Amber Writz

Shadows in the light

This is also another one of those "To be continued" The other one is called "The amulet". I hope you'll like this story.

Prologue: Alive

The small flames that lit the dull castle room flickered uneasily. A silhouette of tall, slim woman glided silently between the bookshelves, stopping now and then to put her forefinger on a spine of a book then grabbing it and throwing it roughly on the ground. At one point, her frustration took over her and she swiped furiously at a lamp on the table next to her, smashing it into tiny shards that sprinkled on the ground. A tiny ember that kept the lamp barely alight escaped from its prison and dropped to the floor, putting the grimy, old carpet on fire. The woman had turned away instantly, but when she smelled the smoke and the sound of flames licking hungrily, she quickly strided to the fire. With one sweep of her hand and a muffled word, she put out the spreading inferno and renewed the carpet, making it look as if nothing ever happened.
Silent once more, the woman continued her long search. After a few minutes of walking up and down the bookshelf isles, she cried out in unmistakable glee. She had found what she was looking for.
In the fireplace, the flames seemed to lean forwards and become bigger, curious at what the woman had discovered. Perhaps this was because a slight breeze had entered through a small window or perhaps it was because there was some strange magic at work.
Her hands shaking, the mysterious person gently pried out a book amongst the others and held it gently in her hands. She blew on the cover softly, removing the dust that resided there and read the cover.

Vermuna  Ba’rshka Coduxua oisn

Suddenly, she shuddered. Her whole body started convulsing. She clasped at her stomach and slumped to the floor, her book forgotten. Though as quick as it came, the mysterious pain stopped. Sweating, the woman got up and leaned against a shelf. Even though the pain had gone, the shock that came with it had not vanished. How could this be? After all this time there was no signal? She shook her head in disbelief but knew that her magic was never wrong. She was alive.
The fire gasped.
The woman turned her head towards the fireplace in astonishment. Fires, even in this world, don’t gasp. The fire, realising it had been spotted, started to burn out. However, the woman stopped this with another graceful flick of her long hands and shouted an incantation. The fire let out a yelp. Smoke started to fill the room.
Before, there was only one person in the room. Now, there were two.  Went the smoke cleared, the woman could see a girl with impossible red-yellow hair as bright as the fire itself stood in front of the hearth shivering uncontrollably. She was small and thin, skin beige in colour. Her eyes had a slanted look in it and her face ended in a sharp point. If one where to look up the word “Terrified”, you would not need to as her faced was the very definition of it.
Eyes glittering with triumph, the woman stepped from the shadowy side of the room, revealing her features. Her hair was as dark as night itself with two locks of red hair streaming down her head. The eyes that stunned the poor girl where green tinged with wild yellow and the skin that surrounded them was pale. From what the girl thought, she looked about in her early thirties but what she didn’t know was that the menacing figure wrapped in the luxurious cloak strewn with jewels was in fact ancient.
“So, she sent you here to spy on me?” the woman hissed.
“N-no.” stammered the intruder. Her eyes where very wet and it seemed she was on the verge of crying. “I-l came h-h-here by my-s-self b-be....”
“Silence!” snapped the lady, staring at the fire girl curiously. “Now, tell me where she lives.”
“W-who?”
“She!” cried the woman, her face looking dangerous. She had begun to get irritated.
The girl gulped and whispered, “Never.”
The woman clenched her teeth together. “I asked politely but since you won’t tell me, I’ll have to force it out of you then!” The woman then waved her hands mysteriously in a weird gesture. The girl’s shivering ceased. Her arms snapped tight and her body became stiff as a plank of wood. Relieved, the girl let her mind relax. Her first thought was that the sorceress was not as powerful as she seemed in the stories but then, she felt the pain.
It didn’t hurt to start with. In truth, it actually felt quite ticklish but as the seconds ran by, she felt the pain growing stronger. It was like a feeling that she had never felt before in her entire life. Being burnt. The worse part of the pain was that she couldn’t writhe to soothe her body at all which made it double.
As soon as the sorceress saw the trespasser’s eyes going wide, she started to laugh insanely “This is how it feels to be swallowed up in flames, to feel burnt by them. You, whom have been immune to them since the day your kind was born shall now feel their wrath and from this day forward you will never use your ability with fire again!”
The girl wasn’t listening to this as the pain obliterated her thoughts except one and every other senses she possessed. She moaned in agony through her sealed lips. Oh she would do anything, anything to have it taken away!
The woman placed her hand lightly on one of the girl’s shoulders and whispered in her almost deaf ear, “I will let you go now but you must tell me where she lives else you will suffer till the end of time.” With that she released her from the torture spell.
The girl toppled to the floor; her eyes distant like the ones in that of a mad person and indeed, that is what she had become. The sorceress grinned, and then said “Tell me.” Blubbering, the girl poured her secrets to the waiting sorceress, unaware of what she was doing. Satisfied, the woman stopped her. “I have no more use for you.” and with a murmured voice, she cast a spell upon the girl. The colour seemed to leak slowly out of her body and a look of bliss passed through her face. When the colours disappeared, she was dead.
Unaware of the girl’s smile, the woman strolled around the room, muttering. “Earth.” She mused. “I better send a Corath after her then.” Walking quickly down the stairs, she was gone.

The breeze that had entered the room stopped. After a while, the air shimmered and a wind sprite appeared, its sharp face looking uncommonly solemn. Swiftly it flew out of the small arched window to fly back to its master. There was news to tell and they weren’t good either.