In the world of Valterra, where ancient forces of light and darkness clash, the Primordials awaken. Marcus, a seasoned warrior, embarks on a perilous quest to unite a group of extraordinary beings known as the Primordials to face the Dark and its mi...
Avosa felt the storm before the clouds began to darken. It was something she was always able to do. Her mom, Kaja, said it was because she was gifted, but it was a secret she couldn't share with anyone, even if it was just a feeling. Her mother only feared it would be viewed as outlawed magic. But it didn't feel like magic. Not to Avosa, who didn't even know what magic really was. She only knew the air felt thick sometimes, and the clouds seemed to speak to her in ways she didn't really understand. Not in words either, but feelings.
Like today, it brought her here, perched on the cliff face hanging over the Silver Sea to watch the clouds roll in again. She felt they had been warning her for weeks and that something was about to change. They swirled above her when she reached the top of her lookout, the highest point on her family's farm, about a fifty-foot drop to the rocky shore below. It grew dark, ominous and the storm seemed to tell her to run and hide, but what was there to escape?
She stood defiant. All season, the storms had soaked the farm and the surrounding lands. They never seemed to let up, gave no mercy. When she and her parents went into town, everyone grumbled about the overcast skies and the thick muck it produced in their fields. Avosa even began having nightmares about slopping around in fields while tending to the sheep when suddenly faceless people took form from the wet mud and began chasing her. Storms that blasted her with torrential rain, pelleting her with pain, did nothing to the faceless, they held their form regardless, and never stopped searching for her. Even when she woke up, it still felt like they were on their way, pursuing from a distance.
The wind picked up and brought the scent of fresh clam in from the shore below as drizzle whipped against her face. For a moment, she forgot about her dreams. She stood up straight a little longer, just to defy the storm. It was telling her to go but she wanted to stay, to resist its urging, to prove she was stronger than it.
She knew the Light spoke in mysterious ways, and the cliff was hers and hers alone, nothing would keep her from it. No one else came to watch the sky, or hear the wind, but the rest of her life on the farm was nothing out of the ordinary.
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Her dad mainly worked the fences to keep the wolves out, or tended to the crops. Her mother was always with the horses in the stable, or in the barn with the other animals. They kept goats for milk, and pheasants for their eggs. Avosa's duties fell to the sheep, and they loved this side of the farm with its cliff face. She didn't mind the wandering either, and sheering was never an easy process, but she managed. She and her mom made sweaters and blankets that were sold in town, along with her dad's ale. Sometimes, he'd make a trip to the trading post up in Dunne, but he never let her go. When she was older, he'd say, but her Nameday was next year and she'd never even left the Southern Plains. Was it too much to ask to see a real Knight at Arms, or a castle? She never understood his need to keep her so sheltered. She wanted to see cities and crowds, and all the things she heard about in the tales on Feast Days. Sometimes her dad cursed the town's festivals, but to Avosa, the storytellers filled both her imagination and her desires.
