Prologue #3
Focused on her despair, I didn’t notice the enemy had come closer until he was towering over me, and I was powerless to do anything when he seized me by the throat.
Instinctively, I released my sword, and my hands went to Mornon’s iron glove, his wrist so thick that my fingers couldn’t wrap all the way around it.
“Nauriel!” Father screamed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stand up, pick up Araton’s sword from the ground, and throw himself at Mornon.
The enemy simply swung his dark weapon through the air, using an invisible force to push King Erech back and send him crashing into the same spot he had been until that moment.
“Father!” I yelled, punching Mornon’s arm in a futile effort to break free.
He turned his attention back to me and slowly tightened his grip. The frantic beat of my heart pounded in my ears, drowning out any sound except my panting breath.
Until Calien’s call overpowered every feeling of mine.
As if hypnotized, I removed one of my hands from Mornon’s arm and reached out toward the Crystal. I pressed my palm against it, and I was sure I sensed my enemy flinch.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
My eyes darted up to him, and the words Calien was reciting in my mind started to spill from my lips.
“ You can’t take it. It must be given.”
I said it again, and again, and again.
Gradually, the spell began to echo around us like an elven litany. Scorched dirt, dust, ashes, and pebbles lifted from the ground and engulfed us in a slow, black vortex.
Mornon grasped my forearm, attempting to pull my hand away. “Stop!” he ordered, a trace of fear in his angry voice.
I curled my fingers as if they were claws, feeling his armor melt under my fingertips as I persisted in reciting Calien’s words in an increasingly vehement tone and the whirlwind grew more and more impetuous.
Suddenly, I sensed the presence of the Spirits all around us, but I didn’t dare look away from my enemy. Their ethereal voices joined mine, and though the helmet concealed it, I had the impression that I could feel Mornon’s face twitching with both anger and terror.
As I uttered the spell for one last time with all my breath, a blinding, white light erupted from the Crystal, taking the shape of a globe beneath my hand.
Calien’s power revealed itself to me in all its terrifying beauty and force. I welcomed it as if I were hugging her, feeling it wrap me in affection and gratitude.
Feeling it give me an unspeakable, invincible strength.
The strength to end Mornon once and for all.
“No,” he whispered as my eyes flicked to his. He tried once more to push me back, but couldn’t move me an inch or use his magic on me. “ No!” he roared.
And just as Queen Calien had revived many creatures during her reign, I took Mornon the Abomination’s life.
The light exploded between us, and the blast was so powerful that I was thrown away from my enemy. I rolled on the ground, ending up beside my brother. When I lifted my gaze, I saw Mornon’s black armor turning to ashes, followed by his body.
Remained intact, his eerie helmet hit the ground with a dull thud, and every single monster and demon shared the same fate as its creator by dispersing into the air.
The wind gradually settled, and the survivors’ cheers echoed across the stark plain.
I glanced at the ground. Not far from me, the Crystal had taken the shape of a star polyhedron, with a faint light pulsing at its center.
We made it.
Mornon was gone. And finally, after thousands and thousands of years, Calien was no longer his prisoner.
* * *
Under the watch of statues of soldiers armed with spears, shields, and golden swords that outlined the oval perimeter of the room, I walked down the aisle of Aegel Palace’s smallest and oldest temple, holding Calien’s Crystal in my cupped hands.
The trickles of incense fumes burning in the bronze plates on the tall tripods, placed between one statue and another, swirled around me, dissipating as I moved past.
I stopped in front of the tall oak support, only a few steps from the altar. The wood, native to the Forest of Witches, was carved with elven runes and featured a convex top.
I raised my hands above the structure and, filled with emotion, let go of the Crystal. As if pushed by a breeze from below, it stayed suspended from the wood by a few fingers, drifting gently up and down.
“You’re safe now, Grandmother,” I whispered.
With a nod of reverence, I exited the temple, lifting the hem of my lightweight celestial silk gown as I descended the steep, white steps to join my father and brother.
The Queen of the Witches and the wisest and most skilled among our druids stepped forward, raised their hands toward the temple, and began to chant the spell they had worked together to shield and conceal the building from evil.
“Are you confident in your decision?” Father inquired, dressed in a white tunic. “Nothing and no one can take it away now that you have bound it to yourself. You might wear it and use it for good, just as Calien did. I’m certain you would have her blessing.”
“No,” I declared gloomily. “It’s time for her to rest peacefully. No one will ever wield her power while I am the Crystal keeper.”
“Mornon is dead, Sister,” Araton replied, his voice stripped of all emotion, dragged to the underworld by his mate. A gust of wind blew his gray tunic against my skirt. “Your protection is now useless.”
I closed my eyes to avoid watching him leave. Serie had taken his soul with her. We would never see his smile or joke with his friends again, nor would he tell stories to the little elves around the bonfire.
Soon, when he was ready, he would reunite with his beloved, for no elf could survive without their other half.
And we could not stop him.
Father put a hand on my shoulder with a compassionate look, lightly pressing one of the two gold studs that held up my dress against my collarbone. “Come, my daughter. Your mother is waiting for us.”
I nodded but didn’t follow him immediately. Instead, I kept my eyes on the temple gates, which closed on their own as the spell drew to an end.
A strange feeling prompted me to press one hand on my heart. The breeze caused the excess fabric hanging from the sides of my dress to flutter, along with the wavy locks of my hair that had been left free from the hairstyle.
Yes, Araton was right. Mornon was gone.
Yet, within me, I still heard his last, terrifying cry.