Chapter 1: Natalie

Chapter 1



         I was running down an alley, painfully aware that my heavy panting and the sound of my feet pounding on the cobblestone would announce to anyone where I was, while also aware that hiding and relying on stealth wouldn’t save me anyway. I pelted down the alley, stone walls on either side of me, desperate to escape. It was late evening, and the setting sun made the sky look a dark red, which seemed somehow fitting considering much of the city was on fire. I had managed to avoid being injured, but I was exhausted, scared, and alone. I didn’t know where my parents or friends were, and to be honest, I wasn’t even sure where I was. All I knew was that the place I was in was under attack, and I was in trouble.

         I skidded to a halt and quickly took a few steps back as one of them appeared from the shadows at the end of the alley. I couldn’t make out many details about him, aside from the fact that he was large, imposing, and carrying a glowing blue sword. He stalked toward me, the ends of his long coat swaying slight with each step. I started to back away, intent to turn and run, but tripped on nothing and fell backward, twisting my ankle in the process. He loomed over me, looking like little more than a large, vertical shadow, staring hard at me with hate filled eyes, and muttered something in a language I didn’t recognize. I whimpered and kept trying to move away from him, but I knew it was hopeless. He raised his sword high over his head, and I screamed and held my arms up over me.

         Then a bolt of lightning streaked from behind me and struck the man in his chest. He staggered back, dropping his blade with a loud clang and clutching the smoldering wound on his front.

         “You shall not harm this maiden as long as I draw breath! By the spirits, I command you to begone!” I turned my head toward the deep voice and saw a tall, handsome man with curly blonde hair extending his arm, sparks still popping and falling from his outspread hand. He wore a thick gray robe and mantle, and his eyes were a bright, clear blue. The mage’s eyes looked down into mine, and he gave me a reassuring smile, one that was confident, but not arrogant. Then his battle scowl (which was almost as handsome as his smile) returned as he faced down the enemy in the alley.



         “Natalie!”

         I screamed in surprise and felt my heart nearly jump out of my throat. I blinked quickly several times and looked around to find a very different scene than I was in a moment ago. Er, well, than what I was imagining I guess. It was a bright summer day, still just cool enough to enjoy the outdoors without sweating half to death. There were plain, modest houses with children playing here and there in green lawns, or chasing each other down the tightly packed dirt road. Atop of each house was a round crystal set into the roof, and no two were quite the same color. Outside of town, growing on either side of the road were the large fields of pure white flowers that my hometown, White Meadow was named after.

         “Hellooo? You awake over here?” I sighed as my heartbeat returned to normal and turned to find my friend Amy behind me with a huge, mischievous grin on her face. “Welcome back to the real world.”

         “Do you really have to scare me like that?” I asked. “I almost had a heart attack.”

         Amy’s grin became a little less mischievous, and a little more conspiratorial. “Oh, I’m sure the handsome young mage you dreamed up would have saved you from that too.”

         I blushed and looked away. To be honest, this wasn’t the first time Amy caught me lost in my vivid daydreams. It was nowhere near the first, actually. I get lost in my own imagination now and then. …Okay, fairly often. And yes, I often dream up some scenario where I’m in trouble and a brave, strong, attractive hero comes to my aid. Every girl thinks up things like that sometimes though… right? “Oh, be quiet.” I said, still not looking at her.

         “See, this is why we need to find you a boyfriend. It’s not hard, really. As pretty as and smart as you are, you should have no problem with it.” Amy said. She was a tall, slender girl with straight blonde hair that hung to the middle of her back. She had a bright, friendly face that seemed to always have a smile on it, and her blue eyes always seemed to twinkle with amusement. She was wearing one of her favorite outfits: a blue tunic shirt that stretched down lower on one side than the other, and tight fitting black shorts. Her favorite pendant, a flat quartz of varying shades of blue with a thin black rope through it, hung on her neck.

         I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “I had a boyfriend once. …Sort of.”

         Amy mimicked my facial expression. “You were eight. That doesn’t count.”

         I sighed, starting to feel a little uncomfortable. I was a little shorter than Amy, a bit over five and a half feet. I wasn’t as slender as she was, and my face was rounder. She would always say she was jealous of how well I filled out compared to her, but I think she just said things like that to make me feel better. I mean, I guess I’m not bad looking, and I’m in good shape and all, but… It just isn’t something I feel comfortable thinking about, gauging my own attractiveness and trying to get some guy’s attention. I never dressed provocatively or anything, like today I had on a dark purple t-shirt with a lighter purple button up left open with the sleeves rolled up, and denim capris. I hardly wear any make-up, I mean I usually forget to put any on at all. Oh, and then there’s my hair. I don’t wear it really long like Amy does, I keep it in a sort of bob, growing down to my chin all the way around. And it’s silver. It used to be dirty blonde, but, I tried to lighten it up with a spell, did something wrong, and got silver instead. Which I like, but, I don’t think the guys around here like that sort of weird hair color. “All the guys in school tend to focus on you over me, and as much trouble as they seem to give you, I’m fine with that.”

         “Well, they’d probably try to talk to you more if you weren’t always so focused on a book that you don’t notice them. Seriously, a lot of guys I talk to think you ignore them and are super anti-social.” Amy said.

         “Ugh, why are we talking about this?” I shook my head and gave an exasperated shrug. “Where’s Sandra? Have you seen her?” I asked.

         Amy raised her eyebrow and looked around. “Um, I haven’t. I’m always the late one, I figured she’d be here with you.”

         I shook my head. “No, I was the only one here on time.” We were all supposed to meet up at the road out of town, then go on a trip to Xander, the big city a few hours walk away. If you looked, you could see the high buildings towering up down the road.

         “You think she’s still asleep?” Amy asked, turning toward Sandra’s house, a mischievous and hopeful grin already spreading on her face.

         “I hope so. I want to see what you’ve got in mind to wake her up.” I answered with a grin of my own, and we walked down the road to our friend’s house.



         Amy made a small sound of disappointment as we approached, as Sandra was just walking out of her house, which meant no opportunity for Amy to prank her awake. Sandra was my height, but built with a bit more muscle and sharper features. Her brown hair was held up in a ball behind her head by a pair of hair sticks, (which one day, I’m going to make her teach me how to do, it looked very good on her,) and she wore a sleeveless orange turtleneck and long black skirt with black leggings. She never looked particularly cheerful exactly, but seeing the look on her face as she closed the door behind her, I got the feeling we wouldn’t be going to Xander after all.

         Her gaze suddenly snapped over to us, and she gave a tired sigh. “Hey. I’m late, I know. Sorry.”

         “What’s wrong?” I asked.

         Sandra shook her head. There was a small set of steps, only two or three of them, leading up to her stone porch, and she descended them, meeting us in the middle of her front lawn. Unlike many of the other houses, there were no discarded toys or gouges in the dirt to give evidence of children playing. Sandra lived with her aunt and uncle, who had no children of their own, but took her in several years ago after her parents were killed. “I don’t think we should go to Xander today.”

         Someone who didn’t know Amy better would expect her to make a whining sound of protest, but she didn’t. She asked in a mature and earnestly concerned tone, “Why, what’s happening?”

         Sandra blew out a breath and crossed her arms, thinking for a moment. “Well… you know how I’ve said Aunt Nina has friends in high places? Ones we can’t really talk about?” Amy and I nodded, and Sandra continued. “They gave her some news today. That town on the other side of the forest to the east, Barder? Guardian is there. A lot of them.”

         Amy and I both made surprised sounds. I’d heard about Guardian, and read a little. They were basically an energy form supremacist group, and a very violent one. They didn’t care much for humans, and even less for my kind, aura forms. “What are they doing there?”

         Sandra shook her head again. “We don’t know. Well, I guess I should say we don’t know what they WERE doing there, because all of the ones in the town were wiped out.”

         “Wow. Barder is a human town, right? I didn’t think they had it in ‘em.” Amy said with awe.

         “They didn’t.” Sandra closed her eyes and sighed very deeply. It was clear she didn’t want to say what she had to next, which worried me. Sandra isn’t easily shaken up. She’s fierce and very strong willed. On one trip to Xander, a man started giving us trouble, and he wasn’t a small man. He was over six feet tall and looked strong enough to pick up and throw all three of us. Sandra didn’t care though, because after one punch, he was on the ground cradling his broken nose.

         “Sandra, what is it?” I asked, feeling more worried by the second.

         Sandra opened her eyes and nodded. “It was the Azure Demon. He’s in the area too.”

         I’m pretty sure my heart stopped for a moment. I remembered the figure I thought up in my daydream with the long coat and glowing blue sword.

         “…Who?” Amy asked, and I sort of made a near frantic giggling sound.

         “You’ve heard of him.” Sandra replied as I stared at the ground and tried to calm myself. I was near a panic attack, which may seem silly, but… it was the Azure Demon. Hearing about him being anywhere nearby isn’t something you just shrug off. “An energy form in a blue coat with a sky blue blade.”

         “Oh, oh you mean the one who isn’t with Guardian. The one who…oh…oh wow.” Amy said, eyes slowly widening as she understood the situation.

         “The Azure Demon…” I said, though I probably shouldn’t have. Saying it out loud just made me feel more afraid. He’d single-handedly destroyed entire cities, killing everyone in them. He’d assassinated more people than I’ve ever met, human, aura form, and energy form alike. He was an unstoppable monster, one who had been killing and destroying for longer than I’ve even been alive. I grew up hearing horror stories about him. Even the Halo Family, the most powerful family of aura forms on the continent didn’t want to fight him head on. Just him, by himself. They considered a massive group like Guardian to be a lesser threat.

         “We don’t know if Guardian or the Azure Demon are headed here, and we can’t imagine why they would, but… still, just the fact that they’re anywhere nearby means we shouldn’t be doing much aside from staying home.” Sandra said. She didn’t seem afraid. It was more like she acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, the threat it could mean, but wouldn’t let it weigh her down. Sandra was strong like that.

         “You’re probably right.” I said with a shudder.

         “Hey… the Azure Demon kills everyone he comes across, right? So, how has anyone ever heard of him? He can‘t have killed everyone, right?” Amy asked. I stared at her, and so did Sandra. She didn’t look at all afraid anymore. In fact, her face looked curious and conversational.

         “I… hadn’t ever thought about it. Does it matter?” Sandra replied.

         “Well, I mean, it is a good point. I guess.” I said. “So, what do your aunt’s friends have in mind for a plan? They do have one, right?” I hoped they did, because I had no idea what we could do. Sure, there were lots of people in this town who had a good hand with magic, but, that was mostly for day to day things, not fighting.

         Sandra shrugged. “They’re dispatching mages to Xander, and hopefully here as well. We just have to hope that, should Guardian or the Azure Demon show up here, those mages will be here in time to stop them.” She shook her head again. “I’m going to go back and try to help Aunt Nina sort things out. There’s a lot of information that needs to be passed around.”

         “Can we help?” I asked.

         “That would involve telling you about the people we can’t talk about, so no. But thank you.” Sandra said. “I’ll see you two later.”

         “Bye.” I said.

         “See ya’.” Amy said. Sandra went back inside, and Amy and I walked away. “Wow. Well this sucks.”

         “Yeah…” I replied. I was still focusing on that terrifying image from my daydream. Sure, I imagined being rescued from the Azure Demon sometimes, but… it wasn’t a situation I ever wanted to happen anywhere but in my head. My mind wanted to wander, but I wouldn’t let it. I felt like if I did, I would be wishing for something bad to happen. I wondered if with all my daydreaming, I already had, and that’s why the energy forms were so close.

         “Hey. I’m hungry.” Amy said suddenly. I looked to find her with her hand on her stomach and her eyes on me. “Can you cook us something?”

         I smiled. “Sure. Let’s head back to my house.” I knew it wasn’t so much that Amy was hungry, as it was she wanted to focus our attention of something aside from our fear. Then again, Amy was always hungry, so maybe a big portion of it was just a desire for food. (I have no idea where she kept it all, being as thin as she was.) Besides, just because we couldn’t go to Xander didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun together. We walked down the road, and the whole time I tried to look cheerful, and not think things like this being our last chance to have fun together before the attack came. It would be okay. They wouldn’t attack here, and even if they did, some strong mages are already being sent to protect us. Everything would be fine. I had to believe that.