Celestara Veylin's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Celestara Veylin ran because standing still meant dying. Her family had ruled this world for a thousand years. Now they were ash, and she was the last of the bloodline. She meant to take back the throne. But the things that killed her parents were closing in, and she had nowhere to hide. She crouched behind a fallen wall in the open field. Her blonde hair was gray with dust. Her purple eyes burned from lack of sleep. She pressed a hand to the cold stone and listened, not with her ears, but with her mind. She could read thoughts across a room. She strained to catch a single friendly one across the plain. She found none. Instead she felt them. The hunters. Their minds were wrong, gray and empty, like broken machines. She rose and saw them cross the open ground. A cluster of decayed shapes with rotting skin and glowing yellow eyes. They lurched on long, clawed limbs. They wore the faces of the dead, and they smelled her blood. Celestara ran again. She had no walls, no door, no roof. In the open she was easy to track. She needed a place to stop, to breathe, to plan her return. She topped a low rise and stopped short. A tall structure rose from the plain. Its walls were purple stone, polished and whole. Amethyst towers caught the light. A heavy gate stood open at its base. She had heard of this fortress in her mother's stories. It was old, older than her dynasty, and it was empty. No mind stirred inside it. That silence was the safest thing she had felt in days. She looked back. The horde had reached the rise. Their claws tore the dirt. Their vacant eyes fixed on her. She had one choice, and she made it fast. Celestara sprinted for the open gate. Her legs shook. The creatures screamed behind her, close enough that she heard their claws click on stone. She threw herself through the gate and grabbed the iron bar that hung beside it. She hauled with all her weight. The gate swung shut. The bar dropped into its slot. Claws struck the far side and raked the metal. The gate held. The screaming faded to a dull scratch, then stopped. Celestara sank to the floor, her chest heaving. She was inside. She had a wall between herself and the horde. For the first time in days, she was safe. Then she felt it. A single mind, deep inside the citadel. It was awake. It was watching her. And it had known she was coming.