Sparks and Shadows (Book One of the Nyte-Fyre Prophecy)

Prologue

September

Flashes of putrid green light slithered across the darkening evening sky in a demonic haze. Rising in theatrical tendrils, plumes of thick gray smoke wove its way throughout the cloud cover, staining the sky and the moon with the sickening colors.

Down below, the small, water-locked town of Augden lie in ruin.

Covered in a dense fog of blinding ash, the misty dust swirled among the ghastly wooden skeletons of what had once been homes and shops. Misshapen chunks of stone lay strewn across the cobbled streets for miles as if a bomb had been dropped on the generally quiet square. Flames the color of a rotten lime ate away voraciously at the splintered wood and crooked beams that stood askew in the wreckage.

It looked like a post-apocalyptic scene of war.

On the hazardous streets, littered with twisted metal, uprooted trees, and crushed rock, people rushed about like ants frantically trying to find their way through a collapsed hill. There was no order as they broke off into groups. A number of individuals simply ran, only looking for a way out of the green-stained hell they had been so rudely awoken to in the depth of the night. Meanwhile, a few of the brave and adrenaline-filled took up temporary positions of leadership. Working as teams, they dug through the rubble where the fires had fizzled out to a mere smolder. Some searched for survivors, others possessions lost. And in the strange light a few stood by themselves, their eyes glassy as if lost in another world as they watched their homes, their lives, turn to ash, knowing that once it drifted away on the breeze there would truly be nothing left.

The noises of chaos drifted through the town. Moans from those trapped beneath rubble mixed with the anguished wails of those who lay draped over the bodies of the unmoving, all fighting to be heard.

But it was the thunderous roar of the flames that overtook everything else as it rose higher and higher, engulfing the entire town in its ravaging, insatiable hunger. Like the rise of the sun brightening the day, its deafening maw only seemed to grow with each new piece of kindling it devoured.

Separated from the pandemonium, a heavily hooded figure stood on the edges of the surrounding forest. Situated high on a cliff that overlooked the town, it provided a perfect view of Augden's destruction. The folds of the long, dark fabric that made up his clothing trailed around him like broken wings in the breeze, giving him a wraith-like appearance. Unaffected by the morbidity of the scene below, he fed off the frenzied screams and howls wrought from the victims that had lost everything. The only thing visible in the deep cowl of the cloak he wore like a dark emblem was a twisted grin.

Even if he couldn't be heard over the commotion, the man shouted into the night with all his strength. "Let that remind you," he cackled maniacally, his arms rising to the sky as if framing it like some sick picture, "to never forget the past!"