James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

“I love her still,” Leitos admitted, and abandoned trying to hold back unshed tears. They ran freely, caught by the wind as they fell from his cheeks.

“As do I,” Ba’Sel agreed somberly.

They stayed that way, standing on either side of the mound of stones marking her grave, until the sun sank below the horizon and lit the sky with the brilliant colors of a fading fire. Far to the north and east, across white-capped waves, the imposing bulk of the Mountains of Fire waited and watched, a rugged blight upon the distant land that gradually melded with the coming night. To the south, scores of lesser islands marched off into the sea, now gone a deep blue in the waning light. East and west, only the expanse of the Sea of Sha’uul barred the way to the far sides of the world.

As the first stars began to dot the velvety darkness above, Ba’Sel said, “On the morrow, you will begin your training.”

Leitos blinked at that, not in alarm, but in curiosity.

“War is coming,” Ba’Sel said in answer to Leitos’s unspoken question. “War unlike any ever seen upon this world. You must be ready-we all must be ready. The days of cowering in shadows, of waiting for the most opportune moment to strike, those days are behind us.” With that, he turned and walked away, a troubled ghost heeding the mournful cries of its brethren trapped within the stones of the Singing Islands.

Leitos stayed behind in the cool of the deepening night, alone with Zera’s lingering spirit. The moon crept above the horizon, its battered gray surface bearing testimony to everything that the world and the heavens had suffered since the Upheaval. The winds calmed, and a voice spoke within him, kindled a tiny flame deep within his being. Grow strong and cruel , that voice said, slowly fanning the flame into a seething conflagration. Grow strong and cruel, and avenge the blood of our forefathers .

The Faceless One ruled with a scepter of iron and a fist of blood, sure in his knowledge that he held the advantage in seeking out all members of the Valara line. He may even know of a certain youth, Leitos Valara, not long released from ingrained fears stronger than any chains. Leitos meant to humble him, the Faceless One, but not before forcing that being to live in dread of his name. In the fullness of time, the Faceless One would cower before him, pleading for mercy that would never be granted. On the morrow, he would take the first step along the path to see that done.

Ba’Sel had named what was coming a war, and perhaps it was. Leitos vowed to himself, to the Silent God of All, and to those who had suffered under the Faceless One, that he would help in anyway necessary … but what he would wreak was nothing so trite as war. His soul demanded a reckoning , and he would have it.