Page 54 of Crown of Flame
I have nothing but time. I’m not hungry - my appetite has been thrown into turmoil.
For now, I will create. Later, I will hunt.
While I morph the fiery black rock, molding it in the air, I quake the foundations of this realm, which were not built for my craft. First I chisel out a rough figure, remembering the proportions of her figure - the way her hip bump was more pronounced on her left side, and how her back arched just a little bit no matter how she stood.
As I try to fathom the suffering she must be going through, and how she might never forgive me, I emphasize her left brow, which was always raised in confusion and intrigue. I capture her strong jaw as I ponder whether she could have ever forgiven me if I’d just stayed.
“I was wrong,” I remind myself. “And now Serena is paying the price.”
How could I be so naive?
By the time I’m done, I’ve formed a living monument to my loneliness and pain.
I hear the familiar fire spout of my approaching kin, as they hover through the air toward me, clearing the distance between us.
“What is that?”
There are three of them gazing strangely at the black stone structure before them. I wish I could have captured her oceanic eyes, or the frilly blonde hair untidily draped over her shoulders.
“A human,” I say, turning to both admire and detest my work. “The most beautiful human I ever met.”
They look quizzically at me. One of them whom I’ve known a long time, who once toppled an ogre colony with me, comments on it.
“It’s very strange,” he says. “What is the point of this?”
“It looks a bit like the creature that was here a while back,” another says. “Only that creature had pointy ears and was covered in blue rocks.”
It’s an odd thing to say, but I shake my head, disregarding it. This one is not known for his good judgment and often invents fanciful tales.
“What are you covered in?” the third one asks. “Where did you get that rock? You look unconventional.”
I shake my head, deciding they’re not worth my time. But even as I leave, I see them studying the stone structure, before melting it back down into the cliff. It pains me to see something I poured time into being destroyed before my eyes.
Perhaps I can never truly be at peace here, knowing what I know.
“It was strange anyway,” I remark, chuckling painfully to myself.
I wonder what Serena would have thought of it. Maybe she would have also thought it was pointless and not worth her time.
I cross the bridge, passing the undisturbed remnants of a lava snake, and question everything I did. Did I fight to stay on Protheka? Did I abandon Serena?
At the slightest hint that Serena would betray me, I ran far away.
The scent of iron has turned putrid, the corpses now burnt severely by the inhospitable environment. I don’t know why I look for signs of the portal. I feel nothing amiss in this room.
Whatever gateway had formed to bring me here is long dormant. Not even the faintest hint of magic remains here.
“Maybe I need to make my peace.”
I am trapped where I want to be. It’s everything I wanted.
My magic doesn’t cross realms, bringing me to other worlds and planes. It creates structures that my kind has no use for and devours the souls of unwilling creatures.
Unless I can find another dark elf somewhere - I laugh at the thought, imagining the flesh sizzling off of their bones - I need to accept that there’s no getting back.
I nod, leaving the cavern behind me.
Perhaps another mortal will come along and help Serena. She and I built up plenty of goodwill toward her fellow humans.