Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Accepting the inevitable, he walked to the center of the birthing meadow, brushing past the young sapling cubs stretching themselves skyward. The sun was high overhead, yet with each step the air got noticeably colder, and the grass beneath his feet began to crackle. Strange, he thought, remembering his time in the meadow as quite warm. Now, however, frost was spreading out to cover everything. Most of the sapling cubs were big enough that the frost had no effect on them, but one tiny Wolf Oak began to bow, its slender trunk slowly curving toward the earth as its leaves started to blacken.

He walked toward the little sapling cub and then stopped short. It was silver. Only once in many decades was a silver born to the Wolf Oaks, and not without cost. Even as he recalled that there had been no silver when he had gone to the birthing meadow, another elf entered the meadow and walked toward the sapling cub. She was young, and beautiful, her eyes filled with love and concern for the little tree. A voice sounded in his head then, a scared, weak voice begging for help. It was the sapling cub, and it was dying.

Konowa swayed on his feet, overcome with the power in that small, fragile voice. It yearned for life, for the chance to grow its roots deep into the earth and stretch its branches high into the open sky. Never in his life had he felt such need, such desire to live.

More elves filled the meadow, and it was clear that unlike the elf before Konowa, the silver Wolf Oak's pleas would find no solace with them.

" Pwik tola misk jin -to life the strongest," said the elves of the Long Watch, turning and leaving the birthing meadow.

Tears of sorrow and rage welled up in the elf woman's eyes as she stared after the departing elves. Konowa understood her anger and her grief.

"We must save it," he said, hoping there might yet be a way. "We have to save it."

The scene before him suddenly changed, and he was now standing on top of a black, bare mountain, the wind tearing at his clothes. He shivered with the cold, his breath coming in painful bursts. The little sapling cub was now a full-grown Wolf Oak, but twisted and jagged, its roots stabbing the rocky ground beneath it while its branches flailed at the sky. Thick, black ichor oozed from its trunk, staining the once-silver bark, and the voice that had cried out for life now raged with an insane, consuming fury.

The elf from the meadow was there, too, stepping between the slashing branches, which parted for her. She rested a hand on its trunk, uncaring of the ichor that ran over her skin, lighting it afire in a blaze of black frost. She was no longer young and beautiful, age and something more having carved great lines into her features. Her eyes, however, were still filled with concern and love, but with an intensity that froze Konowa to the bone when he looked into them.

"Now, I will save you, too," the Shadow Monarch said, reaching out with her burning, cold hand and touching the tip of his left ear.

In his nightmare, Konowa burned.

A steward entered the throne room and quietly placed a cup of evening tea before the Viceroy. Gwyn clasped it prayerlike in both hands, curling his fingers around the cup. He had changed from his traveling clothes. The light from the lanterns bounced crazily off the coronet that now rested on his head, a delicately worked crown of white gold studded with jewels representative of every foreign land he had visited as part of the diplomatic corps, and incorporated into the Empire.

Protocol demanded that the crown be smaller than Her Majesty's, and it was, barely. No fool though, he wore a second, much smaller and more modest coronet when traveling to Calahr, or on the rare occasions the Queen ventured forth to survey Her lands.

The light also highlighted his exceptionally pale skin, stretched taut across a delicate bone structure that bespoke his pure heritage, something many in the High Court were sadly lacking. That was the problem with empires-the bloodlines of the conquered lands mixed with that of their masters, polluting everything. In time, he would deal with them. For now, though, he focused his thoughts on his immediate situation.

Within the starched precision of his uniform, he forced his body to relax until no outward sign of movement could be detected. It was a trick he'd picked up early in the diplomatic corps and had used to great effect on many occasions. Without need of a mirror he saw himself perfectly: velvet-green jacket with gold facings, his slender shoulders made larger by two wide epaulets, blood-red aiguillettes of fine silk braid hanging down from each, gold-plated buttons in double rows running the length of the jacket's front, and around his waist a brilliant white belt from which a thin rapier hung in a scabbard of wrought silver. It was like looking at a painting, an effect Gwyn desired, for under the table his legs shook nervously in their riding breeches and calf-high leather boots.

He had scheduled a meeting with the commander of the cavalry forces in Elfkyna to commence an hour ago, but the Duke had not yet arrived. Gwyn knew it was deliberate. Why the Queen had allowed a despicable lower-caste peasant to rise so high in her army escaped him, but it was indisputable that the bastard knew how to fight.

Gwyn sipped sparingly at his tea until the voice of a retainer telling someone "this way" signaled the arrival of the Duke. The Viceroy turned slightly in his chair to offer a chiseled profile to the scoundrel.

"Good evening, my dear-" Gwyn started to say, then stopped. A green-uniformed corporal wearing the distinctive "Crown and Wagon" patch from one of the Outer Territories Trading Company's regiments stood just outside the ring of lanterns.

The elf came to attention and saluted.

"What is the meaning of this? Who are you?" Gwyn demanded.

The corporal lowered his hand. "Corporal Takoli Kritton, part of the piquet detail, your grace. There was a disturbance in front of one of the posts tonight. A rakke, sir."

"Are you drunk, Corporal? I've always found a firing squad a quick cure for that." So, the rumors about the last Viceroy were perhaps not the idle chatter he'd once thought.

The corporal didn't blink. "I am not drunk, your grace."

Gywn considered the elf. His voice was soft, his movements slow and deferential, but something told Gwyn you wouldn't turn your back on him. It was the eyes, or more precisely, the fact that they revealed nothing at all, and Gwyn prided himself on being able to plumb the depths of souls and learn their weaknesses.

"Really?" Gwyn said, affecting boredom. "Yet you interrupt me with stories of extinct creatures. Very well, if what you say is true, bring it to me."

The corporal took several steps forward and placed a large haversack on the table. A dark stain grew at its bottom, and an oily fluid began seeping onto the table.

"What's this?" the Viceroy asked, recoiling from the bag.

"Its head."

The Viceroy didn't bother opening the haversack. He didn't need to. Wheels began to turn in his head as he worked through the ramifications. The last Viceroy had been in Her service, and Her power was clearly expanding.

Yes, he could use this.

The Viceroy allowed himself to feel a moment of joy before he reined himself in and looked back at the corporal, making a more thorough appraisal. The elf slouched slightly, as if trying to make himself appear less than he was. He wore his long black hair tied in a queue, but again, it was his eyes that gave Gwyn pause. A Hynta-elf, Gwyn decided, his complexion as dark as that of some of the elfkynan. You never could tell how old these elves were, unless they looked ancient, and even then one never really knew. This one appeared to be in his midtwenties, not that that meant anything to him.