The Specere Wars: Love And Light

Prologue

She was not a baby in a blanket, but a girl that was close to debuting. The spring air moved her thick brown hair in what felt like a harmony in tune with the season. Her large golden eyes looked out across the horizon, the sun setting just beyond the mountains and grassy hills. This was not the image one typically conjured when a child was about to be abandoned.

“Well, if nothing else at the very least she has beauty like her mother’s,” Stergu Sverijos said, observing the young girl standing on the balcony just outside of his study. He turned his attention back to the woman before him, the girl’s mother: Leeira Nemeira, and smiled sheepishly up at her.

“Always too kind to me, Sterg,” Leeira smiled back at him, a glint of gratitude susceptible in her eyes. She turned her head to look back at her daughter as well, and considered for a moment the harshness of the past thirteen years. What beauty was Stergu speaking of? Leeira felt haggard, both physically and in her spirit. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep going.

“You’re sure about this, Leeira?” Stergu asked her.

“I’ve taught her as much as I can, Sterg. She’s strong,” Leeira replied. “But this is no way for a young woman to grow up, and I’m afraid that everything I’ve done will have been for nothing if we keep going this way. I’m afraid I can’t-” her voice began to falter, at which point Stergu got up from behind his desk and swiftly grabbed her hands, warming them with his own.

“Leeira, you need some rest. Why don’t you stay here with us for a while?”

A moment of silence passed between them as Leeira’s eyes shifted from her hands in Stergu’s, and up to his face. It was an odd thing that a man with such cool silvery eyes could exude such warmth from their depths.

Something like a remnant from the past flashed in her mind, seeing her old friend transformed from the golden haired boy he used to be, to now standing before her as this man with hair white as a cloud. Things were not as they had been before, when the two of them used to fight side by side in their youth. That look in his eyes though, somehow it still felt the same.

Leeira couldn’t allow herself to linger on those thoughts, however. Back then, she had made her choice. One of the results of which was standing just outside, oblivious, staring out across the balcony. Things were different, and even with all the magic in the world, Leeira did not know a way to change what had transpired.

Stergu had become the head of the Sverijos household, as well the leader of the Filumos Speceres, and most importantly, a father, and husband… to someone else. Leeira pulled her hands away, slipping them into the pockets of her cloak.

“Thank you, Sterg. But I think I’d better not impose much further on yours and Balom’s kindness,” she said, breathing out a sigh as she walked closer to the balcony, pausing before she got too close. Erath Nemeira, only twelve years old, would have been a promising young mage by now. Leeira struggled to cope with that decision, but it was the only way to protect her at the time.

“Will you say goodbye to her?” Stergu asked, sitting on top of his desk with his arms folded across his chest. Leeira glanced back at him; his guard had risen again.

“I’d better not,” she said, pulling the hood of her cloak up and over her head. She didn’t take another look at her daughter, knowing it might anchor her too much if she did. Her eyes had already begun to swell with hot water as she looked back at Stergu. “She must not die.”

“I will draw my last breath before she does,” Stergu swore.

With a knowing nod, Leeira Nemeira hastily made her exit from Stergu’s study, and then the Sverijos compound. Erath would watch her mother ride away on a black horse, into the mountains on what may have been a pointless journey, never looking back. Not even once.