“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Somewhere else, centuries ago.
Noise from the waterfall drowned the voice of the birds but the soft notes of the bards pierced through even this and found her sitting on the edge of the platform overlooking the bridge crossing the frothing river. Legs dangling she raised a stylus turning it this way and that, one eye closed before she grinned in satisfaction and swiftly drew on the parchment held by tiny sprites. An expensive affectation for the small elementals were bought with crystallized mana and only for the day.
It was good to be a princess. And even better to be an unimportant younger one. For this family at least it meant one thing...freedom.
“There you are!” A disgruntled voice came from behind her and as she turned she saw her older brother Velessemiran, Vel for his friends.
“You are quite slow today I will have you know.” Vanessa playfully let her head fall back and looked at the dignified high elf who looked comical seen upside down.
“And you, are still a child that should not be let outside without adult supervision! How can you skip the service- again!? Mother was really angry this time.”
“And father did not care...right?” Still grinning and tossing her feet she looked at the picture taking form before her. The brilliant rainbow drifting through the mists above the great waterfall and the Bridge of Fading Sighs crossing just in front with its marvelous carvings and bordered on both sides by white stone buildings ethereal and slender like a sculpture made of foam and vines merging with the endless forest as if a part of it.
She really wanted to paint it now. And then enchant it naturally.
A hand grabbed her neck and like a bedraggled kitten, she was hoisted in the air and then sat on the ground safely away from the edge with the long drop beneath.
“Hey! What do you think you are doing?!”
“Looking after your continued good health. No thanks to you. Come with me. If you placate her a bit and promise to be better she might go easy on you. At least don’t ditch your guardian!”
“Where IS Rel’Phain? I have seen her last this morning.” Blinking innocently the small elf with the white blue hair and the nearly black eyes- they were a very dark blue actually- looked at her brother curiously.
“Back with mother taking the scolding meant for you. As usual. Come.” Gesturing impatiently the young elven man stretched out his hand to help her up. Wrinkling her nose she gestured and the parchment was neatly rolled and put in her left hand before she took the offered hand with her other and stood.
“Spoilsport.”
“Be glad none of your tutors or your other siblings is here to hear you speaking like that.” Sighing he held a hand to his forehead. A diadem encrusted with emeralds as well as gold-lined white silk clothes framed his athletic form. His somewhat harsh features softened as she smiled at him.
“I know you can bear it. You are an adult after all!” Hugging his arm she let herself be dragged along before getting a playful swat to the back of her head after which she let go and followed her brother into the echoing hallways of the orchid palace.
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“Since when did you have that book!?” The voice of her mother sounded incredulous.
Looking up Vanessa saw her mother who was spoken of as the famous empress of foam and shadow. Her complexion was tinged in a pale white with highlights of blue. Her eyes were amethyst her hair the color of darkened silver. Her every movement was made with a grace befitting the movements of a great feline.
Her majesty Jun’Arviel Vilessa sun Errelathiel.
And at that moment her eyes were full of anger and confusion.
The book that had been snatched from the lectern was bound in the chitin of the great nether-spider, void-touched monstrosities that resided in areas steeped in death and the title was- ‘The Art of Silent Death, Poisons, Toxins and Venoms for the discerning user of the Arcane’
Because of the intricate and at times playful, if it could be called that, use of powerful poison magic in the book it had long been a favorite of hers and she had nearly memorized its content. Sadly she was not as gifted with the application as with her arcane magic but…
“How could you read something like this?”
“It is really interesting, mother!” The small elf girl smiled brilliantly as she surreptitiously tried to get the book back.
The room was high in a tower overlooking the imperial hunting grounds, open windows only protected by subtle wards let in the summer breeze that played between swaying, flowering vines hanging down from the ceiling. A small golem moved a fan to alleviate even the least of heat. The wooden floor was grown by magic and still lived in a fashion giving off a warm feeling. The grain of the wood was formed into flights of birds by the subtle magic of the druids.
Sighing the older elf pursed her mouth and then tossed the book back on the lectern made of marble and wood. “We will talk with your father about that. It is irresponsible to let you learn every dark magic that takes your fancy. Poison magic might simply be distasteful but there are spells that simply knowing could harm your spirit, and your mind. Runes that were forged by the Mindeater for use by his minions and more. What can I even say to let you cease your reckless behavior?”
“Mother….!”
“I just wanted to see my daughter but it seems that it was a bad idea.”
“No...I will be more careful.”
“Meaning you will continue with this?”
Silence was her answer. The golem wrought of intricately carved wood continued to move his fan.
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Speaking a series of spells she cocked her head to listen before slowly edging around the corner of the corridor. ‘Down the hall and to the right.’ At the described destination seemed to only be an old water basin set into the wall and to see the cobwebs lining the dry hollow it seemed to have last been in use well before her birth.
Focusing, she sensed the mana flowing beneath the stone and with deft gestures, she managed to activate...something. With a groan, a face coalesced from the featureless stone eyeless, with the barest hint of a nose but with a round mouth full of small hooked teeth.
“Ew.” Vanessa frowned and scrunched her nose. A long tongue licked nonexistent lips, and the face turned blindly in her direction. ‘I fear I know where this is going.’
Grabbing a small knife she kept for the mundane scraps of parchment where she could use it to correct a written mistake she pricked her thumb and grimaced as three drops of blood fell into the eagerly widened mouth. Smacking its gums the face withdrew and the whole wall began to shimmer and fade.
‘What extravagant misuse of mana.’ She thought, still disgruntled by the sting from her injured hand.
Walking inside she came upon a library hewn from the granite of the mountain, shelves rose to ten times her modest height with the ceiling far above shrouded in darkness. As she pondered lights began to blossom and formed the constellation of Jaros, god of mysteries above her lighting her way. ‘A nice symbolism at least.’ She thought approvingly.
Tomes bound in leather from beasts scaled and furred some wrought of metals, sheathed in iron, copper, silver, or even mithril alloy. Most of the volumes seemed old and ill-cared for. With a determined expression and after checking for magical traps as well she could, she grabbed a thick book bound in brass and dark-scaled leather. ‘Zymenos’ tales of the lightless Realm’ Pursing her lips curiously she put it on a thick stone table lined with benches made of the same polished marble. Soon ‘Musings on Mortality, the great cycle and how to step outside the river,’ ‘The ice that burns. Harm-Songs of the Frost-Fae’ joined the first one on the table. ‘That should last me for a while.’ Taking a bottle with oblong pills large as hazelnuts and made of a shimmering opalescent substance she shook one of them into her hand before dry-swallowing it. Sighing, she stretched and began to read.
With her body kept well by the artifice of the best imperial alchemists, she read for days on end, losing herself in the wondrous darkness of the astral plane and beyond, read of claws made of black frost drawn from the darkest reaches of the faylands and...made notes and annotations as she learned spells and songs as best she could.
‘The true name of a shadow demon? Not that I would ever call such a beast.’ She snickered but before she could persuade herself otherwise she was quick to memorize it using magic to anchor every syllable.
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Years passed.
Her siblings became mages, warriors, diplomats. She was...a sage perhaps? Her mother scolded her; her father spoiled her. And the seasons turned. The great betrayal was a thing that had happened in her youth, but the effects were felt more and more. Misfortune plagued the empire. Traitors cropped up and their deeds were self-destructive and senseless. Births became rare, and good harvests had to be fought for with magic. The gods were silent as one of their own had cast the curse and so the people that had been abandoned turned from those they had once worshipped. Not all of them, but enough.
Even the silent support of the good deities waned at that, and the decay hastened. The hairs on the head of her father turned from gold to silver and last to iron as even that luster faded. Catastrophes shook the realm, and the far provinces fell, one by one. The Heart-Stealer stood in the center of the realm having taken the city of sorcerers in the north before she committed the ultimate sacrilege that saw her imprisoned there by the will of the divine.
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The phylactery of a lich was the crystal heart of a dead god.
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“Father!” The papers she had stacked haphazardly in her arms fell fluttering to the ground before she ran to the desk facing the great window overlooking the waterfall far below. Her father was lying beside the desk, blood pooling beneath his head, still flowing from his mouth. Eyes wide open and staring at nothing.
She fell heavily beside his body and began to shake his shoulder. “Father! Wake up! Look at me!” The analytical, rational part of her was shattered like frail glass. With her heart beating violently in her chest she felt darkness close in from the edges of her vision while tears dripped from her eyes.
It had been a magical poison transmitted by the kiss of his wife, who also died the same day. The pair had become estranged over the many worries and problems the realm had been facing, and there were whispers that it had been the empress that had willingly died to kill her husband.
Evidence was scarce, but tensions were high. Swords and spells spoke where reason failed. And the heartland burned. In this time of strife, the sleeping city of broken ivory woke to dark eldritch life, and hordes of undead streamed forth to kill and destroy.
The end had been long in coming.
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In a hall hewn from the deepest depths of the mountain gathered the last of the great wizards of the empire. Called by the Fateweaver herself they used a great ritual to reweave the tapestry of fate itself cursing the Elfbane, the Heart-Stealer, the Lich Queen with misfortune and ruin.
The focus of this ritual was the elven imperial family and the arcane might of their bloodline. At the time of the ritual there was only one last heir left.
A certain princess.
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Gasping in pain, Vanessa looked at the deep wound in her left thigh, which was bleeding copiously. The grey walls of the cyclopean outpost around her radiated cold disregard for her pitifully small existence. The walls rose to a height of ten meters, and if a flagstone was a bit misaligned, she had to carefully climb to move forward. The outpost had long been abandoned, since even before the last great war. After they had fallen under the sway of the Speaking Tree, the expansionist tendencies of the giants had nearly ceased, and they had become insular, xenophobic, and ruthlessly protective of what they considered their new way of life.
The word new had no place here; it had been old for her father. She stifled a sob at the thought of his pale face streaked in blood.
So it had come to this. She sighed and spoke a short spell. Light flared between her hands, and the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Her mana reserves low, she rummaged through the bag she had been able to grab as she was forced to flee this morning as the harriers of the Lich had finally found her once more.
Cursing she eyed a purple herb that had strange bulbs and protrusions making it look twisted and unhealthy before she breathed deeply, closed her eyes, and swallowed it in one go.
Feeling the slimy thing wriggle as it slid down her throat, she nearly vomited it back up again but shortly after, a burst of energy renewed her mana and brought fresh vigor. It was all borrowed and had to be paid back with interest, but for now it would have to do.
Running down the hall and climbing where she had to, she finally reached the exit.
Sunlight burned her tired eyes, and she reflexively lifted her left arm to shield her face. A thin blade touched her throat, and a cold burning sensation brushed across her skin as the razor-sharp metal cut a shallow gash.
Flinching back, she felt a slender hand grasping her shoulder, stopping her retreat.
“Your Highness. We finally meet again.”
Turning, she saw into the face of her childhood friend and once protector. The other elf was a slender woman with a deathly pale complexion. Her once dark and lustrous hair was cut short and merely reached her chin. Scars marred her neck and the visible portions of her arms. A collar of ebony pressed painfully into the flesh of her throat. The eyes were devoid of emotion and colored the stormy blue-grey of an autumn tempest.
“Rel’Phain, let me go.”
“The empire no longer exists, your Highness, and I no longer serve you.”
“What did they do to you?” Vanessa glanced at the scars, some runic in configuration.
“It is not necessary for you to know.”
“You serve the Elf-Bane now?”
“As do many of those that still live. By swearing allegiance, the curse no longer affects us. She bears the brunt of it all.” The grey eyes bore into her own.
While they had been talking, halting steps sounded from all around, and skeletal warriors stepped out of the woods. With a crackling roar, a bone horror in the shape of a small dragon broke free of the trees, shattering branches and smaller trunks, well, small perhaps in comparison with a real one, it nevertheless reached the dimensions of a small barn.
“You will come with me, your highness.” Vanessa felt the cut begin to burn, and a leaden lethargy suffused her limbs.
Her last conscious thoughts as her vision grew dark were, ‘Why did it have to be you, my friend.’
She remembered playing in the great gardens while listening to the birds of paradise spelled to recreate the music of the famous bards of old. Laughing with her friend, she had not known then that she was simply a close protector gifted by the second house of the imperial line.
Running through bushes that twisted out of the way and trying to catch little fairies in the glow of thousands of fireflies.
Standing before a griffin, watching it grooming its young under the watchful eyes of the Beastspeaker, she had so wanted to hold the little one but even freshly born, their claws and beak were sharp and the mother vigilant.
Growing up together, she had realized their difference, and their friendship had suffered. She had resented the unwanted protection. How she would have wished for that just now.
Then it was dark.
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A beautiful woman looked at her and laughed. She did not understand where she was and what was happening. The woman was attired in a dark velvet dress, fit for a ball but highly impractical for the dilapidated surroundings they were finding themselves in.
The ceiling was missing, mostly. The hall had probably once been a place of worship the gigantic columns showed reliefs depicting ancient saints and miracles but now most of it was damaged and decayed. Plaster was missing in patches and the ground was covered in rime. It was nighttime. Ragged stumps of walls and arched windows rose into the sky toward the distant icy stars like teeth or broken bones.
“So we finally meet.” The voice was as beautiful as the appearance of the speaker, but there was something wrong with it like a shard of glass hidden in a sumptuous feast. It caressed the ear, but with shock, Vanessa felt a warm trickle flow over her cheek, and as she touched it, she felt a sticky warmth.
“My, you are fragile, but that will all change. As you are, you are of no use to me.” The human woman laughed and the flesh of her ample bosom pressed against the constraints of the corset. Red lips curved in a smile.
The white bones of her jaw gleamed in the light of the stars.
A dainty hand caressed the gorgeous dress…
Clawed fleshless hands tore the old rotted fabric and exposed the denuded hip-bone beneath.
Some flesh still remained, and dry sinews moved, imbued with power that could be felt even from where she was lying.
Eyes like madness made manifest, like stars slowly guttering, dying focused on her own.
“Oh, we will have so much time together. What you have lived ‘til now will seem like the most insignificant of dreams soon forgotten after waking.”
The flow of blood from her ear canals intensified, and she felt a sense of deep wrongness as her hearbeat began to stutter.
“But you are too frail now to hold a conversation of note. We will see each other when you have...become better.”
Turning, she walked away. Bony hands gripped her arms and pulled her up where she saw her friend, or what was left of it. The other elf seemed even more haggard and lifeless but seemed to be breathing still. Without a word, she gestured, and the two skeletons pulled her along while pain wracked her mistreated body.
“Where..are you taking me?” She had to start the question twice because she was shivering violently and her teeth chattering made talking difficult.
“You are better off if you do not know.”
“I never thought that.”
“I know.”
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And down in the caverns below the city of broken ivory on an altar made of a seamless block of obsidian, her life was taken and unlife was given.
Using forbidden knowledge and perhaps the least bit of remaining sympathy from her jailers, she managed to escape. But the changes being undead brought made her fear for her sanity, and the loss of everything that had once meant something to her made her regret being sane enough to realize it.
Fleeing, she found one of the old hidden laboratories of the Keralis Erh mentioned in one of the forbidden books she had read where she crafted the ritual that would anchor her consciousness, her will, and self.
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Hundreds of years passed.
Once more active, she emerged into a world that had changed beyond recognition. Humanity was a power now occupying large swathes of former elven lands. Ulsolm, what a joke, a realm of disjointed tribes of criminals, raiders, and the remnants of her people forced together by fear and hate.
She thought – The enemy of my enemy might be a potential ally, and approached the clerics of the war god Cornac.
She was betrayed again and imprisoned, again.
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The mercenaries laughed and talked together, and Vanessa gritted her teeth in anger. Cold and tired and hungry as she was, she looked at the dead hare with disgust. They fed her, if you could call it that, by throwing still-living game into her cage. And she was too hungry and desperate to care. The taste was...not that bad, actually. But it was hardly filling fare.
A gust of wind brushed the plane, covering her cage to the side, and she saw the clearing they had used to make camp in the early morning light.
A scholarly-looking young man was gesturing and talking about something with a white-haired, unusually so for a human, teenage girl of rare beauty. Frowning, Vanessa focused and could see the dim outline of a ghost hovering beside the female human. Gathering power, fire energy by the looks of it, they both sang together in elvish fire cant the resulting incandescent projectile obliterated a piece of the forest floor. ‘Well done, especially for a short-lived.’ She had heard the voice of the teenager the night before, crying, suffering from a nightmare perhaps. Each had her own burdens to bear.
Then the young girl turned and desperately tried to play down what had happened as several of the adventurers came running to see what the explosion had been about.
And as the commotion quieted down, their eyes met.
Amethyst eyes. Just like her dead mother. Vanessa gazed at the young human quietly and felt the stirrings of a sort of connection, a faint bond. There was a lot of untapped void energy in that frail person's body. ‘They should not have any sophisticated techniques to deal with that. She will not live to see the end of her twenties, I think.’ Somehow that thought made her sad.
The fabric fell back down, blocking her vision again, and soon the wagon was rocking unsteadily over the neglected forest road.
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Still in the past (In the first month of arriving at the academy in Kronenburg)
And then the attack on Sorringen happened. Vanessa looked at her pupils from the window she was crouching in.
Reminiscing was an unhealthy habit she had been indulging in more and more often.
She had come to the townhouse in the Ivy Terrace to have another look after the problems at school she had been hearing of. Alyssa seemed depressed. And without knowing that she was being watched, her expressions were much more honest. Smiling wryly, she turned to Asandria. “Who were you really? I would have remembered the first dancer to the Princess of Icy Stars. Wasn’t that some High Elf from Ystria?”
‘I think I was earlier than that. As an undead, I no longer qualified for the position, you know?’ Asandria whispered back but did not look at her, still watching her charge.
“Why did you choose her?”
‘Do you think there are so many talented void mages with a gate, no less wandering into a situation where they are forced to make a one-sided pact like ours?’ Asandria now did turn to look at her with dark hollows where her eyes used to be. If she concentrated, Vanessa could see the ivy snaking up the window frame through the transparent form of her- mh what exactly was the sorceress to her, a companion perhaps? A fellow traveler in the same direction?
“I think I see your point. But was that truly the only reason?” Vanessa turned and looked at the white-haired girl tidying up her desk. Mireille used that moment to sneak into the room and neared on tip-toes. Cyrus raised his neck to look at her, tilting it’s head questioningly. With a finger pressed to her lips, she gave an exaggerated wink before sneaking closer and then pouncing on Alyssa, who shrieked in surprise.
The scene degenerated into tickling and hitting each other with pillows.
‘Childish waste of time.’ Asandria looked a bit disgruntled but much less than her words might suggest.
“Leave her a bit of childishness, as she actually is one still.” Vanessa sighed again.
‘When will you come in to do some serious work?’
“You know, with the underworld still looking for me in the city, I could well use some time to search for the culprit behind the orders for my apprehension. They could use a break.” Vanessa indicated the two girls still playing inside the room with a tilt of her chin.
‘One evening will not make much of a difference, but no more. We don’t have much time.’ The ghost fixed her again in her gaze. ‘As you know.’
Soon there was only a drifting cloud of mist.
And then that too was gone.