Prologue
The day started out as many others had; a semi-glorious sunrise, breakfast alone in the great hall, and finally, an early teaching lesson. But he wasn't paying attention, his almond-shaped peridot eyes focused on the stained glass window to his right. With a small sigh and a tilt of his head, the young elven heir-Lord watched the beams of colored light filter through the glass and dance upon the tiled floor.
A slight smile graced his lips.
Laeral loved stained glass....... He sighed again at the errant thought. Thinking of her would not change anything....much as he may wish it could.
He jumped as his instructor slammed his hands down on the teaching table, and whirled to meet the older elf's gaze.
"My heir-Lord Wyn, how will you ever--"
"--be proper if I don't pay attention?" Sighing deeply, Wyn crossed his arms defensively over his chest and thunked his head down on the table.
The instructor frowned deeply and shook his head, his ice blue eyes peering intently at the much-younger elf. "You can remember all the rabble and nonsense that flies about you, but you cannot focus and recall what I teach you. Why is that?"
The heir-Lord raised his head and turned back toward the stained glass window. After a moment, he offered a shrug and turned back toward his instructor, brushing a stray strand of golden hair behind his upswept ear. He grinned faintly. "Perhaps I find trivial nonsense more appealing."
The blood rose to the instructors face in anger, and he stood quickly, pointing a slender finger at his student. "You are nothing but a spoiled brat! A spoiled brat that cares nothing for the strict lives that are solely given to Elven kind. I see now, why your other instructor departed so hastily!"
Wyn frowned and lowered his gaze to the table.
"Your magics nor your mentality will increase at all, so long as you live!" the other elf continued. "You will never be the Lord your father wills you to be! You ungrateful, rotten little--"
"Enough!" Wyn rose slowly to his feet, his cat-pupil eyes glaring at the tutor. His form towered over the other elf by several inches. "If you'll not do your job, as you as paid to, I will be forced to send you away!"
Immediately the older elf bowed, fumbling across strings of broken apologies, head bobbing like a broken doll.
"Pathetic, the way beings like you throw insults, yet bow and scrape when--" Wyn's voice died off. Sounds of yelling and screaming were issuing from the other side of the window that had been his focus of attention on moments before.
The instructor took Wyn's sudden silence as his cue for another apology. "Yes, my heir-Lord," he stammered, eyes locked on the table top. "I'm wrong, as always...forgive my words. Forgive--"
"Do shut up!"
Silence filled the room. The screaming was louder in the sudden hush, and this time the instructor heard it as well. His brows came together in a fierce frown, and his eyes turned toward the window. Quickly Wyn moved to the stained glass, settling his hand upon the latch and turning it, pushing the window open out into the courtyard below. The cries of pain rose again in volume, and his eyes widened in horror at what he say below him.
Magics were burning the summer garden with blistering heat; magics were hurling stone statues and sections of fallen walls across the courtyard, killing elf and human alike; magics were destroying his home.
But who's magics?
His eyes scanned the burning garden, searching for the source of the devastation. When his eyes lighted upon it, his heart skipped a beat.
It was a young girl....a strong girl....a familiar girl...
No...
"No..." he whispered. He barely heard his instructor yell after him as he fled the room, racing for the stairwell that would lead him to the main entrance.
What is she doing?! his mind asked in bewilderment as he leaped down the stairs two at a time. This is her home, too...
Wyn reached the main entrance, and leaned against its gilded surface for a moment as he caught his breath. His hand had just settled on the handle to pull it open when he heard his father, Lord Zeldern, call out from the other side.
"What are you doing?! Get out of my Estate, you damned half-blooded trash!"
No...
His heart pounding, he shoved the door open and stepped out onto the portico. He didn't have time to react, time to think; he only saw her focus her magics, and, with a laugh, release them at Lord Zeldern.
"NO!" Wyn cried, darting in front of his father, in an attempt to block to energy with his own form.
Pain...he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes tightly, tensing for the pain he knew would come, but felt...nothing. He heard a cry of rage, and opened his eyes in time to see her divert her attack, throwing the ball of blue-white energy toward the building beside them. The ground shuddered as the silvery wall crumbled to the ground, and he shuddered with it.
When the ground calmed, he stepped toward her, albeit shakily, eyeing her with mixed emotions. "Laeral?" She cast her eyes to the ground, and he moved quickly to her side, no longer fearing her.
"...Laeral? It is I...your brother." His words were soft, and seemed unsuited among the cries of the dying. "Do you remember me? ...What has happened to you?"
He placed his hands gently on her shoulders, looking down on her silent form. She did not react. It had been only a few short months since her escape to the outskirts of their father's estate, yet her gentle nature had done a sudden reversal. Now she was full of a hatred that he could feel physically, just by touching her.
Oh Laeral...what happened?
"I remember you...Wyn," she whispered, her long blonde hair falling into her face and obscuring her eyes from him. The words pulled a deep sigh of relief from him, and he pulled her into a tight embrace.
"Guards! The half-blood! Kill her!"
Laeral screamed in rage at her step-father's voice, tearing her away from the calm she had so recently found. She shoved Wyn away from her, gathering her anger into her magic and releasing it upon Zeldern.
"Laeral, no!" Wyn cried, but it was too late. The ball of magic engulfed his father in flames, and the body that had once housed a powerful Lord dropped lifelessly to the marble floor.
She turned to him next, and with a snarl raised her hands in the air. Invisible hands lifted him from the ground, giving him no chance to bring his own magics to bear on her. He was thrown like a rag-doll through the air, and felt himself hit something; heard something snap; but everything seemed distant, no pain, no hurt, just a deep, widening emptiness, just the huge black maw of unconsciousness beckoning him, enticing him with the chance to run away, run away from that creature he had once loved, had once cherished. Run away from the betrayal he felt.
Why?
The screams of the dying and the sounds of his home collapsing around him were faint, far away, as though he were not lying among the dead himself, one of the dead himself. He closed his eyes.
What happened to fun-loving sister I had by my side for so many years?
What happened to you, Laeral?
He sank into unconsciousness.
