When the Wind Speaks (Starstone Prophecies Book 1)

by Corinne Kilgore

  “It hurts?” Dnara asked.

  “Well, it ain’t comfortable taking it off,” she said and left it at that.

  Both naked as the day of their births, they took turns dunking their hair in the cold water. Ren’s tightly shorn blonde braids and shaved scalp took far less work to clean, and Dnara considered the practicality of her own long hair once it became fully drenched in freezing water. Shivering, Dnara made quick work of washing her arms and chest. By the time she reached her bottom, they were both left gasping at the water’s temperature and laughing at the faces they each made.

  They had just begun drying off and redressing when a rush of wind blew through the trees, swaying the pine tops with frantic motions. Ren stopped, one shin guard on and the other in hand, the rest of her armor still piled in the reeds. Dnara stopped, too, as a shiver shimmied its way up her spine; a shiver not caused by her cold, wet hair.

  “That you?” Ren asked, her eyes on the trees. “With the wind, I mean.”

  “No,” Dnara said, her gut tightening. She took the everbright lantern from its place on a nearby stone and held it up to the trees. “But, something isn’t right.”

  Staring harder into the growing darkness, it took her a moment to spot the line of pine trees that were separate from the rest; unmoving and untouched by the wind. These statuesque trees circled the creek like stone pillars, unnatural in their stillness. A billowing swirl of pine needles reached towards the creek then smashed into something unseen, falling to the ground in a clump ten yards from where the women knelt by the water. Dnara stood slowly and looked up. A monstrous shadow loomed over the clearing.

  “Run,” Dnara whispered.

  “What?” Ren dropped her shin guard and grabbed her sword, standing back to back with Dnara. “Why?”

  “There, up,” Dnara said on stilted whispers, her eyes locked on the shadow as it formed two blazing white eyes of its own.

  Ren craned her neck back. “I don’t see anything.”

  “There’s a shadow,” Dnara answered as her heart hammered. “It’s keeping the wind from me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ren huffed then cast her gaze to the trees as the ashbirds cried out in a growing cacophony before going silent. Planted in the ground near her armor, the torch flame sputtered then died in a waft of smoke. Even the everbright lantern dimmed in the presence of this imposing darkness.

  “Run,” Dnara implored, knowing with every bone in her body that the shadow had come for her alone.

  “From what?” Ren questioned but called out to the tree line. “Nate! Liam! Come quick!”

  The two white slits the shadow had for eyes shifted to Ren and narrowed. “Shhh,” Dnara cautioned then whispered, “I don’t think it likes loud noises.”

  “What doesn’t?” Ren asked, lowering her voice and keeping her back pressed up against Dnara’s as they made a tight circle in small, quiet steps. “I don’t see a damn thing.” Ren shivered in her rough cloth shirt. “But I can feel it, like something crawling up my skin. And the air... It’s getting hard to breathe.”

  Dnara took in a long breath and the air tasted stale on her tongue. “It’s on the other side of the creek, and it’s as tall as the trees. It’s just standing there, staring at us; staring at me.”

  The shadow’s gaze had moved from Ren back to Dnara as the pair whispered back and forth about what to do. Dnara believed they should make a run for it, and Ren finally agreed, but insisted they move with slow, unthreatening steps towards the invisible boundary. Together, they took one step away from the creek. The shadow took one step closer.

  “It’s following us,” Dnara whispered.

  As they took three more steps, the shadow splashed into the creek with a heavy footfall. “I can see that,” Ren said as the water’s moonlit sheen outlined three large, clawed talons. “Brodan’s balls,” she cursed then grabbed Dnara’s hand. “Run!”

  Ren lurched forward, leaving the rest of her armor behind in the grass. Dnara needed no encouragement to follow Ren’s lead. Tightly holding onto Ren’s hand, she dashed with her to the tree line. Ahead, the wind tossed more fodder at the barrier in frantic gusts, as if in warning.

  Dnara’s eye’s widened and her feet planted. “Stop!”

  But her understanding and warning came too late. Ren plowed into the barrier at full speed with a echoing thunk. She staggered back a step before falling onto her back, groaning in pain and clutching her head.

  “Ren!” Dnara came to her side, relieved to find the soldier in pain but otherwise unharmed.

  Ren blinked and sat up, shaking away the impact. “Like running into a stone wall, that.” She dazedly stared at the invisible wall and held out her hand to it. “Magic?”

  “I don’t know,” Dnara replied, placing her hand next to Ren’s and feeling the strange barrier humming against her fingertips. On the other side, a brown windblown maple leaf flattened against her palm, unfelt and suspended a few thin millimeters away.

  “Go get help,” Dnara said to the wind, uncertain if it could hear her. The leaf peeled away and floated slowly down to the ground. Behind them, the shadow crossed the river. “It’s still coming,” Dnara warned, returning her attention back to the shadow.

  Ren rose to her knees and faced the creek with the leveraging help of her sword. She winced with every move but steadied herself and held up the sword in warning to an enemy she couldn’t see. “Stay back, beast!”

  The shadow stopped, tilting the unformed mass it had for a head. With soundless thunder, a swooping shadow knocked the sword from Ren’s hand. Ren lost her balance and slumped forward. A sound rumbled, lowly pitched and vibrating up Dnara’s spine. It shook the trees, this sound, and made the river stones jitter upon the earth. It took Dnara a long, deep breath to realize this unnerving sound was the shadow creature’s laugh.

  “Think it’s funny, do ye?” Ren set her palm to her knee and pushed herself upwards to stand, toddling side to side but finding her balance in the end. She now held not a sword but a thick branch in her hand, which she wielded in the same warning posture with no less confidence than had it been steel within her grip. “Keep laughing, then. I can’t see you, but I can hear you.”

  Ren swiped the branch towards the sound and the shadow recoiled. The laughter ended and Ren stood up straighter. “That’s what I thought, coward.”

  The shadow’s eyes narrowed again, its amusement turning to annoyance. The air grew cold around them, frigid enough for their breaths to appear as white puffs in the middle of a temperate forest. Beyond the wet talons, the creak slowed to a drip before freezing over.

  “I think it’s angry.” Dnara rubbed her hands together, wishing she knew the magic words to create a fire.

  “Good,” Ren sputtered past chattering teeth and held the branch with both hands. “You think a little cold is going to scare me?” She shivered as the grass around her bare feet frosted and became brittle. “Ha! I grew up in the Axe Blades. We take baths in ice covered lakes.”

  Dnara reached for Ren’s arm, admiring her bravery but fearing its consequence. “I think it only wants me, Ren. You could-” Dnara yelped and snatched away her hand as Ren’s arm became so cold it hurt to touch it.

  “I’m n-not,” Ren stuttered, “l-lea-ving y-y...”

  “Ren?” Dnara reached for her cold skin again but Ren fell stiffly over and landed on the ground, the branch now frozen within her grasp and her eyelashes coated in white frost above unblinking eyes. “Ren!”

  Dnara crawled across the frosted earth to Ren’s body, her own teeth chattering and fingertips aching from the cold. Looming over her, the shadow sank downwards, its formless head and bright eyes coming to rest in front of Dnara’s face as she took Ren’s heavy, frozen form into her arms. It hurt to hold the soldier, but Dnara hugged the woman in a hope to warm her. The shadow tilted its head and watched for a moment then curled its large talons around Ren’s ankle and tugged.

  “No!” Dnara yelled at the creature and tightened her hold acros
s Ren’s shoulders.

  The creature slunk back, as if slapped by her voice. It closed its eyes, turning its formless face into a blank slate. When the eyes reopened, they were no longer a brilliant white but a deep amber. It sank its claws into Ren’s calf and tugged again, nearly ripping the soldier from Dnara’s grasp.

  “Stop!” Dnara didn’t know what good shouting at the thing would do, but it felt good to at least do something as Ren’s body slowly slid from her arms and back onto the ground.

  To her surprise, the creature did stop for a moment and eyed Dnara with its yellowish orange gaze tilting left and right, as if confused. One of its claws retracted from Ren’s flesh, leaving a bleeding gouge, but then the creature’s eyes closed again. Its shadowy, shapeless form shimmered and shook, dissipating in some places and reforming in others. A shivering hum drew a long low note and the frozen river fractured. Dnara let out a whimper as sharp needles threaded along the scars on her arms. The hum cascaded through the clearing, bringing movement to the ice coated trees and grass in a world without wind. The whispering crystalline ting they made brought a beautiful melody to accompany the hum before the clearing went deathly silent and unnaturally still.

  The beast reopened its eyes, and they were a raging red fire. A low growl reverberated, shaking the stones and brittle grass. The talons sunk deep into flesh and tossed Ren aside like a sack of grain. The soldier rolled across the ground before sliding to a stop halfway on the ice-coated creek, her face turned towards Dnara, mouth open in an unfinished word and eyes unblinking.

  The memory of Ren’s laughter and kindness knifed into Dnara’s heart as the lifeless soldier stared across the frozen ground with a face masked in sparkling white frost. The expression Ren wore was one of disbelief and confusion, as if asking the why of her ending. How pointless a death. How unworthy a conclusion to such a strong woman and gentle soul.

  “No,” Dnara whispered, the word cracking chapped lips and forming its own shape with a white puff on the air.

  The creature did not falter nor close its eyes this time. Its talons sank into the frostbitten earth and tore away hunks of sod as it took a step closer to where Dnara sat staring at Ren’s fallen form. The shadow stood over her, laughing in mockery at Ren’s futile sacrifice and Dnara’s failure to stop it.

  ‘How weak. How pathetic.’

  The words buzzed through Dnara’s mind, painfully sharp. A breath passed her lips and her chest could not draw in another. A heavy, clawed hand pressed down on her with talons perched upon her throat, pushing her into the cold earth. Shadows wisped upwards from its body as smoke from an extinguished flame, swirling around shapes in patterns that began giving the creature form; a lost figure surrounded by darkness, a lingering remnant of what once was.

  Dnara’s eyes widened as the patterns became discernable and gave life to an incredible realization. Sharp black talons led to a splayed foot, which led to a strong arm armored with horns and scales. From the red eyes, light reflected across rigid bone and leathered skin. Two flaring nostrils now breathed only shadow where once there had been birthed fires brighter than the stars. A blink, and the impression faded. A held breath, and the fluctuating silhouette returned. From a formless shadow, came the fleeting glimpse of a dragon.

  Dnara’s mouth opened further to scream but could only draw in a tight, hard fought breath, more a wheeze than a gasp at what she now saw. The shadow stared at its own reflection in her eyes and recoiled. The shadows reformed, eclipsing the dragon held beneath and blotting out what little moonlight remained. A claw scraped her throat, leaving a thin line of blood, and the shadow renewed its compression on her chest, pushing the air from her lungs.

  ‘To come so far only to fall.’

  Its words were seeped in tangible vitriol, and its anger threatened to drown her before she could suffocate under its weight. She’d come so far, from her tower in the forest, from an existence that seemed endless and without purpose.

  ‘But you are nothing without the wind.’

  Her chest heaved in a desperate search for air as those words snaked into her soul, cutting open a rift of doubt with their truth. The wind had given her purpose, a path, protection and power. Separated from it, what remained?

  ‘A frightened little girl,’ answered the shadow, its red eyes piercing and unsympathetic. ‘An abandoned, kept child who is no one’s daughter.’ Darkness crept into her vision as the creature squeezed the last breath from her body.

  But there, in the darkness, waited the stars. Bright and brilliant, floating over an endless black sea. She cast her final glance to the distant shore and saw a figure waiting, arms open wide as if to welcome her home. The figure’s face was a blur, but she could see that it smiled, a sweet familiar smile, then shook its head at her, pointed up at the stars and turned away. Abandoned on the sea, the message was clear. The time had not come for her to go home. There remained more left to do.

  Looking up to the stars, Dnara latched her fading hopes to them and embraced her fate. She was frightened, but she would not run. She had been a kept child, but she had not been abandoned. She was someone’s daughter. Like all things, her beginning did not define her end, and her ending existed only to show her a new journey to begin.

  Heat erupted from her palm and she reached for the shadow surrounding her. Her hand sank into the shadows until it found a solid mass of scales undulating over taut muscles. Light flashed and the rune scarred into her palm seared a mark onto the creature’s neck. The shadow reeled back, howling in fury, and Dnara inhaled a much needed breath. The rune’s pattern, a completed circle with a dot where its beginning and end met, glowed on the creature’s skin. White starlit rays burst outward from the mark, shearing away pieces of shadow, giving momentary glimpses at the dragon trapped beneath the living darkness.

  Dnara looked up in awe. A dragon. It truly was a dragon!

  A large foot stamped the earth near her head and clawed at the dirt as a howl of agony filled the clearing, bringing Dnara back to her senses. She scooted out from under the creature and crawled along the ground to Ren. Where her rune-marked hand touched the earth, the frozen blades of grass melted away the frost and were green again. With hope filling her heart, she touched the rune to Ren’s shoulder and begged whatever gods may exist to let the soldier live.

  This is not how it should end, she thought, tears now coming to her eyes without warning as she pulled Ren into her arms.

  The beast trampled backwards in stumbling steps and turned on her. It snapped and snarled in rage. Shadows melted and sank to the earth like withering flesh in their attempts to repair the damage the rune had caused.

  ‘It all must end!’ The beast’s voice echoed into Dnara’s mind like thunder, making her heart shudder.

  The rune on her hand burned and the creature roared. Holding onto Ren as a beacon within a dark void, Dnara screamed back at the beast like a feral wolfchild as an unexpected rage threatened to drown her. The shadows pulled back and swirled around the clearing, blocking out the moon. The darkness dissipated the rage within her soul, offering a numbing comfort; a place to rest where fear and sadness would not touch her. They sang sweetly to her, promising an endless peace. Standing at the center of the void, the dragon looked on in placid stillness with its head lowered, wings broken and fire extinguished.

  ‘Let it all end, child,’ implored the dragon. ‘Please.’

  Yes, Dnara thought as a world without life surrounded her. She could end it all; the madness, the suffering, this ceaseless harrowing existence.

  Dnara lifted her hand towards the dragon, but another hand grabbed her arm to stop her. Light bloomed around her, and from its center, she heard Ren’s laugh and felt the soldier’s strength. ‘Not like this,’ the phantom of Ren’s spirit said, and hope flooded in to drive away the darkness.

  “Not like this,” Dnara repeated, first on a whisper and then on a voice strengthened by the thought of all those who had helped her come so far. For them, she would not fall into shadow.
“Not like this!”

  The shadows shifted and the beast threw its head back in a yowl of anguish. The moonlight reappeared in the clearing and the first touch of wind brushed across Dnara’s cheek. On her palm as well as her heart, the rune burned as bright as the stars.

  “This is not how it ends,” she spoke more confidently, as before when faced with the raven.

  The beast roared at the night sky as shadows sprang from its back to form inky black wings. They stretched upwards then came down with a rush of wind, their movement frantic in a search for flight. The shadows recoiled and surged, pulsating in waves around the figure they had swallowed. Between the dark tendrils, for the briefest moment, Dnara saw the dragon looking at her with longing in its golden eyes.

  In a thrashing swoosh, the shadowy mass left the ground and flew over the trees, disappearing into the southward night sky. A breeze followed it then returned to a river clearing now basking in moonlight and the unbroken song of crickets. The wind blew past as Dnara sat in mournful silence, her arms held tightly around a cold, unmoving Ren. With a heavy gust, the wind shook the trees and called out in whistling squalls. From the tree line came alarmed shouting and the flickering reflections of torchlight. Dnara laid down on the damp earth beside her lifeless friend and wept.

  34

  The high toned ring of metal blades leaving scabbards echoed through the clearing. King’s Guard soldiers circled around from tree line to creek bed with Dnara and their fallen comrade in the center. Torches sputtered in the wind and heavy, clanking footsteps approached. The large shadow of Commander Aldric fell upon the half-dressed, mud-covered pair, and Dnara raised tear reddened eyes up to face his scrutiny.

  “What happened?” he asked, without malice nor blame aimed where it had not yet been proven.