Shadowfall

Sing a Song of Shadow

Now, all thoughts of her ire were swept away as she closed her eyes and leant into the wind. Coming to the ocean never failed to soothe her and re-awaken her spirit. She loved to feel its breathlessness and vitality tingling throughout her body, and her soul aching with delight in return. She wanted to cast herself into the sea and become a part of it, yet she was terrified by such a thought. As the waves rushed and charged into the rocks below, the ocean seemed unstoppable, ceaseless, restless, rolling, undulating; all its power coiled beneath its rippling surface.

From behind her, pairs of gulls swept past her shoulders and arched down and out into the wind, stretching their wings and following the gusts over the water. This seemed to Leia an expression of pure and unbounded joy, as they gave themselves up to the air and allowed it to carry them where it willed. Watching this release with delight and a touch of envy, she wondering how it might feel to reach out her slender arms and move in such a way. A young gull alighted beside her, speckled with the grey and black of immaturity. It cocked its head, looking almost questioningly at her, and then dove off the cliff's edge as if daring her to follow.

She stepped her toes a little closer to the edge and peered down. Although she was desperately afraid of heights and her knees trembled treacherously at the sight of the rocks below, the spray settling across her face beckoned her to clamber down her much frequented path amongst the rocky spires and run to the water's edge. The wide expanse of surging sea made her feel truly alive and connected to something magical.

Her brow furrowed as this thought occurred – what the Great Council at the royal palace would say to this she could only imagine. Since the fall of Heolstor and his Shadow Army two hundred years before, anything magical, mystical or supernatural was seriously frowned upon and repressed in the kingdom of Myaengaer.

That was why eighteen years ago, Darius and Gwyneth Illyria, the Grand Duke and Duchess of Amareth, had, with their three year old daughter, Leia, and the rest of their young family, exiled themselves from life at Myaengaar's royal court and returned to their home. Amareth stood at the periphary of a great forest and on the shores of the Myaen Sea - far from prying eyes, and gossiping mouths.

Here, in the bower of the forest, on the edge of the cliffs, and over the rolling hills of Illyria Manor, Leia had grown up with her family, her manor court, the village of Amareth and little else to encroach upon their peaceful, steady life.

Thinking then of Heolstor and the fabled Days of Shadow, Leia raised her eyes across the sea, where the tips of the Baroume Mountains glittered remote and golden in the fading sunlight.

It was from behind these mountains that Heolstor and his Shadow had gathered and set sail across the Myaen Sea, all those years before. Leia tried to imagine those ships - black, grey and blood red. In her mind, she saw them; sailing towards her across her treacherous ocean, bringing with them a dense and unnaturally chilling mist, which threatened to envelop Amareth, and all of Myaengaer, in its supernatural and inescapable evil. A shiver ran down her spine, causing her to shudder. Across from her, the distant mountains continued to glimmer, and the rolling waves crashed in towards her shore. They were devoid of any ships at all.

From behind her she heard a movement louder than the whispering of the forest in the wind, and a voice startled her from her reverie. She felt a buzzing on the back of her neck and in her fingertips, as the voice called out to her.

Leia, everybody is looking for you! Masters is fuming mad as usual, spluttering back and forth like a little hopping toad, threatening the household with an imminent departure.

She turned and looked to see where the voice had come from. Not a person was in sight. At the edge of the forest, however, the rustling continued, and as she watched, two enormous, deadly looking felines emerged from the trees and padded towards where she stood. One was midnight black like a panther, with gleaming sapphire eyes, while the other was shaggier, white and faintly spotted, like a snow leopard, with deep, flashing golden eyes.