One day, when they were sitting up in a blossom tree, Gerrest told her to choose a specialization of the many types of magic he had introduced to her. Some of them felt like they were destructive, or not terribly useful. There were so many options that Vynera begged off making a decision right away. Gerrest granted this, gently kissing her knuckles, assuring her there was no rush. Even such a simple gesture had the power to make Vynera’s young heart flutter, and she didn’t think too much about the implication of Gerrest’s suggestion. She even brought the question up with her parents, and they each had their own opinion on the matter. Vynera slipped away once they started arguing with each other instead of really helping her make a decision. It became evident to her that they really couldn’t understand the weight of the decision in front of her. They were thinking about what would make their lives better, while Vynera was fretting that her choice was some kind of test. Was there a wrong choice? Was there a right one?
Eventually Vynera chose transformation magic. It seemed to go hand in hand with her healing magic. Although he never spoke any words of censure, Vynera got the impression that Gerrest was disappointed in her decision. A certain light in his eyes seemed to dim. But even when she questioned him about it, he denied any such negative emotion. As before, he taught her with patience, praising her when she did well, correcting her when she didn’t, but pacing both positive and negative so as not to overwhelm her. He seemed genuinely interested in training her to the best of her abilities. With the subtle use of voice and touch, he had her highly motivated without her realizing the techniques he was using, for he wasn’t just a talented wizard, but well-versed in a great number of fields. However, each time he tried to coax her into a direction of greater destructive powers, he hit a wall of resistance. Not that Vynera ever spoke against him, but she became hesitant and uncertain, her focus would waver, and she would do poorly.
When this happened, he would coax her back into safer waters, building her confidence back up, as well as her devotion. Her parents only saw a happy couple, devoted to learning together. The villagers only saw a pair that seemed made for each other, and even whispered that they were too lost in their own world to pay the rest of them any attention. Vynera only saw the man she loved and wanted to spend time with, looking to make him happy, as well as herself. As for what Gerrest saw, he held his own counsel, but no one could fault his words or actions. He seemed to remain ever the gentleman. But the people of Nornstad were fairly simple, and it wasn’t hard to distract them with an illusion that fit their expectations. Effectively, Vynera was isolated and at Gerrest’s mercy.
Even if she was emotionally vulnerable, her magical power continued to grow. In time, she became even better at transmutation than Gerrest, who seemed to be more of a jack of all trades, and master of none. However, his compliments towards her skill in that area were often double-edged, and yet so subtly done that she couldn’t sort out why she felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction. She didn’t recognize Gerrest’s attempts to lead her down a dark path. And, as fabricated as her personality was, it was still one of mild manners, gentle countenances, and kind ambitions. Her personality was strong, but brittle, and it didn’t wear away easily, even with the array of machinations set against her. But even stone can be worn away by water, if applied frequently enough.
It happened late in fall. Gerrest called Vynera outside one evening, meeting beneath a particular tree. Vynera thought it might have been another magic lesson, or perhaps a more romantic occasion, but when she saw the scowl on his face, she knew that couldn’t be the reason. She faltered, wondering what had happened to bring such a look to his features; she’d never seen him like that before. When he had frowned before, it had been worried, focused, or even annoyed, but nothing like the storm that seemed to be brewing. Still, it didn’t occur to her to be afraid, and she approached him, though with a heavier step than she had left her home with.
“It’s over, Vynera.” The words were dropped like lead, settling in Vynera’s stomach. She peered at him with wide eyes, her brain understanding the statement, but unable to put it together with her heart.
“What? Why?”
“You’re petty Vynera, when you could have been great. But you can’t seem to see past your own village.” He shook his head, expression curling into disgust. “You cling to it with sickening tenacity.”
“But, you said you cared…”
“I lied.”
“Lied?” Vynera couldn’t make herself say any more. Stunned, she latched onto that last word. But Gerrest left no room for interpretation or misunderstanding. His words were bare, stripped of anything to pad them or lessen the blow. Just like the trees that stood behind him, silhouetted thinly against the night sky. For the first time, she felt her heart break, and it felt like it took everything else she had built up with it. Finally, she felt tears spill over onto her cheeks and she shuddered, sobbing brokenly. Gerrest just watched, expression faintly bored, until Vynera fled back into the night, leaving the shattered remains of her heart behind her.
She was still in tears when she reached home, and she couldn’t even stop crying long enough to explain what had happened. Her parents could only guess that something had happened between her and Gerrest, but they couldn’t divine what; they couldn’t even tell if she had been the one to instigate it, or if he had. It was too late, that evening, to investigate. Since Vynera wouldn’t talk, and her parents wouldn’t seek out Gerrest, they were left wondering that night. Meanwhile Vynera was in her room, crying her heart out. Only a few words shared between them, and all her future dreams were turned to dust, blown away by an uncaring wind. Vynera wasn’t aware when she fell asleep; eventually her body was just too exhausted to keep crying.
The next several days were similar. Vynera went between brooding silence, and heart-breaking sobs. Slowly, between these extremes, the story came out of what happened. Angry at the mistreatment of her daughter, yet also disappointed that she didn’t push herself harder, her parents eventually placed the blame on Gerrest. After all, she was family, and that bond could never fully be broken, though it could be strained almost to the point of non-existence. While Gerrest was, ultimately, an outsider and owed them nothing, so there was no advantage to taking his side. Vynera’s father set out to explain to him that he couldn’t treat Vynera in such a way, but there was no trace to be found of the false lover. Without knowing where he came from, and without having the power to pursue a wizard, Vynera’s father gave up the idea of giving the man a piece of his mind.
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Vynera’s mother tried to console her daughter as best she knew, but the relationship between them had been built on exaggerated expectations, and beneath that, there was an emptiness between mother and daughter. Vynera remained inconsolable. She had been put on a pedestal so high, that having someone turn on her like that was a situation that left her completely unprepared. She had no defenses against heartbreak, and the emptiness it left inside her was stronger than the facade that had held her up for most of her life. And emptiness rarely stayed in that state for long; voids existed to be filled. Vynera’s heart was replenished with love poisoned to hate, and a driving desire to prove Gerrest wrong, at any cost.
When she ran out of tears to shed, Vynera packed up any money she had earned, a few personal belongings, some food, and left her home. She had never been far from her village before, but in her resolve, she didn’t care; she had no time to be nervous. In her travels she sold off any of the jewelry or trinkets that Gerrest had bestowed upon her; while she hated to admit they had any sort of value, she took a twisted sense of pleasure in turning his empty gifts into fuel against him. With her money, she bought a small piece of undesirable land. To a farmer, or builder, it held little promise, but Vynera could sense the land beneath it had magic. Not enough to entice most wizards, for the smell of the swamp was quite potent, but it would suit her purposes just fine.
Employing her transformation and elemental magics, she built herself a simple home with a complex network of underground rooms and tunnels. Transforming several of the local animals, she created crude servants that could carry out simple instructions to help her with manual labor that her magic could not efficiently reproduce. Such creatures were unstable, and rarely lasted long, but the girl who wept at the loss of even a single animal was buried so deep beneath Vynera’s hurt that she couldn’t hear her weep. She didn’t hate these creatures; she simply didn’t feel anything for them, and their twisted carcasses disappeared easily into the murk of the swamp.
When her lair was completed, Vynera buried herself deep within its confines, doing little else but study, practice, and experiment on magic. She ate and slept when her body demanded it, for a distracted magic user was a hazard, and Vynera was not interested in self-destruction. But she spent little time on herself otherwise. Her grim determination kept her focused as she reinvented herself and her purpose. She was intelligent, and soon she realized that she didn’t need more than the building blocks of magical theory to expand her knowledge. The power to think was something she had on her own, though it had been helped along by others. Still, every so often she would leave her home in search of old books and other fragments of parchment to increase her knowledge further, reasoning that, even if she could learn on her own, she would learn faster by using the notes of others.
Ironically, it was only when Gerrest was no longer pushing her to delve into dark arts that she broke past the boundaries of benevolent magic. Nornstad, having been forsaken in the pursuit of revenge, had little meaning for her anymore. The villagers had no idea where she was, even if someone had thought to go after her. While her parents had searched for some time, they didn’t have the means to find a sorceress who didn’t want to be found. In time they gave up, bereft not for the loss of Vynera, but of what she represented. By their best guess, Vynera had probably run away in shame, and found a new life elsewhere, or had come to some tragic end. They left it at that, and moved on with their lives. And without Vynera, or Gerrest, the routine life of the village settled back into what was a normal routine, untroubled, yet unaided, by magic.
Although Vynera was never completely satisfied that she knew all there was to know, she reached a point where she was confident she could challenge Gerrest. She regretted her short-sightedness in selling off all the tokens he had given her, for she had learned after the fact how powerful sympathetic magic was. It wasn’t enough to stop her though; it just meant finding him would be more time consuming. So, instead of putting all her efforts into study, she was splitting her waking hours between improving herself, and tracking down Gerrest. The man was slippery however, and though he wasn’t specifically evading Vynera, he had made enough enemies over time that he was not an easy man to track. In fact, it never occurred to him that Vynera would ever look for him; he assumed she was still at home, wasting her time healing simple peasants.
At times, Vynera despaired of ever finding Gerrest. But, instead of making her falter, it made her even more angry; she dug even deeper into questionable magic, forcing herself, and others, through pain to tap into sources of magic that would have made Menym recoil in disgust. Even in her bitterness, Vynera was careful. She didn’t lash out blindly at the world, though she was willing to use others for her gain. Instead she focused her intent solely on Gerrest. If others got in her way, she would remove them with cold precision, but otherwise she was generally content to leave people be. Her power was a tool for revenge, more than for any lofty ambition.
But it was his ambition that brought Gerrest to Vynera’s attention. Chaos started to erupt across the country, and those surrounding it. Unknown to Vynera at the time, many rogue wizards had been amassing their strength to move against each other in a power play. Gerrest’s courting of Vynera had been part of his plan, and when she didn’t fit into his goals, he cast her aside, never suspecting that it would come back to haunt him. When she first caught wind of the chaos, Vynera had no interest in the matter, other than to lament the disruption to her studies. However, she quickly changed her tune once she heard that Gerrest was one of the many sorcerers sewing chaos among the population. She couldn’t chance that someone else would take him down; it had to be by her hands. So she joined the fray, an unknown element against powers that had been waging a cold war for quite some time already.
Vynera’s methods were calculated and ruthless, but the actual ownership of the land didn’t interest her. Instead, she ripped through the places that had been hit, looking for further traces of Gerrest. And, as more mages fell to the war, the number of competitors dwindled. A few more noble wizards stood in defiance of the chaos, but they were unable to protect as many people as they wanted. The towns and villages were just too spread apart, the strikes of the ambitious sorcerers too unpredictable. Usually, by the time the defending wizards arrived, there was little left behind to salvage or protect. Most normal humans fled into the wilds, rather than try to stand up against the wizards. Even trained warriors were at a disadvantage.
Soon the lands began to look more like nightmares than real places. Monstrous creatures roamed the land, remnants of those mages who had died and lost control of their creations. Magical storms damaged and warped the land, stripping forests and fields of their greenery. Bodies lay, unburied in the open, some of which were raised by those skilled in Necromancy. At the start, Vynera was perhaps one of the more sedate wizards, not caring much for intimidation tactics or flashy theatrics. She knew exactly what she was looking for, and showed little interest in anything else. But those few who stood in defense against her met the same tragic ends as those who stood against the other wizards. As for those who attacked her, well, she proved that she was as vicious as anyone else in that matter. Any wizard that came at her to knock her out of the fight met brutal opposition. Many of them fell at first, because they underestimated her, for her sex, for her age, and for her previous anonymity. They rarely lasted long enough to taste their own regret.