Karalena

Chapter 3

It wasn't an explosion of fire and heat. No, it was an explosion of darkness, of cold that grated against Kara's skin so painfully out of nowhere that she inhaled so fast she didn't know if her lungs would actually be able to keep up. Joel was knocked away from her, and she lost sight of him as soon as the crowd started stampeding.

Screams echoed in her ears, and she could see the darkness devouring the area around her. Buildings collapsed under the power of the dark wave, and people were thrown about as easily as if they were nothing more than the sand they had been walking on seconds ago.

Karalena's eyes searched the area for the source of the darkness, and her gaze rested on the three men that had invaded her city. They were no longer restrained on the ground. Instead, they were towering over everyone that scurried past, smiling wickedly over dead guards. Except for the silver eyed boy, he looked on with horror and disgust at the scene before him. His hands were fists at his sides, but he still stood with them.

The world around Karalena was in chaos, a thick black darkness covering everything, a sharp dangerous chill coating the air. She brought shaking hands to her face, expecting to see the color leached out of her like everyone else. It wasn't though. Her skin remained the same golden color it had always been, and her hair remained chestnut out of the corner of her eye.

"What-?" Her voice trembled, breathless from shock and fear. Nothing bad ever happened in Raas- it wasn't possible. It was too hard to find, the dark mages could never-.

But they had.

Her head whipped back to them, only to find they were staring right back at her. Her color made her stand out in the crowd, while everyone else dulled, she glowed. The men began walking towards her, lazily, as if they had all the time the world had to offer and more. As if she would simply await her fate.

Someone stomped on her hand, and someone else kicked her in the head as they ran by in a panic. The pain was a reminder to get up and run, to not let those men get close to her.

Quickly, she found her feet and bolted into the retreating crowd. She needed to find her mother, make sure she was alright. She needed to find Joel, make sure he had survived the wave. An inappropriate laugh bubbled up in her chest at that. The only sun mage in the world is surrounded by darkness caused by a wave in the desert, Kara thought to herself as her laughter threatened to boil over.

No. She shook her head sharply as she ran through the sand streets towards her mother's healing tent, You're in shock Lena, she told herself, Keep it together.

Her feet caught on something and she stumbled over it, barely keeping her balance. When she found the culprit to be a body, no longer living, looking as though it'd been charred black, she froze. Her hand shakily reached out to touch the body, and recoiled when it was freezing cold to the touch. Slowly, she began to back up, her eyes searching the crowd for the three men who had been pursuing her. They were nowhere to be seen among the crowd. She didn't know if this was cause for celebration or for bone rattling fear.

The crowd continued running around her, and some even ran into her. They continued pushing her towards her mother's tent and away from the blackened corpse. Her mind raced back to Joel, hoping he hadn't ended up like the body in the street. He was so warm, so charismatic. How could a mage of the sun survive in the desolation of a dark frozen wasteland?

Her hands reached up to brush hair out of her face and came back wet with tears. She hadn't even known she'd been crying. Please be okay, she thought out to Joel before turning around and continuing to push past the crowd to her mother's tent.