Prelude to a Storm

"From where do you hail?" The traveler eyed his drinking companion warily. She looked more a picture of a person than an actual one, her features too precise and well-ordered, sketched by the hand of a lesser god or one of Serin's gifted artists. Her eyes, though ... They troubled him. "North," she replied. Her hands gripped the mug of ale before her as if it might escape. He'd hoped to loosen her tongue with drink, but she sipped infrequently and continued to provide taciturn answers. Soon he might resort to other means. "North of where?" He asked good-naturedly. Venturing as he did through many of the smaller villages surrounding Seringale, he loved stopping for respite at an Inn and striking up conversation with a stranger. And strange she was, even by this part's standards. Her eyes occasionally misted over with foreboding clouds and flickers of lightning. Such witchcraft he had not witnessed before, and he would know its purpose--even if it took all night. "North of here ... The mountains beyond the Sylvan Vale," she offered. She too seem surprised by the string of words, more than she'd volunteered in the last hour of questions. So. The drink had finally taken effect. "My mother belonged to a small tribe of Storm Elves. They retreated after the great war to purify their faith and stayed there, unmolested, for many generations. Mother was a priestess of storm. She called the lightning and the rain from the sky to celebrate Aberdour's bounty." She paused. "When my father took her, they were shunned. I have never seen this place that I come from, but I am told it is beautiful." She finished her story bluntly and short of breath, as if the very act of speaking were a tax on her body. Or perhaps it was the drink. As her head began to sway and her grip loosened on the mug of ale, the woman's eyes flashed for a moment with startling clarity. "You ... The drink ... What have you ...?" He admired her resilience. Few could resist the subtle medley of herbs and roots he'd slipped into her cup for as long as she had, and he knew that the stronger the storm, the sweeter the rainbow.

Prelude to a Storm II

Vanne awoke with her arms tied above her head in a bed she did not recognize. Her mouth felt gritty, as if she'd drank a tankard of sand, and her head pulsed in time to her heartbeat. She had trouble focusing, but, when her vision finally cleared, she saw the man from the Inn sitting in the corner. "I thought you'd sleep all day," he said. She struggled to form a response, and he shushed her as one might a baby. "Save your strength," he said. "You'll need it. My buyer is coming soon, and he likes a little fight in his halfbreeds." The word triggered something in Vanne, as it had many times before, sometimes in rooms similar to this one. A breeze tickled the bedskirt, issuing forth from the lone window on the western wall. "Half . . . breed?" she asked as she attempted to inch upright. "Yes, yes. He pays a pretty penny for girls like you. Do not disappoint him, and you may just live." The man suppressed a smirk as Vanne continued to struggle against her restraints. "Half ... Breed." This was less a question now, and the cloud on Vanne's wits was clearing. The man stood, perhaps too late, as the breeze gained sudden gale force and knocked him to the ground. The ropes binding Vanne's arms disintegrated, pulsed in her radiant aura, leaving angry red marks on her flesh and the soiled bed smoldering. "You should know," Vanne said, more calmly than she felt, "that the storm comes for all who seek to subvert it." The man attempted a response, but the gusting air stifled his cry. Vanne kicked him in the stomach with a lazy, sparking foot. "When you meet him--and I promise you will meet him soon--tell the one who created you ..." She paused as spheres of lightning gathered at her fingertips. "Tell him that Vanne sent you."