They say The Shadow sees them, that they are not alone, they are alike. For once, their whispers are heard by more than one, and their queries are answered.

First, he would confront Amalia’s parents. He would make sure they suffered for abandoning her. Next, he would find his family and prove to the village that they hadn’t been thieves. Lastly, he would gain strength, he would become the strongest Liever. Strong enough, even, to kill the King of Barthain and avenge his people. He vowed that he would complete those three quests, even if he were killed in the process.

Slowly, Xiren got to his feet and faced Arkham. “You know magic, don’t you? I want you to teach me. I want to be strong enough so that this,” he gestured to Amalia, “never happens again.”

Arkham faced him, noting the determination in his eyes. “Alright Xiren, I’ll take you as my apprentice.”

The next morning was gloomy and the sky loomed above the earth, shrouded with fog. As it should be, on the day of a funeral. Xiren stood beside Arkham by the cliff of the Dead Man’s Gorge. Unlike other countries who would bury their dead, burn their bodies, or ship them down the river, Barthain encased their dead in everlasting ice coffins created by water mages, and then they dropped them to the bottom of their deepest gorge.

The two stood beside Amalia’s ornate ice coffin in silence. Neither of them knew what to say. Amalia lay in her casket, looking almost beautiful in her eternal sleep. Her face still had the last smile she had cast upon Xiren before her eyes had closed forever.

Both Xiren and Arkham turned away from the coffin as they heard footsteps approaching behind them. The footsteps belonged to a woman. She wore dark blue from head to toe, a sign of mourning. She had long blonde hair, the stark opposite of Amalia’s dark brown hair, but her eyes were a deep chocolate color that sparkled with the same intuition and intelligence that her daughter had.

“You are Lamari,” Xiren whispered barely audible.

The woman nodded and bowed her head respectfully. “You must be Xiren.” He nodded in return to her, but cocked an eyebrow, confused. Arkham’s missive to her and Raxos had not included his name. “Lia spoke of you in her letters,” Lamari explained. “I was never able to answer her letters, but I kept them all.”

Xiren’s eyes clouded with tears. He had never known that Amalia had written her mother letters, or that she could read and write at all. He searched the area around Lamari, noticing that she had come alone. “Will her father be coming?”

Lamari’s eyes darkened with anger. “He does not deserve to be called that. Whether she was an abomination or not, she was beautiful, a miracle. He has considered his daughter dead since she was four. If he came, he would claim she was not his daughter, and he would not allow her to have a proper burial.” A single tear escaped from her eye, but she brushed it away before it could finish its course. “I am a Priestess of the Eliath Church, but I refuse to believe that the child I carried and gave birth to, was an abomination. Now, my sweet baby girl has gone and returned to the light above. Tell me, what was her Liever gift?”

Xiren held out the obsidian flower he had created at the scene of Amalia’s death. Lamari took the flower from his hand and inhaled the sweet scent. “What a beautiful Gemryl. This is truly a gift. Only the most powerful mages can create these.” She looked closer at the red seeds and her face turned solemn. “Such an awful hue. To think, her spirit created this color. Such a shame.”

“A shame?” Xiren questioned her. “What’s a Gemryl?”

Lamari stared at the flower for a short time and then faced Xiren to answer his question. “A Gemryl is a physical representation of a mage’s ability to turn death into life. We have never been able to fully resurrect a person, but we are able to take the soul of someone lost and protect it with a Gemryl. If you hadn’t picked this flower and left it to grow, it would have grown towards the sky like a sunflower, producing large, beautiful rubies. The issue is that if you remove a Gemryl from the place where the soul was slain, it dies and does not grow anymore. However, if you didn’t create a Gemryl at all, the soul would stay where it was slain for eternity.” She smelled the flower once more and then looked at the casket that held her daughter. “In the Eliath religion, we believe that when one creates a Gemryl, they send the slain soul to the afterlife where they can have peace. The most talented Harken Priests in our religion are able to create these, that’s why they are considered the most holy. It appears that Amalia inherited her father’s gift. I had no idea that Lievers could make these.”

Arkham stepped in at this point, as Lamari gazed through the immortal ice at her daughter. “The seeds of the Gemryl depict how the person died. If they are diamonds, the soul dies peacefully. If they are red, their cause of death is very violent. If they are green, death is caused by the water element. If they are blue, the death was caused by the air element, usually if they were choked, or something similar. If they are yellow, the cause of death is earth, and orange, the cause is fire. There are obviously nuances to all of these colors, but only the scientists of Gebo have put in the work to study them.” He glanced at Xiren’s darkening face and Lamari’s melancholic look. “I believe it is time to send Amalia to her eternal rest. Lamari, if you wouldn’t mind stepping back.” She did so, moving away from the coffin to stand beside the two of them. “Are you ready for your first magic lesson, Xiren?” Arkham asked.

Xiren nodded gravely. “Yes, sir.”

“You have never used the air, fire, and earth elements before the other day, is that correct?” Xiren nodded again, bidding Arkham to speak further. “That magic was fueled by your anguish and uncontrolled. To get used to differentiating between your magic sources, you will need to use a different code word to call upon each different source. After we say our goodbyes, you will hold out your hand and aim at Amalia’s casket, then you will focus on your magic sources and speak your code word for air. The word will need to be something that you feel connects you the most to air.”

“I understand,” Xiren whispered. One by one, they each said their goodbyes to Amalia. Then, Xiren held out his hand, focused on the burning magic sources in his stomach, and whispered: “Breathe.” A burst of air blew from his palm directly towards the casket. With a whoosh, the icy tomb flew over the edge of the cliff before them and fell deep into the depths of the gorge.

The three mourners left the area together, turning their backs on the gorge, and on Amalia. As they walked, Lamari handed Xiren the Gemryl and refused his protests that she should keep it, since she was Amalia’s mother. She argued that he had created it, and he had been there for Amalia when she never had. Then, she watched in silence as he opened his storage cache mid-air and placed the flower delicately inside. 

They soon reached the edge of the capital city Alitria, and Lamari left them to return to the temple, at which point Xiren turned to Arkham and asked, “Where will we be sleeping tonight?” Since they had stayed in an inn since the day that Amalia was killed, he assumed they would be returning to another inn.

Arkham surprised him. Instead of taking Xiren to another inn, they arrived in front of the largest, most grandiose building Xiren had ever seen. “What is this place?” He asked with incredulity.

The building was stark white with towers and terraces everywhere the eye could see. As they entered the front gate, Arkham flashed his identification to the guards standing by. Inside the gate was a courtyard with a gorgeous garden in the middle. “Welcome to the Palace of Barthain,” Arkham announced to Xiren, catching him completely off guard. “I am the Royal Librarian, and you will be my apprentice for the duration of your stay.”

Xiren looked around in wonder, completely unsure of what to say in regards to this. Arkham merely smirked at him and led him to the right of the courtyard and through a pair of double doors. To say that the palace was astonishing would be an understatement. There was finery everywhere the eye could see. The tiles beneath their feet were hand-painted in a beautiful mosaic pattern. Arkham walked straight over the tiles without waiting and turned towards a marble staircase on their right. The rails for the staircase were wooden with a hand-carved pattern of vines from the bottom to the top, with a beautiful varnish to set them apart and shine. As Xiren followed Arkham up the stairs, he couldn’t help but stare up at the painting on the ceiling above. It depicted the scene of two fighters clashing in the sky, one of them, the Harken man, had glistening blond hair, beautiful white feathered wings, a halo, and brandished a glowing sword in his hand. The other was a female, a Liever. She had stunning black hair and black wings with bright red horns protruding from her head as well as a tail of the same color, its tip barbed and deadly-looking. The she-demon held a spear that looked to be made of dark mana.

The Harken and Liever flew above in the sky, deadlocked in a never-ending battle, framed by clouds, the sun, and thousands of Gemryls that had grown so high from the ground that they lit up the sky with their diverse gems. Instead of the black flowers that Xiren could conjure, these Gemryls were stark white stones, blindingly brilliant in their innocent hue. Though it was rare, everyone knew that the most powerful Harkens and Lievers were able to change their forms. In a Harken’s case, they could sprout wings and a halo, meanwhile, Lievers could create wings, horns, and a tail. Neither of these characteristics had been seen for centuries, but one look at this depiction on the ceiling showed how omnipotent they both seemed.

“You like the painting, Xiren?” Arkham pulled Xiren from his thoughts as he realized he had stopped making his way up the stairs and merely stood there, studying the world above them. “Nothing to worry about, my boy, we can stay here a bit longer, if you’d like?”

Xiren nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from the Liever above him. “She looks like Amalia.” He whispered to himself more than anyone else. She had Amalia’s dark eyes and a pretty narrow chin, although her hair was darker than Amalia’s, the resemblance was striking.

Arkham looked at him thoughtfully. “That woman is Helthrea, the most powerful Liever to ever have lived. She was killed by her own son, Barthain, the Harken in the painting. He was also, the founder of this country. Amalia was one of their descendants. It would make sense why she was gifted with such a wonderful power. The white Gemryls in the depiction were supposedly all created by Barthain.” He pushed his spectacles down his nose slightly, as though trying to get a better look at the flowers above. “Raxos, Amalia’s father, was the second in his line, since Barthain to be born a Harken. It makes sense that he inherited his gift, and that his daughter did as well. The first Harken born from that line was Tharos, the current King of Barthain. He is the brother of Raxos, and was Amalia’s Uncle. Although his gift is not to create Gemryls, he is undoubtedly more powerful than his brother. He would not have been chosen as king otherwise.” 

“So, the man who ordered that all of the Lievers in Alveria be killed, was Amalia’s Uncle?” This was a hard pill to swallow. How dare he! How could he kill his own neice? Xiren thought angrily to himself. Then, he realized that Amalia’s father had discarded her and sent her away, just because she was a Liever. Her whole family had been power-hungry and crazy. Xiren finally shook his head and turned away from the painting. “Should we continue?”

Arkham studied him for a moment, unsure whether he should continue the flood of information, but he soon realized that it was time to move on. “To the library then.” He walked up the remaining steps and turned left at the top of the staircase. The library was down the hall and through the third door on the right. The door was dark brown mahogany with golden embellishments along the surface. Smiling knowingly at Xiren, Arkham placed his hand on the knob and gently pushed the door open.