Wrath of the White Tigress

Chapter 1

In Hareez, the golden age of prosperity was long forgotten. The gods had fallen into a deep slumber, unaware that demons roamed their lands, and the Palymfar Order no longer protected their people. In those days all men feared the palymfar while the palymfar feared only their Grandmaster, and his Slayer.

~ THE SAGA OF PAWAN KOR ~

"Hear me, O Goddess! What must I do?"

There was no response, no sound at all except for the crackling of leaves in a censer on the altar. The aromatic smoke that poured from the silver burner swirled through the ancient shrine and coiled around Zyrella Anthari, the last true priestess of the White Tigress.

Zyrella's knees ached from hours spent on the flagstones. She had begun her ritual upon arriving with her templars but still had no answer to the dream that had led her here. 

Zyrella lifted her hands towards the statue of her goddess. She called on the Tigress again, desperately now. Sparks began to dance in the amethyst channeling stone that hung around her neck. Only through these rare gems could one convert willpower into magical force. Intuitively, she knew now what she must do. Unbidden dreams and unexplained urges—this was all she had ever had to guide her. It would have to be enough this time as well.

With a gesture and a few arcane words, Zyrella activated the spell that allowed her to see into the Shadowland. Her azure eyes turned milky white as she gazed intently into the smoke, her mind focused on the White Tigress. 

She expected to see a vision that would give her instructions for a ritual that could free the goddess from bondage. Instead, her spell uncloaked an enemy spying on her through the Shadowland. 

The man wore the rust-colored garb of a palymfar assassin, and at his neck was a jet qavra stone pulsing with malefic energy. His mask was lowered, revealing a scowling, hawk-like face and amber eyes lit by zealous fire. Zyrella had never seen him before, but everyone knew the Slayer.

Her muscles tensed. Her heart pounded. If he could observe her in this way, then he was near, no more than a few hours away. 

Zyrella ceased chanting and clutched her own channeling stone. The energies she had summoned slipped away but the vision didn't end. Neither did she dismiss it. She fixated on this assassin as a soldier might stare at his own severed hand, or a mother at a stillborn child. 

She stared at Jaska Bavadi, more commonly known as the Slayer.

Minutes passed, and through that time Zyrella experienced the pain of a broken heart and the joy of a lover's touch upon her breast, grief that only death could bring and the contentedness of feasting with loved ones. But most of all, she experienced fear. For this man drew her as a moth to flame, and this strange and unexpected attraction frightened her more than the deaths his arrival would bring.

Heart pounding, body trembling, Zyrella harnessed that fear, and though it felt as if she were tearing away part of her soul, she dismissed the image. Then she buried her face within her hands and fought backs tears of frustration. 

Her templar guards could handle a half-dozen palymfar, but not the right hand of Grandmaster Salahn. She couldn't guess how Salahn had known to send Jaska here, but she wasn't surprised. For years, she had hidden from Salahn, biding time for a day when his powers would wane. She now knew that day would never arrive. Unless she stopped him before sunset, he would absorb the life force of the White Tigress and become immortal and invincible.

"I will not fail," she muttered, refusing to remain discouraged. "I cannot fail. Not after all these years."

Zyrella breathed through a series of calming meditations and cleared her mind. She chanted and peered into the smoke again. This time, she directed the magic with more care, concentrating on her spirit-link to the White Tigress, who was imprisoned by Salahn inside a remote pocket of the Shadowland. The bond that would normally be hers by right as a high priestess had only formed recently, despite the magical barriers set by Salahn, during the prophetic dream that had led Zyrella here, through parched scrublands, to desolate Mount Barqeshal.