The runes never lied. Aria knew this and sighed as she stared at them. They were coming, she’d seen the smoke, listened to the few survivors of burned villages but the runes…they were coming for them next.
What could she do? She wondered, sighing and running a hand through wild red locks and colorful feathers, she didn’t have enough magic to fight entire army by herself…they needed the trees she couldn’t sacrifice them to fight. They needed help…no one was left though.
It came to her as a whisper on the wind, stirring her scrolls to moving, one opening across her runes. Immortal help…she would not summon a demon and risk her people but she could do something else.
It took the stonemason and his apprentice four days to finish the great statue of black marble but it was perfect. A great image of a demon, perched on a pedestal with great big wings. It was frightening enough that the villagers wouldn’t go near it. Aria waited for the full moon and performed a summoning, calling a lost soul from the ether itself and bound it to the statue “you who were lost I give new life and purpose, you will protect me and mine. Awaken guardian.”