Twisting Every Way

Chapter 5

A bead of sweat trickled down the small of Emya's back. She shivered and patted at her damp, grey tunic. The roaring fire in the center of the throne room scorched and blackened the jagged chunks of stone which the Kings had dug out of the chamber's floor and stacked in a ring to create a fire pit. The Councilors would never have allowed a fire in the council chamber. The smoke was already damaging the stone wall carvings that depicted important stories and events in the village's short history.

The Kings had no regard for this. Emya didn't either. She liked the way the room looked bathed in light. She never knew the stone could sparkle, giving the needle-thin carvings a life all their own.

One carving depicted a mighty warrior, sword held aloft, poised to defend the village against an undefeatable monster that once terrorized the land. Emya doubted the story, considering there were no other accounts of such creatures, but she'd always admired the carving. Men like the warrior didn't exist in the village anymore. As she stared at him the warrior's head turned slowly in the flickering light, his piercing gaze coming to rest on her. Startled, Emya fell off the stool in a heap. She picked herself up and looked at the carving again. The warrior was back to normal.

Emya righted the stool and settled onto it after smoothing her tunic and brushing her hair out of her face. Azo paced the width of the room, unaware of the carvings or his high-strung pupil. He was fiddling with what appeared to be a wooden sphere with black gems set in it. The gems rolled in their sockets as he ran his fingers along them. Emya had been sitting there for some time, waiting for him to get on with the lesson. Ever since she'd started learning magic, strange things, like the moving carvings, happened in ever-increasing frequency. She would try to explain it away as a result of the excessive heat and burning of herbs that often made her dizzy, but she suspected there was more to it. The Kings said that her experiences were normal and would stop once she learned a little more.

The Kings, despite their size, were surprisingly quiet and stealthy. Azo's steps on the stone floor were silent. The only sounds in the council chamber were the crackling of the fire and the occasional whimper and hiccup from the corner where the ever-present shadow slumped against the wall in a heap.

Emya called him the Shadow in her head because she was forbidden from looking at him or talking to or about him. Yet he was always there, a shape she saw out of the corner of her eye. A gloomy presence just out of sight. A shadow.

It was not lost on her that the Kings treated him as the villagers treated her, worse in fact. At first, she felt sorry for him. Then she selfishly pushed those feelings aside so she could finally bask in the warmth of the Kings' favor. For the first time in her life she was wanted, encouraged, and treated with dignity. Embracing the sudden improvement of her circumstances, she no longer cared about what was happening to anybody else.

Azo stopped and tossed the object into the fire. Emya watched it burn. At first, she thought he'd gotten fed up with it and tossed it in out of anger, but the fire seemed to transform it from wood into bright yellow stone. The black gems twisted on their own in the flames.

Azo watched it until the stones stopped spinning. Then he reached into the fire with a grunt and pulled it out. Holding it in his hands, he motioned for Emya to take it. Opening her hand gingerly, the object fell into her palms. It was warm but it did not burn.

"What is it?" she asked as she turned it over and over. It was the size of a small loaf of bread and felt like no material she'd ever held, though it looked like stone now.

"That is an object of power. It can be used to focus magic and help you direct it as you desire, but you must be very careful. If you don't have the strength to stop the flow of energy it will draw your power, strength, and eventually your life from you." He took the object gently from her hands and placed it on a table, then sat down on the stool next to her.