivory forest, groups of people, living in small villages and working mysteriously. The land sat behind the hill, almost unreachable by anyone. 

There were many different paths through the ivory forest. One led to the temple. Another led to the largest of the villages, where the brewing was. There were bakeries and blacksmiths and tailors...everything you needed for a society, hidden away on this mysteriously dark hill, and always bathed in moonlight.

At the end of the most hidden path, the one which was barely visible through the trees, lay Mordomus.

Zez was dragged from the gates all the way to Mordomus in under an hour, which was quite impressive. The women marched her through the thicket of trees and grumbled among each other, eyeing their leader. The leader did not seem to notice their complaining, or if she did, she chose to ignore it.

Zez's eyes fluttered open and pain stretched across her entire body. She groaned, startling the woman pulling her along.

"She is awake," the woman declared. "Should we-"

"Hush," the leader said. "We are here. Take her to the entrance and I will go retrieve-"

Zez stopped listening, only able to focus on the aches that filled her bones. She shook her head and as the stars disappeared from her vision, Zez noticed that all of the women stared at her. Some with boredom, some with disgust, but most looked at her with great curiosity. She whimpered under their gazes.

Her eyes slid from the woman and landed on the place she had been brought to.

"Shit," Zez choked out. "Oh my God."

The beauty of Mordomus could only be described as terrifying. It was a massive manor, built of heather grey stone, and filled with windows and arches. Ivy, both made of the most delicate green leaves and the most beautiful blossoms, spread across the front, winding over ledges and snaking up over windows. A pair of huge, silver doors sat in the center, carved with images that Zez's tear-filled gaze could not make out.

"Where am I?" she asked, meekly.

The women just ignored her, looking peeved. Some tapped their staffs upon the ground. One sat down, cross-legged, and stared into the distance. A couple began to hum a pretty tune. Zez fidgeted with her tied up hands and tried to ignore the stinging in her calf. As she writhed around, a woman smacked her.

"Stop that," the woman said. After a pause, she added, "Why is your hair like that?"

"What?"

Zez hated her haircut- a bob that came to her chin and poofed out- but she had no one to blame but herself, her boredom, and a pair of scissors. Last Thursday had been a day of regret.

To her great relief, that was when the doors of the great manor decided to creak open. They slowly swung backwards and Zez trembled on her knees. The women jumped to attention.

The leader strolled out of the manor and Zez realized she hadn't seen her go through the doors. She had simply disappeared from the group. She looked around, and noticed people creeping out of the woods. Zez forced herself to look back at the doors.

The leader of the women stomped over to Zez and yanked her up by the arm. Zez yelped as she was dragged to the front steps of the manor and thrown down upon the first one. Her body would never recover from all these bruises. Her calf twisted. Pain was the norm now.

Zez looked up at the opening of the doors, expecting to see a front hall, yet nothing but darkness greeted her. Her tongue went dry as footsteps echoed. Several horrible beats dragged by, the footfall matching the thump of Zez's heart. Out of the shadows and in the moonlight, appeared a woman.

The most beautiful woman Zez had ever seen. 

-----

We've arrived in Tol Tava! I'm so excited to show off this world, guys. It's super dark and twisted, but also beautiful and filled with lots of cool things. 

It's moving faster than my other work, but we've gotta a lot of adventure to cover. Next chapter, we officially meet Zanya...The update will be on Thursday. :)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know your thoughts! 

Thanks for reading,

Lev