Two of the most powerful sages to ever exist had pulled the millennial Phoenix Comet out of the stars in the most deadly game of tug-of-war. They sought the power within to renew their wish. As they were grasping for immortality, the comet’s razor tail was burning the skyline. Clouds caught fire and seemed to peal back, revealing something shimmering in the air.
With the last of their effort they sent the comet smashing into the goddesses’ invisible ward. The sky broke open, sending one great fault line spanning across all Vestra. Fragments of other realities floated through the sky, shimmering in all colors of the rainbow. A strange liquid slowly poured out over the edges of the stained-glass sky. It stuck to the land below and ran deep into the ground.
The heavens above had been broken open and the sages at fault shrunk before the eyes of the Overseer. The steel-blue eyes were numerous and dotted every part of the sky’s great fault-line. They rolled in confusion, shifted in horror, then all turned towards the guilty sages in rage.
“CHILDREN!” a woman’s voice boomed from above.
Wings were crushed and trees blew over as the sages were flung into the ground.
All the eyes spanning across the horizon stared at the little sages.
The woman’s voice, irritable, yet more gentle said, “can you ever comprehend how long it took me to clean these floors?”
The sages laid breathlessly blinking back up to the Overseer whose many eyes were now welling up with tears.
“Eons…. I spent eons perfecting this veil and YOU BROKE IT!”
Now the tears were falling. The ground shook like it was being hit by meteors. One splashed right over the sages, pressing them into the ground and nearly drowning them. After the water rushed off of them, they were healed and felt empowered enough to beg for mercy. They pulled themselves up out of the mud and fell back to their knees.
The Overseer’s eyes rolled. “Mercy, forgiveness? You keep trying to reach my level, you want to tear me down! Bargain with the Phoenix again, I don’t care. All I’m going to do is fix my floor and go home. You fix your own world, no matter how long it takes.”
Without a moment to spare, the angry eyes shut, crossed over by bright eyelashes. They retreated and, in their place, thin limbs of light reached out of the fault. The limbs pulled the pieces of reality together stitched them shut with bars of light leaving only a scar and a small breach in the sky above.
Scarred like the sky they broke, the sages went to clean up their mess. No matter how long it took them, it would be done.
~~~
Leona closed her story book and looked outside the attic window. The sky was as bright and as blue as it usually was. A thin white line glowed above the clouds. It was like a jagged half-ring resting over the planet. She often wondered how terrible the calamity times had been to make people come up with such wild stories, as if they believed that any one person could fix the mess of the world, let alone live beyond the veil.
“Leona, I need your help!” Her father called from downstairs.
Leona quickly returned her book to its bedside shelf and flipped her wool blanket back up over her bed. She dashed over to her dresser and pulled open a drawer. Inside were some small silver caps that she put over the tips of her antlers. The jewelry dulled her spiky crown, preventing any painful accidents. Yanking her green cloak off her door hangar, she threw it on over her shoulders. Her pale wings easily slipped out of slits cut into the back. Shuffling down the stairs, she ran her claws through her long brown hair, attempting to make it presentable. As a draconian hybrid, she couldn't help standing out, so she might as well look good.
On her way down to the shop floor Leona passed through the kitchen, where her mother stopped her. Leona’s mom was behind the table, kneeling on wood floors, and trying to hold pieces of a chair together. She had a bottle of glue in one hand and was getting frustrated with the mess in her other hand.
“I know Dad needs you, but can you just hold these pieces still for one second while I glue them?” she asked.
Leona mumbled, turning her body towards the stairs then moving to help her mom instead. The back of the chair had been broken in many places. While Leona held it together, her mom set the glue. As it dried in Leona’s hands, her mother took her captivity as an opportunity to talk.
“Last night while you were out, me and Dad had a guest. I don’t know if it is rude to say, but he was massive. He had to have been as tall as your wingspan, maybe even more so,” she said, making big gestures with her arms spread wide.
“He said he was looking for you on orders from the king and his chief. I told him where you would be,” she said.
“Mom! I don’t know this guy, why would you tell him where I’m going?” Leona said irritated.
“King’s business,” she replied like it was a good enough reason.
Leona grumbled and asked, “did he even tell you what he needed me for?”
Leona’s mom put the glue away in a cabinet under the sink, washed her hands, and went back to stirring the stew that was cooking on the stove. It smelled savory, if not a little spicy.
“Despite breaking some old furniture, he was so well-manured for such a big guy,” she said whimsically. “I wish Dad would take notes.”
“Mom, you didn’t answer me,” Leona said, releasing the dried chair.
Her mom continued to dodge around her questions saying, “you will see him soon, for now, you should go help your dad.”
Leona’s white tail flicked around the table as she left her mom to cook. Downstairs was her family’s forge. The walls and floor were made of stones and a few long windows in the back of the room illuminated tables of swords and other weapons in various stages of development. On the other end of the stairs, there were a few compact brick furnaces with white-hot metal rods poking out of them.
A dragon family had owned the forge-house before, and they had liked the heat much more than Leona’s family did now. The place was cheap, but near inhospitable for her parents before they had set the wards around the furnaces. During the coldest days, it was still nice to put a hole in those wards. Leona could remember laying beside the furnaces, tucked into blankets, reading when she was sick.
“Leona, ring up the customers,” her father said curtly as he pulled one of the blazing rods out of the furnace with his tongs.
Near the door Leona saw two mages. One sat in a plush blue chair reading, while the other impatiently tapped her foot from behind the counter. They looked sweaty and impatient; the mage reading had already opened the window behind himself. Humans were so sweaty, it kind of grossed out Leona, but she had to remind herself that by blood she was part-human too. Mom and Dad told her as much, and they were sure of it when they found her.
“Forgive me for making you wait. What order are you here for?” Leona asked the impatient mages.
After ringing up dozens of balestra bolts and a few new spears for the city guards, Leona went to check on her dad. He was at a grindstone sharpening the edges of a new sword, by the impressive length of it, she knew it was a rapier.
“You know, other forges make these things in the most ridiculous proportions,” Dad shouted over the grindstone. “Some mages stop by and tried to order one taller than they could ever wield!”
He set the sharpened blade aside, saying, “I would never agree to make such things. Their fragility would give the forge a bad name.”
Leona’s dad was a tall man with muscles built by years of hard work. He didn’t have much of his gray-brown hair left. The forge got so hot that even his eyebrows had been singed off. He was older like Leona’s mother. They had married long past their child-bearing days, so they said that finding her had been a blessing.
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Leona took a closer look at her father’s project. The rapier had a cup hilt and life-saving cross guard that looked familiar. The ornamentations etched into the welds were a dead giveaway.
The other day, she was out late into the night training when her parents had their guest over. She remembered her surprise when she struck her opponent and her blade just went plink, breaking in two over her opponent’s wards. Without it, she felt useless among the other fighters, but in just one day, her father had fixed it.
“That’s my sword!” Leona exclaimed.
“I made it even better for you,” her father said, smiling. “I can’t think of anyone better to model my work.”
Leona squeezed her dad in a hug and retrieved the blade from him. Holding it in her hand, she was happy to find that it was more well-balanced than before. The weight was focused right into her hand, allowing her to make more minute movements and deadly accurate thrusts. The blade itself had draconian runes inscribed into its flat sides with serpentine dragons spiraling to the blade’s point. It was perfect, and it was beautiful.
“This blade looks like it belongs to an archmage!”
“Call it divine inspiration,” her father chuckled.
Leona’s dad passed over an ornate leather sheath for her new weapon. Leona pulled back her cloak and tied it over her green tunic, harnessing it in a way so that the long blade didn’t drag on the ground. It was so beautiful; she almost didn’t want to spoil it through training.
“I got to get going Dad. Sorry I can’t stay to help. I think if I delay myself any longer, I might just hang this one up in my room like a painting,” Leona remarked, resting her hand on the blade’s pommel.
Her father sighed, “I guess, as usual, I’ll have Mom set something aside for you to eat later.”
Leona thanked him with one last hug before leaving for training. As she left the forge behind, it was obvious to Leona that her parents missed having their little worker bee around. She imagined that they had once wanted her to take after the forge like her father, but she never showed enough interest. She knew they missed her, but ever since she graduated school, she spent most of her time downtown looking for work. However, it was near impossible to find a job if you couldn’t cast any magic.
~~~
In Vera City people lived and breathed magic. Every building was graced by its presence. Each structure was truly magnificent. The houses were bright with purple, green, and orange walls and plenty of natural and deep shades of earthy colors. The shops and larger housing units rose out of the ground like interconnected branching trees. They twisted and curved like structures in an abstract painting. Every rooftop was covered in plants. They climbed up all the walls too. Magic redirected flowers to form patterned murals or bioluminescent signs. Against all the whimsy, Leona felt like shadow moving through a field of magic.
Leading herself to Main Street she saw more flower images growing on a corner store. A striking image of the king was overtaking the other plant posters. It showed a tall man with tree branches growing out of his arms and head. Vines formed blighted scars that ran all over his body and across his deviously smiling face. In red, the flowers spelled out, “all of the power, and no restraint.”
The giant poster made her anxious. As she walked past, his bright amber eyes shown at her like coins. This city did not tolerate people that used dark magic, not even their own king. Leona never had a chance. If dark magic was all she could manifest, then she would rather not cast at all.
Turning down Main Street, each of the houses lining the road had custom architecture and intricate yards. Native jungle plants were arranged in conjunction with boulders and water features. It was unlike the houses around Leona's shop, which were more uniform and traditional in design. Regardless of differences, the city was unified in its beauty.
Leona continued to the city’s inner wall where Vera Fortress towered above all. Leading up to the gate there was a vast marketplace. All the way up the hill, vendors had set up carts and other shops held steady business. Leona could see things that were brought in from other cities beyond the wall. Vendors were selling enchanted garments sewn by Silkins, jewelry from the east, and bows carved by the warriors of the Finne Islands.
Leona would have loved to take part in commerce, but she had a job to do and with little money to spare, she went on her way. Leona stepped up to the gate. Two gigantic Chlorophanes stood on each side. The tree-men were tall enough to block the gate simply by laying their wooden bodies down, though, their giant halberds were enough of a deterrent for any trespasser. On her own, Leona had no trouble passing under their shade, the guards knew her well enough.
Inside of the walls, the fortress’ yard flattened out at the top of the hill. The yard was cleared and set for drilling and sparring. In the front of the fort, gems buried in the ground had set up wards so that mages could practice their spells. There was a gathering of mages casting nature magic. They worked together to raise up siege towers and form bridges out of tree roots.
Leona was envious of the power the mages held. Everyone she knew could cast some amount of magic, but with the monarch’s support their power was truly boundless. So long as they had a steady supply of gems, they could cast magic without fatigue.
They would rarely see the dark wisps that bit away at Leona every time she tried to cast magic on her own. They would never understand what it felt like to be hollow. Her skin as pale as a branch long dead, and her magic a curse against herself. All the other mages who had cast dark magic for too long had been torn apart or turned into monsters. Considering that, she was lucky to still be herself.
She rested her hand on her rapier hilt, trying to think about better things. At least her skills with the blade were valued. There was only so much a mage could do once they broke all their gems. Leona smiled, thinking to herself that if swords were magic, she would already be an archmage.
Leona skipped around the side of the fortress, looking up through its shadow to the tree that was bursting through the main tower. She saw something catching the light in the branches above. There was a person shuffling about all the way up there. Leona froze as she watched a man descend, using magic to lower himself on vines.
“Who are you, and why are you up there?” Leona asked, stepping back as he landed beside her.
The tree-man, or more accurately the Chlorophane, was much smaller than the others at the gate. He had four root legs and two burly arms. His moss hair was styled into dread locks, and he was clothed in green-silk garments.
“Sorry, but I was wondering when I might see you. I was told that you would be here around this time,” the tree-man said.
“You’re the one who visited my parents,” Leona clarified.
“Yes, my name is Tusund Palo. My chief’s work with your king has brought me here. Also, sorry for breaking your chair,” the tree-man replied shaking his head. “I left some wings with your mother to pay for damages.”
Leona heard a small sneeze come from Tusund’s branches. Tilting her head back Leona saw a little squirrel bolting away from her gaze.
She laughed to herself, and asked, “what business does the king have sending a gentle giant and his entourage of cute woodland creatures after me?”
The tree-man, annoyed, shook his head, throwing the squirrel down a few branches.
“Your king thinks he may hold the secret to harnessing dark magic.”
There was a tinge of despair in Leona’s nervous laugh.
“Of all people the king should know better than to meddle with forbidden magic. It doesn’t matter how many resources he has, it’s not safe,” she replied, tense.
One of Tusund’s branches broke. A frown was carved into his face.
“We should be careful about what we say, so close to the fortress,” he said looking for his squirrel. “People are listening.”
Leona glanced around the training grounds as a group of armored mages marched past them. They were going to the weapon grounds to drill with their spears. While they faced forward, Leona could see their shifty eyes through their helms, looking at her.
Leona lowered her voice, “I’m sorry, but I won’t work with anyone that is granted all those resources, if they are just going to abuse them.”
“Please, you haven’t even heard our plan yet. We need you for this quest. I promise it will not be long,” Tusund pleaded with her.
Leona could not believe that she was being asked to go on a quest.
“Are we going to go beyond the walls? Why do you need me?” She replied, uncertain.
“We believe that considering your unique magical situation, you may be able to help us retrieve an ancient relic of my tribe. Your pure dark magic might allow you to attune to it. Please consider, we have a chance of learning the true nature of this accursed magic. If we learn to control it, we could help a lot of people,” Tusund responded sincerely.
Leona did not like hearing her magic being called accursed, but she believed that Tusund meant well. The thought of leaving the walls was more terrifying than anything, but with a Chlorophane by her side, she might stand a chance of surviving.
“If I go, what do I get out of it?” Leona asked.
“Upon your safe return, the king has ensured to me that you will be granted a noble lady’s title, and all the money and land that is befitting of such a rank. He has also agreed to your legal protection as you experiment with the relic and its dark forces. As for any other protection a dark mage should require, I have offered myself to be your guard,” Tusund said, bowing as if wind-blown.
Leona was drawn aback. She had the opportunity to change her life. She could accept things as they were, always struggling for employment and acceptance, or she could become someone greater. She was the shadow of the world and of her parents business. She never wanted to take up the forge, even if it was they only job she could get. Leona wanted to find her own way.
“Tusund, I will consider. This quest being of such importance and risk, I will have to discuss these things with my family,” Leona stated. “When I have my thoughts sorted out, where can I find you?”
“An old friend of mine opened up a clinic down the hill. I’ve been staying there and helping her with work. Here’s her card,” Tusund said passing her a slip.
Leona stuffed it into her pocket and parted ways with the tree-man. She went off to practice, both anxious and excited for what was to come.