Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

At first, Colin saw nothing, but the wind came from that direction and made it difficult to see, cutting inside the hood of his jacket. He brought one hand up to shield his face and eyes-

And saw what Aeren must be talking about. He felt his entire body stiffen, his breath caught in his throat. He struggled against the paralysis for a moment, then exhaled harshly, his lungs burning with cold as he sucked in another lungful of air and stepped close to the edge of the roof.

Far to the northwest, lights danced across the frigid wastes. Like the sheets of snow being picked up and blown across the city, the blue-and-green light wavered and drifted across the landscape, rippling and coruscating into deep purples and lighter greens nearly verging on yellow. And like the flames of the fire in the room below, or the mists on the southern side of the mountain, the colors rose and curled, licking toward the sky before fading into nothing.

Colin watched for a long moment, Aeren standing silently behind him. Then he said, “They’re like the aurora borealis, the lights you can sometimes see in the night sky here in the north.”

“Aielan’s Nightdance, yes.” Aeren took a step forward. “Except this is not part of the night sky. This is on the ground.”

“Have you been watching it the last few days? What have you seen?”

Aeren shrugged. “Nothing extraordinary. It moves across the landscape, both day and night. Sometimes it fades into nothing and for hours the horizon is clear. Other times it has appeared in multiple locations. It’s only come to within an hour’s walk of the edge of the city, but none of us have risked investigating it in person.”

“No.” Colin shook his head. Even watching the mysterious lights from this distance, he could feel the back of his neck and shoulders prickling. The lights reminded him of the coruscating colors he could see in the occumaen when he slowed time, and remembered vividly how deadly that rippling phenomenon had been to those who were caught in it. Moiran had barely escaped, with Colin’s help. Most of her entourage had not been so lucky.

He shuddered and turned toward Aeren. “Without a closer look, I can’t be certain… but I think it has to do with the Wells again. It’s like the occumaen and the storms on the dwarren plains. We should keep our distance.”

“Does it mean that whatever is happening to the sarenavriell has gotten worse?”

“I don’t know. These lights could have been here before, and they could have been worse. There’s no way to tell. But I don’t like it. We need to find the Well as soon as possible. Something is happening, and if it isn’t the Wells.…” He let the thought trail off. If it wasn’t the Wells causing the disturbances, then he didn’t know what it could be.

“We can leave as soon as the others return, if you’ve recovered enough to travel,” Aeren said.

Colin shivered as a stronger gust of wind cut through his jacket and touched his skin. “I can manage. Right now, let’s get off of this roof and out of the cold.”

They left the city behind without stopping, skirting the manse and entering the low hills beyond, Vaeren taking the lead and setting a harsh pace. A day later, they emerged from the forest onto a flat that had once been grassland but was now tundra, the grasses sparse, the frozen earth reduced to bare stone in places, the harsh wind keeping it nearly free of snowfall.

Colin raised his hands to shield his eyes from the worst of the wind as the rest of the party pulled out additional clothing to wrap around exposed skin. To the west, the strange sheets of pulsating light that Aeren had shown him from the rooftop in Taeraenfall danced across the flatland, angling north, but still too close for comfort. He slowed time for a moment, to see what the lights looked like, but they didn’t appear any different. Perhaps larger, their influence spread out farther, but nothing else significant. Even at this distance he could feel the weight of the power behind them, could catch a taste of the Well, as well as a scent of the dwarren’s Confluence.

He’d turned his attention toward the north, where he could see the ominous ice wall of the glaciers-a lighter, ephemeral blue than the washed-out color of the sky near the horizon-when he felt someone grip his arm.

He thought it would be Aeren, was surprised to find Siobhaen staring at him, concern etching her face.

“You… faded,” she said. “Flickered.”

He smiled in reassurance. “I’m fine. I was checking on the lights, trying to see what they were like with time slowed. It wasn’t what happened back in Gaurraenan’s halls.”

Siobhaen’s shoulders relaxed and she nodded, stepping away. Colin caught Aeren watching from a distance and shrugged.

A moment later, Vaeren stepped forward. “How far away are we? Where exactly are we headed?” His voice was muffled by the heavy scarf wrapped around his face.

“You can see the glaciers on the horizon, but they’re deceptively distant. We’ll be there in approximately two or three days, depending.”

“Depending on what?” Vaeren asked suspiciously.

“Depending on whether we run into any trouble, such as wolves, or those strange lights, or a storm.” Colin shrugged. “After that, it will likely be another day or so until we reach the Well.”

“I don’t understand how the Well could have been so close to where we used to live and be mostly unknown to us,” Siobhaen asked. “We only found references to it in the Scripts. There was no mention of it in the folklore of the time, except in passing. How could it have remained hidden from us? Why wouldn’t we have used its power back then?”

“You’re assuming that the Well itself contained the Lifeblood back then. It didn’t. This is one of the Wells that Walter and the Wraiths reawakened recently. In fact, I think this is the Well that the acolyte Benedine found in his research, that he located for Lord Khalaek.”

“How do you know that?” Vaeren asked, tightness in his voice at the mention of his previous lord.

“I saw the rough map that Benedine passed on to Khalaek’s aide. Even though I couldn’t read the writing at the time, I remember the details of the topography.”

“But you said that Khalaek refused to give Walter the information at the Escarpment. How did Walter find out about the Well?”

“Does it matter? He found it, and awakened it.” He glared off into the distance, thinking about Walter and the knife wrapped in chain mail in his satchel. “Be careful,” he finally said. “And keep your eyes out for game. There are rabbits and such on the tundra, but they are few and far between. If you get a shot, take it.”

Then he grabbed his staff and led them onto the flat.

They halted that evening in the lee of a stand of rock, what had once been a watchtower at the corner of two intersecting roads. Heavy cobbles could still be seen, but the continual upheaval of the lands as water froze and thawed over the seasons had buckled and broken many of them, the cracks filled with brown grass. Throughout the night, they heard the howls of distant wolves.

The wind died the following day, the snow it carried settling back to the ground. The sky was cloudless, a vivid wintry blue. Both the Flame and Aeren’s Phalanx spread out, searching for game as they moved, but Colin retained the lead, Vaeren close behind him. They were forced to stop early, the shimmering lights that the Alvritshai had begun to call iriaem-ghost lights-skating across the distance between them and the glaciers. The huge wall of ice now filled the horizon, stretching away on either side, even though Colin knew that it was still at least half a day distant. He frowned at it nonetheless, and at Aeren’s questioning look said, “It’s closer than it was thirty years ago.”