It wasn’t often that the lush forests of Fafe Nalore saw rain. Potent magic ran through the ground and circulated in the air, eliminating the need for it. Rain, as the elders said, nourished the land, though it was mostly magic when pertaining to the modern era.
On the outskirts, an elderly Anesen woman covered her head, hauling drenched laundry back into her home as sweeping sheets of rain beat across the land.
“This rain,” she said to her husband, a slightly younger male with pale green skin, “why now?”
The man laughed, helping spread the laundry in front of the flickering fireplace. “Perhaps our lands are thirsty, so they called for rain.”
“Nonsense,” his wife remarked softly, her sullen gaze locked beyond the window out into the dark, rainy world. “Something is wrong. I feel it. Perhaps we should go to the forest, where our elders reside. We will be safe there if anything—” Thunder boomed overhead as a crack of lightning split through the sky.
“We’re fine, Love. I’ll brew some tea, go wash up.” The husband sauntered into the kitchen, trying to ignore the horrible feeling settling in his gut.
******
Soren and Sipha stood silently under the awning of a baker’s shop. The thousands of clocks in Soren’s mind were ticking away as she thought of the most efficient way to kill Sipha. The eye hanging around her neck had been ripe with fury ever since Ailluin was slain, but the absolute hatred came when Sipha appeared at Ailluin’s door shortly after his death. She called upon Soren, apologizing first for her own selfishness, then begging the woman wearing her daughter’s skin to come to the shelters. Soren rested a hand above the center of her chest, squeezing Nylaathria’s eye slowly and firmly until that anger subsided.
“So, who exactly are we going to see in this pouring rain?” Soren questioned rather sourly. By the time Sipha reacted with a shield to cover them both, they’d already been soaked in the sudden downpour.
“You may not know of her, but she’s the oldest living Anesen, and a direct relative to the high elves, more so than any of us. And she’s a scribe. I need her to look into the future,” Sipha paused as the two of them crossed a lengthy bridge of rope and planks. “I fear this plague will soon spread to everyone who’s healthy.”
Thoughts swirled in Soren’s mind as she located the correct one, regarding a plague. It was an unknown magical sickness making its way across Nelaste, sapping the magic from all beings; but humans didn’t seem to be affected. Very strange, Soren thought. By design, her curse should have been draining the magic from every living being on the planet. Clearly some alterations would be needed in the future.
And a scribe? Soren wiped a strand of damp black hair from her face, eyeing Sipha like a wolf to a rabbit. To her knowledge, scribing was a profession that died out after the Great War. Once magic fully blossomed, even the oldest magical beings moved away from such methods of future-telling, settling into the complacency of a society long since removed from the old ways.
Scribes did more than just peek through time, as Sipha wanted. Soren remembered the first time she’d met one, right before the Great War. She was a fearsome old woman of elven descent. Her own magic wasn’t much more than average despite her lineage, but the way she could manipulate the world around her made her dangerous. It was because of her that Soren was trapped inside a void of her own prowess, hidden away from the world in an eternal prison.
As rain pattered against the invisible shield surrounding them, Soren calmed herself as Nylaathria’s mother led them down a set of wooden stairs around the back of a huge tree and over a bridge suspended high above the ground to another tree centered in a clearing. The tree itself was nothing out of the ordinary, other than its enormous girth. As the two women stopped outside the bare trunk, the shield over them wavered for a brief moment.
“Mom?” Soren asked in the honeyed tone of a worried daughter, ignoring the burning of the eye against her chest. Sipha placed a hand on the tree's moist bark where a glittering rune burst to life in soft red flames, etching itself on the trunk and splitting in half as the wood before them turned to an opening door.
“Come,” Sipha urged. “We must hurry.”
It was said that humans had never set foot in the lush grounds of Fafe Nalore, save for Fauna. But as Soren stood just on the other side of the magical doorway that led inside the tree, even she could tell that theory was entirely false.
The innards of the trunk had been removed entirely, replaced by pristine tiled floors and white walls and various levels of silent rooms and beeping machines and pulsing screens. Such technology should have never been needed by people quite literally born in magic. Sipha led the way past dozens of rooms and down a maze of winding hallways and up silent elevators, to a room at the highest point where an elderly woman lay calmly beneath white sheets, her orchid skin dry and wrinkled. Soren simply peered at the woman, a mysterious feeling coming over her as Sipha knocked softly. In a breath of the old woman’s magic, the door opened itself. Sipha stepped inside, a sad smile streaking across her lips.
“It is not contagious, child. You may enter.”
Soren hadn’t realized she’d hesitated, a most wondrous thing, she thought. Her, hesitating. Why?
“Sipha, how are you? I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” The elderly woman said in a raspy voice, but her tone was drenched in maternal love. “Who do you have with you?”
This woman could not see, Soren concluded. And for that reason, she did not rise from beneath the sheets like one normally would to greet visitors.
Sipha gazed at Soren lovingly, and Nylaathria’s eye cried invisible tears around Soren’s neck. “Erisha, this is my daughter, Nylaathria. She is the one who sought the Goddess, and has returned with some of her power. I believe she may be the key to curing our people of this illness.”
Erisha. Erisha? That Erisha?
Soren tucked her shaking hands behind her back, her throat bobbing, her bright eyes fluttering. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Erisha. It is as my mother said. I was granted powers by the goddess I sought, and if I can be of some help, I’d like to do so.”
Erisha’s face contorted briefly, and then she rose into a sitting position, her closed eyes locked on Soren, and then Sipha, and then back to Soren.
“This plague, is the final act of revenge of the great witch. It is an unnatural curse that attaches itself to one’s lithia and weakens the magical output until the individual is no more than a vegetable. I myself am almost in that state. I’ve asked the doctors here to let me pass when the time comes. I am old.”
Sipha only shook her head in response. Soren’s face was blank, hiding her excitement. The final act of revenge? Soren wanted to laugh! Final act? This plague wasn’t even close. And to think, she’d once again meet the one who sealed her away all those years ago. To think her greatest enemy would present herself on a deathbed of all things!
“But the plague, is it possible to cure it? Or at least pause the effects?” Sipha questioned.
Erisha exhaled heavily. “No, child. You all don’t know it, but some of the greatest mages and doctors visit this place every other week. Not a single one has made any progress. It’d be easier to ask the witch herself, but she is long gone. There is hope, however.
A great descendent of the king Ataraxi roams these lands. It is said that her power could heal death itself, should she warrant it. That person, wherever they may be, is the key you seek.”
Soren’s stomach began to churn. Creating the plague was easy. Killing her parents had been easy. Starting the Great War had been easy. Getting sealed, channeling her powers, and finding a vessel to release her from her prison had been easy! But now, there was someone with the magic of one of the four kings living, and in Nelaste at that? There should have been no one who could stop her, but this person, whoever they were, was now a threat to everything Soren lived for. She would find them. She would. And she would slaughter them.
“As for your daughter…Sipha. I am afraid that Nylaathria is no longer with us.”
It was as if time froze. Sipha rose from where she was knelt next to Erisha’s bed, her eyes wide, cautious, unbelieving. “But, she’s right here.”
Erisha was silent.
“She’s been here this whole time. Perhaps the sickness has affected your--”
“That thing is not your daughter, dear child. Even in my blind eyes I can see that beast hiding itself inside your daughter’s skin.”
Erisha sat up again, her back unusually straight, this time her eyes were opened, revealing colorless pupils that saw everything and nothing. But they’d seen through Soren. And Sipha, her face was twisting into something unreadable as a wicked smile tore across Soren’s face.
Erisha spoke again, razor edge in her raspy old voice. “So tell us. Who are you?”
Faelar rose immediately from his resting spot among the soft grass. His gut wrenched, his very being shook as the skies overhead turned a shade blacker than the darkest night. Soren’s magic erupted forth, casting the entire forest into eternal darkness, a barrier sealing them from the outside world. Faelar howled as the dark magic pulsated, a living attachment to its vile master. For the first time in a long time, he felt as if he’d made a grave mistake; but if it could help revive his kingdom, he would trample over anyone. Anything. And so he rushed upwards, bouncing from tree to tree, his claws sinking into the magical bark like a blade through flesh, until he landed at the head of a stone bridge that unraveled itself on and on in the blanket of impenetrable darkness.
