Aerthen sight, p.2
Aerthen Sight, page 2
Surely this one girl couldn’t manifest such great power? As he stared at her, his vision sharpened and the pieces clicked into place that she was the girl from the mountaintop. He cast his eyes around for the hulking elf, and spotted him in a black assassin’s cloak guarding her other shoulder, twin blades drawn and eyes trained across the field.
Following the elf’s gaze, his pulse quickened as he took in the rest of the scene. The girl, blazing fury radiating from her, faced off against another group of five magic wielders. His heart crashed to his feet as he remembered the first vision, and the obliteration of the courageous Gamin. Even backed by a dragon, her odds were not good.
“Surrender! The dragon is ours by divine right, and any who stand in our way will be turned to ash before the sun sets!” the man in the middle of the opposing group yelled.
The girl’s shoulders stiffened, and anger splashed across her delicate features.
“Calida, we need to leave now,” the elf intoned; grave warning laced his words. “They won’t be able to catch Auralia, but we must flee.”
Her chin jutted upward at his words, and a stubborn glint in her crystal green eyes told Saolf all he needed to know. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Her hands began to rise from her sides, and an otherworldly breeze plucked at Saolf’s shorn hair and gray cloak. Her flaming hair lifted from her shoulders, the silky mass beginning to separate as if filled with static electricity. With serene calm, she uttered a single word.
“No.”
The dragon at her back lifted its head and roared so loudly that the ground beneath them trembled, and opalescent scales gleamed from the underside of its serpentine throat. The five magic wielders lifted their left palms and sweat began to gather on Saolf’s upper lip.
No, no, no! Not the girl, too!
Her hands reached shoulder height, and she paused, watching as a ball of light formed in front of the five. But no ball of flame came to her hands.
Dread pooled in Saolf’s stomach, and he felt the first pull of the siphoning magic he knew would wrench him from the vision. But as the twisting feeling started at his stomach and spread outward to his limbs, what he saw left no room for distraction.
The girl never called a ball of flame, but flames licked along her entire being. One moment, she was there with her flint-hard glare and fiery locks, and the next she was consumed by blue-white flame. It engulfed her, and through the blinding light Saolf could barely make out the outline of her form. The elf stumbled back from the searing heat, but the dragon shook its head at the sky as if reveling in her transformation.
Gouts of pure flame tore across the meadow from her outstretched hands and slammed into the five men gathered there. The last thing Saolf saw before he was snatched from the vision was their ball of killing light winking out of existence.
His entire body felt like it went through a grain thresher and was wrung out by Brutholdin—the village laundress with the burly forearms—as he returned to consciousness in the earth’s womb. He gasped in a lungful of air as his nose and mouth breached the glowing pool’s surface. Shivers racked his body from head to toe as the magic poured off of him, and the pool forcibly spat Saolf back to the edge. He sat at the edge of the pool and watched his reflection as the color leached back into his eyes, and the last of the pool’s raw power returned to it. He stared into its endless depths, its surface still as glass and as unperturbed as if he’d never set a toe in.
His ears slowly ceased their ringing, and the earth rumbled around him in discontent. As the stones above him grew still once more, Saolf heard a whisper inside his head—the voice was paper thin, as old as time itself.
“She is coming.”
The intonation filled his veins with liquid fire.
She is coming.
2
Author's Note
Hey, y’all. I’m K. A. Gandy, and I wanted to take a second to say thanks for reading Aerthen Sight! Book one, The Lost Talisman, will be coming out soon. I’ve got big plans for An’Loran, not to mention a certain girl and her dragon who take it by storm.
I hope you enjoyed this introductory short story to the An’Loran world. It was a blast to write, and I’m excited about this series! If you’re dying to know what happens next, head straight on over to book one, The Lost Talisman.
In the meantime, you can join my newsletter at: https://www.subscribepage.com/kagandy
And remember, every time you leave a five-star review, an author somewhere does a backflip from excitement. Not me, because I’m not trying to break my neck. But, somewhere—I’m sure of it. ;)
Until next time, y’all!
K. A. Gandy, Aerthen Sight
