Darkness spread out around him; before long it dominated everything. Erend tried to move but felt as if he was frozen in place, even his breathing came to a standstill.
Child of dusk…? Am I awakening?
“You are, yes,” the whispering voice responded, seemingly to his thoughts. “You will awaken as the one promised to me, not as a servant or a slave, but as my child…”
The stillness around Erend faded, and he found himself standing in a forest of glass trees, surrounded by mist. A soft moonlight illuminated his surroundings. He could make out the silhouette of an approaching figure.
“Promised to you? What do you mean?” he asked, relieved to find that he’d regained control of his body.
I already have two parents that I like.
“Many years ago, an elven king’s bastard child fled the confines of her prison – her home. She was of mixed blood yet showed no signs of her elven heritage. When she was born, the king suspected he’d been tricked into thinking she was his, and so he ventured out into the world, in search of his former flame.”
A low pitched hum permeated the glassy forest. Erend did not understand where it came from, everything except for the two of them was deathly still. He could see no natural life in this place.
“When he found his love, he had already convinced himself that the woman was lying. He killed her in a fit of rage,” she sighed. “Upon his return to the elven kingdom, he locked the child inside a cage of ivory branches – to him she was nothing more than a dark reminder of a love long lost. But he lacked the strength to kill her, in fear of learning that she was his.”
The approaching figure emerged from the mist, revealing a pale figure, draped in a long white dress. She wore fine jewelry around her wrists, ankles, and neck. A dark veil hung over her face, covering her eyes and nose, connected to a thin circlet of silver that rested atop her ashen hair. She had the same pale blue lips as the skeletal knight.
A gentle gust of wind blew through the forest, carrying with it odd, translucent leaves. The woman caught a leaf between her fingers, regarded it with care, then pronounced every word with weight, “For hundreds of years, the girl was denied the privileges of life. She remained locked in her room. Despite the passage of time, the king’s suspicious madness looked past even her obvious lack of aging. I took pity on the girl, yet I could not intervene,” through her veil he could sense a hint of anger wafting off her. She applied some force to the translucent leaf. It shattered into a fine, glittery dust. The wind took hold of it and lifted it to the sky, where the moonlight playfully reflected against its shards, putting on a show of dancing lights.
The woman drew closer to him. The smell hit him, it was odd; sweet and pungent; like the wet, decaying leaves of fall.
“With time, the child grew desperate. In secret, and in the cover of night, she began praying to the myriad gods. One of those nights, she prayed to me, promising to give me anything in return for her freedom... That, my dear child, is where you come in.” the ethereal woman said and stroked his cheek with a gentle hand. “A pledge was made. Today I collect the fruits of it,” she strode forward, as if in a float. The moonlight illuminated her every move.
“I don’t understand…”
“But you do. The girl in the story; is your mother.”
“You mean to tell me that my mother offered me – her unborn child – to you, in exchange for freedom? That she sold me?”
“No, my dear… She offered me anything. I just happened to choose her everything,” the woman said and drew him into an embrace. He tried to resist, yet was powerless to resist her arms. Her skin felt cool to the touch, but not the biting sort of cold, it was gentle, soothing, and comforting. He should have hated her, but he couldn’t. Something about her felt strangely familiar.
“But my mother is human!”
“Thus thought the elven king, but she is not.”
Tears welled up in his eyes; “I don’t believe you. Mom would never do something like that.”
“You don’t need to believe something for it to be true, my sweet child,” she let go, still grasping him by the shoulders. The veil-covered face was only inches away from his.
She caressed his cheek with her left hand, drying his tears.
“And the dreams?” Erend asked.
“Yours to use – to control.”
“What about--”
She put a finger to his lips, “I’m sorry, time is running out. My power is waning, long have I lain dormant. Walk with me,” she said and beckoned him to follow.
They walked through the misty forest, past trees of translucent glass,
“Your body will be molded for ease of wielding Source. You’d best ready yourself for the recoil of being unnaturally strengthened. It’s going to hurt.”
At a loss, Erend sighed, “Great...”
His mind was a mess. Just a few hours ago he’d been headed to school like normal. He was going to have martial practice in the morning, his favorite class. He loved to work with his body, to feel himself physically improve on things. But then, in an instant, everything changed. Explosions filled the city, the harbor was bombarded, people trampled each other. Erend’s way of life was no more. And now he’d been whisked to a forest of glass by some unknown entity who’d make him able to cast? Nothing made sense, nothing at all. Not even the damn trees.
As Erend passed a tree, lost in thought, he reached out with his fingers to feel the glassy bark. As he touched it, reflections of him – akin to the ones you see on a shattered mirror – spread across its surface. He recoiled back in fright. None of the reflections were the same. In some he was someone – something – else, in others still he wore grievous wounds. The woman looked back at him with a soft smile, yet did not offer words of comfort.
They reached a glade, in which stood a tall pillar of stone. The surface reminded Erend of the night sky, every changing and all encompassing.
“I will imprint you with a spell impression, Pocket. It’s more useful than one might first think. Improve it when you can.”
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He nodded, too tired to remark on receiving yet another forced boon. Just before reaching the pillar, he turned around and asked one final question; “Who are you?”
With a soft smile the woman answered, “I’m known by many names, but you may call me Elísitrá,” she said with a smile. “Now, go on; Child of mine.”
She beckoned him to touch the stone. Erend complied and reached out with his hand, just before he could touch the pillar, he heard her whispering one last time.
“Find the one wreathed in stone, she will teach you to balance the scales.”
Erend touched the pillar; for just a moment his eyes were forcibly shut. When he opened them again, he found that he’d been transported from the forest of glass to a completely foreign room.
Information abruptly flooded his brain, making him reel from the pain.
The spell impression.
Instinctively he knew how to use it.
Before he had time to try it out, however, a sudden storm of Source surged into him. He felt his veins burst and his muscles tearing from the strain, but they repaired themselves just as quickly, if not even quicker than they were torn down. Agony rampaged throughout his body. His fingernails were dug so far into his hand that he swore he could feel them against his bones. He let out a feral howl.
Just like that, for the third time that day, he felt the world around him go dark. Ever so slowly he fell into unconsciousness once more.
***
When he opened his eyes, the interior of the same unfamiliar room greeted him. He laid in a large bed with crisp sheets and an intricately ornamented canopy.
Where am I? How long was I out?
He moved to get up but quickly fell back into the bed as his head pounded violently in response. He reached up to massage his temple and felt how his head had been thoroughly bandaged. He untied the bandage to inspect his wound; it had healed, along with the scrape on his leg. He remembered the agony, and the strain it had put on him. He threw a glance down at the palms of his hands, there was no wound to find there either.
He felt strong, stronger than ever, if only by a small margin.
“Erend?” he heard a sweet voice from his side. Surprisingly, Elle of all people, stood in the doorway by his side. In her hands, she held the wooden figures she was so fond of.
“Elle?! You’re okay!” he defied the throbbing in his head and forced himself forward to embrace her. As he let her go, he looked over her, she seemed unharmed and behaved as usual. “Where’s dad?”
“He’s also here, downstairs in the living room with the other grown-ups. They didn’t let me join, so I came here hoping you’d play with me. But you’ve just been sleeping for hours, even when I tried to wake you.”
“Sorry about that,” he said with a chuckle. “Do you know where we are?”
“Um, not really. But we’re in a very large house,” she said, trying her best to support the claim with her stretched-out hands. “Dad said it belongs to someone you know.”
“Huh, can’t seem to recall knowing anyone this wealthy,” he said and threw an eye over the room. A great distance separated the floor from the ceiling, the room was spacious enough to accommodate his entire family. Portraits of people with fancy frills and ugly clothes lined the walls. One portrait, the one closest to the door, was of someone he knew.
Bernard? The old man never said he was rich … not that it’d make a difference.
“Could you go tell Dad that I’ve woken up?”
“Will you play with me if I go?”
“Of course.”
“Okay! Wait here,” she said and jumped down from the chair. He watched her skip out of the room before he laid back on the bed with a large smile.
Thank the mother; they’re alright.
A few tears managed to seep out of the corner of his eyes, he hurriedly dried them with his sleeve as he heard footsteps approaching.
“Son!” Thomas stormed into the room without his usual reservation. “How are you feeling? You took a nasty hit.”
“My head’s killing me,” for a completely different reason, “but I’ll manage. What about you guys? Did you ever make it to the harbor?”
“No, and thank the mother for that,” he said with a relieved sigh. “We had barely left the house when the sound of cannon fire reached us. By happenstance we ran into Albert who was returning from the nobles’ district, he kept us safe until we found Charles and his parent. They brought us here. We’ve been held up here for a few hours now, Albert said he’d return before long with information on what to do.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” Erend asked.
Thomas gave Erend a meaningful look, then turned his gaze to Elle, “Could you go and play downstairs for a bit? I need to speak with Erend, alone.”
Elle pouted but agreed and went downstairs, she knew there was no arguing with Thomas.
“We’re under attack. The enemies sabotaged the anchor hall, which resulted in that dreadful ringing noise, and then they blew the harbor to hell. One of the military forts managed to repel their attackers. We were planning on going there as soon as possible, but the city is crawling with foreign soldiers, and it’s quite the trek,” Thomas said with a solemn look. “We’re not sure if we’ll have any guards to escort us, not aside from Albert. Everyone ran to save themselves as soon as the harbor fell, many of the guards included.”
“So much for being the stalwart shields of the duke,” Erend replied, the distaste clear in his voice.
Thomas nodded along in silence, then continued; “The nobles’ district is completely overrun, and so is the harbor. Currently, we’re close to the market square, they haven’t managed to get this far yet, but it’s only a matter of time. We were planning on moving as soon as Albert returned. Or, we were planning to, before Charles and that noble girl, Cordelia, fell into their awakening. They’re still out cold.”
Right, the awakening.
“About that, seems I awakened while I was unconscious.”
“Oh, of course,” Thomas said with a nod. “Wouldn’t make sense if you were left out. Well then, how does it feel to finally be touched by the source?”
“I’m not sure… A lot of weird things happened to me. Did you know that mother is a half-elf?”
Thomas felt silent, and leveled his gaze at Erend, “Where’d you learn that?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. When I was knocked out, I dreamt of a pale woman, she said that mom was a bastard princess of an elven king and that she was shunned by her people. A strange dream.”
Thomas kept his unmoving gaze on Erend, “Son, listen. You speak of that to no one. Are we clear?”
Shocked, Erend fell silent, focusing on making it all make sense, “So it’s true?”
“It is. And if anyone finds out, you and Elle will be in a tough spot. So don’t tell anyone.”
“And the woman, Elísitrá, who is she?”
This time, Thomas was the one left shocked, “How do you know of her? Your mother prayed to her when she was pregnant with you. For many years I thought she was the boogeyman until your mother told me of her.”
“Pops?”
“She’s an elven goddess of dusk. The antithesis of dawn. The inevitable, your mother used to say... did she say anything else to you?”
“Yes, she talked a lot. Right, she said she’d give me a spell impression.”
Thomas scoffed, it was unusual for him to be taken by surprise like this, “I suppose you have a lot to think about. Charles and Cordelia haven’t woken up yet. Rest up in the meantime. I’ll distract Elle for now, but you’d better keep your promise to her, or you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Yeah, I will. Thanks,” Erend said softly. He laid back on the bed again as Thomas closed the bedroom door behind him.
Now then, what to do with this strengthening… how much of an impact did it have on me?
Like any newly awakened teenager, he decided to test himself out. He did a few push-ups, they felt like normal. Squats – normal. Vertical leap – normal.
What the hell is this? Doesn’t this kind of suck?!
He lifted his shirt, to inspect his stomach – no six pack.
I guess the strengthening is incremental. It wouldn’t make sense if people became superhuman as soon as they awakened...
Now; how does this spell thing work?