Red Monika: Huntress of Shadows and Deadly Secrets by Jade Gretz
The wind howled through the shattered remains of an ancient battleground, its icy breath a whisper of the dead. Red Monika stood alone on a ridge, her crimson hair whipping violently against the tempest, her sharp blue eyes scanning the horizon. The sky above was the color of bruised flesh, dark clouds swelling with the promise of a coming storm. She tightened the grip on her twin axes, the cold steel almost comforting in her hands. She was no stranger to storms. She had lived through worse.
But this storm was different. This storm was personal.
The ghosts of her past were catching up, and she knew it. Every step she took had led her here, to this forsaken place, where the shadows of her past sins roamed freely, waiting to claim her. Somewhere in the dark, her enemies were closing in. She could feel it in her bones, the unshakable dread of the hunted. The trail of blood she had left behind in her years as a mercenary, a thief, and an outlaw was now turning back on her like a rabid beast. The faces of those she had wronged—faces she had long buried in the recesses of her mind—had begun to resurface, twisted in agony and seeking vengeance.
Monika took a deep breath, steeling herself for what was to come. She had never been one to run from a fight, but this was no ordinary battle. This was a reckoning, and the price for her survival would be paid in blood—hers or theirs.
A soft crunch of footsteps echoed from behind her, barely audible against the roar of the wind. Monika spun on her heel, her axes raised defensively. A figure emerged from the shadows, cloaked in darkness, its face obscured beneath a tattered hood. The air around them seemed to thicken, as if reality itself bent to their will. There was something off, something wrong about this figure.
“Monika,” a voice rasped from beneath the hood, a voice like dead leaves scraping over stone. “You thought you could escape us forever, didn’t you?”
Monika narrowed her eyes, her heart pounding in her chest. She knew that voice—though she had hoped to never hear it again.
“Korin…” she whispered, the name like poison on her tongue.
Korin had been one of her earliest allies, a ruthless mercenary with a hunger for power that rivaled her own. Together, they had razed cities, toppled warlords, and taken what they wanted without mercy or remorse. But greed and ambition had driven them apart. When Korin had turned on her, Monika had struck first, leaving him for dead in the ruins of a burning fortress.
Clearly, death had not been kind to him.
Korin’s hood slipped back slightly, revealing a face twisted by time and vengeance, his once-handsome features now scarred and disfigured. His eyes, once vibrant with life, were now hollow pits of darkness, staring into Monika’s soul as though he could see every one of her regrets.
“You left me to die,” Korin snarled, his voice thick with venom. “But death wasn’t the end for me. It was only the beginning.”
He raised a skeletal hand, and the ground beneath Monika’s feet trembled. The earth split open, and from its depths, figures began to claw their way to the surface—twisted, mutilated forms, their eyes glowing with an unnatural light. These were no ordinary soldiers. These were the souls of the damned, men and women Monika had killed in her quest for power, their broken bodies now animated by Korin’s dark magic.
“Do you remember them, Monika?” Korin hissed. “Do you remember the lives you destroyed?”
Monika’s gaze flicked over the rising corpses, her stomach churning with a mix of guilt and fury. She had killed many in her lifetime, but never had she been forced to face them like this. Her sins had always been something she could leave behind, something she could bury. But now, they had risen from the grave, hungry for her blood.
“Fight them if you can,” Korin continued, a twisted smile curling his lips. “But know this—every soul you slay here will drag you one step closer to your own damnation.”
Monika’s knuckles turned white around the handles of her axes. She could hear the whispers of the dead, could feel their cold breath on the back of her neck. They surrounded her now, their decayed faces contorted in expressions of rage and sorrow. Some of them she recognized—faces from old battles, from jobs that had gone wrong. Others were strangers, collateral damage in her pursuit of fortune and fame.
But Monika was no stranger to death. She had fought against overwhelming odds before, and she had come
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Red Monika: Huntress of Shadows and Deadly Secrets by Jade Gretz