A Flame in the Shadow

Prologue

The sky burned red as fire rained down on the city of Celestial Falls. Thousands of large leathery wings flapped blocking out most of the light. The city felt as if it was midnight in the middle of the day.

The roars of the beasts were deafening as they swooped down grabbing anyone who was unfortunate enough to be on the streets. People screamed in agony as their loved ones and children were taken never to be seen again.

Celestial Falls had been a quiet place to live before the portal opened and the creatures arrived. One day they were happily going on with their lives and in an instant, they were living in a city of fire and blood.

They came when the portal opened, demons, beasts, and shadows that appeared directly from nightmares. They poured from the mountains like a sickness, crawling down through the trees dragging darkness behind them. Crops rotted in their wake. Churches burned in their unholy fire, and no prayer could stop the hunger coming in waves.

The people begged for mercy; none came. Not until she arrived.

Sariyah.

She stepped from the heart of the Black Woods, alone and cloaked in shadows, as the city writhed in what would have been its final hour. The skies split above her. The monsters turned toward her with open jaws and dripping claws.

She did not raise a weapon; she raised her hand. Shadows formed from her fingertips. With a whisper the air turned to ash. The demons screamed, shadows peeling from their forms as they dissolved into nothing. The ground split, the sky howled. Every creature that hunted in the name of darkness was banished.

When the smoke cleared, she stood alone at the edge of a ruined temple. Her skin untouched, her eyes black as the void between the stars. Her dark hair flowing as if blown by wind that wasn’t there.

The people bowed to her and wept in gratitude, she only smiled.

“I have delivered you from this evil,” she said. “And I offer my protection to this city. I will keep the darkness that stirs at bay, but all things have a price.”

She would sit on the Obsidian Throne in the Black Spire Castle and an offering would be made. Every hundred years, on the blood moon, one man would be given to her. He would be hers, body and soul for all eternity.

The people, desperate and grateful agreed. The first offering came willingly, seeing it as an honor. A war orphan who believed her to be a goddess. He kissed her hand before the gates closed behind them. They heard his screams for three days.

The second offering tried to run. The city guards dragged him to her feet.

The third was a priest who believed he could pray her away. He could not.

And so, the centuries passed. Celestial Falls rebuilt, not with stone, but with blood and sacrifice. The monsters never returned; the crops never failed. The city grew proud, prosperous, and untouched.

All she asked was obedience, all she took was one man every hundred years. No one spoke of what she did with them. Until the tenth offering refused and the fire she once saved them from began to rise again.