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Wren reeled from the site of chamber of ghouls. Her stomach wretched at the scent of the festering corpses looming in the distant. She pulled tighter on her Celestial coat. She knew she had to continue. She had to reach the stone before the Grimm brothers. They were a group of bandits; deserters of the Fae kings’ army from the war against the Kingdom of Agonon. The war would not have been lost if the king had kept better company. Or so Wren thought. But lost wars of distant pasts did not concern her. No, she was more concerned about what lay beyond the chamber. She was not worried about the dead because her coat, clipped from the skirts of the Queen of the Night Sky, would disguise and conceal her from all manner of creature and magic. Wren pulled the hood over her tight coils, hugging her staff closer to her breast as she crept along the beam above the chamber.
“Fuck off Jensen. We’ll get the stone before the girl.” She heard a man say.
“Don’t underestimate her, Brandon. The bitch’s a fighter. Her magic is strong.” said Jensen.
“Which is more than I can say for the two of you.” She heard a third voice.
Below her she could see the three men. One of them the former captain of the Fae king’s army. He was exiled, unlike the rest. Wren’s heart beat faster in her chest and made her throat tight. The men fought through the crowd of ghouls. The two men, Jensen and Brandon, were sloppy but effective. The third man, captain Rowan, was quick and graceful. His sword an extension of himself. Wren took this distraction as a chance to open the doors to the stone. She sprinted down the alabaster beam and pulled her staff from her cloak. An incantation for the element air on her lips, calling forth a gust of wind commanding it. Bending it to her will. She rode the gust falling gently to the ground in front of the doors.
The bandits were nearing the door. The ride knocked the hood from her head, exposing her. Wren could see recognition clear across Rowan’s face as she was rushed by ghouls. Rowan’s sword came down. Slicing through several ghouls and nearly killing his comrades. Wren pulled more of the magic flowing through her veins. Her eyelids become heavy with exhaustion. Her knees buckled from overuse of her power but the fear of not collecting the stone was more unbearable than infinite lifetimes of pain. Wren filled the room with a blinding light. It suspended the men in place as they shielded their eyes. The heat in the room began to build the longer she projected the light. The ghouls closest to her began to catch on fire and she quickly opened the metal doors to the stone. She walked through the portal. The men closely behind her shouting curses.
On the other side was a statue of the first Magi king, ELijah. In his palms, sat the stone. But three centuries ago all its power were lost. There was no use for it. Would she truly desecrate the temple of her people for a useless trinket? The desires of the Fae guild overturned her consciousness, however. Her friend’s life meant more than her traditions. This did not stop her from being disgusted as she reached for the stone.
The hinges of the metal door began to creak. She turned and saw only Brandon and Rowan.
Rowan chuckled, “You turned Jensen into a crisp.” he sounded impressed.
“I warned him. I warned you both!” Brandon chimed. His body was shaking. He held up his hand, covering a hole in his mouth. Wren could see the burnt flesh black around the opening. Wren reached for the stone.
“Don’t!” Rowan called. “You have no idea the consequences of taking that stone for the guild!” he says.
“I would be foolish to take the word of a coward and a man who betrayed his king for his own selfish gain.” Wren spoke.
Rage fills the man's eyes.
“You no not what you speak! We all must live with our decisions. It’s just a matter of which one you can’t live without.” He says through gritted teeth.
Wren whispered an incantation to herself with the last of her magic.
“Then this is mine.” Wren says. As she takes the stone she uses the last of her strength to teleport herself to guild’s location.
Kaspien, son of the Fae king, was there waiting. Wren tightened her grip around the stone. Her staff at the ready as the guildsmen surround her.
“Where is she?” Wren asked.
Her voice steady. Kaspien looked to his right, pointing to a cave. Inside Lydia is chained. Her wings are broken. There is blood where they’ve picked at her scales and torn off her talons. They’ve muzzled her and sealed her throat with a binding spell so that she cannot breathe fire. Wren can feel Lydia’s pain wrapping around the confines of her mind.
Wren throws the stone at Kaspien as tears began to build behind her eyes. He took it greedily, releasing Lydia from her binding. She fell on Wren’s waiting shoulder, her feeble body pressing all its weight on her. Lydia’s fingernails were bloody. The scabs beneath her breast were bleeding still. Her coal black hair matted, the ends singed from dragon breath. A man held out a white sheet to cover her naked body.
“Why do you want a useless artifact?” Wren asked Kaspien.
His smile widened. His eyes hungry only for the stone.
“To reset time. To begin our kingdom anew. To turn the tide of the war.” He intoned.
Wren scoffs. He was mad.
Kaspien invoked the name of an ancient daemon. Calling forth the power of the damned. As he chanted the stone begins to glow. He was reanimating the stones magic, Wren realized. She cannot stop his ritual. His spell was almost complete. Regardless of his spell it would not affect Wren because of her cloak. But as she turned, Lydia she began to fade. Lost to the web of time.
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The stone sat on my desk. Quiet and contemplative. Something I had picked up from some forgotten patch of woods between houses and apartments. A wilderness that defied the structure of society. Unflinching, it sat, facing the trials of days along with me. And unbreakable thread swam between myself, the stone, and some dismembered path that wound in and out of tree marked with chalk. Property flags popping out of ground like stray mushrooms of an unknown species. I walked the patches pf dirt by the gurgling stream. Stepping in and out of mud pools. The sun atop the wood of my desk and under the waves of murky water lapping at muddy shores. Sunlight breaking through the glass panes and shifting like waves. Somewhere, under a canopy of trees growing wild and untamed, in an oasis of wilderness in a desert of concrete, I hear a stream bubble and sing as the stone sits on my desk.
