Shadows Upon the Spires
1322 Words
The Sable Spires rose like skeletal fingers from the charred plains, veined with veins of ancient crystal and starlit obsidian. Once a divine observatory, now a bastion of exiles, sorcerers, and secrets too dangerous for the light. The world forgot this place for good reason.
But Elira hadn’t forgotten.
She tightened her cloak against the chill that knifed through her armor. Kael walked beside her, jaw clenched, every step betraying pain and weariness.
“We’re close,” she murmured. “Past the Black Bridge. Do you remember the words?”
Kael gave a faint nod. “The flame dies, the shadow burns. The sky does not forget.”
A low groan rose from beneath them—stone reacting to their presence. The bridge, suspended between the cliffs by nothing visible, shimmered with strange symbols that lit as they stepped onto them.
Elira exhaled, steadying herself. The Ember Sigil pulsed beneath her robes, as though sensing something older stirring.
---
At the end of the bridge stood a lone sentinel. Cloaked in deep gray, face half-hidden beneath an obsidian mask, they held a blade made of moonlight and mist.
“Elira Kaith,” the sentinel said coolly. “Last of the Emberbloods. You should not have come.”
“I seek audience with Lady Arinya,” Elira replied. “By right of divine exile.”
Kael stepped forward. “We have proof of what’s coming. Neraxis has awakened.”
The sentinel’s mask tilted.
“None speak that name here.”
“I just did,” Elira said coldly. “Twice. Now take us to Arinya, or watch your Spires fall when the gods return.”
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then the blade vanished into mist, and the sentinel turned.
“Follow me.”
---
They were led through winding staircases, suspended chambers, and halls of impossible geometry. The Spires seemed to shift with thought—walls twisting, ceilings breathing. Elira felt eyes on her everywhere. Not human. Not even mortal.
At last, they were brought before a wide glass hall open to the starlit sky. A woman sat on a throne woven from shadow and bone. Her eyes shimmered silver; her presence stole the breath from the room.
Lady Arinya.
“I expected ghosts,” she said. “Instead, I receive children.”
Elira stepped forward and bowed. “Not children. Survivors.”
Kael remained behind her, silent, watchful.
“Survivors often become monsters,” Arinya murmured. “Or kings.”
She rose, her shadow stretching long and wide behind her.
“I’ve heard whispers. Fire in the heavens. Wolves howling where no wolves should be. And a gate torn open in Vaelir skies. I thought it all superstition. Until now.”
She approached Elira, close enough that her breath was warm against Elira’s cheek.
“What brings you to my Spires?”
Elira met her gaze.
“The truth. And an offer.”
---
They explained everything—the Ember Sigil, the trials, the gods’ vision. Neraxis’ voice. The dream of fire and frost uniting. Arinya listened without a word.
When Kael spoke of the divine betrayal—of how Ignarion and Orvaal imprisoned the third—Arinya’s eyes darkened.
“I served Orvaal once,” she said finally. “Before she cast me into shadow. Before she burned my name from the temples.”
She turned to a wide glass window showing the endless dark of the plains.
“Neraxis was balance. Neither flame nor ice. They were the hinge. The center. The one who saw the cost of dominion.”
Arinya turned.
“You say they live again?”
Elira nodded. “And they’ve chosen us.”
---
Later, Kael stood alone in a quiet chamber of mirrors, lost in thought. He could still hear the echo of his father’s voice—judgmental, cruel, cold. The legacy of Drenvir still clung to his name like rusted chains.
“Trying to find yourself in there?”
The voice startled him.
Lady Arinya stood at the doorway.
Kael inclined his head. “Trying to see if what I’ve become is worth saving.”
She entered the room, cloak whispering behind her.
“You carry your father’s guilt like armor. Heavy. Loud. And useless.”
Kael bristled. “You don’t know me.”
“I knew Tharan Drenvir. I knew what he did at the Culling of Faerlin. He let an entire city burn because the gods told him flame was impure. But you… you followed a flameborn into exile. Married her. Protected her.”
She approached, voice quiet.
“You broke your bloodline. That makes you dangerous. And necessary.”
Kael looked up. “Then help us.”
Arinya tilted her head. “Not yet. First, you’ll need to see what happens when Neraxis answers.”
---
That night, the sky broke.
Literally.
A crack tore through the stars above the Spires, as if the firmament had been sliced by an invisible blade. Silver light poured through. Screaming winds followed.
Kael and Elira ran to the eastern balcony just as a woman’s body fell from the sky—wrapped in chains of ice and fire, her limbs twitching, her mouth open in a silent scream.
She hit the earth. Hard. And then… she breathed.
The guards surrounded her. Elira pushed through.
The woman’s eyes opened. Pale. Glowing. Not alive. Not quite.
Elira knelt beside her.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The woman blinked.
“I don’t remember.”
Arinya appeared, cloak snapping in the gale.
“She was dead before she crossed the veil. This—this is a resurrection.”
Kael frowned. “From Neraxis?”
As if in answer, the woman reached out and pressed a symbol into Elira’s palm.
Three lines. One upward. Two bent.
The Sigil of Balance.
“I dreamed of you,” the woman whispered. “You stood in the fire and did not burn.”
Elira’s blood chilled.
---
Over the next few days, the woman—called Saela by the Spirefolk—regained fragments of her past. A priestess once, cast down for denying Orvaal’s call. She had seen the war of the gods in her sleep. Had seen Elira and Kael standing at the threshold between realms, holding the fate of mortals in their hands.
The Spires trembled nightly. Storms without wind. Shadows dancing.
Arinya watched it all in silence.
At last, she summoned them both to her war room—a circular chamber of floating maps and shimmering threads of fate.
“I will aid you,” she said. “But not for loyalty. For survival.”
She pointed to the thread showing the Emberlands.
“Ignarion moves. His armies stir. The church calls it divine realignment. But we know it for what it is. War.”
Elira clenched her jaw. “We’ll need allies.”
“You’ll need legends,” Arinya corrected. “You must awaken the silent saints. The Watcher in the Hollow Vale. The Serpent Queen of Myr. And most of all…”
She turned to a darkened mirror.
“The Vowkeeper.”
Kael frowned. “That’s just a myth.”
“Everything is a myth,” Arinya said, “until it returns.”
---
Later, Elira stood on the high balcony, the Sigil burning faintly in her palm. She stared at the heavens and whispered.
“Neraxis. Are you real?”
The air shifted.
A voice not heard, but felt.
I am not real. I am necessary.
Balance is not peace. It is war, held in trembling hands.
They fear me because I see them. And I see you, Elira.
She trembled.
“I’m afraid.”
Good. Only the foolish seek the crown of embers unafraid.
Kael joined her, wrapping a cloak over her shoulders.
“We’re not ready,” she whispered.
He met her eyes. “No one ever is.”
They stood together, beneath the fractured sky, as the world prepared to burn.
- Writer
