Sutras Valley, West Anhalia

When you were this close to its edge, it was the unimaginable weight of the water falling that shook the earth beneath you. The musty scent of rock cress perforated through the air, propelled by the misty updraft of winds from the plunge pool below. There was no sound but that akin to thunder, only without the lighting to call it in. A soft, moist film coated everything around her from the porous dark stones to the hanging vines that obscured them from view. Jalae could only see so far across the valley below. She was close enough to stand up and reach the clouds above. Perhaps if she stepped into them, they would take her hand and carry her across the sky the same as the rain that fell upon the lands below. It was rare to see any animals at the peak of the falls. If you were lucky you might catch a glimpse of a solitary water vole who’d ventured too far from the lakeside only to turn back in fear once they noticed the height from which the falls dove down into the valley.

This waterfall, Mihaso il Elhari, had been supporting the valley in which Jalae’s home village stood strong for the past few centuries. Its name was derived from the great protector of the valley who lived during the time of its creation. Her name was Mihaso Haela. She was an alyvadian woman who had been sent to live in this village in the valley after Anhalia had forcibly taken over her homelands. The anhalian occupiers displayed her people and stripped their lands of precious crystals. Unable to defend themselves against the metal-clad horseman with only their crystal-tipped spears, the alyvadians were forced to surrender themselves to avoid the threat of extinction. Forced to become what the anhalians called civilised.

When Mihaso arrived in the valley, the sutrasí people feared her foreign nature and kept distance from her and her two children. Never too sure whether she would take revenge on them in place of the soldiers who took her homelands to plunder for riches. Here in Sutras Valley, the Valmenia Cliff-Lake reigned over the valley with a watchful eye, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike its viper fangs into the heart of the village below. It wasn't too long after Mihaso reached the village when the great floods came. Just as the leaves began to wither and burn from within, the lake's rage surfaced with the ugliness of an infantile tantrum. The sudden surge of water from sombre, regretful skies was too much for Valmenia to bear as she rejected the weight of ten thousand heavens and sent it crashing down towards the helpless village. Waves of bloodlust rushed over the edge of the cliff-lake and towards the base of the valley. A vision so horrific it rendered many sutrasí unable to tear their eyes away from the oncoming massacre. The rest of the valley’s people rushed to save their helpless children, the invaluable gold, or their most profitable of cattle. But with nowhere within the valley to escape the incoming surge - all attempts at scrambling for a second chance bore no fruit.

Yet, Mihaso’s body remained stoic and strong like the surrounding mountains. Her heart was as still and full nourishing as the water of the Valmenia above. With what others described as the most beautifully fluid and poetic of movements, the alyvadian lady began her dance.

Her arms lurched forwards and her hair fell over her face as she bent towards the earth.

The waves began to roll into themselves, rather than forward.

As one of her legs reached towards the skies and her body stretched backwards, the cliff started to rumble from within before splitting apart through its centre.

With her arms outstretched she let out a fierce war cry from her core and pulled the crevice wider. The dance had begun to intensify.

Pounding of feet against soft, cultured and historic earth. Jagged rocks emerged and broke apart the ground of the valley just as if it were the skin of a ripe and softened peach.

As she fell to her knees she clawed at the soil with her fist until it began to rip at her skin. The ground beneath the crevice she had created beneath the mountain deepened.

As she stood, she started to walk towards the immense body of water that seemed now calmed by her performance as its waves crashed into itself. Suspended from reaching the base of the valley. With a final act, she held the tips of her fingers together before her and let out her breath as they parted. The waves dropped into the earth in a single instance before rushing into the crevice through the valley Mihaso had created. And spilling out through the gap she had created through the opposing mountains, never spilling out to threaten the homes of the village.

Mihaso's true name was Se Lasi Khae Elhari, Our Great Mother’s Chosen, and she was a woman capable of wielding conviction. Virtue itself had chosen Mihaso to be a great protector and so she saved the people of Sutras Valley by aligning with The Path of All. It was the first natural affinity to ever be seen in Sutras Valley. Most wielders of conviction the people now knew came from the stories of the East, where the Shields' great monasteries stood in the cities. Where the Shields values were upheld as law. It was within these monasteries that those who wielded with conviction would train their gift and learn how to best play their role as a protector of virtue. Knowledge passed down from histories too far to pull their origins from within.

‘Do you think that Mihaso was scared when the water was coming?’ Aven had been pulling at the grass reeds in the soil. The sound of their roots tearing from the earth seemed to amuse Jalae’s twin sister.

‘Perhaps. But there is strength in fear. The Shields taught me so.’

‘What did they teach you about it?’ Aven was suddenly more attentive and alert. Even letting go of the grass as she wiped her hands free of her disinterest . She looked to Jalae in with intense anticipation. A longing to feel involved in Jalae’s new world. It was then that Jalae noticed how small her sister now seemed. How distant she had become. In fact, Aven had not even spoken about herself to Jalae during the climb up the falls’ peak. All conversation had fallen on Jalae’s time in Khaasal.

Valmenia Lake dwarfed the size of the Sutras valley itself. Yet it was still dozens of miles you had to travel before you came across the next town. The Sutrasí lived in isolation - shut off from the majority of the world in the safety of their valley below the cliff lake. Before Jalae had been sent away, it was Aven’s dream to become an explorer, to venture across Anhalia and bring back her stories of her travels home to her family. She had wanted Jalae to come too. Now, Aven was the understudy of the blacksmith. Learning how to craft farm tools and building supports meant she would never go hungry at the table, their mother had declared.

‘Well,’ the young shield apprentice began, ‘My tutor in Khaasal taught me that we must allow ourselves to have fear because it proves to us we have much to protect. That we have a duty to uphold. That it is part of the natural design and The Path of All.’

Aven's admiring gaze shifted focus to the clouds above them both. The younger twin was smiling, but the elder knew better. It was the same way she had caught herself looking to the ornate ceiling of the monastery back in the eastlands anytime her fellow shield apprentices imparted, what they called, basic knowledge of virtue unto her. Jalae had felt embarrassed of her simple background in those moments and envied that the others had grown up with so much more opportunity to understand their gifts and their place in The Path. By the Shieldguards, she was treated as an equal and remained thankful for their wisdom. She was just a novice - barely able to muster up any comparable conviction to her peers from the great cities. Yet the Shieldguards treated her as if she was the future of their cause. The same as the people of Sutras Valley who showered her with pride when she first returned home from her year away studying in Khaasal.

Yet despite the admiration of her peers, it was here in the valley where she was truly humbled. Aside from this grand waterfall representing both the vitality of life and the invitation of death, Jalae was reminded that water was ethereal and sublime. A lifegiver, a caretaker, a thoughtless killer. It was the power in which she awoke her natural affinity. Her first use of conviction had been to save her sister from drowning just over a year prior in the very river in which these falls flowed. An impulsive reaction. Her body and the air around her became an impenetrable shield around her and Aven as she carried her sister to the riverside. The people of the village had immediately declared her as the second coming of Mihaso and sent letters to the Shields to take her in as a shield apprentice. It did not take long for the quiet village in the valley to receive a visit from an esteemed Shieldguard. During her first few days in Khaasal’s monastery, Jalae was flustered with herself for having little-to-no control of her conviction. It was a fellow shield apprentice from the city who taught her that all she needed to wield with certainty was To know that your conviction is virtuous. Jalae later learned that Marenna was the granddaughter of Ghalaiya Sonhaeri, Khaasal’s equivalent to Mihaso Haela.

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‘I wish you could stay longer,’ It seemed Aven had turned her attention to tugging leaves from the vines that hung over the rocks during Jalae’s moment of introspection, ‘It’s no fun being alone. Especially when you seem to be growing up faster than me over there.’

‘Well I am the elder twin,’ Jalae tried to lighten the mood as the weight of her guilt threatened to pull her into the current, ‘So I am bound to be.’

‘You know, you’re right actually. I even think I can see your first grey hairs coming through.’ Aven finished her taunt with a childish sticking out of the tongue before flinging the leaves she had collected in her palm over her sister's robes. Speckles of brown scattered across the fabric.

‘I'm definitely more mature.' Jalae smirked as she stood and shook off the dirt from herself. Her white robes were adorned with golden cuffs and the metallic blue sigil of the Shields of Verity was crested proudly upon her chest. One day, when she became a true Shield - she would be given a golden circlet bearing the same mark as symbol of her dedication to virtuousness. The same that Ghalaiya wore, who had been only seventeen years of age when she earned hers. Jalae Laeke was already sixteen. The knowledge required to bear the circlet seemed so far away. Lifetimes, even. So incredibly far out of reach.

The wall back to the village was long. The sky had already begun to darken and the cliff lake's shadow made descending the mountainside require incredible focus. The unnatural formation of the waterfall left jagged rocks pointing out from places one wouldn't expect them to appear, which also meant you had to walk further along the cliffs to avoid them. Jalae had decided that each time she was granted her leave from the monastery to return home, she would visit the peak of the waterfalls with Aven. Jalae knew that Aven was upset that her gifted sister had been given a chance to explore more in one year than Aven had ever known. In truth, Aven had never left the valley. It was only their mother, Osaniya, who would journey north-west occasionally to see their Uncle Hallakin in Gazurete. Jalae and Aven had never met the man. At first, their mother refused to give her daughters a concrete reason as to why. It was during a moment of drunkenness during the Sundance festival that Osaniya had told their neighbour far too loudly that her brother had become involved with the wrong crowd. Whatever that meant, the sisters did not know enough of the world to work out yet. Their mother never seemed happy when she returned from her travels. Hallakin was her younger brother, so Jalae supposed that she felt some kind of responsibility over him. He had left Sutras Valley when he was Jalae and Aven’s age and had never returned.

The twin sisters returned home to the inviting smell of a home cooked meal and the commotion of more than just their mother’s presence. Their home was modest, but their table was always open to others. Osaniya and her daughters dined with friends from the village who were curious of Jalae's time in Khaasal. As they sat down at their full table they prayed for the virtuous. Food within the monastery was never disappointing for Jalae yet nothing had ever come close to her mother’s stew. Osaniya was alive with excitement to see her daughter being appreciated whilst remembering to give time to talk at length about Aven's achievements over the past year also.

'Aven's blacksmithing is almost as good as the smithy at this point. Aven why don't you fetch Ms Kallis your hunting knife. She’ll be taking the lead in no time, I’m sure.’

Aven was happy to have a moment to escape the ruckus of the table, taking extra time to rummage through her draws for something she knew was she had stowed away in the chest beneath her bed where her most prized possessions were kept safely tucked away. After she was done pretending to search for a believable length of time, she pulled her chest from under her bed and unlocked the iron lock with a key she kept on her belt at all times. There was an assortment of things she had saved over the years. Her favourite was a gift she had been given by Jalae. It was an oddly shaped shard of coloured glass in a metal frame that looked as though it had been plucked from a stained-glass window. Yet the metal framing was complete with no breaks, no evidence of it being broken off from a larger frame. The sisters had been exploring the plunge pool of the waterfall as children when they had come across it. Jalae had allowed Aven to keep it as a present, and so it had remained in her chest ever since. She picked up the shard from the chest and watched as the translucent red shard reflected the light of her bedroom lantern. Within it, Aven saw her own eyes - a fraction of herself - and remembered the fond memories she shared with Jalae by the plunge pool.

Like a sudden open palm strike to the stomach, her window was struck open with such force it shattered the glass panes and unhooked the lantern from above her - shattering it against her door. Aven stumbled backwards in panic as a chorus of confusion erupted from below her. Was that rumbling sound coming from her own heart, or outside?

‘Aven? Aven!’ Her mother shouted her out of paralysis and lifted her from the wooden floor. Her lantern had begun to set her room ablaze. In one hand she clutched at the glass shard and with the other the dagger she was to show Ms Kallis. Aven turned to see Jalae’s frightened eyes lock with her own as she reached the top of the stairs.

‘We have to run now.’ With no understanding of the circumstances, Aven did nothing but follow whatever her mother and sister told her to do. As they scrambled down the stairs she saw half finished plates of food. A bowl of stew bubbling over the edge of the cooking pot and into the fire below. Their front door had been thrown wide open by the panicked guests who had already ran out to find their loved ones. As the family trepidatious looked out onto the village streets, they watched as a legion of horseback riders approached from the lower side of the valley.

‘Mother, what are they?’ Aven managed to muster up just a few words before swallowing her breath back into her stomach.

‘Evil, Aven. They are an evil. Come.’ Osaniya was no longer panicked but no longer wore the stern expression of a determined mother. With both her teenage daughters hands gripped firmly in hers she led them all to run up-valley and towards the falls.

‘Do not look back.’ She commanded as sounds of screams and growing flames echoed throughout the valley.

‘Mother I have to help them!’ Jalae cried out as she resisted her mother’s pull and turned to see the disaster that had befallen their village.

‘Listen to me Jalae,’ Osaniya grabbed her daughter’s face and turned her to look only into her eyes and towards the falls, ‘You are a shield second and my daughter first. I will not lose you for the sake of-’

Before their mother had a chance to finish her words, she became suddenly still. Jalae reluctantly looked down and cried out in horror as blood began to soak through her mother’s dress from her chest. From behind Osaniya, a sharp slate stone had cut through the earth’s surface and reached up to pierce her heart. Aven let go of her mother’s now loose hand and held her hand to her face. No noise emerged as she opened her mouth to scream. The sight of their mother skewered by nature herself was too much to comprehend.

‘Jalae!’ Aven’s voice broke out from its prison inside her throat as she called out to her sister. Jalae turned to face her village that had now been mostly engulfed in flames. From these flames emerged a man on horseback, riding towards them with one hand outstretched towards the ground. Just below where his hand pointed to the ground, the earth below began to split as if he was tearing through it with his raw strength and intent.

Something about Jalae changed at that moment. She was no longer scared. She was no longer responding to Aven’s plea to flee to the waterfall. She looked almost defeated. As the horseback rider neared the two sisters and their dead mother, Aven heard him call out to them.

‘Fight me, shield sister!’ His voice was dark, controlled, and full of malicious intent. Aven could see the flames from behind him reflecting off of his metal armour, but she couldn’t make out his face from a silhouette. Suddenly, she couldn’t see him and was instead met with her sister’s face. Jalae crouched down in front of Aven - who was still on the ground. She gave Aven a reassuring smile before kissing her forehead.

‘You’ll be okay.’ Jalae softly took the shard Aven had been holding all this time from her and didn’t break eye contact with her sister as the horseman gained in distance. Aven could do nothing but watch as Jalae’s powers flowed into the shard and began to make it illuminate in the night.

‘I love you, Aven.’

What happened next was difficult to describe. It was as if a red hue fell upon the entirety of the valley and suddenly Aven could begin to see her vision splitting into pieces. Above her was the waterfall’s base, then to the left was the sky. All hued in red. She turned around to see that Jalae was now behind her, no longer holding the shard of glass. It had returned to Aven’s hands. As she looked down into it, she saw herself. The pieces of her vision began to blink and shift, forever switching places. Faster and faster until they began to take a new shape she had never seen before. Ornate ceilings, Limestone walls, patterned tile floors. The shards of her visions realigned themselves into normality and the red hue began to fade. Aven found herself inside a building she had never seen in her life with no sign of her sister or her mother.

‘Jalae?’ She called out to the dark as she gathered the courage to stand. Where was she? How had she managed to reach this place? Aven thought for a moment that she had perhaps been having a nightmare until a door behind her slammed open and poured in light.

‘Who is here? It is too late for an apprentice to be wandering the monastery.’ A sharp clicking sounded out from the doorway as the figure holding the lantern approached the scared girl. As Aven’s eyes adjusted to the light, she recognised the sigil crested upon the woman’s hair before her.

‘Are you a Shield?’ Aven asked, her voice still trembling.

The lady looked her up and down in sceptical confusion before noticing the dagger and glass shard Aven still clutched in her hands.

‘I am. Who, may I ask, are you?’ Her voice was stern, yet considerate. She wanted straight answers, but could tell that Aven was lost. To what extent, she wanted to find out.

‘My name is Aven Laeke,’ she began as she looked around once again at the halls of the monastery, ‘My sister, Jalae… My village… My… My mother.’ It was too much for her to bear and she broke down in tears as she clutched at the strangers robes for comfort. The sound of the glass shard and dagger clattering to the ground echoed throughout the halls yet the shard remained intact against the tiles.

Ghalaiya Sonheiri raised a tentative hand to brush against Aven’s hair as she held her weight. The Shieldguard did not yet understand the weight of the sutrasí girl's appearance in Khaasal, or how she had arrived there in the first place. But it was clear that something along The Path had shifted.