Prologue: Golden Grasses.
---- The sapphire sun set over shimmering golden grasses. The snow-capped mountains hid the horizon from sparkling little eyes. The day’s final heat warmed her back as she strolled through the nameless forest.
Rain carried on the wind, though not a drop had yet fallen. The sun glinted off the shining silver reeds as she moved along her way. The trek had tired her, though for most people it would have been no journey at all.
She set upon a clearing in the trees where she finally came upon the dusk lit sky. Perfect daylight red melted into the perfect blue of sunset as she followed it away.
“Sister?” she called out with a drop of worry and a slightly ragged breath. It had been a moment too long of silence and winds rustling through the black leafed trees made for poor conversation.
A single dark leaf landed on her shoulder as she stood in the clearing. Only evergreens kept their coat so deeply into autumn, yet she stood surrounded by golden spruces and pitch oaks. A flurry of purple petals carried overhead on a quick gust of wind.
It was an oddity of the season, but surely not worthy of worry to her mind.
“Ash!” She called out again beyond the treeline, though her own lonely echo proved her sole company. “Ash, it’s getting dark! Let’s head back!”
A flutter startled her, the flap of dark wings as a black sparrow settled within a golden oak. The girl and the bird shared eyes, steely grey and focused only on each other.
To her mind, the songbird seemed a little too intent on watching her. Its eyes followed her along the clearing as she walked towards the centre.
Only as she reached the middle did the bird flutter past. It took flight with a light chirp and landed a breath behind her, atop a stepping stone in a pond that she could have sworn didn’t exist moments ago.
It was a shallow pool, but rather wide and brimmed with colourful stones. Red reeds lined its surface, and she could even see a couple of small fish within its bounds.
“Hello there,” the girl whispered as she toed the water. “I’m Evara.” The sparrow bounced in place, cocking its head towards her. “You wouldn’t have seen my sister anywhere, would you? Angry looking woman with a big spear?”
With nothing more than a gentle chirp, the bird took flight again and shot far above the canopy, headed towards the evening sun.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Evara sighed.
---- Her shadow grew long as the mountains swallowed the newly set sun. The darkness took the forest in an instant, and the cold of winter’s first reach scratched along her spine. A glint in the water caught her eye as she shivered in her dress.
It was blue and purple; red and gold; green and white. It entranced her. It was beautiful as it shimmered an inch beneath the water.
“What are you?” the girl whispered as she took her first wading step into the pond, offering not a thought to the brisk cold.
She drew nearer to the shimmer, and it seemed to do the same.
--- It grew from a spec to a little ball of light, then it grew larger still. Then it was no longer red, nor was it blue or green; black or white. It was some impossible flavour of light. Some fevered dream of a madman. A colour that couldn’t be, yet so clearly was.
The glint wasn’t beneath the water anymore, but above it - above her. She gawked as this impossible delight sparkled and danced amongst the slowly waking stars.
She awed as the orb grew larger and larger. Apprehension caught her when it grew larger than the stars above, and dread gripped her when it made dwarfs of the twin moons.
It was sunrise, and sunset. The orb – or whatever shape it could possibly be described as – sparkled a thousand colours and lights, none of which she could ever have imagined. It rained cold lava and burnt Icey flames. It was a ball of lightning, then a box of dreams, then a heart of iron and an eye of gold.
Then it grew smaller, much smaller. It coursed through the sky straight towards her -- no more sparks, no more light. It wasn’t a shooting golden star; it was an arrow. Black and steel and deadly. The majesty was gone though the intent was newly apparent. Simple and obvious, a shard of oily black steel ripping the sky apart in search of the young girl.
The bolt of black shattered and splintered an iron oak trunk, felling the tree in an instant, as it barrelled towards Evara.
She didn’t even have chance to scream before she was being thrown to the ground by strong and warm hands.
“Ev!” her elder sister cried as she dove between the arrow and the girl. She barred the shard from its target, and she suffered the consequences.
It tore into her shoulder with the same force it had torn through the tree with, only, it didn’t go through. It seemed lodged within Ash. It nestled and burrowed but it should have burst through to the over side.
“Ash!” She screamed. The elder sister, Ashtik, lay limply atop of her. “Please, no no no...”
A prayer came to the deepest pit of Evara’s heart. She didn’t say it. It was barely even conscious in her mind, but it grasped her soul. “Please don’t take my sister”
