Prologue — Forgotten Tears

Clang! Clash! BANG!

The girl watched from her hiding place, the sounds of war echoing all around her. She huddled with her brothers and sisters by the pond, watching as men shouted and fought only a few yards away. Long blades slashed at armor that looked like leather scales, blood erupting from their bodies and staining the mountain grass, greasy and red. If it wasn't for the clouds of sooty smoke choking the air, her clan's position would have been illuminated by the flashes of the soldiers’ hand cannons.

Somehow, the girl found the fear to be more suffocating than the battlefield. Her younger kin whimpered, trying to hold back sobs. Her peers fought back rage and despair from the loss of their elders and parents. Their way of life was being threatened by a war that didn't even involve them.

All of them were wondering the same thing — What was going to become of them once they were found?

“Nimue!” The girl's heart nearly stopped at the sound of her own name. Fear and uncertainty had paralyzed her mind so much that it took a moment for her mother's face to come into focus. It pained her to see such a beautiful face twisted in terror.

“Darling, there's no time. You have to run!” As Nimue tried to calm herself by counting her mother's freckles, something was shoved into her arms.

It was an orb, one which shined with every color of the universe.

“Here, protect this and go,” her mother continued. “No matter what happens, you absolutely cannot let the humans take it. Do you hear me?”

Time felt like it was running at a much slower pace than normal. The violence grew louder, drowning out the world Nimue once loved to listen to. She couldn't find the words her mother wanted to hear, but that was nothing new.

“There isn't much time, dear. You have to go,” She shoved Nimue and the other children further back into the brush. “Go, Nimue. Run—!”

B A N G !

Nimue had never seen the light leave someone's eyes so quickly. Blood bloomed from her mother's temple like a spider-lily, and her body went limp in an instant. Human men shouted in words Nimue couldn't understand as her mother crashed into the pond. 

Her peers gasped and cried, but as Nimue watched her mother's blood swirl and mix with the water, something in her shifted. Suddenly, her fear became something much clearer, yet harder to define. It became the power that drove her to clench the orb tightly in her arms and run towards the mountain behind her.