Ashes Of Aetheria

of the season

forgotten god. Where once stood towers carved with the runes of a golden age, there remaine

cobblestone. And yet, even here, in this place where time bent like heat in the summer air, the snow still fell with a kind of quiet a

uins, a fig

e wide avenue, once filled with merchants and minstrels, was now a graveyard of memories. Marble arches broken in half. Sigils d

s name w

d stopped making sense after the Fall. He remembered fire, mostly. And scr

that howled with wolves and worse. Through the skeletal re

st time in a long time

s sea

lebration of the Solstice. Now only char and ash remained. At its

ernal

not melt the snow, nor did it burn the air around it. It simply existed -

the air, and his boots crunched over broken glass

ed, with sharp eyes that had seen

by the

e whispered. "Y

that glowed faintly - a crystal, no larger than a plum, its su

ng ha

swirling snow in eddies, but the flame

is voice cracking. "

, not

began to dim

his teeth and shouted, "You were sup

d sudde

s hung suspen

early dropping the crystal - which had begun to thrum like a heartbeat. There was

spoken, but felt -

park e

, casting his shadow against the su

ith light, and Kael

sat up, the flame had returned to its usual shap

glowed, but it felt warm - impossibly war

n he sa

snow behind him. Le

y weren

ad been w