Prelude: Esriella I, “The Storm and the Light”

20th day of Redfall, in the Second Little-Moon’s Turn, year 1021 ÆC (Ætaine Calendar)

19 years ago

We had fought for years to achieve justice for the wrongs committed against us, and today it was finally close at hand. The stained-glass windows cracked beneath our boots, their shards glinting like gemstones in the Palace of Westgate.

No, not Westgate. Valmark.

Crimson, sapphire, and emerald glass spilled across the smooth marble floor. They were once beautiful, but now the remaining decorations were grotesque in their excess, a mockery of how a ruler should act. Looking through the visor of my sallet, the whole castle was gaudy, drowning in gold leaf and the over-embellished pride of its false, disgusting king. Every inch of it screamed opulence built on the backs of the suffering citizens and the illegal slave trade.

I had been one such slave in this city, about to be sold like cattle in the market’s auctions once again only a few years ago. I still had the scar on my face to show for it, despite my skill with healing magic.

And now, this decadent palace was burning around me.

Smoke drifted about from small fires, barely masking the smell of iron from the blood of the dead and dying. The taste of it touched the back of my tongue. An old memory flashed, my pulse quickening in fear. I pushed though it, my trained hand steadying me as I gripped my shield.

Breathe, Esri.

Screams echoed between marble pillars carved with the smug face of the usurper-king, my husband’s uncle. And in the thick of it all, I followed a storm of steel.

Isha.

She did not wear a helmet. She never did, though she had refused to say why. Her hood had long since fallen away, exposing her striking, pale-aelvar features. Her shoulder length silver-white hair flapped behind her like waves of silver thread between her long, pointed ears, catching the rays of the sun through the shattered glass. Her skin, white as snow and pale as moonlight like our two moons, seemed almost to glow beneath the blood splatter and dust. Her metallic-silver eyes that caught the fires’ light looked cold and emotionless as she went about her work.

The sight of a pale-aelv terrified and demoralized our enemy even before she crossed blades with them, with her skill with her dark-blue steel sword intensifying the effect tenfold.

Her bastard sword slashed and stabbed with every motion, a blur of steel and blood. Her movements were like that of a dance, flowing together, in constant motion. She was beautiful in many ways, so unlike my own perception of myself, despite my husband’s protestations.

Isha was elegant, merciless, and practiced beyond anything I had seen in my years growing up in a remote high-aelvar mountain village, studying to be a Priestess of the Goddess of Light. She was more deadly than the vile human slavers from this city who raided my home. More focused than Isha’s usual shy, reserved self, witnessed during my time traveling with her in my husband’s adventuring company.

In the four years I’ve known her, she had never moved so gracefully, yet lethally.

She wore a yellow, blood-stained knee-length gambeson under a short chainmail tunic made from the same, unknown metal as her sword. Her arms, flashing quicker than sight could follow, all the while cutting down our enemies, ended in articulated plate gauntlets and metal vambraces that were soaked in enough blood to hide the polished steel. A dancer made of blades. Twice as swift in movements than even the most skilled swordsman I had ever witnessed, the usurper’s ‘elite’ royal guard were no match for her. Her high leather boots carried her in a blur from one foe to the next without fumbling over the spilled blood and debris, each already disheartened from facing one from a race so steeped in vile, evil deeds and rumors.

Her movements were beautifully mesmerizing.

And they were wholly terrifying.

Isha cut down another guardsman with her sword, the blade almost shimmering, using both hands, his body severed cleanly in half with one fluid movement. That should not be possible.

Do not freeze. Keep moving.

I knew of no one who could match her with the blade, not even the supremely skilled swordmage Magi, another of our group who was off seizing the palace’s barracks with his own strike force. She also rivaled some of the greatest priests and mages I’ve encountered with her precise manipulation of aether and the raw strength and regeneration of her magic. Light preserve her… and preserve us.

As I followed, the flow of aether changed around her as a blast of wind burst from her left palm at point-blank range, sending a cluster of guards crashing into the mosaic walls. I heard the sickening crack as their bones shattered from the impact.

They did not rise again.

I felt the back blast as the concussive force rippled throughout the corridor, waves of invisible pressure washing over us all. My breath stuttered and steadied. Inhale for four, hold, exhale. By your Light, I thought, my teeth clenched.

Isha stumbled slightly from the exertion and pain, almost dropping to a knee. Her breath caught, chest heaving once before she forced herself upright again. The physical cost of using one’s aether by a priest or priestess was physical, unlike mages who felt no repercussions until they drained their foci dry of ‘vharin’ and just died. But manipulating aether was never free to us. And Isha was using powerful magic, so the cost was greater.

“One thousand six hundred twenty-one,” she whispered.

I heard her clearly, despite Isha’s soft, melodic accent. Even amidst the chaos of battle. It snagged on something raw inside me, and it caused me to slip and stumble on the blood of a downed royal guard, her words so stark against the din.

Regaining my balance, a lance of ice shot from her palm. One royal guard, frozen in place with terror, eyes wide, screamed before the ice ripped through his plate armor and pierced his heart, dropping him to the ground in a bloody heap.

Her arm trembled as I sensed the aether leaving her soul. The cold clung to her skin longer than it should have, her warm, blood-soaked gauntlet steaming with the aftermath of removing the heat from the air-gathered water.

“One thousand six hundred twenty-two.”

I heard Levak yell, interrupting my thoughts, voice muffled from inside his helmet. “Esriella, up!”

My pulse pounded as I glanced up briefly at his call to me. My round shield rose instinctively as arrows prepared to rain down from a balcony above. I called upon the Goddess of Light, drawing breath through my teeth.

I visualized it instantly. Compress the air. Spiral the pressure inward, hold just so… not too tightly or it collapses… then release!

The aether burned through me like a torch held against the body’s nerves, flowing from my heart where the soul resides through the pathways in my body. As I completed the thought, I raised my hand and swept it outward, coalescing the wind into a solid wall just above our heads. It erupted outward and seemed to solidify in a concussive burst, a wide-angle blast, that knocked the arrows away, shattering some, but sending a flutter of feathers, clattering shafts, and metal arrowheads to the blood-soaked marble floor. No arrow reached us.

It worked.

But gods, that hurt!

A sharp spike of pain bloomed behind my eyes and in my chest. My fingers tingled with the strain of rapidly shaping aether and manipulating the world’s base elements. Hold fast. Goddess of Light, let me stand.

Levak, my husband, suddenly charged forward, covered head to toe in his plate armor, wielding his family’s sword, the ancestral arming sword of this kingdom, and his own battered shield as my barrier above still pushed outward for a moment longer, shouting his father’s name, Etharon, like a curse to those who opposed us. Our archers returned fire as my barrier dissipated with a loud pop, taking out our would-be ambushers.

Instead of following, my eyes were drawn back to her.

Isha cut down another royal guard, separating his head from his shoulders with a spray of blood as her dark-blue bastard sword tore through his mail coif like it was paper, followed immediately by lifting her left hand to the group of shield-bearing royal guardsman impeding our advance, frost already gathering at her fingertips. A lance of ice the size of a dagger bloomed, laced with silver light, and tore through the shield wall. Three men dropped as her powerful spell ripped through each rank of guardsman in turn, piercing their shields and imbedding itself into the wall behind them, cracking the stone.

Our soldiers charged in during the confusion and cut the rest down in the enemy’s panic.

The recoil from her magic rocked her back slightly. She looked like she would collapse. Even I could not use magic so quickly and freely, and more aether clung to my soul than any priest or priestess I knew of, including her.

She paused, breathing heavily, eyes narrowed in pain. But only for a second. A drop of red blood streamed down from her nose to her lips across her pure white skin. She had sustained no visible wound. Magic depletion? Or simply the weight she insists on carrying alone?

“One thousand six hundred twenty-six.”

Before I could say anything, she was already in motion again, striking an enemy captain across his plated chest with the flat of her blade, knocking him off-balance before kicking him into a pillar. He hit with a clang, sliding down to the floor. She did not even glance back at him as she moved onward.

One of Levak’s soldiers stabbed the man with a spear through his helmet’s visor with a spray of red ichor, violently ending that man’s support of the usurper.

The bodies were everywhere now as our small force of rebels pushed forward, Isha still in the lead. The few remaining nobles who took up arms to protect the usurper king, the mercenaries bought with the people’s taxes and the sale and smuggling of illegal slaves and goods, the palace servants conscripted in the last hour and handed nought but a spear all fell the same. Beautiful or pitiful, strong or weak, it did not seem to matter. Not to Isha. Not to her and her dark-blue sword, coated with their crimson blood. She fought more ferociously than a possession demon.

But those people mattered to me. Most were likely just following the orders of their vile king. Our Goddess, mine and Isha’s, taught that all life was sacred. And still, I remember the auction block. Some obey because they fear the whip.

Isha was acting nothing like the stoic, reserved, and kind-hearted pale-aelv that was normally so unlike the norm of her vile kin. Nothing like the person I had come to trust with my life.

She whispered to herself again, her voice impossibly loud in my ears through my helmet. "A little longer is all I must push." Then she glanced back.

Just a flick of her eyes. No words. But in that instant, I saw it. The deep sadness. The crack beneath the mask she always wore. The gap in the front she put up when called vile and despicable names solely based on her pale-aelv race.

She was not killing for joy, honor, or devotion. It was tormented resignation.

It was as if she were punishing herself with every slash or thrust of her sword. As if each death was a burden too heavy for her to carry. Don’t drown, Isha. Don’t drown where we can’t reach you, I silently implored as I focused forward.

The final doors loomed before us. Twice the height of a man, painted with a self-aggrandizing mural of King Albric cradling the sun itself.

Blasphemous bastard! I thought, jaw tight, pushing away the old tremor that sometimes came when men in power smiled as if they owned everything under the Light. I thought of my Goddess, the Maiden of Light, distracting myself from my thoughts on Isha.

But Isha did not slow.

She lifted her hand and took a breath.

Wind again. This time compressed into a razor-thin wedge. The impact was louder than thunder as the pressure exploded outward, snapping hinges and cracking the surrounding marble as the massive doors shattered and slammed inward. Two soldiers on the other side of the door were ripped to pieces as her spell tore the door apart and continued into the room.

She staggered as the spell discharged. More of her precious lifeblood dripped from her ear, the corner of her mouth, from the edges of her eyes. She was killing herself, burning through her own soul to use her aether. Past her limit.

For me and Levak.

Why? Because you think the Light demands more of you than it asks of anyone else? Because do you still not believe you deserve to live?

Her steps slowed for half a beat, her gauntleted hand tightened into a fist. That last spell had taken something from her. Her breathing was shallow. She somehow, impossibly, looked paler than her white skin should allow. Her jaw was clenched.

But she did not stop.

Without hesitation, she darted forward and led us into the heart of corruption.

The throne room was a shrine to vanity. Lapis floors, gilded arches, curtains of crimson velvet, tapestries depicting false events during the reign of the usurper. Nothing was shown about his illegal selling and smuggling of slaves that went against the Treaty of the East. He advertised nothing about his usurping and murdering the previous king, Levak’s grandfather, in his bedchamber. Nor forcing Levak’s mother and father into exile. And there was nothing about him hiring pale-aelv assassins to finish off his exiled brother and his family some five years ago.

At the far end, on a marble dais, the vile king waited in robes lined with gold thread and adorned with precious gems. His look was one of outrage, tinged with a dash of fear. Behind him, stained glass depicted his false, embellished rise to power, with children and peasants kneeling at his feet, nobles bowing in supplication. I caught my reflection in that glass, my scar, my visor up, no longer someone’s property. Not anymore. I felt my blood boil.

And from beside me, Levak stalked forward past Isha, ripping off his helmet and removing his mail coif, tossing them to the floor. He clearly wanted his uncle to see the face of his judge.

Levak’s short, white hair belied his young age. His face was set with determination, so unusual on a human so young. Some magical curse had changed his hair from the same shade of blonde as the usurper during the assassination attempt on his family. The attempt that succeeded in murdering his mother, father, and his first fiancé.

His cold, emotionless grey eyes looked like they belonged to a predator stalking his prey. Or maybe they were like those of a judge passing sentence on a convicted murderer.

Either could fit in this moment.

The defenders, still outnumbering us, but clearly terrified of our small ragtag band of rebels and peasants with clubs, parted for him. I followed their gazes.

To Isha.

Or… they are terrified of her, I corrected myself, seeing the destination of their gazes. Having a pale-aelv on our side clearly devastated our enemy’s morale. Regardless of if she acts like those of her race.

Levak continued to stalk forward, his sword readied, slick with the blood of those who died defending this garbage of a human. His shield was lowered.

King Albric stood contemptuously, looking directly at me. “So, the rumors are true. You’ve debased yourself by bringing in a half-breed-sky-hair aelv into the royal line?” He turned to my husband, taking a small step back when his eyes locked onto him. “You would kill your own blood, nephew?” He was clearly frightened now.

Levak did not respond.

He crossed the room in slow, measured steps. None of the remaining king’s guards dared to impede his progress as he mounted the raised platform where the king stood alone. Levak lifted his blade.

And drove it through the king’s chest.

Albric’s final breath was a wet gasp as he slumped back over the throne.

Dead.

Just like that.

No grand speeches. No trial. No glory. No honorable duel.

Just justice.

Justice, like the balanced scale emblazoned on Levak’s bloody and battered shield. The balanced scale, a visible symbol of his oath to his own god, the God of Justice, to right the wrongs done to his mother and father. To his first love. And for me, his wife.

God of Justice, witness. Goddess of Light, forgive. Let this end help more than it harms.

Our eyes locked for a moment and I saw relief in his grey orbs. A softness that he only directed at me. There were no words needed in that moment. I knew my past pain and torment could begin healing, just as his would, in time.

The room was silent, save for the crackle of distant fires, even the wounded and dying seemed to be holding their breath. I unbuckled the chinstrap of my sallet and removed it, shaking my long, light-blue hair free. Sky-hair indeed. I almost laughed. Though being called a half-breed instead of half-aelv or half-high-aelv did not hurt very much anymore.

Then Isha spoke again, in a whisper. “One thousand six hundred twenty-eight."

She paused. Her sword finally lowered, covered in crimson, its dark blue hue completely invisible under the layer of blood as it dripped down to the lapis floor. Her short, beautiful silver-white hair was matted with blood and frost, steam rising from her as the unintentional frost from her spells evaporated in the summer heat. Her gauntlets were slick with the lives she had taken today.

Her breath trembled, unevenly.

She took a step, wavering from the fatigue and pain I knew her to be feeling from her reckless use of magic. Even my head still hurt slightly from the little aether I had used in this fight, and she had used hers freely. She was so out of it that she absentmindedly sheathed her bloody sword in her sheath on her left hip without cleaning the blood off it. Something she would never do, always harping on equipment maintenance when interacting with our companion, the ancient dverg Shouglin, who seemed to never care about maintaining his.

Her gaze was far away, like she had left her body and was only dimly aware of what remained. I know that distance. I lived in it, once.

I turned toward her fully, slowly, unsure whether to reach out, and ended up stuck with my hand halfway to her, halfway from pulling away from her. She had truly frightened me today, more-so than in any previous battle or fight I had been in. I had never witnessed anyone move like her.

“Isha,” I said, finally, calling out to her.

She blinked. Her metallic-silver eyes, eyes I once thought were the mark of a race of butchers and murderers, looked down at her gauntleted hands, confused. She opened and closed them as if she did not understand why they were covered in crimson.

“Goddess of Light, I counted them,” she whispered with her distinctive soft, melodic accent, calling out to our shared god, for she was a Priestess of Light like me. “I forced myself to mark each one, my Lady, for I shall never let them be forgotten.” She still seemed to be somewhere else, as she had slipped into the archaic speech patterns she sometimes used when tired or stressed. She was older than me by two centuries at least, just as I was older than my husband by over half a century.

I did not quite understand her meaning, nor did I know what to say in response to her statement to our Goddess.

My magic had kept us alive. My sword had cut a few die-hard loyalists down. But she had led the charge and carved a bloody and terrifying path from the noble district, through the palace wall’s outer gates into the palace and its corridors, and finally into the throne room with her terrifying, blue-hued bastard sword and her wild, and overwhelming, use of strong magic. Without her, we would have needed to significantly divert efforts and resources from other key locations in the city to achieve our goal to liberate Valmark and overthrow the usurper. And many more of our soldiers would have perished.

Each spell she cast, each swing of her sword, was a toll she paid silently. Just like all of us did.

This was a world beset by violence.

And no matter how light and quick her step, the weight of all that death looked to be crushing her.

“Isha… are you okay? I do not understand what you are saying.” I paused. “What are you counting and what do you not want to forget?” I asked gently, trying to get her to elaborate so I could understand her meaning.

She looked up at me. It was as if she were seeing me for the first time.

Her silver eyes shimmered, slow tears beginning to mix with the blood that had fallen from her eyes due to her overuse of aether. Not tears of triumph or relief at the battle won.

But tears of obvious grief.

As if she had done something horribly, unbelievably wrong. Please, Isha. I know. I know that pain. It fades, but slowly.

“If I do not mark those I felled, then who will remember their deaths?” she finally whispered to me.

I froze.

She had been counting those she had killed. Why didn’t I realize it? It was obvious that was what she was doing.

But the numbers she spoke were impossibly off. That is why it did not register. It was orders of magnitude more than the two to three dozen lives she likely claimed in this justified revolt. After a moment, I shuddered, realization finally dawning on me.

By the Light! Has she really killed over sixteen hundred people? How is that even possible? Is she some type of monster?

I looked closely at her, forcing myself to not take a step back from her due to the unease bubbling up inside me at her ludicrous claim. Her tears finally began to flow freely, but I could not bring myself to say anything. Tears from a tortured, broken soul so unlike the person I had grown to know over the years, hiding it from the world. They continued to mix with the blood on her face as she turned from me and tried to compose herself. She ended up smearing more blood across her face from her gauntlets.

Oh, gods! Goddess of Light, forgive me for doubting my friend, I prayed silently, knowing that Isha clearly saw through my thoughts to my fear and horror underneath through the look on my face. “I am sorry, Isha,” I said to her, knowing my petty words would not make up for the obvious hurt I had given her. Let my apology be more than air, let it be hands and work and mercy.

Several groans and screams pulled my attention away from her. Looking around the throne room, the remaining loyalist guards, servants, and mercenaries had already dropped their weapons and shields, surrendering to us, the outnumbered “rebels.” I turned to one of my husband’s soldiers and saw his chainmail hauberk torn open on the arm with his life force, his blood, pouring out steadily from a nasty, deep gash. He would be in trouble soon if not treated.

It is not over yet. I walked toward him as I began gathering my aether from around my soul in preparation to heal him, feeling its burn, and to heal as many of the other wounded that I could. “Let us save as many as we can, Isha,” I called out to her, hoping the act of saving lives could ease her burden in some manner. “There is still some good we can do, but you have already used too much aether. Go to the Temples with several soldiers and have them come help heal the wounded on both sides.” I looked her squarely in her metallic silver eyes. “Please do not overdo it.”

Over the low moans and cries of the wounded and dying, I barely made out her reply as she bowed low at her waist. Her movements were abnormally precise.

“It shall be as you will it, your Majesty.”

Right... I’m now the Queen. I suddenly felt nauseous. And it was not from the child growing in me.

Goddess of Light, guide my hands. If I am to be seen, let it be for mercy.