The night air in the Royal Gardens usually carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine and the damp, rich earth of the flowerbeds. Tonight, however, the smell was sharp, metallic, like the tang of a lightning strike or the cold iron of a drawn blade. Princess Seraphina stood by the marble fountain, her hand trailing through the water that had suddenly gone still. The ripples died not from a lack of wind, but because the very movement of the air seemed to have halted, frozen in place by a presence that pressed down on the garden like a physical weight.
She turned. There was no sound of footsteps, or a cloak swishing against the hedge. A man stood at the edge of the lantern light where the shadows of the trellis were deepest. He wore robes the color of dried blood, and his face was a pale, smooth mask, unlined by age or worry. His eyes were black, absorbing the light without reflecting it.
"Guards!" she tried screaming, but the words got lost in her throat, strangled by an invisible cord of pressure. She stepped back, her heel scraping against the stone path. To her left, two sentries stood motionless. They were not asleep; they were statues of flesh, their eyes wide and unblinking, frost spread across their steel breastplates in strange and unnatural patterns.
The man raised a hand. His fingers were long, tipped with nails that looked like carved obsidian. He curled his fingers inward, a beckoning gesture.
Seraphina tried to run, but her legs felt as though they were trapped in deep mud. The magic dragged at her, a heavy, suffocating blanket. She reached for the small dagger hidden in the folds of her gown, but her hand stopped inches from the hilt, locked in place by the same force that held the guards. The sorcerer, Leomar, took a single step forward. The distance between them seemed to collapse and get closer as though they were inches from each other, the garden blurring into a smear of color.
He reached out. His hand hovered near her face. The cold radiating from him burned, a dry, biting chill that seeped through her velvet sleeves and went through her body as though it was covered in blue. "Nice and easy now," said Leomar. She shivered, her teeth clacking together, unable to look away from those void-like eyes. He touched her shoulder. The sensation was like a firm grip. The marble path beneath her feet vanished. The scent of jasmine was replaced by the smell of ozone and ancient dust. The darkness swallowed them both, leaving the fountain silent and the guards encased like stone.
***
Three days later, the corridors of the Sunfire Palace were quiet, the tapestries muffling the sound of boots on stone. Elvon walked through it. He was an elf of the Silverwood, tall and lean, his hair the color of autumn wheat, braided back to reveal the sharp points of his ears. He wore worn leather armor, stained by travel and sap, and a longbow of yew wood was slung over his shoulder.
He stopped before the heavy oak doors of the King's solar. The air here was thick, and it smelled fancy, like herbs and flowers. A guard nodded to him, and let him through the doors.
Inside, the room was dim. The heavy drapes were drawn against the afternoon sun, leaving only the glow of candles to push back the gloom. King Alaric lay in a massive bed carved from oak, the posts twisted like thorn vines. The King was a ruin of the man Elvon had met twenty years ago. His skin was pale and looked very old. It also had blue veins showing underneath. His breathing was very weak as it echoed in the silent room.
Elvon approached the bedside and bowed, not out of obligation, but out of respect for the dying.
"Elvon," the King whispered. The sound was dry, like leaves skittering over stone.
Alaric struggled to push himself up, his knuckles white as he gripped the furs. Elvon moved forward, placing a hand on the King's shoulder to steady him. The flesh under the velvet nightshirt felt brittle, as if the bone might snap at the slightest pressure.
"She is gone," said the King, his eyes clouded with age, fixed on Elvon's face. "Leomar took her."
The name hung in the air, heavier than the scent of sage. Elvon did not flinch, but his hand tightened slightly on the strap of his bow. He knew the stories. Leomar was not a hedge wizard or a charmer; he was a breaker of armies, a man who turned the sky to ash and boiled rivers in their beds, and it was this very thought that made him angry.
"When did she disappear? How do we get her back?" said Elvon. His voice was low, and he was very shocked to hear this.
"Three nights past," Alaric coughed, as though he wanted nothing more than to rest and not speak anymore, but time was pressing.
Alaric gestured weakly toward a table where a map lay unfurled. "The gardens. My guards... frozen. He took her to the Black Spire. I can feel it."
Elvon looked at the map. The Black Spire was a huge black great castle on the northern wastes where the tip of it right in the middle shot straight up in the air, a place where the wind never stopped screaming. He looked back at the King. The old man's mouth was twisted, his jaw working as he fought to find the breath for the next words.
"You must go," said Alaric. He reached out, his fingers clawing at Elvon's leather vambrace. The grip was firm, and he was holding Elvon in place very tightly. "The knights... they are brave, but they are steel. Steel breaks against him. You are of the Wood. You move differently."
Elvon looked down at the King's hand. He did not pull away. He thought of the Spire. He thought of the stories of Leomar's shields, which turned arrows to rain before they could touch the ground. He thought of the silence in the garden that the guards had described, a silence so absolute it felt like death.
"My King," Elvon said slowly. "Leomar's power is the mountain. I am but the wind."
"Don't doubt yourself," Alaric said kindly. He pulled himself closer, his eyes burning with a sudden, fierce intensity. "She is all I have left. The line... the kingdom. If she dies in that tower, everything turns to dust."
The King slumped back against the pillows. His chest heaved, the rattle growing louder, a storm gathering inside his lungs. He stared at Elvon, waiting.
Elvon looked toward the window. It was a pale, washed-out blue, indifferent to the grief below. He placed his other hand over the King's, stilling the trembling.
"I will find her," Elvon said.
He did not promise he would bring her back. He did not promise he would defeat the sorcerer. He looked at his own hands, and they looked as though they were perfectly fit from drawing a bowstring, stained by the bark of ancient trees. They looked small in the flickering light of the dying man's room. He thought of the Black Spire rising from the frozen wastes.
Alaric closed his eyes, a single tear tracking through the deep lines of his face. "Go," he whispered. "Before the sun sets."
Elvon released the King's hand and turned. He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the iron latch. He looked back once. The King was small in the vast bed, a flickering candle in a dark cathedral. Elvon pushed the door open and stepped out into the hall.
The corridor stretched out before him, long and shadowed. He adjusted the strap of his bow, his fingers brushing against the fletching of an arrow. The wood was smooth, familiar. It was a comfort against the vast, unknown weight of the task ahead. He took a breath, tasting the stale air of the palace, and began to walk.