*Content warning: reference to undead, blood, small dagger cut.
Ahndras Frost grinned in the face of danger.
Specifically, the danger staring him down with cool silver eyes. He needed to strengthen himself now more than ever, and Etal-Lia was pleased to help. Etal-Lia, or Talli to her closest friends, was deadly even for a Xereth Hunter and offered just the challenge he needed to prepare for the trials ahead.
“Are we going to dance, Frost?” Talli teased, flashing a hint of fang.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Ahn bowed in exaggerated respect, gold hair slipping from behind his ears. He knew he’d come out of this worse for the wear, but that did not matter. Every hit he took, every time Talli kicked him to the dirt, was less time he had to spend worrying, packing, dreading the inevitable. Ahn didn’t want to think about setting out toward the malfunctioning Nightstar leytemple to meet his fate.
Fate, new Guardian—really, same difference, he thought as he readied himself.
Talli pounced with the fierce grace of a duskcat. Ahn held position until the last moment and then twisted with a grunt, boots sliding over the ground. Talli’s strike slashed through the air next to him, a light breeze whispering over Ahn’s cheek.
The Xereth woman circled around Ahn again, her eyes narrowed, footfalls silent. “You didn’t fall on your hindquarters this time. Good,” Talli said, a purr of satisfaction in the words as she slipped into a defensive posture. Ahn relaxed just in time for her to strike, this time her left leg sweeping out in a low kick. He grunted with the impact but didn’t fall. “Now come do this properly.”
“Properly?” Ahn echoed, catching his breath.
“Yes. With magic. You need practice in not hesitating,” Talli explained. A high ting of drawn steel rang through the air. She brandished a gleaming short sword, expression chillingly calm as she stalked toward Ahn.
Ahn watched as her body language changed, a fluid, subtle shift from friend into predator. Chills of warning skittered over his scalp. A soft shuffle of boot to dirt, and then suddenly Talli was bearing down on him.
Ahn extended his arms, fingers splayed, spell words on his tongue. He flicked one wrist in a quick jab, hurling a javelin of power toward Talli. The air froze around him, creeping like frost on a window from his hands as he channeled aether from Ahra’s leylines, magic that originated in the void and was the source of all Ahn’s power.
Talli grunted in discomfort as she stumbled from the force of Ahn’s attack, the spell weak enough to cause no harm, but strong enough that she felt it.
“Good. That’s more like it,” Talli huffed, shivering off the effects of the magic. She reset her stance, her blade leveled toward him.
Ahn raised his staff to prepare an attack bolt of aether just in time to catch Talli’s clawed hand in the face. Pain shocked through him, but ghostly blue aether gathered at his fingertips. Ahn shoved his hair out of his eyes and concentrated on his breath, ignoring the trickle of blood dribbling down his cheek.
Talli waited, patient.
Ahn dove forward, head low so he skidded under Talli’s reach, landing what would be a painful blow to anyone else he knew. Talli twisted fast enough to jut out one leg in the same sweep as before, but quicker, tripping Ahn before he could conjure another spell.
“Mmmph.” Ahn staggered, teeth rattling as he hit the ground with a heavy thud.
“You wished for a challenge, yes?” Talli’s voice was silky calm.
“I had hoped for a challenge and not an untimely death, so clearly you are holding back. I thank you for that,” Ahn muttered and dragged himself to standing. Even though they had been friends for a while, Ahn had never lost sight of the Xereth woman’s true nature. Talli’s people commanded respect for a good reason. Sparring with such a powerful warrior was a risk, even with someone as careful and controlled as Talli, but Ahn wanted the practice and the pain that these lessons taught him.
He would never again let himself be hurt like then. Like that awful womanhad done, that monster in human guise who had nearly cost him his life.
These were dangerous times, and he had to be prepared for anything. Especially with a Kraah sighting in Easthaven just weeks ago and a temple with leylines crossing the border into Umbra, near one of Ahra’s few remaining Waystones showing early signs of corruption.
“Are you finished?” Talli’s voice jolted Ahn’s attention back to the moment.
“Should I be?” Ahn fired back.
Talli raised her blade again, this time in an unambiguously aggressive attack stance. Ahn ignored her, closing his eyes. He lifted his hands skyward, sketching a rune of power in the air. and chanted softly. His words were a call to the aether, designed to command its shadowy power as a shield against enemies of the light. Aether leymagic swirled around him like a cloak of night-blue.
Something shifted in the air. Shivers skittered up and down his arms, and his breath whooshed out of his lungs like he’d been punched. A deep winter cold seized him, freezing his mind, terror slowing his thoughts to a crawl. This was not his aether, and not his magic. Ahn turned to Talli, his teeth chattering in the cold.
“D-do you f-feel that?”
“Yes. It feels like death.” Talli stood with her gaze trained beyond the clearing. She growled in warning. “Even smells like death. What is it?”
Ahn cast his senses into the surrounding region, then whispered a spell of revelation to show corrupted leylines or corruption-borne creatures, just for an instant. He opened his eyes, and his breath hitched in relief. The spell’s results were usually instant, and the clearing was unchanged. He opened his mouth to reply to Talli, the words washed away by a wave of terror.
Sickly green power snaked in shuddering lines to the north of where Ahn stood. The presence of dark magic slammed into his awareness, and he coughed, a wave of nausea flooding over him before his spell collapsed and the lights faded.
“No,” he whispered, forcing himself to speak. “It can’t be.”
“What is it?” Talli pressed, moving closer to Ahn protectively, her blade at the ready.
“The Nightstar leytemple. The leylines are sick with corruption,” Ahn rasped. He needed to breathe, to feel his feet on the ground again.
“What about the wards you placed?” Talli asked, frowning.
“Archmage Miir assured me that the corruption was still weak. That we’d have days before the situation became serious. She’s never wrong about these things. And,” Ahn paused, holding Talli’s silver gaze, “my wards were the strongest I can cast, if that tells you anything about what’s happening here.”
“What do you need from me?” Talli asked, understanding the gravity of the situation at once.
“If you guard me, I’ll reinforce the wards now, and conjure another aethershadow to keep the temple safe until I can get there.” Ahn nodded with confidence he didn’t quite feel. Horrific corruption, a leytemple in terrible danger… It was too familiar. Too much like before when everything had almost ended for good.
There is no room for fear. Only solutions, he chided himself internally. He just needed to meet up with his new guardian as planned, then he’d be able to fix this mess.
“I’ll be vigilant,” Talli said.
Ahn nodded, relieved. Surrounded by corrupt leylines, he risked tapping into dark things when using his strongest aether spells. Talli’s protection was welcome. Ahn planted his feet in place, shut his eyes and lifted his hands. He shivered at the needle-prickles of aether leymagic coursing from his fingers, and his breath billowed into white clouds as his magic froze the air.
Ahn concentrated, picturing the Nightstar Temple in as much detail as he could conjure: the scents of earth and fresh growth from its gardens, sunlight on the rose-tinted stone of its facade, the gentle sacred silence surrounding the building and grounds. He muttered a word of command, pushing his inner sight until the protective wards flickered in his mind’s eye, dotting the peaceful leytemple grounds and flaring in the windows of the structure itself. Good. They were still alive, if sputtering.
Now came the hard part: giving form to the void.
“Stand back,” Ahn ordered, sweating from the effort of taxing his inner vision. “This might cause a stir,” he added. Talli backed away, but only a little, her gaze alert.
Ahn swept his right toe in a circle through the dirt of the clearing, then used the same foot to trace a sigil in the circle’s center. In a practiced and rote motion, he drew a dagger from the belt at his side and poked the index finger of his left hand with the sharp point. Ahn wiped the dagger, sheathed it, then squeezed his finger till a few drops of blood landed on the sigil with soft hissing noises. Wisps of blue leymagic curled from the drops, and the sigil suddenly blazed to life within the circle.
“Source’s power in the void, aether I call. Protect the temple, keep my wards strong, guard the leylines from evil.” He intoned the spell words in high Tan’shi, blue flames flickering higher and higher, until they snuffed out with a soft whoosh of air.
He sealed the protection spell over the leytemple grounds, then dropped to one knee in exhaustion. Talli rushed to his side, unhooking a flask from her belt.
“Drink. And, I’m sorry I wounded you,” she added, voice faltering.
Ahn waved the apology away and took the flask, downing half the potion in one go. The skin of his cheek tingled and tightened as the restorative worked, the sting of Talli’s claws dissipating in moments.
“Talli, I need you to get Willow, round up the guards and check the perimeter. Bring leymagic-treated weapons and be careful. Do you understand?”
“We will secure Duskmere before you must leave, I assure you,” Talli said, grim promise in her voice.
“Thank you.” Ahn sat for a moment while his friend jogged away, noiseless as a cat. He shook his head, gazing toward the disturbance.
There was something unsettling at work. He would have Willow and her guards remain, and he would set extra warding spells over every inch of this place before he left. Wards with proper bite. This darkness must not make it any further. And if he had to call in reinforcements from Porthaven, so be it.
This alien evil had shaken him, sticking like a splinter in his thoughts. He sighed and finished the restorative in a second enormous gulp. A flutter of darkness flashed through his peripheral vision…or was it just his imagination? Ahn stood, leymagic igniting as he scanned the clearing. Another shadow darted to his left, and a whisper clawed at his mind, hissing foul curses, a voice everywhere at once.
A terrible, familiar voice.
He tried to cry out to Talli, to call her back to his side. Working with the aether could bring beings of shadow much too close for comfort. But he had no guardian to bring him back to the world. Ahn tried to move from the clearing, but his feet were rooted to the ground in terror. Cold. So much cold. Mind-breaking cold, treacherous as the faraway Dominion’s northern peaks. Brittle, dark ice and a malignant presence he had felt at another time in his life crowded his inner vision.
It could not be her. At least, not through any magic in Ahra that he knew of. “She is dead, Ahndras,” he assured himself, his voice hoarse with fear. “Dead and gone.” Nothing remained after the explosion. Ahn blinked away the fleeting sensation of snowflakes dancing around his face, shivered off a remembered brush of icy fingertips on his cheek before the vision, waking dream had faded.
“How hard did Talli hit me, anyway?” Ahn said aloud into the quiet clearing.
It was not as effective as a guardian’s touch or prayer, but the sound of his own voice moored him. He glanced around and noticed everything was twilit. How long had he sat there recovering? Even the weather had changed, the sky roiling with heavy clouds and a raw, frigid wind buffeting the spring grass and leaves.
That doesn’t seem right, Ahn thought, his mind murky as the sky, then forced himself to stumble back to his quarters. Not even bothering to ignite the magelamp, he collapsed on his bed, fully clothed, sleep blanketing him instantly.
Later that evening, after a proper bath and supper, he stared down at the traveling case on his bed. Neat piles of robes, footpads, and other sundries lay scattered about the blues and silvers of his coverlet. He frowned, balling his hands into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms.
Rage. So much anger coursed through him that his heart staggered and his face heated. It had been three years since he’d last cleaned away significant leyline corruption. Three years that had only begun to form a scab over the wounds that scarred his soul and his magic.
Not long enough to be free of her. To be rid of the pain she caused.
The last temple he’d cleansed was so corrupt it had taken two aether leymages and their Guardians to set it to rights. Those poor Guardians were in hospital for two weeks after.
No, Ahn was not over the damage that woman had caused, even if she was gone for good. Knowing Mage Larkwing—at least, that’s the name she’d given—had left this world wasn’t enough to keep Ahn’s misgivings and grief at bay, and it did nothing to ease the ache of his heart.
A knock on his door brought him back to the moment.
“Yes?”
“I heard the news from Talli.” The voice of Zander, Ahn’s closest friend and the Duskmere Militia’s second in command, echoed from the hallway. “I figured it might help you sleep a little sounder if we reviewed some security details. Of course, I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy and be stuck dealing with your grumpiness.”
“I’m never too busy for security reports. Especially if it keeps Willow from coming for me.” Ahn waved Zander inside. Let him be the one to deal with his cousin Willow’s scolding and endless lists of improvements. Ahn had other things to worry about.
“So, something has happened,” Zander started, then paused, looking at Ahn knowingly. “You’ve been shaken up, down, and round and round, I take it?”
“That’s one way to put it,” Ahn replied drily.
“Sweet Source, the look on Talli’s face. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was afraid. And if she’s scared…” Zander’s words trailed away, and he plopped down on the cushioned chair next to Ahn’s. His shining walnut-brown curls were shorter than usual, a mistake by Duskmere’s lone barber, making his Empyrean ears look far longer than they actually were. Ahn stifled the urge to taunt his friend, the seriousness of their situation killing any urge for joking.
“The danger is far worse than any of us could have imagined. Add to that the fact that I am not used to working with a Guardian and am out of practice with leytemples—” He could not finish the thought, looking away. “I’m worried about this new assignment from Archmage Miir, and it’s not even begun.”
“That’s not encouraging. But the Archmage would not assign you to someone who can’t handle the situation, right? At least, she better not, or else,” Zander said, shaking his fist in mock threat.
Ahn raised an eyebrow in reply.
“Right,” Zander said. “Don’t disrespect archmages. I know you’ll be fine, friend. You always are.”
“So, are you going to grace me with this security report of yours anytime soon? I have no intention of missing dinner tonight.”
“Like you’d ever miss a meal.” Zander laughed, shoving him lightly with one elbow. He couldn’t hide his worry, though. They were all feeling it.
As he lay in bed some hours later, chasing sleep, a sense of unease rolled in like unseasonable storm clouds, nightmares scrabbling at the edges of the rest he could not seem to find. Something was waiting.
Something was very wrong.
—
Ahndras Frost walked the path to the leytemple. The day was quiet and heavy, the forest floor hard and frozen under his thin footpads. He shivered. Something nagged at his senses. A noise. Soft, rustling, the sound of fabric and footfalls on dry leaves.
Step, drag, step, shuffle…
He knew with sudden certainty that she was here.
“You are dead,” he said to the surrounding clearing, not expecting an answer.
She blinked into being, pacing measuredly at his side.
Her dark robes trailed in leaf meal, her feet bare and the color of bleached bone. Cloud-softened light filtered through the leaves and dappled her face.
“Why are you here?” Ahn asked, forcing himself to turn and hold her gaze. “How are you here?”
She smiled. Lips curling, expression coy, her teeth too sharp. Teeth that lengthened suddenly into razor-keen points. Blood oozed from the corners of her wide black eyes. Whispering curses as the skin of her face stretched over sharp cheekbones, then grayed and split. Muscle and bone peeked through the torn skin while all around her, snow whirled and the forest darkened to night.
She spoke a word of command, and towering spikes of crystal or ice, a luminous unnatural green, sprouted from the ground. All around him were terrible noises. Rending flesh, cracking bone, a nightmare symphony of horror and pain.
Ahn tried to look away, but he could not move.
Bodies—elf, human, Sionnach, Xereth and Merrow—were impaled on the ice. Blood streamed, staining the glassy surface of the green spikes. Screams of pain rang in his ears. Then silence fell, interrupted for one moment by a voice Ahn had never wanted to hear again.
“The Harbingers spread the word. The ones called Larkwing and Belden served their purpose. By the Voidsinger and all her Kraah, you too will serve or you will die.”
Lizzie Sinclaire 