The Chosen Soul (16 page)

something far different than the matters of Fey State that he’d been presented with at that morning’s meeting with representatives of other realms. He nodded at the guards who

bowed as he passed, doing so out of habit rather than recognition.

He entered the royal wing of the castle and began to turn the final corner that would

take him into Eidolon’s grand hall, but the sound of his father’s voice brought him up

short. He took a step back and listened, concealed in the shadows of the massive

tapestries that hung beside him.

“Why should this concern me?”

“My liege, they are only mortals, however, I thought you would be interested to

know that this is the seventh such disappearance in as many days. The people of

Trimontium have never before encountered such an occurrence. Their family members

are vanishing without trace, your majesty.”

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King Oberon paused in thought before his next reply. “Very well. Speak with Gray

Beard on the matter.”

Astriel watched as the guard bowed low and exited the giant chamber. Then his eye

was caught by something across the way, in the shadowy hall opposite the one in which

he stood. There, a female elf watched and listened, hidden behind the tapestries, just as he had been. Astriel’s gaze narrowed. She was a Blue Robe, an elite elven battle mage who

served under the Master Mage known as Gray Beard. The Blue Robes were so named

because they wore vestments of sapphire blue, making them immediately recognizable.

She had not noticed that Astriel was there. The Prince backed up a few paces and

continued to watch as the hidden mage quietly crept across the long hallway and

disappeared into one of many concealed panels within Eidolon’s vast passageways.

Astriel smiled to himself, whispered a few arcane words, and disappeared.

*****

At an ornate wooden desk, in a small book-lined room beneath the dungeons of the

elven palace, the elven mage, Jaren, studied the large leather-bound tome before her. She

glanced briefly at each sheet as she quickly turned its weathered pages. She’d gone

through more than two dozen books like this one over the course of the afternoon.

She was searching for something.

She looked up, momentarily, from her work to glance nervously at the door. It was

still shut tight. The fire still burned brightly in the hearth. Jaren had every right to be within Eidolon’s cavernous libraries. She was a Blue Robe, and as such, held a certain

amount of power. But she was uneasy.

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Things were not right.

She had first noticed it several weeks ago. Disappearances, unrelated, unexpected.

The villagers were too frightened of the Lords and Ladies to directly approach their king

with the questions stirring about in their heads. Until today. And Oberon had dismissed

the issue out of hand.

But Jaren was not so quick to do so.

And that was not all. The days were not as long as they should be. No mortal would

take notice, she was sure. However, each morning came several moments too late, and

each dusk approached several moments too quickly. Night was encroaching upon day

almost imperceptibly. To what end?

And then, this morning, as she’d watched the discussion between the guard and her

king, she had remembered. She’d read it so long ago, so many thousands of years ago,

that its details were vague in her recollection. She could only hope that the same book

was still within Eidolon’s vast archives.

She sighed, flipping quickly through the pages.

And then, as if unexpectedly, it was there before her. She’d found the right book, and

happened upon the right page.

Her eyes widened as she read the fine script. It was both a legend and a prophecy,

eons old, its warnings and precursors sending chills through her body.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Jaren jumped, gasped, and nearly fell from the wooden chair in which she sat. She

looked up, her eyes meeting the pale blue gaze of her prince. Immediately, she rose from

her chair and bowed her head.

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“Your Highness. I did not hear you come in.” With that, she chanced a glance up at

the door across the room. It was still shut tight. And the Prince stood beside the hearth,

several yards away.

Astriel shrugged and smiled. “Please sit, Jaren.”

She did so, her brow furrowed warily.

The Prince calmly strode to the table and glanced down at the book before the mage.

It wasn’t that she had any reason for not wanting him to see it, none other than the fact

that she wanted to be absolutely certain before alerting anyone, especially a member of

elven royalty. However, as if by instinct, her hands came up and grasped the book at

either end.

Astriel laid his black gloved hand across the open tome, gently but firmly, and Jaren

blushed. She released it slowly and bowed her head.

“Tell me, Jaren, what is it about this, " he paused, cocked his head to one side, and

arched a brow mockingly, “
fairy
tale that has you so entranced?”

Jaren swallowed. “It is a conjecture on my part, your highness, nothing more.”

“Oh?” Astriel lifted the tome and read. As he did so, his expression darkened. After a

few silent moments, he finished reading and laid the book back down. Then he moved to

the chair opposite her and lowered himself into it, propping his legs up on the table top as he did so. “Please elaborate.”

Jaren stared at him. His presence was imposing, daunting. He was more handsome

than any elf, save perhaps his father, and his gaze was arresting. She peered into the ice

blue of those eyes and, even as an elf, a mage at that, she felt the power emanating from

him, a strength so much greater than her own.

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She was humbled. “Your Highness, the disappearances. The day and night-”

“Yes, I’ve noticed. What of them?”

Jaren was surprised, but only momentarily. She went on, “I believe they have

something to do with The Legend of Cruor and Haledon – this legend here, on these

pages.” She placed her fingertips against the book before her and waited for some kind of

reaction. He merely stared at her.

She went on. “The legend tells of their battle, long ago. Cruor was a mortal, but he

was a very powerful mage, strong enough to become a deity. He was evil, and in an

attempt to stop him from reaching godhood, Haledon’s avatar challenged him. The battle

between them resulted in the deaths of thousands, and in the end, Cruor’s spirit was split

in two. He became half of what he was, a corporeal form without a soul.”

The Prince looked away from her, his gaze at once far away. “I know the story. What

of it?”

Jaren hesitated and then continued. “The prophecy, within the legend, tells of Cruor

rising once again. There are signs that point to his return. He will begin to consume souls, as he has not one of his own. They will give him the strength he needs.” She paused and

licked her lips, wondering how much she should say. But this needed to be said, she was

sure. She took a deep breath and barreled on. “An elven disappearance would not go

unnoticed, your highness, but
mortals
… They can disappear by the hundreds before

anyone of influence takes interest.”

Astriel glanced back at her and Jaren could feel herself shrinking beneath the weight

of that gaze. She wondered whether she had said too much after all.

“And you believe that Trimontium’s disappearances signal the return of Cruor?"

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“That is not all, your Highness,” she rushed to explain. “There are other signs – that

accompany the prophecy. The paragraphs that follow describe the night growing longer,

the return of Haledon’s avatar, and the advent of the Chosen Soul-”

“Indeed.” Astriel then stood to leave.

Jaren watched him, her eyes wide. Did he not believe her? Was he unconvinced?

“Your Highness, I-”

“Return to your master, Jaren. Perhaps Gray Beard will have more to say on the

subject.” He turned away from her and made his way to the door. There, he stopped and

glanced back at her over his broad shoulder. “And be more careful when spying, Blue

Robe,” he smiled at her, tauntingly. “Your skill at concealment is truly abysmal.”

He opened the door, stepped through it and was gone.

Jaren stared after him, frustration building within her to the point that she trembled.

The door closed again and she was left alone with her anger. Very well, she thought, If

you do not believe me, I know of someone who will.

*****

Astriel stormed through the castle, his strides long and purposeful. His thoughts were

dark. Though he had never, before today, taken the time to actually read the prophecy, he

was more familiar with the legend of Cruor than Jaren could have imagined… The truth

was he’d been alive when the battle between the Sun God and the Mage of Death had

occurred.

He had been but a boy. His parents, King Oberon and Queen Titania, had not given

the matter much thought at the time, as Cruor was a mere mortal and the affairs of

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mortals had never weighed heavily upon the matters of the Fey. However, amongst the

humans, his name was feared. He had risen in power by creating a kind of magic that fed

upon the life essence of those around him. He gained his power by draining it from

others. They called him the Death Mage, the Devourer of Souls, and they hid behind

locked doors that, in truth, would not have slowed Cruor down.

He grew in stature until the day the gods took notice.

Before that day, the gods had adhered to a strict rule of non-interference. For when

one god insisted on helping a follower, their enemy insisted upon the same. To avoid

what would amount to nothing more than a grand puppet show, the gods agreed to remain

impassive. However, Cruor’s rise threatened to topple the delicate balance the gods had

achieved. His kind of magic was unheard of, novel and terrifying. It was destruction,

itself, which gave him the ability to continue to destroy. For each soul he absorbed, he

gained the capacity to absorb yet another.

And his power was becoming too great. He stood on the brink of immortality, where

his corporeal form would fall away to reveal godhood, and no deity wanted to discover

what kind of soul he would devour then.

And so Haledon had stepped in. The other gods agreed to a temporary truce, long

enough for Haledon’s avatar to rid Kriver of Cruor’s influence.

The ensuing battle was devastating. Astriel remembered spending his days within

Eidolon’s invisible walls, watching the destruction through windows, as his parents had

decided to shift the palace and its grounds away from Kriver’s realm until the trouble was

over. They had learned, the hard way, that matters of mortals can be much more pressing

than the elves would, at first, believe.

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Phased out of time and space, but close enough to touch that which he saw, Astriel

watched as Cruor laid waste to entire cities, sucking the souls from men, women and

children, without pause.

Through sheer force of will, Haledon, at last, won the battle. His avatar cleaved the

Death Mage in two, splitting not only his body but his stolen soul. And in doing so, the

spirits he had consumed were set free. Cruor was cast back away from the rim of

godhood, and banished to a remote realm.

That was so many years ago. And none had ever come to learn of Cruor’s eventual

location.

Jaren was right. Astriel hated to admit it, but the Blue Robe was catching on to clues

that he thought only he had noticed. But it was not the possible destruction of the mortal

race that bothered Astriel the most. He had too much of his mother and father in him to

be especially bothered by the comings and goings of the Terran realm. Humans were

forever finding ways to destroy themselves.

No. It was something else.

Something he had only now read for the first time in his long life. It was something

that would have meant nothing to him a month ago. The advent of what was termed the

Chosen Soul was a requisite piece of Cruor’s return. According to the prophecy, the

assimilation of this, the most ancient of spirits, would be sufficient to finally herald Cruor into the godhood he so inevitably sought.

It had not occurred to him that this process was set in motion two decades ago, when

news of the theft of the Spring’s eldest soul first reached his ears, because he had not read the prophecy. But now he knew.

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The stolen soul from the Spring was the Chosen Soul from the prophecy of Cruor,

and the spirit that would be sacrificed for his return as a god. And it was something in the prophecy’s
description
of that soul that now furrowed the prince’s handsome brow and set his steps at a quick pace.

It was a mere segment of the prophecy’s prose, a short four lines, that captured his

attention most…

As sable as this endless night

As stunning as the god of light

With will of fire and air of cold