Inside the portal was a boundless void. It was a realm with no light, no wind, no sound, except the incessant thumping of Nylaathria’s heart as she gazed around into the nothingness, her eyes struggling to adjust to the onyx abyss.

“Forward!” A tiny voice said suddenly. Nylaathria jumped, looking around for where it had come from. But there was nothing there. “Forward!” It called again, echoing throughout her mind as if she stood at the center of a thousand people, who were all speaking to her in soft tiny voices. “Go forward!” Nylaathria reached for her wand, only then realizing that it was gone, along with the rest of her gear. She’d been stripped bare upon passing the portal’s threshold, but she was not cold, no, she was actually warm, perhaps even a little hot. 

“Where am I?” She asked into the void beyond.

“You are where the Lady wants you to be.” The voice spoke softly. “Go forward. Cross the bridge. Seek the throne. Our queen awaits!”

Nylaathria opened her mouth to speak a nervous inquiry. What bridge? There was nothing as far as she could see. Queen? Who? But those questions stuck in her throat like a Kava bone as a dilapidated granite bridge took form beneath her. The amber of her eyes dulled as she watched stone after stone construct itself like an old block building game she’d played centuries ago. The stones continued building the bridge for what seemed like miles into the darkness. Nylaathria would have done anything to leave that realm, but without her wand her magic was as good as useless. She’d only ever used chant-less magic once, and the toll it had taken on her body curbed her from using it ever again. There was no other choice but to follow the bridge, and so she did. Seconds, minutes, hours, Nylaathria tried to keep count of each one. Equating in her head how long it would take her to make it back if a threat presented itself.

“Faster!” Another voice slightly lower in pitch called out from behind her. Nylaathria had guessed that the voices belonged to some kind of fairy. Fairies were a tiny race, they could fit in the palm of your hand if you could actually catch one. But most of the time, like the ones urging her toward an unknown fate, fairies remained invisible, fluttering around screaming chants like irritating bugs. “Faster! You must beat the cold!”

The cold. It had crept up on Nylaathria like a prowling beast, biting at the backside of her body. She turned to see the bridge behind her slowly becoming encased in frost and ice. And as if the ice itself were alive, it inched closer and closer toward her. “Run!”

Nylaathria moved faster, increasing pace while the ice seemed to match her speed. The bridge went on and on with no end in sight. She ran and ran, fighting the urge to stop and breathe, shivering as the frigid air blasted from behind against her naked body. “How much farther?!” She breathed heavily in silvery breaths. 

“Not much longer, don’t stop!” The higher pitched voice said into her ear with a slight giggle.

“Yes, keep running!” The other said mockingly.

Nylaathria cursed them both, and tried to run a little faster as the ice began to nip at her heels, threatening to freeze her in place.

“If you stop here, you will perish!”

“She will perish either way!”

The fairies giggled amongst themselves like spectators laughing at a movie. 

Ice and wind raged, even the bridge itself had dropped in temperature, but Nylathriaa couldn’t feel it through the aching of her bleeding feet. How long had she been running? A few minutes? An hour? She screamed out as she felt the sole of her right foot rip off on the ice. Blood flowed like a river, and she left a trail as she began to stagger, her pace finally slowing. Her left foot was next. Her high screams from the roaring pain in her feet didn’t so much as echo into the void; instead, they died out as soon as they left her mouth. Breathing was getting much harder, or rather, the void had begun pulling the very air from her lungs.

“Oh no!” One of the fairies cried out. The other one began screaming, mocking Nylaathria’s pain as she wept on the bridge, unable to move as living ice froze her in place. 

Then, as if the sun was rising, the void turned into a gradient of deep black and coral light. The fairies began screaming again, but their voices were higher, fearful. Nylaathria had to cover her ears as the screams grew shrill, and then guttered out as if they’d been crushed. As she lifted her gaze, she realized that she was no longer on the bridge. Instead, she laid pained and bleeding on the peak of a mountain. She lay bare in the remnants of a castle, a throne room to be exact. The walls had crumbled in many places, all that was left were a few pillars, and a high wall directly across from her that was missing its window, revealing an aurora of rich reds and electric pinks.

“Many never make it this far.”

Nylaathria lowered her gaze, her eyes widening at a throne composed of bruised, bloodied body parts. Mangled arms and legs jutted out in different directions, and the headrest was made entirely of heads with their hair dried and plastered, eyes gouged out. And seated on the throne, on top of mutilated torsos and flattened hands was the most dazzling woman Nylaathria had ever seen. An onyx dress sat high on smooth long legs; it hugged her waist, and squeezed around her dainty torso even more, splitting into several thin bands above her breasts to wrap itself over her shoulders and down her back; it continued up her neck, stopping a few inches below her sharp jaw. Hanging from her pointed ears were two glowing, alabaster orbs; and draped behind her ears was smooth, ashen hair that stopped just below her narrow shoulders. Thin iron plates glistened against her skin, hooking over her ears and arcing around her stygian eyes. And those sharp eyes were like the void beneath the mountain peak, deep, boundless; it was as if they were night’s incarnate, eyes that you wouldn’t want to see even in your darkest nightmares.

“Greetings, child.” The woman spoke. A pensive, dreamy voice; it contrasted its owner whose deep black eyes raked over Nylaathria’s body. Her glossy black lips curled upwards at the tips, an awkward smile. 

Nylaathria didn’t move; she was frozen under a magical pressure that beat down upon her very soul. Her amber eyes were wide, calculating.

“Do not fear what you do not understand,” the mysterious woman continued. She raised one of her thin hands, and in it appeared a wrinkled piece of brown parchment paper. 

“How did you get that?” Nylaathria asked slowly. 

The woman’s smile faded. She blinked twice before saying, “Why, you entered into my domain, with a piece of my grimoire. Shouldn’t I have it? It was mine to begin with.”

Nylaathria’s heart skipped a beat. Five hundred years. She’d spent five hundred years translating a witch’s grimoire?! How could she not have known?

“No, not a witch, dear.” She spoke softly, as if reading Nylaathria’s thoughts. “I’ve long surpassed that title.”

If witch and warlock were the highest achievements a mage could reach, just how powerful was this enigmatic woman to make such a bold claim? Nylaathria gazed at the woman’s pointed ears, that along with this powerful magic could only mean one thing. “You…are a high elf.” Nylaathria was awestruck.

The woman laughed, and it was a truly melodic sound, like the soft notes of an orchestra’s finale. She intertwined her fingers with detached hands on the arms of her throne, her silver rings glistening in the light of the sky. If you could even call it a sky. 

“You are my ancestor.” Nylaathria continued, moving to stand, but falling back to the cold ground as her feet reminded her of the trek over the bridge. “You…can you save our people?”

The void eyed woman cracked her neck, her eyes unblinking as she gazed upon Nylaathria. “That is what my grimoire told you?”

Nylaathria nodded.

“Then that is how it shall be. But you know of the cost?”

Nylaathria’s throat bobbed. “Yes, a sacrifice. You need my blood.”

The woman stood suddenly, the hands on the throne opening and closing, grasping for her touch as she descended gracefully toward Nylaathria. 

“I am not you. You may call me Soren; I am a Hollowcrown. A being that has ascended a hundred thousand times past the highest level of all known magic. And I do not need your blood, child. I need your being.”

Nylaathria understood then what the tome, what the grimoire had meant when it said a sacrifice was to be made to an old god. This elven woman, Soren, had long proclaimed her rise in power centuries past. She had scribed it, and perhaps hidden herself from the mortal world in this realm of nothingness, waiting to be found. But why?

“My…being? You mean to take my life?”

Soren nodded her head in a single, graceful movement.

“Will that save my people, the Anesens? Will it save the other races who face extinction as well due to the humans?” Nylaathria couldn’t so much as sense the evil hidden in Soren’s gaze as she nodded her head again.

“If you give yourself to me, I will see to it that your people, that everyone is saved.”

Images of friends and family began to swim through Nylaathria’s mind. Did she really have to give up her life to be the savior of the nonhuman races? She would lose everything. She’d be torn away from everything she ever loved.

“No,” Soren said softly, offering her hand. “You will not die. You will simply become a part of me. And as a token of my…gratitude, I will make your home top priority. It shall be the first place I liberate.”

Tears began to streak Nylaathria’s thin face. She raised a trembling hand, allowing Soren to pull her gently to her feet.

“There is no need to cry,” Soren led her toward that horrifying throne, taking slow steps to avoid hurting her feet anymore. “Your power will allow me to save those you hold dearest. 

Soren stopped, ushering Nylaathria in front of the throne and spinning her to gaze at her tear streaked face, at her petite, tawny body. “Close your eyes.” Soren encouraged. And Nylaathria obeyed, closing her amber eyes as hands shot out from the throne of bodies, grabbing her around the ankles and wrists, stretching her body as if she were doing a wide jumping jack. “Start counting,” Soren breathed, placing a ringed hand on Nylaathria’s waist, trailing it around her stomach and stopping over her navel. “This will hurt. Do not stop counting until I say so.”

Nylaathria’s throat bobbed, but she obeyed. Sounding off from one. Soren’s lips twisted into a malicious smile as black magic formed around her palm. A deep void-like mist wrapped itself around Nylaathria’s body, consuming her own amber magic within itself. And then the flesh from Nylaathria’s stomach began to tear itself away from her muscles and bones, slithering into a hole in the middle of Soren’s open palm. Nylaathria cried out in agony, forgetting to count as her flesh continued to peel itself away.

Blood splashed on the ground. Soren grasped Nylaathria’s chin in her free hand, drawing their foreheads together. Nylaathria hadn’t stopped screaming as the flaying continued. Soren only laughed, inhaling the breath of her victim as if it were the sweetest aroma.

“Yes.” Soren breathed, trembling slightly. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d been hiding such magic within you. Your soul is an overflowing waterfall.” Her nose rubbed briskly over Nylaathria’s face in ecstasy. “But MINE is a deep, deep, deep well. You won’t fill me up, but you’ll be enough to free me from this prison!”

Nylaathria was no longer listening as she entered her death state. Her amber eyes had dulled, and her breaths came out in raspy bursts as her lungs decomposed themselves, the red flesh flowing into Soren’s palm. Shrill laughter burst from the mountain top. It sounded all around, causing the aurora to shudder, and the void to quake as Soren’s power fully awakened.

Soren thrust her thumb, index, and middle finger into one of Nylaathria’s eye sockets, removing the pale fleshy ball and holding it up toward the void’s sky. “I won’t let you die just yet. You will witness the fate you brought upon your people, upon the entire world!” Soren’s onyx eyes beamed. Flashes of black lightning arced upwards across her arm, striking the eyeball until its bright amber flare returned. The remainder of Nylaathria’s body convulsed. It shook with so much force that Soren thought it might shake itself free from her throne’s shackles. It shook and tossed and recoiled as its soul was ripped away, becoming trapped in the lone eyeball of its owner.

The mountaintop disappeared. The vibrant aurora faded away, returning the realm to its black void. Soren stood, her right hand still outstretched, glowing in an aura even more dark than the void around her. Her breath shook as a new power thrust its way through her body, through her soul. The amber eyeball she was holding floated in the air a brief moment before lowering to her collar bones, where silver chains formed from nothing, turning it into a repulsive necklace.

Soren rested her eyes, expelling her magic and pushing the void away until she stood in front of a small barrier, barely any bigger than she was. Its black gel-like surface was speckled with tiny little stars, but it did not dip and bob. Not until Soren placed a hand against it, struggling not to repel away as she forced one arm through, then the other, followed by the rest of her body until she stood in a damp cave. Braziers with mutilated bodies strung over them cast waltzing light all throughout the cave, and an infinite sapphire rug pierced into the darkness of the cave farther than the eyes could see.

“Oh, my Lady! It’s a pleasure.” A man’s voice called from the darkness. Soren took slow, cautious steps, her long legs moving in shaky one-two’s like a baby fawn learning to walk for the first time. She stopped as her body adjusted to the world beyond that timeless realm she’d been trapped in. Kneeling between two braziers directly across from where that portal had been was a Valian male. His wolf ears drooped with obedience, and his jet black hair glistened under the flamelight. His black suit hugged his broad shoulders and back, and the matching pants hugged his thick leg muscles. He didn’t dare raise his gaze to view Soren.

“Stand, Faelar.” Soren commanded, licking her glossy lips as her power punched through the world around her. Trees rustled violently under the magical pressure, birds taking to the air. Ground-roaming creatures pressed themselves against the dirt and grass. Rivers briefly flowed the opposite direction before quickly returning to normal. And millions of people, human and nonhuman alike, all across the world either shifted their gazes to the horizon, weary of such a magical pressure, or rose from their beds and gazed fearfully out into the dark of the night.

“Take me to Fafe Nalore.”