[Thorn's Blackmoor]Rowena's Crystal Chronicle

[RobJN]

Archivist's note: It was sometimes difficult to remember that, though they were half the blood of Uther's line, so too were they half-blooded fey, raised for the first (subjective) ten or so years in seat of the Twilight Empire. Our ten years were an uncountable span of time across the Feyline border that existed between the shadows in the Wizard's Wood. --MM
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Lea and I crouched in the shadows of one of the big chimneys atop the Comeback Inn. Shadows cast by the blazing fields outside of town, I might add.

The plaza square and roadway north was packed with Men. Evil Men, under the sway of one or another of the Egg’s minions. The tromp of their booted feet and clamor of their armor played counterpoint to a black-tongued chant, the words as dark as the banners that snapped from the tips of the forest of longspears. The chant burned my ears as the smoke pouring up from the western fields burned my lungs, stung my eyes.

“They march from the north. Glendower should have held for at least another day,” Lea said, her sigh interrupted by a cough. She hadn’t thought to put a kerchief to her nose and mouth, as I had.

“A feint, to draw most of Father’s troops away. And now they march on the Castle,” I said.

Lea folded her arms. “They can have it,” she grumbled. “Firing it might finally warm up my room.”

I pinched her arm. “Father is there!”

“Father and the his Companions can take care of this rabble,” my twin said. She waved a hand at the troops, pulling it back as several black-fletched arrows streaked particularly close.

“Father very well might perish,” I reminded her.

Lea leaned back against the bricks, her brow furrowing as she chewed at her thumbnail. It was still strange to us, living among Father’s people. Things changed, outside the Woods. Day and night, the moons, the people. They aged. Died.

That was the word Father used for those of his people who would not come back.

It was still a concept I was having trouble comprehending. People would go away. That part was not so difficult. Fey lords and lordlings drifted away from Mother’s court all the time, and at times we even forgot about them. But they would return; they always did.

Outside the Woods, among Father’s people, they did not always come back. It made Father upset. It simply puzzled Lea and I.