Stormrise

By C.S. Dinkel

Four hundred years ago, an apocalyptic Greatstorm shattered civilization and ushered in a new age of darkness. Now, devastating Storms strike every night, ripping open the heavens and summoning feral, alien creatures known as ghoblins.

In the desert, in one of the Sanctuary Cities, a young slave-warrior feels the Storm pulsing within him.

To the far north, in the icy regions of the Glaciers, the son of a mapmaker travels alone, searching for purpose after ghoblins take everything he loves.

Humanity teeters on the brink of extinction. Ghoblins armies assemble as the Storms grow in fury, and in the darkness there are whispers of a new Greatstorm rising...

Prophecy calls it the Worldstorm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387169184

Book preview

Stormrise

Stormrise

By C.S. Dinkel

Copyright

Copyright © 2017 by C.S. Dinkel

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN #: 978-1-387-16918-4

C.S. Dinkel

5018 Rodeo Road

Los Angeles, California 90015

Series Prologue – The Perfect World

Elyiin - The Perfect World

428 SE (Storm Era)

You betrayed us, Brother, the god said.

Golden blood trickled across the ground, running into streams between the marble flagstones. Unnatural thunder groaned outside.

The god knelt, hands bound behind his back. "You betrayed me. He grunted as the knife slipped between his ribs. Still, he held his head high. Does Order… mean nothing to you?"

The killer didn’t answer. He stabbed again, spraying blood.

Iliar, please… all our work… the Perfect World…

…could never be, Brother.

The blade glinted a final time and a gurgle echoed through the stillness.

You knew that as well as I. Why did you continue to believe?

The god collapsed to the floor with a thud. Golden liquid seeped from beneath his white garments, staining the fabric. The emerald light that shone behind his eyes flickered and went dim.

His body was not alone. Three others littered the silver flagstones, blood joined in a dazzling puddle. Two slender females and a silver-haired male. They had been more… hostile than their brother.

Spread the chaos…

With a grunt, the killer slipped his hands under one of the female’s armpits, dragging her up the stairs of the dais. A line of four sapphire thrones crowned the platform. Multi-faceted gems at the crown of each throne refracted the ambient light like prisms. That light was strange—it shone in through the windows, but seemed to come from no direction in particular, like a breeze in a house with the shutters thrown open.

He dragged the goddess into her throne, sitting her upright. The subtle curves in the form of the throne accepted her body like a glove, supporting even her head with a shallow basin beneath the crown of gems. The seat that she had once so arrogantly passed judgment from now worked just as well to cradle her corpse, almost as if by design.

It’s possible, the killer thought. This plan had been unfolding for millennia.

He pulled the remaining bodies into their thrones, then stepped back. They were fools, true, but they deserved this respect. Some part of who the killer once was felt he owed them that much.

Iliar, the god had called him. Iliar’navynin Tendran’el. The darkness within him stirred, and the killer turned away. That was the name of a man who no longer was.

The old world is gone.

The real work here was complete. He’d done his part. Order was dead, and this world would be consumed. But, as Aleah had once said, a net of skyfish doesn’t feed a man for a lifetime. A single world would not satisfy the darkness for long. If the plan stretched back millennia, it stretched forward at least that far as well.

He shoved the thought of his wife from his mind. Now was not the time for distractions.

The killer reached into the pack at his waist. He withdrew four crystal vials, small enough to cradle in the palm of his hand. One by one, he stopped at the side of each of his victims and placed a vial to their wounds.

Blood contained power, and this blood more than any other. The darkness had plans for it.

As he capped off the last vial, he became aware of a pair of eyes on him. He straightened carefully.  No one should have gotten past the Consuls. Slipping the blade from his belt, he whirled about with a shout.

A wispy, distorted form of a man regarded the killer with a stunned expression. Tall and broad-shouldered, face covered in scars, the figure appeared to be in mid-step, a spear raised in his hands. Their gazes locked and both men froze. Their eyes peered into each other—glimmering, vibrant green into deep, fathomless brown.

Who are you? the killer wondered.

His instincts screamed at him to move, to react, but his muscles were locked in place. This wasn’t the first ghost he’d seen—they’d been appearing more frequently—but never before had one acknowledged his presence. Never before had they looked him in the eye.

Can you hear me? he asked softly.

The intruder, his form distorted, seemed too shocked to move. His mouth worked once, his spear falling to his waist. Then a long talon, black and wickedly sharp, blossomed from his ethereal sternum. He spasmed, mouth opening in a soundless scream, and was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.

The killer shivered. Malakar had proposed a theory concerning these ghosts and the Conclave’s gateways, and the man the killer had been was inclined to agree with him. We should have closed the Rift.

The darkness in him stirred and he took control of himself.

He turned a final time to look over the remnants of the court. Long black lines scarred the silver floor, burn marks that twisted through the scattered remains of the room’s finery. A hole gaped in the far wall, peering out over a broken city and a land as dead as the bodies on those thrones. In the distance, a mountain spewed smoke into a crimson sky. Lava boiled out over a shattered landscape.

The killer turned back to the fallen avatar-god, the one sitting near the center. He had fought hard, but there was no stopping this storm. That was something the killer had realized before the rest of them. That was why he was still alive.

I’m sorry, Brother. And he meant it. But you brought this upon yourself. You all did. There is only one thing lasts forever.

Thunder rippled across the dome of the sky. The killer stiffened and raised his eyes to the crystal ceiling. A whisper of wind caressed his ear, tickled his nostrils with a hint of decay. It was the sort of subtle thing that could slip through the tensorfield.

It is time, the darkness said.

He left the massive chamber, striding through the crumbling wall at the far end. The doors here—great gilded things, lined with gold and studded with starstones—were twisted and bent, their hinges ripped from the walls. He stepped through onto a landing overlooking a steep hill. Debris cluttered the base of the glasslike pillars surrounding him. Those pillars lined the perimeter of the House of Standards and marked the edge of the tensorfield. Atop the hill it was as still as a summer evening, only the lightest of breezes able to pass through the barrier. Beyond, the world took its final breath.

A city stretched out from the base of the hill. Smoke rose from a hundred fires, cloaking the air in darkness, and the screams were audible even from here. How many died down there, trapped in their last refuge? Avelyn had been built as a shrine—now it served as a tomb.

The killer prepared himself, struggling to ignore the torrent of memories and images that threatened to rise. Aleah was out there, her body slowly burning away in the toxic air. He hoped she was already dead.

But the darkness wouldn’t let him think about that. Instead, he focused on the moment.

It happened at once, as if the building tension finally gained the strength to snap. The volcano in the distance exploded. It didn’t erupt—it burst open from its core, shattering like fine crystal. A wave of liquid fire spewed forth and draped the land for a hundred miles in every direction. Lightning struck from a sky painted black by ash, a thousand bolts at once, turning the city to glass. They didn’t sizzle and fade, as lightning usually did. Instead, they lingered like jagged silver pillars, pouring energy into the earth, pulsing, throbbing, until the land, too, groaned and splintered. Lava bubbled to the surface from great cracks, submerging everything.

Alone on his hilltop, protected by the glimmering, translucent dome of the tensorfield, the killer watched his world die with a mixture of horror, revulsion, and grim satisfaction.

Then he turned on his heel, stalking back into the Hall. There wasn’t much time. Just inside the doors, he found a staircase to his left. He followed it down several stories. As he descended, the world became deathly quiet, the thunder and screams fading into the stone. The destruction of the realm above had not yet echoed into these deep places, but it would. Soon. The tensorfield could not hold forever.

The staircase ended at a locked door. The killer waved his hand in front of a panel near the lock and the latch clicked, recognizing him. He opened the door into a laboratory. Streams of sparks cascaded down from frayed wires. Mangled equipment littered the tables and floor, some of it still clutched in the hands of dead workers.

He’d known many of those faces. The deaths here pained him more than the Eternals in the throne room above. His colleagues here had betrayed him, too—they all had—but these, he could forgive.

Oh Aleah...

The killer crossed the laboratory to a door at the far side. So much had been accomplished here, much of it by his own hand. Together, the men and women in this room had ushered in a new age. The Perfect World… That dream had been born between these walls.

In the end, that dream had doomed them all.

He reached the door, but the handle was locked. Summoning the surging power inside him, the killer raised a foot and kicked the thick metal clean off its hinges. It had been many, many years since this door had been opened.

The room inside was completely bare, a stone square only five paces across. The killer stepped in, lifting the heavy door and tossing it back into the lab with a grunt. It slid a dozen paces, crashing through the legs of tables, crushing bodies. More instruments clattered to the floor, spewing hissing gas or thin streams of noxious smoke.

The killer took a deep breath, calming himself. The power that raged within his veins was like liquid fire, but he forced it back down, wrapping himself in iron self-control. His spasming muscles quieted.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the golden vials. He hesitated only a moment before popping the cork. The world was dying and time ran short. How long before that lava climbed the hill, destroying the Pillars? How long before the Hall was consumed like the rest of Elyiin?

Time. A strange, disconcerting thing. It had fascinated him for centuries. How many questions had he left unanswered?

It didn’t matter anymore.

Tilting his head back, he swallowed the blood with one gulp.

Power filled him. It was different than what he was used to. Opposite, but complementary, somehow. He could feel the two sources of energy raging within him—battling each other and embracing each other in a tenuous, uneasy dance. Soon, he knew, one would cast the other out.

Malakar would have given anything to have studied this moment. He’d postulated something similar to this duality for years. His research would never be completed.

With the new power came new vision. The killer could sense things he’d never sensed before, pockets of life and currents of energy suffusing the world around him. It was all so weak compared to the weight of the darkness settling atop it. He could feel those currents slipping away, bit by bit, consumed by a ravenous hunger.

He pushed away his newfound awareness. The once empty room now held a glowing orb at its center. Had it always been there, and only now revealed to his eyes? Hovering a few paces above the ground, the orb pulsed with ribbons of purple and black light, swirling in concert around a sun of blinding white. A Time Rift.

All our work… Those were Malakar’s words. He hadn’t known what they were working toward. Four hundred years ago, when they’d fashioned this Rift, everything had changed.

It began here, Brother, and it ends here.

The vial dropped from the killer’s hands to shatter against the ground. Summoning the blood’s power a final time, fashioning the strange energy, he ripped the portal open and passed into another world.

Stormrise Prologue – Purge

Tellus - The Fallen World

409 SE

Blaiz kept to the shadows. Hulking towers of glimmering metal loomed on all sides, outlined against the crimson rage of a Fire Storm burning in the sky. Lightning arced across the horizon and concussions rippled through the incandescent clouds.

He moved like a wraith. Sable armor, supple and light, coated his limbs, drawing in the shadows. His thoughts were nervous.

It’s too still.

He kept his eyes moving, like his training had taught him. Flickering shapes danced across the mirrored windows of the city’s giants. Buzzing hazebulbs hung from posts to illuminate the dark sidewalks with cerulean light. The city was quiet, the streets empty, but he almost thought he could feel eyes upon him.

It couldn’t be. He’d taken care of them. That feeling on the back of his neck was only his imagination.

He moved faster yet.

Quiet. Too much quiet. This city doesn’t sleep. Where were the urchins? Blaiz had lived in this city for twenty-six years, ever since he was boy, and there had always been one constant—street rats and urchins. But tonight…

His gaze swept past the shadows beneath awnings, burrowed down long, dark alley ways, but nothing moved under the Storm’s light. Even this late, the sound of a beggar’s fevered mutters or the bestial grunts from an upper window often mixed with the thunder overhead. Tonight there was nothing.

He stopped along the edge of one of the canals that divided Kyr. The water burned with the bloody light of the Storm. A bank of stone ran along either edge, raised several paces above the murky water. Casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone, he swung down from the street to crouch in the shadows beneath the overhang. A door hid in the darkness.

Blaiz’s hands found the lock. He pulled the key from a pocket in his sleeve and inserted it, pulling the door open. He slipped inside without a sound.

A long corridor led away from him, sloping downward and utterly dark. He hated this part. Grunting, he pulled the door close behind him and started off through the darkness, holding his breath. The ceiling above him, invisible in the gloom, held countless murder holes. If someone was watching, they could kill him at any moment. The walls, too, were lined with crossbow slits and holes for spears. He quickened his step down the slope. No man liked to be blind.

Hands held out in front of him, Blaiz eventually arrived at another door. As his fingers touched the cold metal, a hazebulb ignited above him, casting a small pool of illumination. He pulled another key from his pocket, inserted it, and twisted. The gears inside the door clicked and something heavy fell into the floor, allowing the door to be pushed open. He did so, stepping into a larger, illuminated chamber.

Before he could take another step, a blade was at his neck, hardened obsidian cool against his skin. He froze. Why does the Storm burn? a low voice asked.

He could feel the blade rub against his skin as he cleared his throat. For fear of… ghoblin’s balls, Azyr, will you let me breathe? Some of the pressure behind the blade eased off. The Storm burns for fear of the dark. I’m alone, okay? There was a sharp sigh of relief and the glowing sword disappeared. Blaiz turned to face his attacker, rubbing his throat.

Sorry. Tall, with dark hair swept across a rugged, hardened face, Azyr seemed uncharacteristically embarrassed. I’m a bit on edge. Were you followed?

Of course I was followed. Blaiz clapped his friend on the shoulder, stepping past him. I dropped the bodies in the canal. He surveyed the room. It was a cluttered chamber, filled with bookshelves and desks, weapon racks and workbenches. Mahra? What are you doing here?

A woman stepped out from behind a shelf along the wall, clutching a blanketed bundle in her arms. How— She paused and shook her head. It’s good to see you, Blaiz.

You too, he said, but you didn’t answer my— The words died in his mouth. He narrowed his eyes, looking closer at the bundle in her arms. Is that what I think it is?

They found her, Azyr said softly beside him. We had no choice.

Blaiz looked between them, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice. "Azyr, my friend, did you bring an infant to a Tempest safehouse? Now, of all times?"

We had no choice, Azyr repeated. He seemed so tense, so different from the calm warrior that Blaiz had come to know. Something had unsettled him deeply.

They came at Stormfall, Mahra said. They killed the guards downstairs, and the workers, too, and… Her voice trailed off, eyes widening.

Mahra held off a Dedicate with a poker until I arrived. A poker, Blaiz.

Blaiz’s eyebrows rose of their own accord. Storms above. Only a few minutes before, he’d been hard pressed to fight off a pair of footpads with a sword. A Dedicate? A poker? Remind me not to threaten your son, Mahra.

She clutched the bundle closer, as if he might not be joking. Azyr, who had come to stand at her side, wrapped an arm around her, leaning down to murmur something to the child in her arms. When he looked up, his expression had darkened. Well? Did you make it in?

I made it in. Blaiz shook his head. It’s him, Azyr. It has to be.

The others?

They’re… gone. There were cells, but they were all empty. They’ve been executed.

Azyr slumped. He closed his eyes, mouthing a silent prayer. They’d both hoped they might find some of their brothers and sisters still alive. A false, useless hope.

But there would be time to grieve later.

Azyr. He knows everything. I saw it.

Azyr looked up. Everything?

Names, contacts, even Storm-blasted safe house locations. I don’t know how he got it, but he has it. It explains everything.

He must have had informants among the Shadows, Azyr muttered. Did you get a glimpse of his plans?

I did, Blaiz answered softly. He’d seen more than that. "They’re coming here, Azyr. I saw the documents. A team of Dedicates with details on how to get through our defenses, slated to attack just before dawn. They have everything they need. We’re the last ones left."

Azyr froze. Here?

Here. We’ve wasted enough time already.

Do we stay and fight?

Blaiz had considered that. An ambush, using all of the safehouse’s considerable security measures. The Dedicates would take heavy losses forcing their way in. But force their way in they would, and eventually… No. We run.

That’s not like you.

We don’t have a choice this time, my friend. Believe me, I don’t like it either, but if we stay... he wins.

No one is taking my son, Mahra said fiercely.

Blaiz looked from her to Azyr. The tall warrior sighed, then nodded curtly. We run. For now.

That was all Blaiz needed to hear. He sprang into action. They’ll be here in an hour. I know of a place we can stay, just north of the new Arena, long enough to form a plan. We’ll need…

Twenty minutes later, Azyr was ushering them through the rear door of the safehouse. Each of them carried a small pack on their back—food, water, torches, weapons, everything they would need to go underground for a while. Mahra clutched her son in her arms, whispering gently into the blankets. The child had been curiously quiet through the whole ordeal.

Checking one last time to make sure they’d left nothing of importance behind, Blaiz hefted a lit torch in his hand. He nodded to Azyr, who slipped into the shadowy tunnel behind his wife as Blaiz knelt to the ground. A wick ran away from him, a length of flammable wire attached to various mechanisms they’d placed across the underground chamber. It was a safeguard they’d installed into every safehouse. The Shadows of the Tempest collected secrets like a merchant collects gold, wrapped up in the texts lining bookshelves or the very weapons hanging from racks. Those secrets weren’t meant for outsiders.

The wire caught and a spark raced across the floor. Sighing, Blaiz backed into the escape tunnel and closed the door behind him, securing its latch. The lock clicked as the bolts slid into place.

There was no explosion. The devices they used would burn—slowly at first, but building into a steady inferno that would consume everything the safehouse had to offer. It was the best they could do with so little time. Blaiz felt a twinge of regret as they moved away. That safehouse had saved his life on multiple occasions.

The tunnel they crept down was tight, only wide enough to go one at a time and just tall enough that Mahra could stand up straight. The two men trailing her proceeded with bent backs, swords strapped across their shoulders, holding their packs in hand. It was slow going.

Your son, Blaiz said to Azyr after some time. The child was just shy of a year old, but Blaiz had never met him. Even Azyr had only spent a small amount of time with him. They’d been rather busy lately. What’s his name?

Azyr seemed surprised by the question. He paused, then answered softly, the name echoing off the musty walls of the tunnel.

Blaiz nodded. It’s a strong name.

It was his grandfather’s.

He’s a quiet one, Blaiz noted.

Mahra says it’s because he’s thinking. Says he doesn’t have time to cry.

Blaiz grinned. I like that.

They continued in silence, the sound of their scuffling feet echoing off the passage walls. They were probably two or three stories beneath the streets, pushing through one leg of an extensive network of tunnels that laced the entire city. Moisture coated these walls—this low, they were beneath even the sewage drains. There were no sounds from the city above. Blaiz wondered if it were still as eerily quiet as it had been an hour before.

Eventually, the tunnel started to slant upwards, back toward street level, and it wasn’t long before Mahra called something softly over her shoulder. Her torchlight revealed a door in their path, locked in place by heavy iron bars.

This is it, Blaiz said, nodding to Azyr. They set their packs aside, each of them crouching to gain more leverage. Together they heaved, lifting the first bar out of its brackets. It fell to the floor with a reverberating clatter.

Quickly now, said Blaiz. They lifted the second bar, tossing it aside. We’ll head south along Market Avenue once we’re out. Follow my lead. They hefted the final bar, dropping it atop the other two. The resulting clatter was deafening in the silence, but the time for secrecy had passed. Now was the time for speed.

Mahra pushed the door open as the men grabbed their packs, slinging them over their shoulders and following her out into the dancing light of the Storm. The doorway led to a ledge that lined the slow waters of a canal, much like the door that led into the safehouse on the other side.

Blaiz threw a glance over his shoulder before leaving. No light shimmered in the depths of the tunnel—they hadn’t been followed. Yet. Saviri’s men would get through eventually, but they’d find nothing. By the time they got the rear door open and followed it here, Blaiz hoped to be long gone.

Satisfied that they were safe, he pulled the door shut and backed straight into a rigid, motionless Azyr. Hey, he said, turning, we need to— The words died on his lips.

Two men, cloaked in black robes, held a struggling Mahra by the arms, pulling the baby away from her. They were tall, taller than should be possible. Another stood with a blade to Azyr’s throat. As Blaiz completed his turn, a sword came to rest against his neck. The baby had finally started crying.

The trouble with spying, a voice said, "is that you never know if what you see is real, or what your enemy wants you to see." A man stepped out behind two of the black-clad warriors, a deep hood concealing his features. He was neither as tall nor as wide as them, but he drew Blaiz’s eyes like a shryke to blood. Something about his posture, the way he moved, chilled the hardened assassin to his core. The tall ones, those were Dedicates—inhuman warriors trained to kill Sparks. Blaiz had fought them several times and they were no pushovers. But there was never any doubt in his mind about who was in charge here. The man stopped in front of Azyr. Although to call me your enemy is misleading. A wolf has no quarrel with a rabbit.

A what?

Get your hands off my wife, Azyr snarled. He managed to make it sound dangerous, even with a sword at his throat. If you touch either of them— He cut off as a gauntleted fist collided with his jaw, knocking him to his knees. Blood spattered across the pavement and a tooth splashed into the canal. The Dedicates wore armor under those robes.

Threats? the man asked. He frowned and turned his attention to Blaiz as the Dedicate drove a kick into Azyr’s side. Many thanks for meeting us here. That deep hood hid his eyes, but Blaiz could feel his gaze nonetheless. Getting to you inside that safe house would have been… inconvenient.

Saviri, Blaiz breathed, making the name sound like a curse. You know, I expected you to be shorter. That’s how your women describe you.

Saviri? The man laughed. The sound was unexpectedly melodic, pleasant even. I am not Darus Saviri, thank the stars. He glanced at one his Dedicates. Can you imagine?

The too-tall man said nothing. The leader shook his head with a sigh.

Stars? Blaiz wondered. What are stars? He opened his mouth to demand answers, but the man had already turned away. One of the Dedicates passed the child to him.

So you’re the one, he said, gently taking the crying infant. He lifted the blankets, peering in at the child’s face. Mahra screamed, lunging for him, but a Dedicate caught her halfway there. He tossed her back to the ground with impunity. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you? He shook his head, raising a finger in front of the child’s face. Blaiz watched with wonder as the boy’s cries died and his struggles ceased. The man smiled—a gleam of white in the darkness. Longer than you can imagine, he whispered.

Get your hands off my son! Mahra shrieked, lying on the cobblestone. She was ignored. Don’t touch him!

You think you’ve accomplished something? Azyr snarled, trying to find the strength to push himself up. By killing us all... you think you’re changing anything?

I’m changing everything, the man said simply. This is the end of the Shadows of the Tempest. One day, your children will thank me for killing you. He turned, handing the child off, then glanced back at Azyr. Before you could kill them.

Azyr sneered, absorbing another kick to his sternum. This time he was ready for it, catching the boot and twisting. The Dedicate hissed and turned with its foot, bringing its heel crashing into Azyr’s temple.

Now.

The hooded man’s attention was divided. One Dedicate stood over a groaning Azyr while another held Mahra’s arms behind her. The third held the baby in its hands, turning toward the carriage that sat on the road a few dozen paces away. The fourth, the one with its blade at Blaiz’s neck, was watching Azyr, too.

Blaiz moved like a raptor, dropping to the ground and lashing out with a foot. The Dedicate guarding him went down. The others lunged for him, but Azyr was waiting. He caught another Dedicate by the ankle and wrenched, snapping the bone. The creature didn’t so much as grunt. It looked down at its leg with a blank expression. That was all Blaiz needed to slam his foot into its back, smashing it into the wall. The creature’s head connected squarely and it dropped to its knees, head leaving a trail of hair and blood down the stone.

Sword! Blaiz shouted, ducking under a horizontal swipe. The move bared the hilt across his back to Azyr, who drew the blade in a single, swift motion. He met the attack of the next Dedicate with a shower of sparks, but was cast back, the inhuman warrior too strong.

Stormwater, Blaiz thought desperately. We need Stormwater. There was some in their packs. Those had been kicked into a pile near the doorway to the tunnel, but the Dedicates were so fast. So powerful. Azyr’s opponent dodged an attack, slamming the pommel of its weapon into his belly. He doubled over, gasping, as the Dedicate raised its blade.

There was no time to think. Blaiz dove forward, driving his head into the creature’s chest. They both went to the ground, but the Dedicate recovered faster, rolling atop him. It raised its sword again, peering down at him with eyes as black as the Stormclouds overhead.

Enough! The shout, the command, rippled through the air. The Dedicate froze, weapon raised. Another had a sword leveled at Azyr. This is meaningless. Can’t you see that? The hooded man stepped between Azyr and Blaiz. Both were on the ground, inches away from their deaths. He looked between them, shaking his head again. Had he somehow amplified his voice? I suppose you can’t. I admire your passion. I truly do. Sometimes, I forget what you’re capable of. He knelt beside Azyr, tilting his head to stare into the warrior’s face. Blaiz wondered what his friend saw inside that hood. Thank you for reminding me, the strange man murmured.

Then he drove a knife into Azyr’s gut.

Mahra screamed. Or maybe Blaiz screamed. He couldn’t tell. Blood spurted from Azyr’s stomach, spattering the hooded man’s robes. He didn’t seem to mind. He stood calmly, looking toward the carriage. The fourth Dedicate was already inside, Azyr’s son with him.

Take this one to Saviri, the man said curtly. Kill the others. We have what we need.

Blaiz saw Mahra die first. A sword appeared between her breasts—just the tip, then the whole blade. She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face, eyes locked onto Azyr as the Dedicates dragged him away. Her killer shoved her forward with a boot, yanking its sword from her back.

My turn.

This wasn’t right. He wasn’t ready.

This isn’t how it ends. All our work…

His brothers and sisters, everything they’d fought for, died for…

He watched the shadow of the blade fall in slow motion, wicked edge directed at the top of his skull. The blow would cleave his head in two. The hooded man had his back turned, heading toward the carriage.

It was not for nothing.

The other two Dedicates made as if to follow him to the street.

That left only one way.

At the last possible instant, Blaiz twisted to the side, driving his elbow into the Dedicate’s sternum. It doubled over in spite of itself, falling atop him and dropping its blade. The hooded man started, looking back. Blaiz heaved.

In one smooth motion, he threw the Dedicate off of him, rolled to the side, and dropped into the murky waters of the canal.

1 Trees

…like all things in this world, there must be balance. As day is balanced by night, as life is balanced by death, so Order, too, must be balanced by the Storm.

-Meditations on the Tempest

The Eighth Ascendant

301 SE

Tellus - The Fallen World

428 SE

Dead. All dead.

Kori came to his feet, stumbling away from his father’s body.

How did this happen?

Talon marks in the dirt. Don’t go that way.

I should have been here. I should be dead, too.

The sun was red on the horizon. Red all around him.

Someone screamed. He went that way.

Have to help…

A house up ahead was barely visible through the smoke. The thatching was on fire. Someone screamed again and Kori broke into a lumbering sprint. He had to reach them before—

He was too late. The wooden beams holding the roof gave out and the entire structure caved inward. The roar of flames swallowed the scream. Kori stopped, horrified. Eternals, no…

Something moved from behind the burning house, too tall to be a man. Too thin.

No, they shouldn’t be here. The sun is rising…

Scaled and pasty white, the creature turned jeweled eyes toward him.

They shouldn’t be…

He waited for death. The creature hesitated. It lifted a long snout, tasting the air, breaking eye contact as bone-chilling cries echoed in the distance.

Kori ran. Instincts as old as breath moved him before his tired mind even knew what he was doing. Get to the nearest stone building. Lock the door. Find a weapon.

The door was ripped off its hinges. It didn’t matter. He leapt a body, looking for a place to hide. A cellar, a closet, anywhere.

There was nothing. Nowhere to go. He crouched under a table, held his breath, and prepared to die.

But they didn’t follow. Unearthly cries echoed in the distance, growing faint.

Why didn’t they follow?

They always followed.

He wrapped his hands around his knees and began to rock back and forth, humming a lullaby his father had used to sing.

It was a particularly beautiful day. This far from the village, Kori couldn’t smell the smoke.

Take him, oh Holy Ones…

It was an hour since he’d escaped from the charred ruins of Iste. Light from the east played across his face, invigorating in the early chill. He mindlessly drew his fingers over the strings of his lute. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, legs dangling over the edge of a chasm. His eyes gazed unfocused across the endless stretches of ice.

… and guide his steps along the Eternal path...

Bloody red light burned along the northern horizon. He didn’t look that way. To the south, there was only ice and snow, broken by innumerous black stoneblades.

...across the Shadow Sea...

Moisture left a trail down his left cheek, startling him. He hurriedly scrubbed the tear away, then strummed another chord. What would Lyla think if she saw him crying?

Lyla’s dead, a voice said in his head. He pushed it away and finished the prayer.

..to rest at the foot of your Door.

The prayer came by rote, as did the notes. All prayers needed music, or the gods wouldn’t listen. It wasn’t something he understood, but then, that was why they were the gods, and he was the poor sod who’d just lost everything.

Luckily, he still had his lute from the night before. He’d meant to play songs for Lyla in the cave, but…

Don’t think about that.

He plucked the last few strings, ending the prayer.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did. Why the music? And why did the chords of a death prayer sound so melodic? He knew his mind was reeling. He could sense the disconcerting chaos of his thoughts, but he didn’t care. Death wasn’t melodic. There was no structure to death. No beauty.

No, more like this…

The confused jumble of notes startled him out of his half-reverie. He sat up, glancing about as the jarring chord bounced off icy spires in the distance. A moment later the echo faded and silence returned.

He didn’t like the silence. He could hear it all around, pushing inward. Clamoring for his attention. Like so many voices calling to him… blaming him…

It wasn’t my fault, he growled, the lie hollow in his ears.

Desperate, he struck the lute again and a snarled web of notes careened through the morning tranquility. The accusatory silence retreated. With sudden frustration, he began to pound at the strings. The twisted, violent excuse for music lanced in all directions, saturating the landscape with discordant confusion. It was terrible, and beautiful.

Abruptly, with a twang, the smallest string snapped. Kori jerked his hand away with a savage curse as a crack rippled across the glacier.

He stared between his smarting fingers and the dangling twine, and the edges of his lips quivered.

Eternals, no…

The gods aren’t listening to you, you fool.

He pushed himself to his feet and hefted the lute. A strangled cry escaped his lips as he pulled his arm back and hurled the instrument into the depths of the chasm.

Ragged breath rushed from his lungs and he collapsed to the ice, shaking. An arm reached hesitantly for the place where the lute had disappeared, now lost. Snow clumped in his hair, melting into streams that coursed down his back and shoulders, but he didn’t feel it. Despair filled him. He pulled his knees tight to his chest as sobs racked his quaking form.

Hours passed. The tears sapped Kori’s meager supply of energy, allowing the weariness of the past few days to creep up on him like a hunting whitecat. How long since he’d slept? He hardly noticed as his eyes drifted shut, as his head fell against a pillow of snow.

Dreams came.

Trees rose all around him.

He’d seen trees before, but not like this. On expeditions with his father, they’d sometimes come close to the copses that that hid in the shadows beneath stoneblades. But, like the wood the timber hunters brought back, those trees were black and warped. Their limbs were lined with needles and they never grew more than a few paces tall.

These trees were green.

They shot out of the ground around him faster than his eyes could track. Rising, stretching, they spread verdant canopies of leaves out like umbrellas, straining for the sky. Their trunks were a rich brown, nothing like the scraggly things Kori had come to know. At their bases sprouted flowers and bushes, weeds and ferns of a thousand colors. Violet petals surrounded a vibrant cerulean core. On the trees, yellow buds grew into round fruit, only to drop from high branches, splattering against the ground. The seeds created new trees that sprung from the soil to race after their parents.

Kori stood in the midst of all, transfixed. He’d never seen any of these plants before, yet he could call each by name. He understood them. He could feel them—the pulsing of sap, the twisting of vines. It echoed inside him, the vibration of nature reverberating like music off of cavern walls. He felt one with his surroundings, as if there were no separation between the forest’s body and his own.

He raised an arm and the trees bowed in the wind, their limbs swept aside. He closed his fist and a thousand fruits rained down from the heights, bouncing off branches. He looked upward and the canopy split.

He frowned. The sky was dark. That wasn’t right.

He took a step forward. A path opened before him, and then he saw it. In the distance, a great tree rose above the rest, jutting into the sky like a needle. Above it swirled black storm clouds. Lightning erupted from their core, splitting the air, striking the tree. Electricity ran down its length, causing its branches to tremble, but the tree did not die. Kori could feel its battle inside his own body. The lightning pulsed, pumping energy into the great plant, and it accepted gratefully. The energy raced down its trunk and was pumped through its roots, funneled into the earth. The forest lapped it up eagerly. More and more plants burst from the dirt, their stalks humming with electricity, their petals glowing softly in the growing shadows. Their leaves expanded, growing larger and more plentiful, stretching for the heavens. The forest’s growth fed off the power of the lightning.

Was this how it worked, then? It seemed strange. In this dream, Kori understood many things. There were different types of power in the world, born of different sources, and these two—life and the Storm—did not seem compatible.

Soon, the sun disappeared, blotted out by increasingly thick layers of canopy. The floor of the forest grew dark. Fruit dropped from high branches, spattering against wood and dirt. The vibrant flowers that had once bloomed at the base of the trees withered and died, their petals spread amongst the rotting corpses of berries. No wind drifted among the wooded paths—their twists and turns had become too convoluted for even the air to move freely.

Kori put a hand to his chest as his breath grew short. No fresh air descended from the green ceiling above. The shadows of the forest became darker, the stillness denser. Kori dropped to a knee, gasping for air, but found none. Still, life erupted around him, rising up, stretching for the sky, then failing and collapsing. The forest floor was a nursery and a graveyard.

I don’t understand, Kori thought, clutching at his throat. His eyes went wide, veins popping. The forest and the Storm. Are they allies, or are they at odds?

Which is winning?

The carcasses of strangled flowers and fallen leaves welcomed his body as the last of his breath gave out.

There must be balance, said a voice.

It was the warbling cry of a frost flyer that pulled Kori from his dreams. Wheeling overhead, the great bird cast a shadow a dozen paces wide across the ice. It circled his motionless body, swooping ever lower, majestic white wings stirring clouds of snow from the packed earth. Alighting gracefully atop the peak of an icy boulder, folding its great wings across its back, the bird cocked its head and studied Kori curiously. It dropped to the ground, hopping closer. A low, rumbling call built up in its sternum.

Slowly, he sat up. Deep pain throbbed in the back of his skull as the darkness began to fade. The frost flyer warbled again, lowering its head until its eyes were even with Kori’s. They were large and circular, icy blue with pupils of deepest sable. There was age in those eyes, hidden behind a wild light. This bird… it had to have been sent by the gods. A sign. He stretched out a gentle hand and the frost flyer leaned into it, burying its warm head into the curve of his palm. Its feathers were unexpectedly soft.

Guess I owe you one, he murmured, words dangling in the emptiness. There had been a dream… trees and lightning and… He shook his head as the images faded away.

He took stock of his surroundings. He sat near the chasm between glaciers where he’d stumbled from his village. How far had he come?

He sat up, flexing stiff muscles. The frost flyer leapt back with a harsh caw as his fingers left its feathers, beating its wings and exciting clouds of cold, white powder. Kori cried out, covering his face. Snow battered his neck and forearms. The bird screeched again, a call so different from its earlier warbles it seemed to come from a different creature. Kori scrambled backward, away from the frenzied bird, shaking moisture from his limbs.

Stupid thing… he muttered, throwing a dirty glance in the frost flyer’s direction and rubbing his arms. The noonday sun had kept him warm while he slept, but—wait. Kori’s breath caught in his throat.  He noted the bird’s shadow, stretching out across the ice. Oh, Eternals’ beards…

It wasn’t noon. The sun hovered only a few spans above the horizon, casting long shadows away from the stoneblades. In the farthest distance, he saw what he thought were the beginnings of Stormclouds—shadowed and angry, awaiting the night. Cold terror filled his limbs. Even the frost flyer’s angry shrieks seemed distant.

How long did you sleep, you fool? It was a mistake he never would have made in his right mind.

Desperately, he cast about for any nearby shelter. It was a futile attempt, a dead man’s last hope. The nearest stoneblades were miles away, and even the hollows at their bases wouldn’t keep him from a Storm. Nothing remained to this world but ashes and ice, nothing to hide him from the darkness. If the night didn’t kill him, the ghoblins would.

The image came back to him of his father’s body, broken and bloody atop the snow, Lyla sprawled out nearby. Of the burnt skeletons of homes and shops that was all that remained of the only village he’d ever known.

I could die here, he thought. Unfocused, his gaze drifted across the bleak landscape. Alone on the ice. The cold would take me before the pain hit. It would not be so bad. Then I could see Father again.

His eyes fell on the frost flyer. The gods had given him another chance, hadn’t they? The bird watched him with intelligent eyes, head tilted. Kori swallowed, conscious of the sinking sun reflected in its gaze. Slowly, fear drained from his limbs and cold feeling returned.

Thank you, he whispered. Soon, old man, but not today.

As the majestic creature pumped its way back into the sky, Kori turned back to the endless stretches of ice. Somewhere, there had to be a place to hide. He just had to make it there before Stormfall.

2 Derelict

There is a new darkness in the world, one brought not by silent terror but by the cacophony of thunder. It is the corporeal that haunts us now. Still, one would do well not to forget the danger of shadows even whilst lightning strikes.

-Writings of the Blade

Milo Keye, Shadows of the Tempest

32 SE

Pulsing blue lights lit the interior of the corridor. Smears of blood left behind by dying men painted the floor a deep crimson. The hallway ran a full hundred paces, black stone illuminated by hazebulbs strung in the upper corners. Death had claimed this place, saturated the stones and the mortar between them with the lives of a thousand warriors. They called it the Scar.

His fingers tingled with surges of energy. Fire seared his veins. The thunder of the crowd reverberated through the masonry, shaking the stone. Flakes of dried blood shivered and dropped