Standing on a hill overlooking a hidden valley was a lone figure wrapped in a blood-stained cloak. The wind fitfully pulled at the cloak, a bit of unseasonably cold in the air. The sun had long ago fallen below the horizon, and in the light of the twin moons it was bright enough to easily make out the cloaked figure. She was a young girl with ghostly grey hair. She was staring at the quiet town in the middle of the valley. The town itself had only a few lights lit at this time of night, almost no motion was visible from the hill.

Kay’rin stared at the town she grew up in. It was a little hovel, hidden away in a valley. She had no fond memories of this place, excepting it was where she met her only friend. Her friend was special to her. When she had been at the worst point in her life her friend had come to her and helped her. Rescued her. She never told anyone about her friend, as her friend begged her never to talk about her to anyone.

“Melis? Why did you want me to return?” Kay’rin’s voice was quiet and shy, she spoke into the quiet lonely night as if expecting an answer.

“Because you’ve been fighting with me recently Rin. I was hoping returning here could help renew our friendship.” Melis’s voice was confident and cold

“I didn’t fight with you Meli.” Kay’rin’s voice pleaded

“Yes you did. Else why did you not kill that monster Jace? Why did you leave anyone alive? I thought I was clear about this. That island was to sink. Yet you fought me every step of the way. Why?”

“I…” Kay’rin was torn on how to answer her friend and touched one of the still healing wounds on her arm. That island had been a disaster. Everything seemed so nice there, and then all of a sudden everything had gone so wrong. She still didn’t know exactly what happened, all she knew is she went to sleep one day and the next she was buried under a pile of stones in a strange place with the island breaking apart under her. It was terrifying, and had Melis not walked her through how to leave she might have died. One more time she failed Melis.

“You’re weak. You left me to kill your parents, do you forget that?”

“No… but…” The comment brought a strange memory to her mind, one she would think of from time to time. From time to time she’d remember pouring something into her parent’s food which killed them. Which was strange because she also remembered Melis doing the same thing while she cried in the corner. Her head and heart hurt.

“How many people have I killed for you now? No, better yet, how many people have you killed for me?”

“I… I haven’t killed anyone for you.”

“Is that fair Rin? Why must I be the bad one?”

“I don’t like… blood”

“Then don’t leave blood. You have the power to do that you know.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Then since we’re in agreement, kill this town, everyone in it. There must be no one left breathing.”

“Wai… what?” Kay’rin’s face drained of what little color she had. She couldn’t believe what she just heard from her friend. Her heart felt like it stopped, and the blood drained from her face.

“I said kill your home town. Kill them all.” Melis’s voice was cold and uncompromising.

“But… bu… Blood?”

“You just said you can kill without seeing blood. Do it.”

“I…” tears started to fall down her face. “I don’t want… “

“You don’t want to talk to me anymore? Is that it?” Melis’s voice sounded sad, almost at the point of tears.

“N…No!”

“Then why won’t you kill this fetid little town?”

“Meli, don’t make me…” Kay’rin whined under her voice.

“I won’t talk to you again if you don’t do this. Think carefully.” Melis’s voice now was hard and angry.

Kay’rin cried quietly. “Meli?”

No answer

The silence cut deeply into her heart. Meli had always been with her. For Meli to be gone now, it was like her guts were pulled out of her.

“Meli?!!” falling to her knees Kay’rin sobbed the name, her heart breaking. Meli had been her friend her whole life. Her only companion when her father beat her. Her only companion when her mother beat her. Her only companion when old men would fondle her. Her only companion when people would beat her. Her life had been hard, but without Meli how could she survive?

Why didn’t she want to destroy this town? Nothing good had ever happened there.

It took minutes for her to catch her breath. She simply couldn’t breathe or see she was panicking from the thought of Melis leaving her alone. Recovering her breath, she slowly stood. She didn’t know much magic. But what Melis said was right, she did know how to do this. She looked around at the area around her, no sign of Melis anywhere. She was worried that Melis was already far away, so she had to make this spectacular so that Melis would know she did it.

Tears streaming down her face she incinerated the whole town in the bottom of the ravine; it was a simple action hardly requiring a little bit of thought. Like all magic this just came. The screams of the people in the burning town rose in a short lived ghastly wail which could be heard over the thundering noise of the inferno. However, the temperatures were too great for that type of noise to continue for long, and as soon as she heard the ghastly sound it vanished. The fire lit up the night sky. It was so hot she could feel the oppressive heat from the great distance she was standing away on the lip of the hill overlooking the valley. It turned the clouds in the sky orange. Then the fire burnt down leaving nothing but a valley filled with ash.

“Meli?” Her small terrified voice was the only noise in the night air.

“Yes Rin?”

“MELI!” Kay’rin’s tear streaked face split into a smile, a rare smile.

“You did good Rin…” Whatever Meli was going to say next was cut off as she suddenly shrieked a high pitch shriek as if all the pain in the world was suddenly crashing onto her head. The shriek went on and on and on. Kay’rin panicked and started to call for Meli again, when the western horizon lit up almost as if the sun were about to rise, then as the light became blinding a pillar of light suddenly stretched into the heavens, the beam of light cutting a path through the milky ring in the sky and illuminated the night sky. The scene was so stunning she almost forgot about Meli’s screams. Just as she was about to call out for Meli again the 2nd moon fractured and then splintered into dust.

On her knees Kay’rin stared in terror as the white luminous body came apart. Simply unable to turn away or even notice the screams of Meli. The scene was majestic and terrifying. Eventually as the dust of the moon started to disperse into the milky band across the sky, she was brought back to the here and now by the screams.

The shrieking went on until dawn. As the sun rose Red into the sky shining down on Kay’rin’s lonely figure on that lonely hill, Kar’rin’s fear which had been at a near gibbering level thanks to Meli’s screaming in pain, only grew greater. She had lived with the moon mark on her forehead her whole life. Yet unlike others ever since she met Meli, she had always seen the sun as yellow-white. Meli had told her this made her special. A chosen of the gods. Begging silently for Meli to tell her what was wrong, Kay’rin stared at the horrible red sun in abject terror. What had happened?

Meli’s pained voice sounded in her ear. “Rin?”

“MELI!!!” Kay’rin shouted in excitement.

“Rin, listen closely… I cannot speak for long. I’m hurt Rin. That bastard Jace… You must kill Jace, but not before he teaches you what he did. Torture him, slaughter those he loves, destroy everything he is. Quickly, this is a catastrophe…” Melis’s voice was too quiet to make out as if she was struggling to breath.

“Meli! I’ll do it! I’ll save you!”

“Go” a breathy whisper on the wind

Kay’rin, without hesitating turned and left the lonely empty hill, and started moving West, tears of worry about her bodiless friend falling from her eyes.

Shawey was watching snowflakes fall slowly in the night sky. It had been another good day running the shop. Peddling in healing was solid business, especially when it turned out she was rather better at it then the locals. This wasn’t all that bad of a way of life really. She liked helping people, better still she wasn’t living amongst humans. Her trust of her own people had dropped pretty low.

She pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders and watched as her breath made a cloud that quickly dispersed into the night sky. She knew what she was doing was moderately dangerous. Fairies had done a lot to kill off human mages. However, it seemed like Karius was right about this city of Fallah, they apparently were willing to overlook a mage or two as long as it brought them something they needed. The Fairies even helped her hide what her shop was, what she was, by naming and registering the shop as a herbalist/lay healer’s shop. Since the local authority was protecting her, none of the other fairies gave her any trouble either.

As she watched the cloud of mist vanish the night sky ripped open, as a beam of light burst into the heavens. It blindingly bright, and far to the north. But it was clear to see as it stretched into the starry sky. Shawey stared in amazement at the beam of light, which seemed to go on forever. There was almost no noise in the city. All the pedestrians were staring at the sky just like she was, unable to comprehend what must have occurred.

Then someone shouted in alarm, it sounded like a woman’s voice screaming in terror. Shawey looked around for what might have caused the scream, and her eyes landed on the 2nd moon in the sky starting to break apart. It simply crumbled. She was struck speechless at the spectacle. The moon didn’t simply fracture into smaller parts, it seemed to vaporize. The beam of light wasn’t anywhere near the moon, yet she knew it beyond a shadow of doubt that it was responsible for what she was seeing. Before long nothing was left of the moon except for a milky white powder stretching and joining the white band already belting the night sky. The twin moons were no more. She was surprised she wasn’t terrified at the sight. The whole thing had been rather beautiful, if disturbing. In the end, she knew she had to talk to Karius. He knew more about things like this, perhaps he’d know what this was about.

Hurrying down the stairs to the shop, she pushed aside a book shelf, and slipped into a small room which was disguised by an illusion of a wall. In the room was a teleportation circle, the light of the circle enveloped her and instead of finding herself in the small manner house, she found herself standing in the middle of a dark forest.

Stunned she looked around confused. There were no lights anywhere, no sound, she couldn’t even make out the night sky. Stumped she turned around and nearly collapsed as fear gripped her heart. Towering into the night sky was a large shape which obscured what little light made its way down from the stars and moon. It was a huge shadow, that was easily twice as tall as a man, she had seen these creatures before. But no one would ever willingly get as close as she currently was. The moon dissolving into the night sky didn’t scare her a fraction what this large Rock Devil did.

Staring at the huge creature part of her mind suddenly realized her mistake, when the moon vanished all the teleportation arrays in the world would break, because they were all designed with the moons as points of reference. It seemed like a foolish reason to die to her.

Sa’manatha was watching the pillar of light stretch into the heavens from her bedroom window. In the weeks since the flight from the island her broken heart had slowly recovered. She still couldn’t sleep well at night; the dreams of her torture were too much they would wake her in terror all the time. The death of the child she had been carrying was a heavy blow on top of the physical impairment. Her world had changed.

In her heart, she was very thankful for Karius for healing the injuries as well as he had. She didn’t blame him for failing to heal the large toes. Learning to walk again without your large toes was difficult, but not impossible. She felt a bit like an old lady now. The bounce to her step was gone in many ways not just literally.

The other women all treated her well, well enough she almost forgot she was a slave at times. Many of the women were deeply thankful for Jace, and because of that they treated her well. Some of the women were thankful to her as well, for her hospitality when they were on the island. She didn’t feel like she had done much but it apparently had broken down what walls might normally exist between slaves and non-slaves.

Many slaves had joined the fleeing group of women when they left the island, so she knew many of the slaves here. Yet despite being surrounded by kind people she found what she most missed was Jace. She wanted his arms wrapped around her so she could properly greave with him over the loss of their child. So, he could tell her she was beautiful again. Yet despite all her asking no one knew anything of his whereabouts or health.

Eventually she stopped asking because she knew the answer. She knew they weren’t lying to her about it. They simply didn’t know. She knew she had to do something with her life, she just wasn’t sure what. The questions Verna asked her rang in her mind. “What would you do with your life if you were not a slave?” she had asked. “You have no answer because you have no dreams. You decided a long time ago that your life was no longer your own to live, so you're happy to let others make the choices for you.”

As the pillar vanished the second smaller moon started to dissolve. Sa’manatha watched it turn to dust, as she recalled the look on Jace’s face when he first saw those moons. He was in awe; a tear was running down his face. He looked so happy.

She felt tears running down her face from the corner of her eyes as the moon finished turning into powder. Her answer to Verna had been she wanted Jace’s love. Now she just wanted him to hug her. She wanted him to be alive. The fact she had no answer for herself to Verna’s question about what she wanted out of life became a keen edge to her heart. She blinked some more tears from her eyes, then carefully wiped her face.

Her hair had been growing back nicely, though it was still boyishly short. She had lost her ivory comb, not that it was long enough for that. The hair that was growing back was coming back silver/grey, whatever yellow was in her hair before was now gone. She ran her hand through the short hair and stopped watching the night sky, returning to her bed, she wondered what it was she could do with her life now that it was no longer her world which had changed, but the world itself that had changed.