The Arkanist

Ice and Fire

Ice and Fire

The city was burning.

Ahhid roared with blistering fire as it leaped into the black night sky, red as blood. Aera watched from behind the snowy eaves of the forest, the ash dismal silhouettes against the red inferno. It had been her home for all her life, now a ruin, much like everything else. She shivered as the thoughts flooded her mind. She could still feel the intense heat rush across her flesh, hear the dying screams, and the smell of burning of hair. The winds of the Ever Winter carried them all back to her.

She stepped backwards, snow crunching at her feet, the frozen bristles of the trees shedding their heavy coats. Her brother wept beside her as they retreated into the quiet of the forest, the tears freezing on his face. The winds ceased as the curtain of pines shut, and they were alone amongst the creatures of the night, the darkness like a stone wall.

Ash trickled through the dark canopy as Aera watched the forest march beside her like solemn soldiers. They looked dead. The tall legs of the trees were cloaked in black and their grey fingers were hooded under ash and snow. Aera felt her ragged, sloshing steps crunch through the carpet of grey. Her brother, Aeron, wheezed at her side, his skin beaded with rivulets of sweat and his face white as milk.

The Ashwood was still and quiet in the dreary light of what seemed to be dawn. A whispering mist drifted through the thick, gnarled toes of the ancient sentinel firs, dark with blackened and damp moss. Fractured arms lay stark on the carpet of moist leaves, broken and splintered to dagger points.  Aera urged Aeron forward, their pale doeskin boots trudging through the wiry brush with a rustle. A harsh bitter wind howled from the north, breathed from the Mountains of Svaerdon, tearing through their moleskin cloaks and fur-lined shoulders. It would only get worse, and Aera knew it.

North was where they were headed, onwards from the southern lands of Sheon. They were not safe for them anymore. They had left a fortnight ago, ere the Yule. Aera remembered their escape as vivid as those that stood before her. She saw the trees blazing like torches as they ran away and the city burning like a great brazier. It had been long since that night, and still they walked through the forests, looking for anything that resembled civilization. Luckily, however, it was not winter in Runir, but the turning of autumn, the days slowly growing shorter. Soon the winter would be upon them, and fast, sweeping over the land like a great wave of white. Hopefully, but then, we have reached shelter. Aera knew, if they did not find shelter by then, they would be dead, taken by the frigid claws of the brutal snows and terrible winds.

The white fingers of on old and dead soldier fern bristled along Aera’s face, the flaky ash smearing across her cheek like charcoal. Her fair, freckled face was rather thin and small, with an angular build, arcing down to her chin. Hair red as blazing fire burned on her head, and raced down her small back like crimson silk. When it churned, it flickered and altered like dancing flames, leaping around wildly, changing color from orange to yellow to red. Her thin, angled brows were a dark, bloody red, with a look of determined intensity about her. She was thin, and skinny, and small for her age, but her heart was far larger than the Mountains of Svaerdon themselves. 

As she crouched under a gnarled, drooping arm, draped in black hair, Aeron began to wheeze. His breath grew faint and his lungs tightened. He began to clutch his chest, the ribs rising and collapsing, his feeble, weak heart thumping nervously against the cage of bone. Aera steadied him, slowly bringing him down to the cool, moist earth. A limb cracked under his weight as he writhed. She brought her hands to his translucent, thin face, her warmth draining into his icy body.

“Stay with me, Aeron,” Aera urged, clouds of white curling from her mouth. “Stay with me, please. Do not die. Look at me, Aeron, look at me. It’s me, Aera. I’m here.” Her face had gone a flush pink, as if dappled with roses.