Zeta

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Long ago, there was only one. A dragon with scales the color of snow and eyes like diamonds, ice on her breath and fire in her heart. Just waiting to be set free from the glacier in which she was being held prisoner.

~❅~☾~❅~

‘And it was that the Shayde elders joined hands and spoke the sacred words, channeling their power and combining it, becoming one of many and many of one. The world began to burn around them as the heart of the sun was drawn from the sky. Ripped from its home, crashing to the ground, leaving the world in darkness. Only an empty husk remained. A second moon to orbit the earth in tandem with the first. A gentle glow where raging fire had once burned.

But the Shayde elders made a mistake, a grave miscalculation, and the heart of the sun did not land where they could see it. Where they could lay claim to it and destroy it. No, the heart of the sun came to rest in the lands of the Glayce. Those who worshiped Thena and the light, those who held dominion over the snow and ice. The Glayce found the heart of the sun and sealed it away, using their magic to keep it safe from all those who sought to bring it harm until it could be returned to its rightful place.’

Excerpt from ‘A Detailed History of the Five Kingdoms’ by Aiwin Faera

~❅~☾~❅~

The string of Theo’s bow swished taught as he shot a final feather-tipped arrow over his shoulder. The hooded figures chasing him had all but dropped away, the dark of ceaseless night granting the sellsword enough cover to escape. It was supposed to have been a quick in-and-out job. Enter the stronghold, grab the map, and get out. There weren't supposed to have been half a dozen heavily armed guards! The bastard who’d hired them was going to get an earful at minimum, a knife to the throat at most. Where had Gabriel gone?

Theo and Gabriel had grown up together in Westcliff, a small fishing town in the kingdom of Shimor. They’d been friends since before they could walk. Practiced fighting with a wide array of weapons until they could beat almost everyone in town. It was their only skill, really, the only thing they knew how to do. It was all they wanted to do. So, when they came of age, Theo and Gabriel had journeyed to the capital city of Mairis.

They worked as a pair, selling their services to whoever had enough coin to afford them. And they made good money too. But Gabriel was... well, his condition could cause trouble at the least opportune moments, and knowing he’d caught a knife to the abdomen and had led a group of the guards on a chase while bleeding out wasn’t doing Theo’s anxiety levels any favors. Gabriel was like a younger brother to Theo. It was only natural to worry.

The inn they’d planned as a meeting place came into view and Theo slowed to an easy stroll, pulling the hood of his dark cloak over his face. The shadows served well enough for concealment, but one could never be too careful.

He passed through the front door of the inn and hurried across the common room to the staircase. The sound of his footstep on each riser was like a booming echo inside the sellsword’s head. He couldn’t get to his chamber fast enough. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong; Theo could feel it. Sense it on the air. He had the map, they’d done the job as they were instructed to, but something was wrong.

~❅~☾~❅~

Faelyn adjusted his cowl, making sure his hair was covered as he padded slowly down Mairis’ high-street. This city had a strange energy to it, a unique energy, even when the streets were mostly empty. Faelyn could feel it thrumming against his fingertips, burning against his skin. It was lovely and warm in this place, Faelyn thought, remembering flakes of snow that melted on his tongue and sparkled in his brother's hair. Remembering the blizzards that swept across the palace and turned its windowpanes white. Remembering how the daylight would glitter on the ice after the blizzards passed, before the sun had been stolen from the sky. Remembering home.

The bundle of herbs he’d purchased safely stored in his pack, Faelyn was just contemplating finding an inn for the night when he heard a weak cry coming from up ahead. His ears perked up, tracing the faint sound to its source and increasing his pace. He was always grateful for his elven hearing, especially in moments like this. When he could hear the sound of someone in need of help.

An alley on the left. Soft panting. A little groan, as if it had escaped unbidden under the person’s breath.

“Hello?” Faelyn called, loudly enough to be heard but not so loud as to startle the injured person. If they were in any state to be startled at all, that is. He checked his cowl once more, just to be sure, and finally came upon a man curled in a heap on the ground. Or Faelyn assumed it was a man, broad and visibly tall even when horizontal. The sole of his boot made a soft squelching noise as he moved closer to the man and with a pang of fright, Faelyn realized he had stepped in blood.

“Hello? Can you hear me? What has happened to you?” he asked, sidestepping the pool of vitus and kneeling by the man’s head. Faelyn lightly tapped the man’s cheek. Nothing. He hunched over and put his ear besides the man’s mouth to listen for the telltale whisper of breath, and there it was. The man was alive. In a bad way, that much was obvious, but he was alive.

Faelyn brushed the man’s golden hair off his forehead and found it matted with scarlet. He wasn’t nearly skilled enough at healing to mend a head wound if there was one, but... maybe the apothecary? The kind apothecary he’d purchased the herbs from seemed knowledgeable enough and coin wasn’t an issue for Faelyn. If only this man would wake up. Faelyn may be strong, but the injured man was as big as he was and half again, and deadweight would only make the job of carrying him down the street more difficult.

“I’m going to get you help, alright?” Faelyn whispered, flexing his fingers and placing them on the man’s temples. A peel of bawdy laughter from a block away made Faelyn’s ear twitch but he didn’t let it break his focus.

~❅~☾~❅~

The friendly man Faelyn had met earlier jumped to his feet at the sight of the two, staggering and no doubt absolutely covered in blood. “What happened to him?” the man asked, shouting for someone named Lawrence as he hastened around the counter. He was nearly as tall as Gabriel and just as well built, short dark hair falling across his forehead and pretty ink decorating the bits of skin Faelyn could see. And kind brown eyes. Eyes Faelyn immediately trusted.

“I found him lying in an alley like this, can you help him?”

The man worried his lip between his teeth and gently moved Faelyn’s scarf to peer at the nasty gash on Gabriel’s side. “We’ll do what we can, but this certainly isn’t good.”

A second man that Faelyn hadn’t seen before appeared from what he assumed was a back room, presumably this Lawrence the other had called for. He took charge of the situation at once. “Bring him this way, just through here. Elias, please move everything off the cot so he can lay down,” he said, command clear in his voice as Faelyn helped Gabriel maneuver around the counter.

Getting Gabriel onto the cot was harder than Faelyn had been expecting. He dragged the elf down with him until Faelyn was kneeling on the cold stone floor. Faelyn released his weaves with a sigh, moving around so he was out of the apothecary's way to crouch beside Gabriel’s head. He kept attempting to soothe the man as Lawrence got to work, combing his fingers through Gabriel’s hair and humming softly.

“Who did this?” Lawrence asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the wound as he dabbed it with a wet cloth to clear away the dried blood.

“Not- important.”

Lawrence shot Gabriel a look of pure irritation. “Yes, it is important. I need to know what kind of blade it was, if magic was involved. I don’t care if you were doing something illegal, but I have to know.”

Gabriel inhaled sharply as the apothecary’s cloth touched a particularly sensitive spot. “Don’t know- about... magic. Sword.” His fingers found Faelyn’s wrist and squeezed tight.

“I can’t sense anything,” the elf said, probing around the wound with invisible strands of atmos. There were no traces of sorcery either dark or light. Lawrence glanced at him with mild suspicion but nodded all the same. “Elias, calendula, comfrey, lemon balm. Please,” he added, nodding at his assistant. Elias scurried off to fetch the requested herbs as Lawrence continued to clean the wound.

“You’re- very kind... to bring me here,” Gabriel mumbled, his eyes slipping shut and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness again. Faelyn gave his hand a squeeze. “But I can heal on my own. I just need- my friend.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lawrence snapped, taking an armful of jars from Elias and opening them one by one. “Have you seen yourself? You’d have bled out and died within the hour if this kind man hadn’t brought you to me.”

Gabriel shuddered and did his best to stifle a scream as Lawrence began working in earnest, snatching up Faelyn’s hand and pressing his lips to the inside of Faelyn’s wrist. The contact sent a jolt of something rocking through the elf’s entire body. Like he’d been shocked, the magic within him amplified almost to the point of burning. It was a struggle to keep it contained.

“I can... I’m... I just need...”

“Please, try to keep him quiet. Wasting his strength on talking won’t help matters any,” Lawrence said sharply, massaging a strong-smelling ointment on the edges of the cut. It was already taking the entirety of Faelyn’s concentration to keep the magic from exploding out of himself, but he did his best, mindlessly humming and letting Gabriel groan against his wrist.

The assistant, Elias, paused in the act of handing Lawrence clean strips of cotton. “Who’s your friend? Where are they? I can bring them here?”

“The inn... the Broken Gate,” Gabriel rasped. Faelyn could sense him slipping further and he took a calculated risk, dipping into the well of power within himself and expelling the smallest bit of lumina he could manage. Letting it leave his body and flow into Gabriel. He wouldn’t have normally- this was not the way with strangers. Giving away one's lumina was the most sacred of practices, only to be used in the direst of circumstances. But Faelyn could not simply sit by and let this man die. Not when it felt like he’d found a home after so many years of wandering.

“I know it, their name?” Elias nodded, looking to Lawrence for permission before grabbing a dark red cloak off a peg on the wall. Gabriel winced. “Theo. Tell him- ahh tell him Gabriel sent you. He’ll come.”

Elias nodded again, patting Lawrence’s shoulder before hurrying out the back door and into the darkness. The apothecary watched him go but resumed tending to Gabriel almost at once.

Faelyn had begun to itch from the effort of suppressing the surge of strength bubbling beneath his skin. He could feel Gabriel’s weak breath puffing against his wrist, flinching at each whimper and moan of pain. If only there was something he could do to help. If only he was more skilled at healing. If only Gabriel’s wound was magical rather than mortal so Faelyn could take this pain away.

“You say you can heal on your own? How is that possible?” the elf asked, staring down at Gabriel from beneath his cowl.

The garment was a necessity for someone with Faelyn’s appearance. His body and voice and style of movement gave away the fact that he was of elven descent, there was no getting around that fact, but his hair and eyes were another matter entirely. When cowled, most who looked upon him mistook Faelyn for a Tayre which was just fine with him. The Tayre were a good people, kind and generous and lacking the stigma around his own race.

The Glayce. The elves with hair like frost and eyes the color of a frozen pond, the elves with the most power of all races. Most people thought the Glayce were extinct, killed off in the war with the Shayde some hundreds of years ago. But Faelyn and his elder brother had survived. The crown prince and the spare, left to live out their long lives alone in the Glayce stronghold at Lurlian.

Faelyn gave a minute shake of his head to banish thoughts of the years spent behind those frigid walls with a monster in disguise. This human needed him now, Gabriel needed him, and dwelling on the sorrows of the past would do neither of them any favors.

Gabriel had begun panting again, forming words against the near-translucent skin of Faelyn’s wrist. “I can- huh I can take something from my friend, if he gives it to me. Take it and use it to mend my hurts.”

The elf frowned. “Does your friend possess magic?” he asked, resuming the petting of Gabriel’s hair he’d momentarily stopped. Gabriel chuckled darkly but there was no humor in the sound. “No, he- he doesn’t. It’s me. I’m the one who steals... who takes. He simply provides.”

“Take it from me then.”

The words left Faelyn’s mouth without a second's hesitation. He didn’t even have to think about it.

Gabriel blinked up at him in surprise. “You- you don’t know what you’re offering,” he sighed, a single tear slipping from the corner of his eye as Lawrence began stitching him up with a wicked looking needle. The elf shook his head. He could sense a bond forming between himself and this human, and while he didn’t completely understand it yet, Faelyn was old enough to know better than to ignore the signs. He would not allow Gabriel to perish before he figured it out.

“I’m strong, I will be fine. Just take what you need.”

“Take it. Whatever it is, just take it. You need every edge you can get right now,” Lawrence murmured, speaking for the first time since his apprentice departed. Faelyn nodded in agreement. “We have much to talk about, I think, and we cannot do that if you die here on this cot.”

Gabriel grimaced, hesitating for a moment longer before pressing the inside of Faelyn’s wrist to his mouth once more. The elf felt a warm tingle of breath, Gabriel form the word ‘sorry’, before he bit down with a ferocity that Faelyn wouldn’t have imagined him capable of.

Faelyn yelped, both from pain and surprise. He jerked his arm back, or tried, Gabriel’s other hand clamping around his elbow to stop the elf from pulling away. He felt his skin break, felt Gabriel’s teeth digging into his flesh as his blood began to flow into the human’s mouth.

“Darah! You’re a Darah?!” Lawrence exclaimed, dropping his needle and skittering backward away from the cot. Faelyn didn’t blame the apothecary for his fear.

Delving deep into the recesses of his mind, Faelyn tried to remember the lore he’d read about Darah. Humans with so little lumina inside themselves that they were forced to steal it from others. Regarded as the children of Zanja, the goddess of darkness and death. Widely distrusted, but Faelyn remembered feeling bad for the Darah. Remembered thinking that they were just misunderstood creatures doing what they had to do to survive.

Being caught in a Darah’s grip was worlds different from reading about them though. If Faelyn had known... the pain he could bear, pain was nothing but- Gabriel didn’t know what Faelyn was. Didn’t know how much magic the elf possessed. No human, Darah or otherwise, should consume the blood of a Glayce. Take in that much lumina. The effects could be... Faelyn didn’t exactly know. He didn’t think it had ever been done before, but he couldn’t imagine they would be good.

“Gabriel!” he gasped, feeling the man's jaws clamp harder.

What he’d claimed about healing certainly seemed to be true. The nasty gash that had stretched from his hip to just under his ribs had knit closed in a matter of seconds and Faelyn could hear that the man’s heartbeat was stronger and more even. But the elf could also feel himself beginning to grow weak from blood loss. He tried to pull his arm free once more but Gabriel growled against his bite and dragged him closer.

There was only one thing for it. Employing the strength he had left, Faelyn wove a thick strand of atmos until it was strong enough, looped it around the man’s waist and tugged, ripping Gabriel off him and holding him several feet in the air. Gabriel’s dark irises flared a bright ice white and he struggled for two, three heartbeats before regaining control of himself.

“What are you?” he breathed, eyes returned to their normal dark brown and so intent on the elf that Faelyn could almost feel their heat on his face. Like his hood wasn’t even there.

Faelyn swallowed a lump of fear in his throat, pressing a corner of his cloak to his wrist to try and stop the bleeding.

“I’m an elf. Can’t you recognize an elf when you see one?” he muttered, reluctantly releasing his weave and setting Gabriel back on his feet. Gabriel nodded slowly and made to approach but Faelyn scooted quickly so his back was pressed against the wall.

“I can close that up if you let me.”

The sincerity in the man’s voice was clear and Faelyn spared a single glance for Lawrence, still backed up in the opposite corner of the room, before nodding. He could see the lines of worry creasing Gabriel’s brow, a hint of regret in his eyes and sadness in the downturned corners of his mouth. It was so incredibly strange, this feeling, like he was looking in a mirror. Able to understand the most minute gesture like he’d known this man his entire life.

Gabriel walked over to him and sat cross legged on the floor. “I’m sorry. My friend says it hurts more on the arm, but I didn't think you’d take too kindly to me lunging at your throat,” he said softly, taking Faelyn’s hand in both of his and raising it to his mouth. Faelyn flinched back on instinct but the man held him in a gentle grip. His tongue darted out to lick at the wound, and...

The feeling was peculiar if not altogether unpleasant. The sensation of flesh resealing, hurts dulled to nothing, skin humming at the feeling of a type of magic Faelyn was unused too. It only took a matter of seconds but all that remained was a faint scar.

“We aren’t evil, I promise,” the man continued, reaching for the damp cloth Lawrence had been using and dabbing the bit of excess scarlet from Faelyn’s skin. “We just need... you know- need it to live. But you aren’t a normal elf. I thought you were Tayre at first, but...”

Gabriel reached for his cowl but Faelyn slapped his hand away. “I am Tayre,” he lied, assuring himself that the hood was still in place. “I’m- I am disfigured. The shroud is a mercy to all who must look upon me.”

It was an old lie, and a good one. A safe one. Once people thought he was ugly they lost all interest in trying to see his face. He’d sewn the cowl himself, a tight wrap that he could pull up to cover his nose and mouth with a long hood over the top of his head. Not much could be done about his eyes, but if he wore the hood low enough, they were at least slightly concealed.

The man narrowed his eyes but didn’t press the issue. “Well... in any case, I’m sorry for hurting you. But thank you for your sacrifice.”

“You’re welcome.”

~❅~☾~❅~

The back door swung open with a bang and a man that resembled a hurricane full of teeth swirled into the room, Elias trailing behind and looking slightly put out.

“Gabriel? Night, I thought you’d been killed! Why didn’t you return to the inn?” the man exclaimed, voice several octaves deeper than Faelyn had been expecting. He rounded on the elf with fire burning in his wide brown eyes. “And who in the five hells are you!?”

“This is Faelyn, he found me and brought me here. He and Lawrence saved my life,” Gabriel said smoothly, stepping in so Faelyn didn’t have to speak. The newcomer was presumably the Theo that Gabriel had asked for. “Did you get it?”

“Of course, I got it! But I would have happily left it rather than let you throw yourself in front of enemy blades like that!”

“I didn’t throw myself anywhere, Theo. I’m better with a sword than you and you’re faster than me. It was a logical solution.”

“Don’t pretend like this was some kind of plan! We didn’t plan for this! You acted without thinking, as usual, and I will cut off the rest of our contracts if you insist on being so-“

“Stop shouting.” Lawrence didn’t raise his voice but the two words held a note of command that was completely unassailable. Theo rounded on the apothecary with a glare that was downright ferocious. “This doesn’t concern you, healer.”

“It does now, since you’ve come into my shop and are screaming at my patient.”

Theo opened his mouth to retort but Lawrence held up a hand before continuing. “Sit down and have a cookie.”

“Really, Theo, I'm alright,” Gabriel added, giving Theo a grin so boyish it made Faelyn want to coo and pinch his cheek. Theo eyed the apothecary, squinting and scowling, but he did sit.

~❅~☾~❅~

“We’re sellswords,” Gabriel said, earning a sharp smack to the back of the head from Theo and returning it with interest. “We were doing a job and there was more security than we expected. I got injured, we got separated, and then Faelyn brought me to you.”

“What kind of job?”

“A man paid us to retrieve a map that had apparently been stolen from him.” A jab to Gabriel’s ribs made him wince and Faelyn rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. He didn’t like this casual violence. It rubbed him the wrong way. But the cookie was starting to fortify him, and the whistling of the teakettle only heralded more refreshment, so Faelyn stayed silent.

“What kind of map?” Lawrence asked, standing and handing the tray of sweets to Elias on his way to pour tea. Faelyn wanted to ask for another, they were absolutely delicious, but he still kept his mouth shut. This didn’t seem like a time to interrupt.

“We don’t know.”

“Well, you have it don’t you? Let’s take a look.”

“No!”

“Theo, come on,” Gabriel urged in a voice that edged in whiney. His friend wasn’t having it though. “Have you conveniently forgotten that we were paid extra for discretion? Not to ask any questions and above all else not to look?!”

“So, we give him back the bonus!”

“You must have lost your mind, Gabe, truly! We had plans for that money- hey!”

Unnoticed by either of them, Lawrence had maneuvered around and snatched a small case from the inside of Theo's cloak. Faelyn couldn’t help but smile.

The case was thin and cylindrical, maybe twelve inches long, bound in deep indigo leather and decorated with black embroidery that almost seemed to sparkle. Something about the unnatural glimmer set Faelyn’s ears twitching with agitation. He drew several drops of glacia from the air around him and wove it with the existing strand of atmos, beginning to probe at the case. Trying to feel, to sense if it had any magic to it-

Gabriel’s worried face was hovering in front of him but Faelyn kept his eyes fixed on the case. “Zanja’s work, dark magic,” he murmured. If they were going to open it, which Faelyn now really wished they wouldn’t, letting one of the humans do it would be a mistake. He waved Gabriel away and tried his best to suppress a shudder of revulsion as he took a hesitant step into the center of the room.

“Back up, all of you, please,” the elf said quietly, reforming his atmos and glacia weave and plucking the case from Lawrence's hands. It pushed against him, strained, clearly as repulsed by Faelyn’s magic as the elf was by it. Once all the humans were a safe distance away and Theo's protests had been quieted, Faelyn took a very deep breath.

He added a bit of terra to his weave, not enough to be visible but just to give it some strength. Forming that with one hand, he drew up a column of atmos around each of the humans, so they’d have a bit more protection. The first strand began to pluck at the closures on the case, poking and proTheog to find the seal, then slowly, hesitantly, popping open the snaps keeping it shut.

A cloud of pure darkness burst from the end of the case and Faelyn mentally patted himself on the back for the precautions he’d taken. Still holding it in the air with the first strand, the elf nudged open one of the room's windows and formed a gust of pure atmos that succeeded in pushing the darkness outside before it could touch any of them. He slammed the window closed once all of it had dissipated.

“Hold,” Faelyn snapped. Theo made to step forward but froze in place at the sharpness in the elf’s voice. There could still be something else lurking in the case's sinister depths.

Faelyn slowly turned the case upside down. A tight scroll of ancient looking parchment slid out and he managed to catch it on a gentle cushion of atmos before it hit the floor. But that was all the case held. No more darkness flooded the room, no other magic that Faelyn could sense. Good. He let the case fall a few inches before shoving it into the empty hearth and dousing it with kindra, burning the leather and thread to cinders in an instant.

“If you had opened that without me here, the lot of you would have been poisoned by the shadow and died within an hour,” Faelyn said, dropping the shields around the others. “I would very much like to know who thought they were skilled enough to deal with such magic that they paid you to get it.”

“We don’t know,” Gabriel replied, one large hand closing convulsively around the elf’s wrist. “They left written instructions. We were only going to meet them when the map was delivered.”

“Is it,” Elias cleared his throat, “Is it safe to touch now? I didn’t like the look of that cloud thing, whatever it was.”

Faelyn nodded slowly. “I can’t feel anything else, neither of malign influence nor good.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll look. I found it so I should do it,” Theo said, stepping forwards and kneeling before the scroll. His fingers were quick and nimble as he plucked at the chords keeping the scroll shut. They were tied in a simple knot and the man unwound them easily.

“What’s the Thunderspire?” Theo asked the room at large. Faelyn blinked. He’d read about the Thunderspire once, in the library back home in the palace. “A mage tower, or it used to be a mage tower. It was destroyed in the Shimoren civil war some seven centuries ago,” the elf replied, confused. It wasn’t like the tower was a secret. Why would a map to it be guarded so strongly?

“Is that all?” Lawrence asked, moving to kneel at Theo's side. “It says...” Theo trailed off, paused, and then continued, “One of ten, five of two, together when the world was new. Come look here and then you’ll find, that all the stars have been aligned. One of dark and one of light, hand in hand instead of fight, break the seal and look within, return the sky to what once has been.”

“There’s more, an inked #1 on the bottom, and here in this corner,” the apothecary said, the honeyed lilt of his voice slicing through the silence that hung thick in the air. The rhyme or poem or whatever one called it was foreign to Faelyn’s ear, but he could almost feel an unnamed magic humming within the words. Lawrence nodded to himself and began to read.

“Six of six the set must be, if they wish to find the keys. A child of ice, a child of shade, a child of blood and the land remade. A child that mends, a child that breaks, a final child that speaks with snakes. Two of one heart reunited, one of love most unrequited. The second two of north and south, both possessed of a wicked mouth. The final two still more unalike, one that runs, and one that fights. Six children must join the quest and give the captured heart its rest.”

~❅~☾~❅~