Promontory: Prologue
I haven't been writing fanfic for a long time now, but I have been writing. Still working on the big novel (sigh), but it is hard work and I've decided to do a little side-project to remind myself that I like writing and creating. I'm posting it here for those friends of mine who are bored and would like to give this a try.
I'm hoping that it isn't going to be a long story (I need to finish something for a change: all my recent projects are hanging like silver, sharp swords over my head). The story is a romance (hey, it's me) with a little wizardry thrown in and is called Promontory.
Comments are welcome!
PROMONTORY
Prologue
Aurora stood still, her hands lifted unconsciously towards the damp eddies of wind that buffeted her from all sides. Like herself, the air was restless today, filled with the urge to break free of its bounds, to change the destiny it felt calling.
She’d left her hair unfettered this morning, wanting no physical restraints to remind her of the invisible shackles she was wearing. Her dress was too thin for the slight chill in the morning air, but she didn’t care. These moments at the sea’s edge were to be treasured, hugged to her soul. Taking a deep breath, she absorbed the scents of ocean, of water-bound life, of salt, of eons of knowledge hidden beneath the undulating sea. It woke in her unspoken dreams to travel across this wide expanse of water to someplace where she could disappear.
Never to be found again.
Behind her, she could hear her maid shifting in position and knew that Sally was looking up towards the dark cliffs and the even darker man standing on their verge. Aurora never acknowledged his presence by turning her face up to him. He was very tall and had long straight hair as white as snow, Sally had informed her. And he always wore black. For weeks now, he’d been there every morning, to watch as she took her solitary walk along the shore.
His name was Andreas, her masters had told her. Andreas of the Fire Guild. Andreas with the awesome power at his fingertips. His house crouched on the mountain behind him: mysterious, massive and ancient. Aurora wondered if its master knew that the fortress had a voice, one that sang to her during particularly quiet dawns when not even the waves made a sound as they rolled to shore. The song was always melancholy, drifting over the air towards the water, calling to her as it went.
“Watch out, Mistress,” Sally’s voice interrupted her thoughts and made her freeze on the spot. “There is a branch at your feet.”
It was a reflex to look down towards her bare toes, even though Aurora had not ‘seen’ for many years. She’d learnt to use all her other senses, all her other gifts, to compensate for the loss of vision, and hardly noticed it these days. Unless she was distracted like she’d been just now.
Sighing, she turned towards the call of the sea, her back to the watchful cliffs and lifted her arms again. The wind came to play immediately, causing her long, flowing sleeves to flutter and slide down to beneath her elbows. The movement of air over her skin was familiar, comforting, just as the water that crept over her bare feet softly as each wave slid to shore.
Time is running out, Aurora.
She shivered as her upturned face registered the sudden darkening of the sky and she dropped her hands. The spike in moistness in the air told the story: it was clouding over. Hugging herself against the unexpected drop in temperature, Aurora felt her shoulders slump.
Time is running out. . .
The voice remained maddeningly loud in her memory, just as clear as the fear it had unleashed in her breast when the words were spoken.
Sally’s gasp was her first inkling that something unexpected was happening. Aurora halted when she felt the first rays of sunlight bathe her cold skin. The feeling was amazing, like strong firelight flickering sensually over her whole body. She found herself lifting her face towards source of the heat: the solitary man standing so far above her on the precipice of the world.
His hand was thrown towards the sky. Just one strong hand, the fingertips spread and seemingly bathed in light. But he was looking at her, his eyes blazing with amber light. His long cloak rippled around his feet in the breeze, but his white hair was caught at his nape so that it seemed as if he was in the calm eye of the impending storm. There were black boots on his feet, but the dark coat hid the rest of him, moulding only to the broadness of his shoulders as an indication of the size of the man beneath.
Aurora stood transfixed. Andreas had easily overcome the clouds sent by her masters. For the first time, she felt a small ember of hope starting to glow inside her. The place where she stood seemed to be an island of sunlight, free of the cold breeze and the dampness she knew was affecting her maid not a few feet away. And for the few minutes they stared at each other across the space that divided them, Aurora found that she could see.
TBC
Copyright:
fiction_junky