Maelstrom

Epilogue

[alibi]

Muted bursts of color splattered on the scrying mirror, tiny explosions that echoed through the obsidian room like bombs going off in the distance. Multi-colored shadows danced across the faces gathered before the mirror, casting the room into a strange dichotomy between darkness and light.

"Closer."

The mirror obeyed, zooming in like a camera. The focus settled on the face of a girl seated along the shore, turquoise eyes turned up towards the sky. She was young, maybe in her early twenties, but despite the lights reflected in her irises, he could see the shadows that flitted behind them. She was a haunted one.

"That's it?" He asked, his voice piercing the thick blanket of silence. He scoffed a laugh. "You've got to be kidding me."

He looked up to see her staring daggers at him, her golden eyes blades honed in on his heart.

"I know," she said flatly. "But believe me. She possesses more strength than even you, Spellbinder."

He quirked an eyebrow, his lips twitching into a contemptuous smirk. "That, I find hard to believe."

She rolled her eyes, fixing them on their other companion. "What do you make of this?"

They were met with a gruff laugh from the figure in the shadows. "She possesses the Sword of Storms, and that makes her a liability."

"I agree," she nodded. "She needs to be taken care of."

"She isn't our target," he argued. "The other is. And she's your liability."

Her golden eyes slid over to him once more, and suddenly, he felt a twinge of fear. "What was that, Lyrian?"

"You heard me. Focus on the asset at hand."

She rolled her eyes. "You mean that silly little curse? My, oh, my, what stories they've been feeding you in the other dimensions."

"It isn't a story," Lyrian said. "It's a maxim. The Stormbringer will retrieve the Sword."

"And this Brennan girl is not the Stormbringer?" Shadowman asked.

Lyrian shook his head. "No, she can't be." He turned to look at those golden eyes. "But I'd bet you have an inkling as to who it really could be."

Her golden eyes narrowed, and Lyrian felt his magic reserves flare in anticipation. It wasn't time for a fight, but if she made the wrong move--

"Show me the girl," she commanded.

The mirror went out in a swirl, spiraling back out to view the cloudy bay. Lyrian spotted the Space Needle piercing through the cloud cover. The mirror focused in on the immaculate glass and steel building nestled against the bay, zooming in even further to a girl with honey-colored hair and eyes a bright teal, dressed in a standard-issue black fitted jumpsuit.

Lyrian smirked. "She's pretty."

"She's dangerous."

He looked back up to see the pair of golden eyes fixated on the girl within the mirror, who was oblivious to the fact she was being watched. She was smiling absentmindedly, walking down the halls of the building.

"She doesn't look dangerous," Shadowman grunted.

"Neither did her mother," the woman with the golden eyes mused. "But I assure you both, the daughter of our fallen General has no clue who she is, what she can do, or how she came to be."

And just like that, the image dissolved into the silky darkness.