pencil shavings

seven: the beginning

There was nothing but a sliver of light between the rocks and leaves when the knight awoke. The others were asleep, the lamps had been doused, and all was still as an untouched lake in the dead of night. But it was the light, steadily growing and slowly eating away the shadows, that called her from the cave.

She knew it was wrong.

She shouldn't have left without taking back-up. But she was Lady Kaileen of Henderhill, sent to guard the Western forests, fiercest warrior in the lands - she was arrogant. Kai could think of a thousand should haves, a million would haves, a lifetime of what ifs, but this is the story. And you can rewrite all the pleasure novels in the Great Library of the North, but the one history you can never revise is your own. By now she knows that binding truth. She tried to fight it. But that is one battle even our Lady Knight will never win.

The wind was sweat as she pushed aside the vines and brushed at the pebbles, blowing as gently as a mother's hand. It was all dark, everything, save for a mesmerizing silver light that shone bright as the sun, yet which only spread its light within itself. The ground below it stayed dark, the trees it passed too, as if it weren't even there. Slowly, so slowly, it sang to Kai with the sweetness of a siren's song, it stretched out a blue-lit hand, it beckoned her with gentle eyes.

The knight felt herself called toward its grasp, her feet moving, her eyes gaining their own silver tint, her pink fingers stretching farther, farther to touch that silky skin-

It screamed.

She saw the arrow lodged in its side just before the creature whirled toward her savior and sent a blast of icy light pinning the shooter to the ground. It's power, raw and horrible, merely touched the human skin of those now rushing from the cave and they were gone. Every last one of her company, her best knights, gone. Melting away into that feral silver light and fizzling out into the darkness around her like a shower of dying stars. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Why, why, why, was the only word on her lips, the only tether to consciousness she had.

"Choose, Lady Knight," it intoned when Kai stood alone on the rocky terrace. She was shaking, though the breeze had gone and no chill was left in the air. "You can still come to me. You can be Queen, you can be Great. They keep it from you in fear, fear that you would be greater than them if you accepted it. But come to me. I will give it to you. Come, sweet Lady Knight."

The knight stood still; she couldn't move. Her heart pounded, the darkness dimmed, and those silver eyes, so predatory on a human's body, smiled at her. They were strange - she couldn't place why. But evil. They were evil.

"No," she whispered, barely more than a breath. "No."

The beast snarled, wings flaring behind it like an angel from the ceiling frescos in the northern chapels.

"Then you will fail. You are a fool, girl. A human fool."

Just like the others, it was gone, taking all its silvery light and all the too-dark shadows with it. Only a charred smell lingered as the silhouettes of the trees emerged from the gloom, tingling her nose with terror. For Kai knew what was wrong with those eyes. They were the shape of any other human eye, on the body of any other human, yet the darkness in them, the purity of that unholy darknesses, that gave it away. There was no soul behind those eyes.

----

There was something odd about the way a room could quiet with just the sweep of a cloak. The gnarled man came in with such a presence, such silent nobility, that Agamemnon felt himself chill beneath layers of lavish fabrics. Whispering began, rippling through the crowd and eating through the fog of cheap-wine breaths. The mage heard none, his attention snagged on the trickle in his chest, the slight hitch in his breath. There was magic, most definite magic, in this room.

The old man peered over the crowd, nodding to the wide-eyed bartender, then seated himself at the corner table.

Although the night was quick to resume its usual chaos, Agamemnon could not ignore that pressure in his chest the rest of the night, even as lovely Elisha batted her eyes in his direction.

As the crowds dwindled, the young mage made his way through the crowd, flashing his nobleman's smile to the patrons. The cloaked man at the corner table just nodded as he approached.

"I sensed you, too," he rumbled, hood covering all but his nose and the shadow of withered lips.

"Who are you?" Agamemnon sat across from the man, studying him with all the steadiness of a politician's comfort.

The old man's lips twitched. "My name will do you no good. But you, Mage, must know this:: something terrible has happened in the depths of the Western Forest, something has come, something even I fear uncontrollably. It has come and I can assure you such a creature will never leave."

Agamemnon shifted his gaze, another shiver reaching down his spine. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Why would a king tell his best knight that an enemy approaches? Surely so that he might prepare himself for the fight?"

"Sir, I'm afraid I don't underst-"

"Ah, but you must." The old man was standing to leave, his ale untouched. "If we only did what we fully understood, Mage, how would we so much as breathe?"

----

Striding the halls of a brightly lit castle on the coast, Sir Hercules of the Golden Realms was admired by every passerby - from his thick-soled boots to his gilded sword to his long, gold hair. And he knew it. There was smug arrogance clanking with every sturdy step he took across the stone, and he worn that cocky grin known only to men who know full well the world is theirs for the taking.

"Marisa," he murmured, long lashes lowering in a sly smile to the poor maid he cornered in the torchlight.

To Hercule's delight, she squealed and scurried off, leaving him to continue his cat-like saunter toward his quarters, muscles shifting beneath a too-tight shirt. And that's when he heard the voices, the rough brogue of cooks coming up the steps. He stopped, eyebrows raised.

"-horrible thing-"

"-no survivors-"

"-Lady Kaileen-"

"-Western Forest-"

But there were only four broken words needed to make him pack his riding bags right then and there.

"They need a hero-"

Sir Hercules was on horseback by first light the next day, a grin gracing his handsome face as the dawn broke wearily over fair weather of the North.