Chapter 3 Hyalite
HYALITE
Survival instinct crashed over Lark like a tidal wave, her muscles coiling instantly.
Three harvesters stalked toward her through the old-growth forest. Their daggers’ sharp steel whispering quiet menace.
The promise of death sent her pale skin prickling.
She had no blade of her own, only a hefty branch salvaged from the scattered firewood.
Yet as her fingers closed around its rough bark, the wood seemed to come alive, as if awakening to her touch.
A hint of movement to her left caught her eye.
She pivoted, the branch becoming an extension of her arm as she ducked beneath a whistling dagger.
Though it missed, the weapon left a trail of disturbed air that tingled against her skin.
In one fluid motion, she brought the branch around, connecting with her attacker’s skull.
She felt the impact through the wood. A dull thud echoed through the darkening forest. The attacker crumpled against the wide tree trunk; his body gone slack.
Another dagger spiraled through the air, its polished edge passing unseen through the shadows.
Pain flared across her shoulder as the blade kissed her flesh, but Lark barely registered the sting.
Her world had narrowed to survival, every sense heightened to an almost supernatural degree.
She rolled forward, bringing the fight to her attackers with a fluid grace, both foreign and achingly familiar.
The branch became a staff in her practiced hands, striking with precision.
Three of her strikes landed in rapid succession: stomach, chest, throat.
Her opponent stumbled backward, his feet tangling with a fallen log.
The crack of his skull against stone rang through the clearing with terrible finality.
The third harvester moved like a deadly shadow.
Her fingers splayed to reveal two more daggers held with lethal expertise.
They flew from her grip, cutting the air with a sharp hiss.
Time seemed to slow down as Lark’s body responded without a thought.
The branch swept upward, catching one blade mid-flight.
Its tip buried deep into the wood with a solid, THUNK, sending vibrations into her palms. She deflected the second dagger with a movement pulled from muscle memory.
As Lark wrenched the embedded dagger free, the forest seemed to hold its breath.
The woman lunged, but her attack was cut brutally short.
She staggered, hands flying to her throat where a dagger hilt now protruded.
In the ethereal moonlight, Barson and Tharon stood like sentinels among the trees, their weapons still at the ready.
Barson approached the fallen harvester with practiced calm, cleaning his blade on her padded armor with methodical precision. The metal made a soft singing sound as it slid against the leather.
Tharon’s voice cut through the heavy silence. “Harvest law says only the Squad Leader can approve the death of another harvester. Any attack on a harvester’s life without express permission is considered an attack on the Squad Leader and answered in equal retribution.”
Lark lowered the captured dagger. “What about them?” She gestured to the fallen figures, exasperated, trying to ignore the way their shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally in the fading light.
“Take their blades if you want. You defended yourself fairly. Those kills are yours,” Tharon said, his voice holding no judgment.
“I didn’t kill...” The words caught in her throat as her eyes fell on the wrong angle of one man’s neck, the dark stain spreading beneath the other’s skull.
“I didn’t,” she repeated, but the denial felt hollow against the evidence before her.
Something stirred in her mind—a flash of violence, of necessity and survival, but it slipped away again.
“We both saw what happened. You might not have meant to end their lives, but they definitely meant to end yours,” Tharon said, his gaze lifting to the triple moons hanging like watchful eyes in the darkening sky.
“The moons will be setting soon, and it will be pitch black out here. You should come with us. We don’t know what kind of creatures could be lurking nearby. ”
Lark’s oval eyes narrowed to emerald slits as she searched the canopy for the mystical flaming woman, but she had vanished. The warmth of her necklace had receded with the fire fae, a reminder that not all of the forest’s secrets were meant to be understood.
Heeding their warning, Lark gathered her scattered firewood, keeping with her the single dagger. Back at the camp, she added her wood to Tharon and Barson’s pile, watching the shadows dance as others coaxed flames from the darkness.
In the dim light, Lark discovered a small pouch on her basket.
Within, Paq had tucked away a simple meal of bread and cheese.
She ate alone, the distance between herself and the others around the fire felt both physical and metaphysical, the chasm likely carved by violence and uncertainty.
The dagger never left her grip as she lay back to look through a gap in the canopy where stars shone overhead like silent guardians.
Her thoughts drifted to the firestorms, to the power that made dragonriders wage war across the burning skies. Sleep washed over her like a heavy fog.
Her dream was startlingly clear. She was soaring above the forest, but this was no ordinary flight.
Every sensation was deliberate. The wind bit her face as powerful muscles of the dragon moved beneath her.
The dark timber below passed like a sea, rolling through the forested mountains like waves beneath the dragon’s powerful wings.
Suddenly great islands of stone appeared, hanging hundreds of feet above the Everburning Forest, somehow defying gravity.
A firestorm raged in the near distance. Its massive thunderheads hummed with a magical power.
Lightning arced between clouds in patterns too precise to be natural, each strike carrying the potential to herald the power of a god.
She watched with the patience of a hunter, waiting for the strike that would birth a Hyalite into her world.
The dragon’s muscles bunched beneath her, eager to pierce the curtain of Giving Rain trailing the storm. Lark redirected a primal urge, heeding a whispered warning.
When it finally came, the strike split reality. The bolt carved through smoke-choked clouds, lancing into the inferno below. For a breathless moment, the world held still. Then came the explosion, a devastating burst of power tearing through the realms, creating a gateway to the gods.
Lark’s chest swelled with a wild mix of emotions. She surrendered to the dragon’s instincts, their consciousnesses merging until she couldn’t tell where her desires ended and the dragon’s began. They shot across the skies as one, the wind’s scream becoming their battle cry.
Below, at the fire’s edge chaos erupted in terrible splendor.
Northern giants, their massive forms dwarfing the burning trees, swung clubs that could shatter stone.
Beast-folk charged, their fur-clad forms crowned with sprawling horns, their war hammers carving devastating arcs through the smoky air.
Hulking orcs clashed with human legions, their thick swords sounding in tune with the firestorm.
In this vivid dream, Lark and her dragon pierced the storm’s watery veil, steam erupting from her plate armor as they plunged into the smoke-filled forest. The heat pressed against them like a living thing, hungry and insistent, but the plate of her dragon-scale armor shed it like water.
Lark felt her dragon’s senses lock onto their prize—the source of magic that called to them both like a siren song.
In the heart of a blackened crater, cradled by the ashy debris of a runed tree, a rough-hewn orb glowed bright.
It pulsed with an otherworldly blue light, each beat sending waves of raw power rippling through the air.
A shadow materialized through the flames, resolving into a dark figure that landed before them.
The enemy rider’s black plate armor seemed to drink in the firelight, giving nothing back.
His brismil spear trailed smoke like a banner, its tip vibrating with supernatural power.
Clasped around his shoulders, the rider wore a copper cloak, its hood drawn up to mask his identity.
The dragon beneath him fixed on Lark with murky white eyes that seemed to see through to the depths of her soul, promising violence with every breath.
The spear leveled at her drew Lark’s full attention. The brismil blade at her side called to her. She held out her hand. Smoke traced the weapon’s form as it materialized in her grip, the afterimage burning itself into the air.
Dragon and rider moved as one, their battle cry shaking the air around them. Then the dream shattered like glass—
“Lark!” A voice cut through her dream like a knife. “Get up! It’s time to go.” Hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her with urgency.
The transition from dream to reality was jarring, but her body responded before she was fully awake. She still held the dagger she’d claimed the night before. Without thinking, she struck upward with deadly precision, the blade finding padded leather.
“Ah!” Tharon recoiled, his hand going to the tear in his armor where Lark’s blade had found its mark. Relief flooded through her when no blood seeped from the wound, but the horror in his deep brown eyes struck a chord in her psyche.
That look, raw and visceral, she’d seen it before. An elf with piercing green eyes had worn the same expression, his frozen features twisted in anguish. Slowly, Tharon’s face replaced the elf’s, the similarity so stark it made her head swim with half-remembered pain.