Prologue of A Dance of Destiny
“On a moonless night surrounded by the crashing of waves on the island shore, two men stood together. The younger of the two hovered over the red glow of a pot muttering strange, ancient words, while the other, older man stood a few paces back, watching intently, weathered hands grasped together tightly in front of him in anticipation. Sweat dripped down the man’s exhausted face, despite the bitter chill in the air. He wiped away the droplets, taking great care not to let it drip into his concoction. The thing before him was not natural. No–it was a substance made not from the wind and the sea and the earth, but from hate and revenge and desire. The concoction bubbled powerfully, hissing as it simmered in its pot, begging to be released. But the man kept it from leaping out of the pot with his mad, mumbled words. The potion emitted a blood-red, smoke-like glow, which was not alive, but it might as well have been. It oozed lively energy, utilizing all of its surroundings and twisting the minds of those around it.
The glow did not breathe or speak, but the rapid winds lifted it up and down as if it were the lungs of an organism, and on that particular night, the small, furred animals crawling around the feet of the man seemed to be scuttling and singing louder than usual, as if trying to communicate on behalf of the mixture.
Snow lashed violently at the backs of the men, but the younger man paid it no mind. His sole focus was the thing in front of him. The older man shivered behind him, wrapping his cloak around his shaking body with blue knuckles, bitten by frost.
After a few more moments of intense whispering, the man closest to the pot seemed content with his work. Lifting his face to the air and grinning brightly, he brought his hands up and whispered, “It’s ready,” to the man beside him. The man standing behind nodded and grimaced, closing his eyes and focusing on completing the task he was hired to do. The man did not even move a finger, but the glow of the pot began to rise, growing brighter and denser the longer he focused his mental efforts. Finally, after a moment, the younger man shouted, “Now!” The older man released his mental hold, and the younger one pushed with an invisible force, causing the glow to rise farther into the air, and rush away to an unknown place. The concoction in the pot in front of the men was left colorless, bubbling gently, and emitting the foul smell of something that had gone rotten. The younger man, closest to the pot laughed a strange mixture of malice and grief. What he’d done had been necessary and deserved, yet he wished it hadn’t come to this. The curse he had just brought to life would affect those about whom he would be expected to care about if he were still living his old, miserable life.
The young man sank to his knees, paying no mind as the snow beneath him melted into slush and seeped through his clothing–layering the caps of his knees with intense cold that shot up and down his spine. He watched as the last strands of the curse disappeared, the intense red glow fading to a moonless black night. Now he just had to wait. For how long, he was not sure, but inevitably, one day, everything would go to plan. There were still more things to be done, but for now, the man felt at peace. He laid back on the hard-packed layer of ice and snow beneath him, forgetting about the curse and the freezing man behind him. He simply allowed the darkness to consume him as it would eventually consume everything else. His eyes finally closed while tracing the faint outlines of the tall peaks of ice that surrounded him.”
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