The Shadow of Gloom

Prologue - Shard of the Vale

(AGE OF ISOL, TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO)—

I could only see a few inches in front of me as snow whipped about and pelted my face, stinging my skin. My feet sunk with every step, and the further up Aki's Peak I ventured, the worse it became. Tiny bits of ice and chunks of snow all bit at my flesh. My fingers felt numb, and my cheeks had grown blistered from the battering.

This was a torturous endeavor, but one I had to take to prove that I was a capable and able-bodied battle mage. Krak had its pride to maintain and boasting formidable battle mages was one of them.

The sun never so much as shone through the thick, heavy hanging clouds. The valley below the mountain was invisible to my eye, covered by dense white that hid the long plummet down. One misstep and I'd plunge to my death, never to acquire my rank among Krak's army.

My feet slipped from beneath me, making me grasp onto the rock wall to my left. Through my glove, the iciness of the rocks felt like spikes against my palm. I gritted my teeth and dug my numb fingers in for a better grip before I hoisted myself upright. Then I felt a tremble of the ground underneath me. I furrowed my snow-covered eyebrows and squinted ahead at the path, just before another shake came, feeling greater this time and lasting longer.

The whole path quaked beneath my feet, jostling me along with the packed snow and ice that weighed my boots down. I went with its will when it slid to the right, dragging me towards the edge of the road towards the plummet.

My right foot gave way but before I could plunge to my demise, I shot my left hand out and a beam of glistening white lines blasted out from it. A cracking sound came as they dug into the rock like anchors and began to drag me back, tying me securely to the wall as everything continued to rattle around me.

What had Aki's Peak so enraged that the entirety of the mountain was trembling? Not in the last three hundred years had it once moved because it had seen many mages go up and down its paths, to see the Ice Queen Isolde in her cage of molten lava and solid rock, except now it was moving and beneath my very feet.

It would be a fool's errand to continue on, but if I didn't finish, then everyone would think me a coward and toss me from Darrose's leading academy of Roefell.

Nothing could stop me. I could feel that I was close to the top, and on that alone, I trudged onward with my hand secured to the rock.

Then the peak came quicker than I had expected as I stumbled up off the path and onto a flat ground, leaving me with nothing to grapple onto to anymore. The pine trees swayed wildly, shaking pine needles loose and intermingling them in with the snow that blinded me. I narrowed my eyes and put my hand in front of them, to try to see better, but I was walking blind, unsure where I was going.

"Fool—"

I had heard a high-pitched scream over the howling wind before it had been carried away. It never came again, instead the wind picked up and whipped around me, taking my hood down and billowing my cloak out from around me.

Then a loud crack, a crack like the ground were splitting, sounded before a blast of iridescent light forced its way through the blistering snow. I squinted beneath the rays, then when they died down, I tried to make out what had happened, only I couldn't tell.

But I didn't have to tell because it came towards me. It started out as a shadow of a shape, stumbling back and forth like a drunken mage before it up righted itself and gained its bearings. My own fear started to settle in as my knees knocked together and my head had to tilt far back to look up at the thing that had awoken, except it wasn't a thing. It was a woman.

I stood stock-still and petrified like the young boy I was as I stared straight up into the palest eyes that I'd ever seen. Her snow-white hair flowed down her long body, ending at her knees and with little icicles on the ends. Every inch of her was naked and her pasty skin had dark patches that glowed with golden, almost red tinged lines until they slowly melted away and turned chalky.

In this moment I wasn't a battle mage, I was a frightened boy being towered over by a frost giant... or so I thought.

"You think you can contain me!" she shrieked, a plume of white, icy air shooting from her mouth.

With a swipe of her hand, I went flying through the air. My back smacked against something hard and stiff before a blanket of snow fell, drowning me in coldness. I swam my way through the snow and came up coughing and shivering.

I tried to think of something to defend myself, to remember all my training but I was whipped around again, my breath taken, and my thoughts gone. I screamed as I flew straight up into the puffs of clouds, into frigid temperatures, and into nothingness, then I came plummeting down, down, down until I struck the ground.

Only a groan left me as I dared not to move. My body stung with pins and needles as I laid on my back, gazing up at the billowing snowstorm. I'd failed and every inch of me knew that.

Then the woman came into my vision, looking down at me with stern eyes and knitted eyebrows. She raised her hand with her palm up, then a flurry of swirling black smoke appeared and hovered above her palm. A glass-like shard glistened through the dark fog, and from the moment I set eyes on it, I shook my head.

I planted my palms onto the icy snow and pushed away from her, knowing it was a Shard of the Vale. Creatures that were given that were condemned, forsaken, and titled cursed one's. It was a curse and pure evil that destroyed someone from the inside out.

However, my refusal was useless.

I cried out in pain when she shot the shard into my chest. I fell back onto the snow, still and lifeless except for a shake of my body. I could feel warm blood coating my chest and trickling down my skin, but I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. It was all-consuming, the pain that seared through my body, my veins like hot lava and my skin burning me alive.

Everything grew hazy and I thought for a second that I would die, only I sharply inhaled and arched my back. I writhed in pain, screaming, and whimpering as my body broke down the shard, consuming the evil into my blood. Pain, it was all I knew. I wanted it to stop, to end, to just give in the painless gift that I could have if I surrendered, but I couldn't... I wouldn't. I was a battle mage.

Then a screech shredded the quiet. I winced and wanted to curl up when I felt something press the side of my head. It hurt, everything hurt. I felt crushed and battered and could barely breathe.

"Ronan, you must stay still," An angelic familiar voice stated, and all I could do was gasp out nonsensical words.

The shaking of ground, snapping of branches, and whirling of wind around us grew louder and drew closer until someone shouted in recognition.

"Isolde has broken free!"

I didn't know who had shouted or where it had come from, everything was just loud and overwhelming. I couldn't catch my breath for a single second, and the deafening noise around me didn't help. My eyes barely stayed open, but they were open enough to catch sight of who was with me: Saint, a Master Healer, was crouched beside me.

Then he gathered me up into his arms. I weakly squeaked out a noise of pain before Saint hushed me and bundled me tighter into his arms. Another pair of hands touched me, then I felt a crackling surge of power between the two.

"Get him out of here, Saint!"

That was the last thing that I'd heard before the air whooshed around us, taking us flying through the sky and back to Krak, to Darrose where I knew my life as I knew it would be no more.

I was a cursed one.

**ISOL — meaning Ice in Istthir**