Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

It reached out and touched the sand. White flame burst to life and Her Emissary’s moonlit shadow caught fire. The pain was exquisite. Every fiber of its being twisted in agony. It stood up and called forth the frost fire, struggling to put out the flame. Every second Her Emissary’s shadow burned, it knew it was dying. Marshaling its remaining energy, Her Emissary focused the frost fire and finally extinguished the flames. The distraction, however, had served its purpose.

Sand erupted in a geyser behind Her Emissary, hurtling it into the side of a dune. It jumped to its feet only to feel its shadow engulfed in white flame again.

Two scaly beasts crawled forth from a sandy pit, spitting fire. Pain once again wracked Her Emissary’s body. Through the roaring flame, Her Emissary saw great jaws lined with sharp teeth and eyes flickering with white fire.

“You are children of kaman Rhal,” Her Emissary said, the knowledge of its former self, Viceroy Faltinald Gwyn, coming back. It called forth more of the power of the black acorn deep in its chest. Her Emissary accepted the pain of the white fire as it marshaled icy flames like obsidian blades at its fingertips. When the frost fire was strong enough, it lanced out like a scythe, slicing into the scales of the creatures, which screamed ragged coughs of flame. The closest took the brunt of the black flame and collapsed in a writhing mass. The second climbed over the first, spitting more white flame and fusing the sand into glass underneath Her Emissary in an attempt to immobilize it. Molten glass seared Her Emissary’s skin even as the white flame burned it from the inside. The creature charged, its jaws opening wider in anticipation.

Her Emissary focused the power, fashioning a long, flickering spear of pure frost fire in its hand. As the creature lunged, Her Emissary stabbed down with the spear into the creature’s open mouth and down its throat. White and black flame spread across the sand, locked in a savage duel. The air steamed and shimmered, then crackled with ice.

The creature thrashed and tried to bite at the spear of flame, but its efforts slowly subsided. It then shuddered and fell to the sand, now motionless. The white flames died as the frost fire overtook them. Soon, there was nothing left of the two creatures but ash and one small piece of bone in each pile. Her Emissary bent to grab one, but before it could, a single white flame consumed each fragment and then was gone.

Standing up straight, Her Emissary looked around the dunes, the flaming spear still clutched in its hand. Nothing. No further threats. It was severely hurt, but pain was now its natural state of being. Its pain was nothing if it helped the Shadow Monarch achieve Her goals. Her Emissary flowed its senses outward, searching for more of Kaman Rhal’s creatures, but detected no sign of them. Satisfied, it let the flame die out.

It moved to the next dune and placed an acorn in its shadow. This time, black frost fire sprouted from the sand, followed by an inky black tendril of a sarka har.

Yes, Her forest would grow here.

Her Emissary began walking the dunes. As the acorns fell, the sarka har took root and began to grow. Roots dug deep into the sand, searching for the rock beneath. There was a power here, bitter, thin, and old, but it was energy nonetheless and it could be used.

Branches stretched to the sky, clawing the air as if to pull the very stars from the blackness. Her Emissary knew it was not in vain-after all-the Stars were returning. The Shadow Monarch had lost the first one. She would not lose another.

Her Emissary walked south, cutting across the desert with Her forest growing and rising behind it like a black, gaping wound. A small village stood in its way, and succumbed, the screams of the dying ringing like crystal on the night air. Still Her Emissary headed south, angling the line of trees toward a point in the desert only it could see.

Her Emissary needed no map, for it was guided by something stronger. It felt it.

Another Star would soon fall.

The power long banished from the world was returning, and it was as palpable as the crunching frost under its feet. Her Emissary quickened in its task. Konowa Swift Dragon and the Iron Elves would come seeking the Star, but they would already be too late.

Her Emissary was right. Konowa would not be the first to find the fallen Star.

But neither would Her Emissary.

Alwyn shifted on the pillows serving as his seat, but couldn’t get comfortable. His stomach rumbled. He had tried a bit of everything, including the roast lamb, but food had little appeal to him. It was as if his normal senses were no longer connected to his body. He scanned the room again. Any one of the patrons in the Blue Scorpion could be a spy for the Shadow Monarch, or even an assassin. He fidgeted some more and pulled his musket a little closer.

The sloshing of liquid made him turn. A waiter had quietly refilled his cup without Alwyn’s even hearing him approach. He vowed not to be surprised like that again even as he raised the cup to his lips and downed the liquid in one gulp. The rumbling in his stomach subsided and a warm wave moved through his muscles. He reached forward and grabbed one of the smoking tubes from the hookah and brought it to his lips, taking a long, slow puff. Water gurgled in the apparatus with a satisfying rumble. The smoke was cool and smooth in his throat, and when he blew it out several seconds later, he had stopped fidgeting.

“My leg doesn’t hurt,” he said to no one in particular. He patted the wood where his knee would be and said it again. “Can’t flee…feel, a thing.” The room was gently spinning. It was a strange effect. He wondered how they did it.

“Course you can’t feel it, it ain’t there,” Teeter said, ignoring the shared smoking device and drawing on his pipe. He pursed his lips and then blew a smoke ring across the room. An elderly man smoking a hookah had accepted the challenge and was blowing smoke rings back. Each time one got his ring to intersect the other’s, a few men clapped.

“S’not what I mean,” Alwyn said. “There’s no pain where they meet. It’s like the smoke just smoothes out the differences between the magics, you know?” He tried to show Teeter by moving his hands in the air, but his fingers just wiggled and soon he was transfixed by their movement.

“It ain’t regular tobacco, see,” Zwitty said, talking around a smoking tube in his mouth. Smoke curled up from his nostrils to wreathe his head in swirling gray, but what really gave him an eerie quality was the smile on his face. It looked real. “There’s a place in Celwyn where you can get this, but it ain’t cheap. Never knew where it came from. Might just have to see about taking some back when we ship out of here.”

This drew a loud laugh from Hrem and a snort from Yimt. Both raised themselves from the progressively reclined positions they had assumed as the evening went on. Zwitty’s smile disappeared, to be replaced with his more usual sneer.

“You’re a businessman now, are you?” Yimt asked. “Between the souvenirs you’ve been collecting on our island hops and now this, you’ll be able to buy a dukedom in what, another fifty years?”

“I ain’t took nothing that wasn’t rightfully mine,” Zwitty said, reaching out to pull his shako closer. “And what’s wrong with trying to make a bit of a profit? It’s not like we’re gonna be soldiers forever…”

“Found a cure for the oath, have you?” Hrem asked.

“I got one,” Alwyn said, reaching out a hand to pat his musket. Yimt intercepted it with a plate of sliced fruit wedges.

“Here, eat some of these and try not to talk rot,” Yimt said.

Alwyn looked down at the plate. Delicacies he’d only heard of seemed abundant here. There were oranges, lemons, and huge pink wedges called watermelon. Tasting any one of these would have filled him with glee just a few short weeks ago. He grabbed one of each so that Yimt would leave him alone.