Ailyne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Yan was hammering a new breastplate when the roof caved in. A woman crashed through the beams and landed on his forge floor, sword in hand, dust and splinters raining down. He knew her at once. Ailyne. His wife. She had walked out three weeks ago to hunt the god who stole her memory, the god who had cursed her to wander Briarthorn as a stranger to herself. Now she was back, bleeding and breathless, and something was wrong with the air around her. "Yan," she said. "Something is happening to you." He helped her up. The forge sigils flared brighter than the coals. They glowed toward him, not toward the fire. Ailyne grabbed his wrist and turned his hand over. Blue light crawled under his skin like water under ice. "I felt it a mile off," she said. "Raw power. It's inside you. It's been building since I left." Yan pulled his hand back. "I'm a smith. I make armor. I don't have power." "You do now." Her jaw was tight. "And it's untamed. It will burn you from within if no one shapes it. I've seen men die this way. Their own magic tears them apart." Fear cut through him. "Then teach me. You're a warrior. You must know how." "I don't." The word came hard for her. "I can feel power. I can't train it. My own memory is gone. I don't know what I once was." She looked away, and he saw shame on her face he had never seen before. The light under his skin spread up his arm. His fingers cramped. The sigils on the forge screamed white, and cracks split the dark stone. Yan gasped and dropped to one knee. Ailyne moved fast. She dragged him across the room to the golden tree that stood by the wall, its leaves soft and luminous. Yan's mother had kept it for healing. Ailyne pressed his glowing hand against the trunk. "Give it to the tree," she said. "Now. Let it pull." He pushed the power out. The tree drank it. Golden light ran up the branches, and the leaves burned bright, then dimmed. The blue drained from his skin. His arm went still. He breathed again. But the tree was changed. Its leaves had gone dark at the edges, curling. A sound came from inside the trunk, low and slow, like breathing. Ailyne stared at it. "That should not happen." "What did we do?" Yan whispered. She stood between him and the tree, sword raised again. "We didn't tame your power. We fed it into the one thing that could hold it." The leaves shivered though no wind moved them. "And now it's holding something back." The tree groaned. A crack opened down its golden trunk. Ailyne set her feet. "Whatever answers," she said, "stay behind me."