A Prelude
                   Innocence Destroyed
Kol Stormbringer, a lad of only forty-four seasons, sat on the western porch of his family’s villa, just outside of the thriving city of Tiya, one warm day in spring. The sunlight drifted down from the clear, blue heavens that stretched to the horizon. The villa was on a hill overlooking the city, and, mainly because of his grandfather, the High Guardian Eraian Soulfire, the Stormbringer family held a significant plot of land in comparison to their distant neighbors. Kol sat in the warm shadows of his porch, watching as his bother Zephyr and mother Celestia were strolling about in the rolling green fields, and Celestia was telling a humorous tale that Kol had heard countless times before, about a gifted bard that bets his tongue on a roll of the dice. They walked now not far from the villa, their laughter carried easily to his ears. Yet, the laughter did nothing to lift his mood, as a powerful aura of sorrow emanated from the soul sitting next to him, cast in even deeper shadow by a strange trick of the light. Kol shifted his slim, lean form uneasily, his silver hair swaying from side to side slightly as he moved, turning to face the man consumed in shadow, who remained silent. He watched his father carefully, concerned, knowing that something plagued his father, and something that Kol had little hope of understanding. His father called himself Dahres Stormbringer, and was surrounded by both an overwhelming joy and a constant sorrow. The man was similar to Kol in appearance, except that he was broad of shoulder, with strong arms, corded with rippling muscle that bulged beneath his shirt and cloak, which Dahres insisted upon wearing despite the warm air. Kol’s father opened his eyes, gray-blue, much like his own, and the elder Stormbringer, who looked very young, only about eighty seasons old, leaned forward, studying his son.
“Kol, can you tell me what you feel coming from me right now?” Dahres asked, his voice gentle, and calm. For the moment.
Kol shook his head slowly, nodding yes. “You’re sad, father,” he said, his voice light and melodic, not yet hardened by the harsh fires of reality. “And I don’t know why.” He was still a child, still innocent, and yet lived in a world of dreams. His father sighed deeply, his eyes still studious, yet filled with sorrow. A voice laughed in his mind, maniacally, the voice of doubt, of uncertainty. He knows nothing.
Dahres shook his head, silencing his doubts for a moment.
“Kol, I want you to know,” Dahres sighed, then he stood, and walked to one of the broad stone pillars that supported the roof of the porch upon which they stood. The elder Stormbringer was silent for a moment as a breeze darted amongst the waving fields and grassy knolls. The wind ran like an anxious child, and, soon enough, the wind fell, until it was a mere ghost of its former self. “I don’t know how to put this...” Dahres ran a hand through his silver hair in frustration, and Kol wanted to help, somehow, although he knew that he was not able, that some things were just above him.
Dahres spoke again, his voice now filled with determination and certainty. “Come here, Kol,” he turned from the distant place that he had lost himself in, and he turned and knelt so that his head was level with Kol’s. When his son was close, Dahres continued to stare into Kol’s eyes, so much like his own, and then held out his hand, silently.
Kol stared at the palm for a moment, daring to look away from his father’s piercing eyes for a second. Dahres’ palm was huge, roughened by work in the fields that they made their living off of, and by the swordplay, which he practiced with Kol and Zephyr regularly. He looked back into his Dahres’ eyes as he placed his hand, small in contrast, into his father’s palm. His father’s hand wrapped around his own, and suddenly, as he stared into his father’s eyes, he felt the breeze pick up, and then darkness swept in on him, like birds of prey falling on a weakened, wretched creature. He wandered through the darkness for what felt like hours, and then Dahres, his father, appeared before him, and he took Kol’s hand, leading him through the dark, the elder Stormbringer body emanating cold blue light that threw back the darkness. Soon, the oppressive shadow fell away, and then he stood on an empty plain, and a great crag rose up before him, its spindly peaks scratching the heavens. Dahres smiled at him, then patted his back reassuringly, even as he began to fade away.
“Be strong, Kol,” his father said, the reassuring feel of his hands on Kol’s shoulders fading into nothingness. “It will be over soon.”
And then, suddenly, even as the lingering touch of Dahres’ hand on his shoulder faded into memory, Kol was bombarded by images, histories. He watched the world unfold, species live and die, nations rise and fall, cities be built, and cities be burned to ash. He watched until he could watch no more, no child should be forced into this, no child deserved to have his innocence shattered so early in his lifetime. Yet, even after he thought could take no more, the images still came, and he still watched, with growing fascination...and horror.
* * * * * * * * *
Some time later, it was a bright, clear day, with a light breeze, when Zephyr first noticed the dark clouds that had appeared out of nowhere, approaching from the west. Kol had been bedridden for the last month, and his parents refused to tell the youngest Stormbringer why...
As he stared out his bedroom window, his quill drifting on the last letter of the word as he lost himself in the world outside his window, the breeze suddenly picked up, tearing him from his daydream. He leaned forward, his eyes wide, and then he dropped the quill, and leapt from his chair, the ink spilling from the jar, staining the white paper black. Bursting through his door, he rushed down to the parlor, where his father had been sitting with his mother. They were no longer sitting, both of them had left the parlor and now stood on the porch studying the clouds with fearful eyes. Dahres held Celestia close, their arms intertwined as together they faced this day that they both knew would come. Zephyr, more confused and bewildered than ever, stumbled out onto the porch watching the clouds for a moment. And then he was quickly ushered back into the house by a worried and concerned Celestia, as Dahres, sword sheathed at his side, walked out to face the darkness of the coming storm. He faced the ominous clouds confidently, his hand on the pommel of his sword, and even when he beheld what moved beneath the shadow of the clouds, he still remained confident.
Shadows, darkened, lost souls of the abyss, marched with stolid grace and fortitude across the green hills leading up to the Stormbringer villa. It looked as if they had marched right past Tiya, which told Dahres one thing that the day had come at last. They had come for him, and him alone.
He could run no longer.
* * * * * * * * *
Kol lay in his bed as he had for the last three months, as if dead, ever since Dahres had taken him to the place with the great mountain. Ever since that time, Kol heard the stories of the past, whispered to him by the ghosts that roamed the haunted landscape. He knew things that he would never have figured until he was a full-grown man, and here he was, merely forty seasons old, with more knowledge than ten men would ascertain in their lifetimes put together. At last, his time in this place of memories and history was finished, and he returned to the world of the living at last. He fought to regain consciousness, straining for every inch, desiring to be free of this, to dismiss it as a dream.
But in his heart of hearts, he knew it to be no dream.
When he sat up in his bed, covered by sweat-stained sheets, he immediately knew something was wrong. He could not explain how he knew it, but his senses were stronger now, and they cried out of wrongness in the world. Struggling to his feet, he stumbled out of his bedroom and down the stair. He staggered past his mother, who was bewildered to see him, and his anxious younger twin brother. Their voices were mere echoes in his head, as the stench of the wrongness overwhelmed him. He barely made it to the door before he leaned against it, drawing labored breath. When he found energy returning to his bones, he pushed himself off the doorframe, and walked unsteadily through the door, carefully, his bones and muscles not used to movement. When he at last stood on the porch, swaying from side to side,  his hand on his head, his eyes squinting at the scene before him.
One man, atop a broad, gray, wild-eyed warhorse, led an army of shadows…creatures that stood like men, and numbered about fifty. The enigmatic leader had broad shoulders, gloriously marked chain mail, and an elaborately carved scabbard at his side. A golden cloak with flares of red came up over his head in a hood, and hid the enigma’s face from Zephyr’s eyes. Several shadows carried odd standards of gold and silver, and they kept time with the rest of the vanguard. Yet, there was one shadow that was riding beside the enigmatic man, carrying one with marked with phoenix rising from darkness, and it was forever emblazoned into Kol’s mind.
Kol suddenly broke free of the stupor that had enveloped him, and he leapt off the porch, his feet creating huge imprints in the soft grass. He ran forward, his fingers outstretched, his eyes wide. He had seen this, he could not explain it, but he knew what would happen.
“Father!” Dahres turned in surprise to see Kol running towards him, and suddenly the shadows shifted uneasily, unsure of how to deal with this new possibility of a threat. The man’s eyes, which Kol could see now, seemed distant and empty…devoid of everything. The thought scared Kol, but he took in stride, all that mattered now was saving his father. “Run! They…they won’t keep their promise, they’ll come after Zephyr and I!”
Corona’s eyes widened with the possibility of this, but before Kol could say more, the enigma raised a cloaked arm, pointing directly at Kol. A whisper, so hoarse that it was barely audible, but it carried easily to Kol’s ears all the same. “Deal with him.”
Several Shadows ran forward, and Kol, unable to fight back in his weakened and unarmed state, was taken captive. The boy struggled against his captors nonetheless, but when Corona saw this, he ran towards Kol, the paternal rage burning in his eyes, a flame that would never be extinguished. A shout from the enigmatic mounted soldier tore his attention away from Kol for a moment. The occult man motioned Dahres closer, and they exchanged words, finally coming to some sort of an agreement. Dahres stepped back from the man and let him dismount, and they walked a fair distance away from the crowd.
Kol watched in growing terror and fear for his father. He had seen this as well.
Dahres bowed deeply to the man facing him, and then ripped off his cloak, the silver garment fluttering to the earth like a wraith. Kol’s father then reached to his side, to the simple blue scabbard at his side, and drew the sword that he kept with him at all times. The blade that hissed forth from the scabbard was rusted and ill made, but the runes carved into the sword glowed brightly enough for even Kol to see. Dahres drew back into a combative stance, and as he did, a blazing white pyre burst from the sword. When the glare faded, Kol was astonished at the great change that had taken place in his father. Dahres had  completely changed; wild silver hair flew up behind him in a great torrent, and in his right hand, which previously he had clasped the dull sword, now blazed a pearly white flame-edge that stretched for the height of two men.
The Niekaru.
Dahres turned to face him slowly, cautiously, aware of the great strength that flowed from this man. Fire leapt up from the earth and surrounded the man in a warm embrace, and when the flames died down, he stepped forward, unscathed. Stretching out from behind him were wings of fire.
Kol heard his father curse: “An angel.... For the sake of all things holy...why have you come here!? You are a disgrace to the name you were given, vile one!”