A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Prologue

In the beginning, there was pain.

These had been forests once. Desolate lands that now stretched into the horizon had boasted trees and lakes and seas. The snaking sand blowing across cracked ground had been rich, healthy soil. The mountains that had long ago sheltered sheep and birds and towns had long since abandoned their snow, erupting into lands that swept the world with heat, fire, and suffering. In the cruelty of neglect, little thrived. Sulfur choked out natural-born life, with scarcely a rodent left to gnaw at the straw and weeds that clung to the hot fissures between rocks. Vegetation wilted and died.

People, whether human or fae, remained in their pockets of the dried spaces between things.

The monsters that roamed the land were born of violence, fear, and anger. Little remained of the herbivores or carnivores of lore—natural-born beasts said to have once flourished. Gentle creatures had wandered the forests and grazed on the grasses, thriving beneath the lovely warmth of the sun. Now, humans struggled to cling to life, remaining as scarcely more than slaves to the cruelest of fae who had been powerful enough to withstand the changes of the world. Perhaps the race of humans had been fortunate to be kept alive in a world that offered no reprieve, no grace, no kindness. Maybe they had not been fortunate at all.

Perchance it was surviving that was the curse.

She’d had a name once.

She’d been born of parents, as one often was. Her birth was one of fear, hunger, terror, and dread. She’d been raised as a child with the slender ears and too-large irises of the fae—eyes that squinted against the baking sands and whipping winds, eyes that saw no kindness, eyes that hadn’t known love or joy or peace. Her mother had been gaunt. Her father had been thin. Her childhood had been one of caves, hunger, hiding, terror, and suffering. She’d been born in the end of times.

She was the beginning of times.

Her first miracle was water.

The dried lips of her mother and dusty husk of a dehydrated father created a need, and her desire to see them live birthed a simple cup filled with cool, liquid life.

Their words were few.

She was their secret as much as their salvation.

Her second miracle was the shelter that protected them from the red sparks and brutalities and terrors of the world beyond. The creatures that prowled did so with cruelty and agony. The sky was a mixture of scarlet and brown. Green was a concept, not a color. Life was a stolen escape between carcasses, petrifactions, and stone. If it hadn’t been for the fairy tales from the mouths of her wilted mother or the gentle heart of her sickly father and the vibrant fantasies of a wishful child, she would have had no imagination for anything good.

In the papery breaths of tales and bedtime stories that were carried off in the winds, people whispered lore of a time before.

Whether or not they understood the circle of time, they had reached the end of their eon. It was the age of the ouroboros to bite its tale and begin its draconian circle once more.

She’d walked beyond the sheltered walls of their created sanctuary with the confidence of someone with nothing to lose. Where her feet were meant to land on death, she summoned life. She dreamed of the broadleaf plants and their shade, of fruit-bearing trees, and of grass underfoot that she’d only heard of in her parents’ stories. They said that long ago, life had grown upward, reaching toward the sun, and she made it so once more. Her journey found her with rivers to cool her feet, lakes in which she could swim, waterfalls and seas. Her walk resulted in the companionship of the once-fictional beasts like the gentle deer, the clever fox, and the noble falcon.

Her parents had clung to the barest edges of life long enough to see her walk among the gift of creation. Their wonder. Their salvation. She was not the first of her kind, but she was among the rarest. The mother and father who had brought her into this world could not walk with her on her journey. She was meant to traverse this path alone.

When she grew lonely, she did not return to the ramshackle prison of a shelter she’d built for herself, nor did she clutch the memories of her parents. She built for herself a manor, then a city, then an empire.

When she grew lonely, she dreamed of the long-forgotten race of mortals and brought forth a human. The man walked with her as her partner and companion as she spread greenery and life across the earth, lifting her hands and smiling as she spoke into existence a new and beautiful world.

In her time with the man who loved her, held her, and stood beside her, she’d forgotten why the fae and humans struggled to join one another. She clutched the hands and held the face of the man she’d created, and her heart was full. She felt comfort. She felt happiness. She felt selflessness and motivation and comfort until the day his face began to etch with the treacherous lines of age, his hair began to gray, and his body began to fail. She felt herself crack as the one she’d loved and had made from the very air withered to become one with the dust.

He was not the first death she’d experienced, but he would be the last.

When he grew old, she created for herself a companion who would not break her heart with time. A fae woman was made from thought and light, breathed into existence. This new fae was her equal in many ways. She shared the physical characteristics of the woman herself, though the woman on her journey had not wanted to create a copy, so she’d invented a beautiful, different breed of fae—one with wings she needed to set herself free. She had called to the magic of the world and asked it to manifest as it saw fit. This woman could come and go as a dove to the sky. The fae was the bird, and she was the tree.

In the beginning, there was pain.

In the middle, there was life.

In the end, there was forgetfulness.

The circle could not be broken. It was a serpent destined to swallow itself once more. This was the curse of time and the world upon it. They would forget the pain, the snake, the tail. Those who walked the earth would forget how time and fate were destined to ebb and flow like the tides of the seas. They would lie in the sun and eat nice things and sleep with lovers and bear children and convince themselves that the world had always been this way and would be this way forever.

She’d had a name once.

Now, some called her the All Mother. Some felt her a deity; others weren’t convinced she’d existed at all. She had been fae, though many had called her a goddess. What was a goddess, after all, if not one who could create and destroy. Her immortality allowed her eternity, and her manifestation had allotted her a life not limited to the physicality of her flesh and granted her the ability to spread throughout the forest—a network of trees as prolific and beautiful as the charged sparks in the brain.

Manifestation was the rarest gift. It was the power of the old gods.

Those who manifested possessed creation itself in their very fingertips, and with that ability came an immortality beyond the simplistic understanding of an undying life.

Manifestation could be beautiful, incredible, powerful, and good.

Manifestation could be destructive, wicked, and terrible.

Manifesters were the end of the world.

Manifesters were its beginning.