Chronicles of Hemlear Pt. 01

So he sent for Jalyn, the master of apprentices and waited. When he arrived Jalyn saw Alyth and his eyes grew wide. She was a star pupil of the school, he had taught her himself and shared a bond that was closer than he would readily admit with her. When he had last seen her she was sitting up in his bed, astride his hips and singing sweetly as he fell gently into sleep. She had been smiling and happy that night, and she had gone while he still slept, and he had seen her through scrying crystal a few times since, and she had been happy and strong. Now she was blubbering and weak, broken and powerless. He lifted her slight form and carried her to the rooms she had once occupied before going away with her brother on the reckless adventure into the Frontier. He got her calmed and she told her tale, of setting out with Aeric and his friends, of meeting Averill and their trek south into the Frontier, and of the betrayal by the half-elf and the coming of the vampire coven. Jalyn listened to it all impassively and when she was done, and had returned to her fearful weeping, he passed a hand over her and whispered a spell, the linäe embedded in his arm warmed and she fell into dreamless slumber. Jalyn left her and went to tell this news to the council, for many had sought to know of the coven that hunted along the Frontier, and this was a new piece of information. Using mortals as thralls to bait others into a trap was hardly a new tactic for vampires. But the skill and secrecy which they used was frightening.

Alyth woke two days later and returned to her studies, silent now and studious. She spent many nights in Jalyn's bed, seeking the comfort of his arms and the warmth of his touch. He was glad for her company, but he could see that she was using him as a way to wear herself out so she would sleep deeply enough not to wake from her dreams. Of the decisions she made over the following years it was just the first of those that would anger and disappoint him, just the first step down the road to becoming someone new, a person that he didn't know and couldn't recognize. It was the beginning of her becoming known as the White Whore and he was only the first of her many lovers.

But to Alyth any means were acceptable to this end, she needed knowledge and power if she was to have her revenge and the best way to get it was from others. As Averill had known, so did Alyth learn; coin could get you only so far, flesh could get you more. And her flesh was coveted, her company and affections were lusted after by many in the tower and abroad and she gave them what they wanted in order to get what she wanted from them in return. Already a skilled sorceress, her efforts redoubled and she grew in skill and power rapidly in exchange for her dignity and the humiliation that soon came her way. The other students said she was broken, that she had been driven mad, that she was after a child from one of the elders to force them into marriage. The rumours flew and she ignored them, for all their words they could not deny her skill and her growth. Soon she was the most powerful student in the academy and she took her test for the third tier less than a year after her return, passing in the shortest time anyone had ever passed it before. She applied for her test for the fourth tier as soon as she had been invested with the robes of a mage but was denied, the masters said she was too young. A year later she used her body to convince two elders to allow it and passed it as the youngest sorceress to ever attain the fourth tier, and her new name was cemented as word of how she had attained the test spread.

To show them all just what she thought of the name she cut her hair shirt, just a cap of soft fuzz close to her scalp and she wore pure, pristine white robes with nothing underneath whenever she was at the tower. She pretended not to see Jalyn looking after her in betrayed anger and thinly veiled disgust, she stood tall and proud as she went to her newest lovers, unabashed in her actions, and when the two old men were asleep she had the full run of their libraries, siting in just her skin and reading from their most secret tomes as she fingered the new initiates linäe on the chain around her neck and the eight scars down her back glowed with power where the new crystals had been implanted in her flesh. It was a drastic and painful procedure, but she would never allow herself to be robbed of power again, never allow herself to be left helpless by another. As she read and studied and learned and stole the knowledge she needed, she thought on the betrayal and longed for her brother and their friends. She had sworn an oath to avenge them and she had devoted herself to however much study, and whatever means necessary to make her vengeance a reality.

She was born a sorceress, able to wield powers that others could not dream of.

She had become a Master Mage, able to teach at the ancient tower and privy to powers that most could not even comprehend.

It would take time to master those powers, to turn what she now knew as her ignorant, clumsy fumbling into the art form that the elders and masters displayed. But she would attain that power, she would learn that grace and when she did she would seek her vengeance.

And her vengeance would burn.