Burning Embers

Chapter 2: The Lake of Black

The shadows of the night rippled onto the dirtied ground, emitting from the scarlet flame that lit James Ryder's way through the Falkrin Forrest. These woods of autumn were properly named after the son of a very powerful man, both beautiful and dark. The tragedy of Falkrin was a fable Alex used to tell James: Falkrin was the son of Balkrin, the Watcher of All, and a witch by the name of Tyra. He held his trapped soul in the Tree of Myrn atop the Mountains of Hearth—the home of the House of Ryder. In the undiscovered depths of Dran, which people who inhabited the land of men had named Mourlourn, lived Falkrin—a watcher burdened with the duty to decide the fate of each soulless mortal and encumbered soldier and take their wisdom after death. He'd dealt with Marit, the Watcher of Death, to take the life of all souls, and with each soul Falkrin would kill with his tattooed hands, there would come a newborn mark of wisdom fused onto his skin for him to remember.

Falkrin was burdened to take the life, therefore the wisdom, of the wicked crizart Odesadellios by using the hands of his successor—the fourth crizart—Damian Glass in the War of Crizarts which lasted thirty-seven years. Odesadellios used his power for tyranny, a simple thing to resort to when pleasure is found with riches, wine, and women, for twelve years until Damian Glass was born—bringing winter into all the realms of Dran. Damian Glass had seen the bloodshed of Odesadellios' rule and had naturally usurped him with the help of a rebellion, and the aide of what many said were of the watchers: one of which was Falkrin, another of Marit.

This ruthless cycle of anarchy, uncontrollable to watchers' hands, had begun by the Watcher of Chaos, Niros; a cycle created with the fight of two opposing fates, one said to be of virtue and one of vileness, was as natural as the dirt and as vicious as fire. There were storms that would rage when crizarts walked the land; if there was one to live, Thryn of the skies would cry rain from above until the next crizart would breathe life onto the ground, bringing winter through the hands of the woman Watcher of Winter and Ice, Nyssa. These storms were named the Storms of Crizarts, and the fight between the two most powerful mortals was properly named the Cycle of Crizarts, and there was prophesized to only be three cycles, but seven crizarts total.

The last—James was told when he was a boy—was yet to come.

When Odesadellios' blood was spilt, Falkrin breathed the wisdom of Odesadellios into his soul. He had taken all of his evil and bounds of darkness, marking ink in his skin in duties of hate; though he did not act as a wicked man, he merely crippled himself into his wisdom.

What a burden it was to squander the witlessness of malevolence.

Balkrin's son did not stray to the path of wickedness, so he'd given his powers to the tree of all life and wisdom, Myrn, and his life was the cost of it. It is said that atop the summit of the stone caves of Mourlourn, these batholiths of the sky that enclosed James Ryder away from the iniquities of Dran, lay the coiling tree of Myrn...the tree that gave life to the valleys of all the world, men their breath, plants their growth, and the waves of the Leveranted Sea their fatalness; and in the wooden oak was the dead watcher, Falkrin, crying tears of blood onto the aging wood for he knew the evils of the world. On the summit, the sun always had risen by Balkrin's command so that his child could feel the warmth of the world again, but James knew this to be false; the sun was only pretensive hope to end a tale, and Falkrin, the dead son of the highest watcher, watched over the land and saw rivers run with bloodied steel. James was always told by Alex that the story ended with the sun rising, though the boy had known that it wasn't so; Falkrin guarded the skies of men and saw them spread their smoke unto the world, bloodied and tasting of iron.

Uncle Alex said that some believed the Watcher of Chaos, Niros, had trapped Falkrin in the tree as revenge since many thought Odesadellios was the son of Niros and a slave woman from Sarandal, though it hadn't been proven. If it was, then it would mean Niros would seek revenge on Marit, the Watcher of Death; in fact, it is rumored that Niros had killed the lost son of Marit and Athelae, the woman Watcher of Life, but many believe the boy was destined to die...so much that the two watchers had never given him a title. So is the beginning of the Tale of the Last Lamb, one story James had not known quite well.