The Jewel of Orlegon

Chapter 15: Icy blade

The heat from her improvised pyre quickly reached the young woman perched in the tree, forcing her to react. Her arms finally released their grip on the trunk, and she felt the pain of her stiff muscles struggling to regain mobility. Yet, she had to act, and act quickly. The man with the nasal voice had poured a flammable liquid at the base of the tree, accelerating the spread of the flames that were now even reaching the dry grass around. The horses, previously passive, now pulled on their tethers to distance themselves from the encroaching fire, letting out worried whinnies that were drowned in the rising cacophony of combustion.

The thick smoke emanating from the burning grass soon completely obscured her vision, enveloping her in a black sphere with a pungent odor that stung her eyes and lungs. She who had previously complained about the continental climate now longed for the cool mornings of Orlegon. Amidst the clamor, Ieza's voice reached her ears, too loud and clear to have been transmitted through conventional means.

"Alteria, come down from the tree now!" the selven ordered her in a stern tone that contrasted with his usual impassiveness.

"The flames are preventing me!" she shouted in response, not considering whether her voice would reach him.

"Extinguish the flames! Use your Nolensat!"

"I don't know if I can control enough water at once!"

"Generate ice to smother them!"

"I don't know how to do that!" the young woman panicked as the flames began to reach the nearby branches, "I don't know what ice even looks like!"

Ieza didn't immediately reply, leaving his companion once again alone on her tree amidst the flames. The thought of jumping crossed her mind briefly before she dismissed it. She had lost track of how much the fire had spread in the grass, and blindly leaping would expose her to the risk of landing in the midst of the inferno. The branch she was on was thick and thus slow to ignite. However, the flames had reached the thinner tip and were eagerly consuming it, prompting Alteria to press herself back against the trunk, her back against the soot-blackened bark, as she continued to monitor the deadly advance. Ieza's voice reached her again.

"Alteria, I'm sorry, it won't be pleasant," he announced in a tone that, for the first time, sounded genuinely concerned, "but we have no choice."

Before Alteria could ask a question, a sharp pain pierced her skull, as if a spike had driven through her forehead. The supportive embrace of the tree behind her was the only thing keeping her from collapsing into the flames below. Her thoughts became momentarily muddled, preventing her from stringing two consecutive ideas together and imbuing her sensations with an eerie unreality. Amid the chaos, one idea imposed itself, like the resurgence of a memory, but not her own.

Before her appeared what she might have mistaken for the shores of a lake, but the water seemed frozen into a dark, gray mass. The edges of this somber expanse were adorned with a thick, pristine layer where footprints were distinctly visible. There was no sound or scent in this memory, as if these sensations had been vacuumed away by the white blanket covering the scene. All was immersed in a stillness Alteria, accustomed to the sounds of the wind and the crashing of ocean waves, had never experienced before. Suddenly, a searing burn radiated from her right hand as the vision shifted, revealing the palm of a reddened hand cradling a peculiar transparent spike.

The pain stemmed from the touch of this object, which resembled a slender, transparent, tapered stake with a smooth yet uneven surface. Alteria felt tears welling at the corners of her eyes over the vision, while the lingering, lancinating burn persisted in the palm of her hand. She didn't comprehend this pain. There was no heat source in the scene confronting her. She even sensed an unfamiliar cold wind chilling her to the bone. Suddenly, the mental image shifted again as a sunbeam broke through the clouds, illuminating the searing tip, which sparkled like a precious gem. To Alteria's astonishment, the burn gradually subsided as the sun's light intensified, causing the tip to dissolve and release a small stream of water into the hand holding it. The burn finally transformed into a simple sensation of cold, and Alteria understood.