Death's Angel

Prologue

The stones underneath her bare feet were cold, although the air around her was hot, searing her lungs as she took it into her body, burning her throat and setting her insides on fire. Her vision was clouded with tears, her eyes stinging as sweat rolled down her forehead, past her thick lashes and into the wild green orbs, which were wide with fright.

She stumbled and almost fell as she rounded a sharp corner, catching herself on a tapestry that ripped underneath her frantic grasp, the threads uncharacteristically weak. She ignored the heavy thud as it fell to the cold floor, her tattered skirt threatening to trip her as she lurched into a stairwell.

She faintly registered that she was moving upwards, but her frantic mind could not, would not, send a distress signal to her swaying body; right now, all she knew was fear, and logic did not belong in the same place.

When she burst into the tower's uppermost room, there was no sound except for her heavy breathing and the thudding of her heart. Her blood rushed at a breakneck pace through her veins, roaring in her ears and pulsing to the rhythm of her erratic heart. Her eyes searched frantically for something, anything, to defend herself with; it seemed as though her body knew that she would need a weapon, even though her mind had not yet told her that she would not leave this tower alive.

The room was as bare of weapons as it was of sound, and she knew now, as her trembling legs gave out, that this was the end. Her acceptance, however, did nothing to quell the intense need she felt to protect herself. In her jumbled mind, she reached into the more complicated threads of her Talent for the glyphs of destruction and fire, holding them in place as she sought to gain control over her shaking limbs.

Clutching the magic was hard, and, as she became aware of a slight tugging at the atmosphere, she found that keeping the glyphs in place was even harder without air. The dryness of her throat withdrew any options of speaking the spells she gripped, and she desperately tried to wet her tongue as she sat on the cold stone, knowing that she did not have enough energy to throw them. Her eyes, oddly luminescent in the darkness of the corner in which she sat, were trained on the doorway, her body tensed as she waited.

The continuous leeching of air and feeling from the surrounding space alerted her to the approaching monster, and her heart began to thud once more, her throat drier than it had previously been. She was afraid.

She had no time, however, to dwell on this new feeling. The beast emerged, it's lithe body seemingly flowing into the room. She waited only long enough to ensure that it's black, pupil-less eyes were trained on her, and then she spoke.

There was fire on her tongue, the taste of blood and ruin at the back of her throat. The magic bubbled up in her belly and flowed from her lips in a steady stream of liquid fire, searing her lips and rendering her completely mute, her throat burned beyond speaking ability. The glyphs danced before her eyes, their shapes twirling before her in a blaze of light and heat. There was the smell of burnt flesh, and a sound much like that of a dying animal reached her ears.

She slumped against the wall, hoping beyond hope that the beast had been destroyed, that she might make it out of this ordeal with her life.

Whatever gods were watching over her must have turned their heads.

When the light faded from her eyes, she was horrified to behold the beast, standing with it's onyx eyes screwed shut and one silver-clawed paw rubbing at it's nose. Her spell had not been enough.

Despair began to sink into her bones, causing her to slump against the cool wall behind her, her eyes wide and disbelieving. The monster wiped at it's snout for a moment more before turning it's attention to her. There seemed to be a sinister grin on the reptilian face, and she could do nothing but balk as it began a slow shuffle toward her, it's claws clicking against the floor. Her mouth trembled.

And then, as though someone had whispered words of knowledge into her ear, a thousand glyphs jumped into the forefront of her mind. She felt oddly calm as she reached for a thread of her Talent, binding to it the glyphs of holding together and of power. Quickly, as though she had done it a thousand times before, she weaved the thousand dancing glyphs together, creating a single Master Glyph that shone brightly in her mind's eye.

She did not pause to inspect what she had created. She did not stop to search the many folds of magic that layered her glyph.

Opening her mouth, she spoke the Master Glyph's true name, whispered it as best as she could, and she thought for a moment that she had only mouthed it, but it's effect was immediate. Her knowledge, likewise, was awakened, and she realized what she spoke of as it made it's way through her lips, rolling off of her tongue like water. It was Death.

The sheer power of the glyph pressed her back against the wall, and seconds later, she tasted Death itself, smelled the rotting flesh that seemed to manifest in her mouth, felt the icy cold hands of the Reaper on her shoulders.

And then, just as suddenly as the power had filled the room, it left, leaving her breathless. She choked on her own saliva, and realized with a start that she could not move, could not command her lungs to take in air. She was dying.

The hands of the Reaper left her shoulders, and a whisper of breath touched the shell of her ear. Immediately following the sensation, white hot pain shot through her system. She did not scream; she did not have the energy to.

The edges of her vision grayed, dimmed, and then the world went black.

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Author's Note:
Should I continue?