For Evergreens and Aspen Trees Prologue

The waves crashed in overwhelming dissonance, reminiscent of the mourning dragon cries the bard witnessed countless years ago. The smells of ocean salt and iron tangled in the watery light of early morning. Pockets of water riddled the valley, their waves spitting sparks of light and carving deep wounds in their beaches. From the bard’s mountain perch amidst shattered rock and uprooted trees, the lakes looked like so many fallen scales. Like the ones she had seen that day of fire and ash she wished to forget. The bodies scattered across the valley now, staining the lakes crimson, did nothing to banish those memories.

“Too many lives wasted.” The jagged scar on the bard’s eyelids burned. She half-expected warm arms to draw her close and a chin to rest on her shoulder while deep, soft words of comfort thrummed in her ears. Instead, a bitter wind laughed as it whipped around her and tossed her dust-worn skirt. A stake of loneliness pounded into her chest. The war had cost too much.

The bard waited—humming a tune of better days with eyes closed—and listened to the thrum of the earth and the beat of the lives upon it. There had to be one voice still out on that bitter battlefield. Just one. And she would wait for it. Despite the songs she sang and stories she told of heroes rushing into battle unfettered, she could not carve that same path. It was her fate and her curse to wait. Only wait. Until someone reached out to her.

And there, carried across an urgent wind, the call came.

Help him. Someone, help him, please.

She was on her feet in an instant. Jaw set, the bard clasped the strap of her lute close to her chest and slid into the valley. She winced as she tripped over loose roots and trod on shards of debris, but kept her course to the carnage below. So many dead lay abandoned in the valley. The dead must remain with the dead. She knew that better than anyone. But if she could save even one life before death could stake its claim…

When she reached the mountain’s base, she removed her boots. The water-logged earth seeped between her toes, cold and sorrowful. The loss and heartbreak swirling in the murk overwhelmed the bard and brought tears to her eyes. She breathed in until her chest ached from the strain, and then let the breath and emotions pass through her until they dissipated. She listened. Three heartbeats throbbed through the earth. Two weak and fading, the other one…

A shudder ran through her. Seething was the only way she could describe it; a paltry word that came nowhere near its full presence. She had lost track of the years since she had last felt something so dark. She needed to complete her work before that thing overtook her.

She kept careful watch on that presence and focused on the cries she had heard.

Please, if there is a god anywhere, please help him.

She ran, swift as wingbeats, across the crimson ground. She dodged fallen bodies and plunged her feet into icy pockets of sea until she found her. A broken girl, all alone, at the edge of the battlefield. Bodies piled around her like fallen leaves. Her blade stained with blood almost as deep as the blood flooding the back of her tunic.

The bard approached, not daring to hope the girl was still conscious, but she was mistaken. The girl snatched at the bard’s skirts as soon as she saw them.

“Please.” A sob tore through her throat. Congealed blood dribbled from her mouth. “Please, help him. He’s out there. He… He can’t die. I promised him.”

The bard crouched and put her hand over the girl’s. “Shh, all will be well. I will help you and then find your friend.”

“NO!” The girl’s vehemence startled the bard. “Him first! He cannot die. He can’t!”

“I understand. I will help you, if you only ask—”

“No! I… I don’t deserve help!” More sobs wracked her body. “Dead… All dead, because of me. I… I killed them. I killed them all.” Her eyes fluttered, her consciousness waning. “Please… Please save him.”

The bard’s throat hitched in frustration. She could save them both if the girl wasn’t so stubborn, but without that critical request for help… she knew her curse’s limits all too well. Biting back a retort, she placed her hand on the girl’s feverish forehead. “I will help him.”

The pain melted from the girl’s body. Her eyes finally closed. “Thank you.” A last whisper before her body fell still. Not dead, but dancing through its treacherous line.

The bard fought back tears as she stood and searched for the other weakened heartbeat. The only other survivor. Of all the wide-eyed young soldiers around her, only two remained. The ground shuddered, a lingering sob over the lost.
The bard found her target and fled to the other end of the battlefield. She met a gruesome sight at the end of her trail. Despite the countless battlefields she had seen, she would never be used to the gore they left behind. Her stomach churned at the agonized young soldier.

Drenched to his shoulders in his own blood, he breathed shallow, erratic, and labored. The whites of his eyes shone stark against the crimson as they rolled in his head. His limbs twitched, either reaching for the sword at his side or in the final throes of death. His life-force spilled undeterred from a gaping hole in his head where half his skull had caved in on itself. She suspected a mace to be the culprit.

The bard tucked her legs beneath her and cradled the soldier’s head in her lap. He moaned and gurgled blood and spittle. His arms shook to fight her, or so she assumed. The bard hushed him as she would a terrified child and pressed her hand to his skull. Blood dripped between her fingers and left trails down her arms. She tucked him tighter against her, heart aching, and hummed. Gold light illuminated her skin and seeped into the wound.

The instant her magic touched him, a green mist leapt to life and battered the bard’s hand away.

She tilted her head and let her magic fade into her bones for a moment. The gold light died. When it did, the mist receded to a spot on the young man’s chest beneath his tunic. She pulled back the fabric and found a silver ring on a leather cord. A homemade talisman. It glowed green the closer she came, but its light was fading. The caster was dying. The girl.

“Someone loves you very much.” The bard brushed blood-crusted hair from her patient’s forehead. “Talismans are no small thing.” She touched the ring. It burned bright and hot. At least, it would have for anyone other than herself. She allowed her magic to flow through her fingertips. “Hush. You have done what you can to protect him,” she said in the Ancient Tongue, the rich, cadence-like language of magic. It would share her message with its wielder. “I will do what I can to save him, as I promised.”

The ring continued to burn bright and fierce, pulsing as fast as an anxious heart. It matched the other heartbeat’s tempo she sensed elsewhere on the battlefield.

The bard hummed again and stroked the ring’s curve. “All will be well,” she said. “All will be well.”

The fight left the talisman’s caster; a slow and agonizing withdrawal. The ring’s glow faded to almost nothing, and the protective mist disappeared.

The bard kissed the ring and wasted no more time. She had a promise to keep.

Golden flames encased her body as she placed her hands on the young man’s wound. The song the earth had sung to her through the wind and trees and grass and soil every night for the past three months tumbled from her lips, focusing her magic.

Rivers choked in blood and smoke. A sky shaken with heartbreak. This world cannot Will not Stand for long On hatred, blood, and lies. The forgotten prince must wake And face the evil his fathers planted.

Blood of sorcerer Blood of saint Must unite again. Awaken Death. Repel the Night. Revive the lost daughter. Return Laws and power to order.

Thrice failed Is thrice cursed. Time will no longer wait. History cannot repeat. Return Earth’s love Before Earth is lost.

Movement interrupted her. Stumbling, shuffling; the air thick with the stench of defeat and vengeance. Seething hatred washed from the lakes’ mist and solidified into a single presence. It had returned. Fine hairs along the bard’s spine stood on end.

You must leave, Sister Earth whispered to her. You cannot be lost.

A thick shield of fog rolled in. The bard suspected it came as a gift from her worried friend.

She checked her patient. Though still bleeding, his skull had repaired. He breathed deep and even, and his limbs had quieted. Although not fully healed, she had gotten him through the worst of it. He would live.

Whatever vile thing headed her way continued to shuffle closer. She hesitated, unwilling to leave the young man behind, but Sister Earth urged her away, echoing her words to the nameless caster.

All will be well. All will be well.

Her friend had yet to steer her wrong.