• Kyri savagely threw her slipper at the unoffending stone wall.

    “He’s coming here again,” she fumed loudly. Of course there was nothing she could do about it, but it made her feel better to vent. She tossed her long curls over one shoulder and brought her hands down in fists on her narrow hips.

    The weather outside seemed to echo her violent mood. Thick black clouds roiled and raged across the sky and angry purple lightning seared like flame through the racing dense mass of overcast sky.

    Kyri stood at the window looking out at the storm. Her own room was in the topmost tower of the stone fortress which rested on the most strategically important spot in the whole kindgdom. A mountain, in the northwest corner of the kingdom. The castle was cut straight from the mountainside itself, and was heavily fortified. Surrounding the mountain was the Plain of Hayaar, a small circle of plains that melted into the Great Wood, a vast expanse of forest that stretched halfway across the kingdom.

    Inside the tower room, the smell of incense wafted gently through the air, it's calming effect overridden by the stormy temper consuming the elf who paced agitatedly across the room.

    Though she stood inches shorter than most girls her age, her diminutive size only contributed to her appearance of childlike innocence. The illusion was quickly dispelled on closer aquaintance. Kyri's mind was sharp and intelligent, and those who tried to dupe her found it was not easy to confuse the cunning mind inside the simple exterior.

    Kyri's footsteps were quick and brought her from one end of the short room to the other, then back again. It was small, but it was cozy rather than cramped. Finally, the small elf collapsed on a chair by the window, sinking into it and running her hands along the dark green fabric that covered it.

    “The mighty Prince Thomas come to try and sweep me off my feet with dazzling displays of daring. He might just skip that and assault me in some out of the way corridor where no will find my abused body lying in eager anticipation of death," Kyri continued viciously.

    “Kyri, really,” her closest friend Kyrani scolded. “Melodramatics won't help the situation, and it's not proper to say such things aloud.”

    “I really don’t care what the proper thing to do is. I am going to say what I bloody please. The world should know of his vicious character and the sooner the better. He will be here in less than two days and you know how he is. I’m not one of the royal whores he summons to his bedchamber every day and the sooner he realizes that not all women will submit to his foul touch the better it will be for all of us.”

    “Kyri, I think that’s quite enough.” Kyrani stood and stretched. She was the same height as the ranting woman near her, but that was where the similarities ended. Kyrani's hair was brown and cut short, ending just beneath her ear. Instead of Kyri's soft, curvacious body, Kyrani was lean and whip-cord tough.

    “Fine," Kyri continued. "I’ll stop bothering you with my all too justified anger. But you do know that when he sees me,” She paused to take a deep breath, calming herself. “He’s going to go insane.” Kyri ran her long thin fingers through her soft black hair and sighed. She touched her ear gingerly, feeling the pointed tip that was still so new. Letting the soft scent of the incense fill her, she calmed ever-so-slightly.

    Kyrani bit her lip. "You're right, now that you actually look like an elf, it's going to be a bit hard to conceal."

    “A bit? Has he known that I was an elf all along?”

    Kyrani looked down at her feet. “That was partly why he was so drawn to you. Goblins and elves are mortal enemies.”

    “So Thomas was drawn to me because he wanted to kill me?”

    Kyrani moved her head a fraction of and inch up and down, indicating that Kyri was right. Kyri just sighed.

    “You don’t do so well with the open communication thing, do you?” She sat down beside her friend.

    “Well at least in two days it will be your birthday and we can leave for Ryilyryn,” Kyrani said in a positive manner.

    “Yes, he'll be such a lovely gift.” Kyri smiled at her friend and Kyrani’s hunched figure straightened out ever so slightly. Rolling her eyes, Kyri dragged the forlorn elf up from the bed.

    “Come on then, Ryii and Elyria are going to miss us.”

    “Elyria has been a little slow as of late,” Kyrani noted as they walked out of the room and quickly down to the stables.

    “Don’t let her hear you say that, or she’s going to throw you off her back again,” Kyri said with a laugh. "And we're not riding them, not in this weather. We're just brushing and feeding them."

    The stables were large and Kyri walked some ways until she got to her own horse's stall. Ryii, her black mare, nickered quietly as Kyri pulled a brush off the wall and ran it gently over Ryii's shoulder. Kyrani was speaking from her own stall a few further down, but Kyri couldn't understand her.

    She lost herself in the rhythmical storoking of Ryii's flanks, and wouldn't have surfaced from the wanderings of her own mind if not for a nauseating voice coming to her from the other end of the stables.

    “Hello, Kyri! It’s so good to see you again. Looking well.” Thomas smiled in a sickly sweet manner and Kyri suppressed the urge to shudder. Raising her head from where it was bowed, subconsciously praying that she was imagining the voice, she looked at his advancing figure.

    “Why are you here, Thomas?”

    “And so friendly too,” Thomas said with a slightly hardened edge to his words. “I decided to come ahead of schedule. I know your parents won’t mind.”

    “Oh, but I do, and I’m much more important, wouldn’t you say,” Kyri asked, no hint of a smile on her face.

    Thomas' eyes narrowed and he glared at her. Then his face cleared and he smiled, but he seemed to be looking behind her. Turning, Kyri saw her mother coming down the steps and entering the stables from the back entrance near the kitchens. She was smiling at Thomas and greeting him in a friendly manner. Kyri looked away in disgust.

    "I'll see you later, Kyri dear," came Thomas' voice from right in front of her stall as he passed and greeted the queen.

    Shaking her head, Kyri turned to glare at the wall as he left. She didn't even realize she was clamping down on the brush until Kyrani entered and forcefully took it from her.

    Ryii nudged her master's shoulder and sent the dazed elf stumbling backwards, tripping and landing in the water bucket.

    The dripping Kyri stood and shook her hair back. Kyrani was suppressing giggles and Kyri laughed herself.

    "Thank you, Ryii.."

    The horse nickered again, sending the sound echoing around the stables, almost like a laugh.



    Later that night, Kyri sat, cupping her chin in the palm of her hand, trying to enjoy the festivities around her. Thomas’ appearance heralded a grand feast, and Kyri hated feasts. She desperately tried to look interested in the brainless chatter of the assorted fops around her, without much noticeable success.

    The feasting hall was garishly dressed in colored buntings and streamers, the servants running around like mad to appease the lords and ladies at the table.

    The huge room echoed the loud voices of the drunken nobles and Kyri's head was beginning to pound.

    Thomas had been shooting her unreadable glances all night, and she was getting rather tired of it. She made an involuntary face, just because he was in her home and she didn't want him to be. Oh, but she got tired of him.

    While the rest of the people in the hall were preparing for the final course, she felt a strange tingling start in her right arm. She scratched at it absently, and would have dismissed it then and there if not for the fact that the tingling didn't go away. In fact, it sharpened until it became an acute pain running all up and down her arm. She pushed up the sleeve of her dress and gasped in surprise.

    A black dragon marking ran all up and down the length of her arm, the tail starting around her shoulder and the head on the palm of her hand. Little black points of flame curled around her fingers and seemed to flicker orange. Kyri stared at it in amazement and traced along it with her finger.

    Looking up, she saw Thomas' face. He was deathly pale and gripping the table so hard his knuckles were white. He met her eyes and she recoiled from the intense hatred lying there.

    Pleading illness, she excused herself from the feast and slipped unobtrusively into the hall. The noise level diminished almost immediately, and Kyri was left on her own the examine again the mark that had so suddenly appeared before quickening her step and heading toward her own secluded corner of the castle. It was always quiet near her tower, and it seemed just what she needed at this moment.

    As she walked, the wide corridors seemed to narrow and then widen again, pulsing with a life of their own. She felt a tingling on the back of her neck, as if she were being watched.

    Glancing around, she saw no one, but she hurried along just the same.

    Just as she neared her door, a soft step behind her caught her attention. She stopped and turned warily. Thomas stood, arms crossed, in the shadows. She caught her breath. How had he managed to get away from the feast? It was early yet to be ending, and it was in his honor, so propriety and etiquette demanded he stay the whole thing. It was shocking that Kyri had left early, Thomas leaving was just wrong.

    “How in the world did you get away from the feast, Your Highness?”

    Thomas’ already broad smile widened as he said, “Are we being formal now, my Lady? Well, if you must know, I did have quite a bit of drink. I shan’t offend your ladyship’s tastes by continuing that line of thought.”

    Kyri grimaced. “Just tell me what you want and leave.”

    His eyes grew wide in mock innocence and for the first time, Kyri noticed how disturbingly black they were. She put her back against the wall.

    His long, dark, oily hair swayed slightly as he tilted his head.

    “Is there something I’ve done to offend you? You’ve been nothing but antagonistic since my first visit to your lovely castle.”

    “Our respective races have been ‘antagonistic’ as you so intellectually put it, toward each other for eons. Why do you expect that to change now?”

    Thomas pretended to be hurt by her words. “I had hoped you and I to be the bridge over the chasm.”

    Kyri sighed. “You know what? Fine. Delude yourself all you want, but if you insist on doing so, do it elsewhere so I don’t have to listen to it. I’m going to leave.”

    Thomas’ smile hardened. “I don’t think so. You so obligingly showed me what our races have been waiting for centuries to see. I have the overwhelming honor to rid us all of it.”

    Kyri slid a little away from him. “What are you talking about?”

    “No one told you? What a shame. Well, the tale is too long to tell now, so I believe you’ll just have to die knowing your oh so beloved elves withheld information that might possibly have saved your life. Your stupid race couldn’t even be bothered to give you the simple protection that comes with knowledge. Although their flawed philosophy might have been to protect you through ignorance, but… well, we can both see how that turned out. Which just proves goblins as the superior race. We protect our own, something you idiots can’t even comprehend. I thought I loved you too, Kyri. I entreated your father for your hand in marriage last time I came. Now I know I was just attracted to your power.”

    Kyri’s rage was building. Though her thoughts were reeling, she was aware enough of Thomas’ words to comprehend the insults he so freely threw out. Maybe it was programmed into her to respond to them, but every time he lovingly uttered a word against her race, she saw red.

    Now Thomas was approaching her with decidedly eager eyes. Kyri’s panic was mounting, but she maintained her calm façade. She looked with calculating eyes at the stout wooden door of her room, and the strong deadbolt just on the inside. It was too far away for her to reach before Thomas got to her. She sent her thoughts out to Kyrani, in the manner Kyrani had told her about.

    All elven minds were connected and it was possible to call out to others of the elven race. It had seemed far-fetched to Kyri when first told about it, but in light of the revelations made soon thereafter (namely being told she was an elf and had hidden powers all elves were born with), she came to accept it as truth. It had been dubbed a pet name Kyri had used while trying to comprehend the notion: mind-speech.

    Kyrani! It’s Thomas. He followed me from the banquet and we’re at the tower.

    There was a moment of stunned silence and then Kyri felt her friend’s mind ranging out to find them. A moment later, the trapped elf heard her rescuer’s steps echoing far down the hall.

    Thomas’ eyes narrowed. “You do realize I can still kill you and get out of here before your pitiful friend comes and tries to rescue you, don’t you? Or the little weakling can die trying to protect you.”

    That was the last straw. She couldn’t stand by while Thomas threw barbed insults at her. She wouldn’t. She stood, back straight, eyes blazing as the confident goblin approached her.

    As soon as he was within arms reach of her, she reared back and struck him forcefully across the face. The blow itself wouldn’t have thrown him for more than two or three seconds, and that was all Kyri counted on to attempt an escape.

    She poured all her hatred, contempt, fear, and every other vile feeling she had ever experienced around Thomas into her blow, and she felt that power coursing through her veins and into her fingers, shocking into Thomas’ stunned face.

    All she felt was the overwhelming urge to hurt him, to burn him, to cause as much pain to him physically as he had ever caused her or anyone else emotionally. In a wildly exultant surge she felt a caressing touch on her fingers, still resting in the imprint they had caused on Thomas’ face.

    The next thing she saw was fire. Barely registering Thomas’ agonized shrieks as he crumpled to the floor in front of her, all she could see was the orb of pure flame she held cupped in the palm of her hand. The black dragon tattooing that ran along the length of her arm from her shoulder to her palm blazed a brilliant shade of scarlet momentarily, before fading back into the black.

    Kyri’s eyes were widened with horror as she turned them to Thomas’ figure, curled on the floor, clutching at his cheek. The fire in her palm had seared through his flesh, but she had pulled her hand away before any serious damage could be done. Before he could stop coddling his ruined face in his hands and she had to see the full extent of her ruin, she turned away from him to face down the hall.

    Kyrani was standing there, eyes huge, pupils dilated as she stared at Kyri. There was no fear in that gaze. Only stunned amazement and more than a little awe.

    “I’m leaving,” said Kyri shortly. “I’m leaving now. You can wait here and catch up with me when you’ve gotten your things together or you can come with me.”

    Kyrani took a deep breath and shut her eyes, gulping. “But what about the weather?"

    "I'm going to ride through it."

    The only thing Kyri was conscious of was the fact that she had to get away from this place or she would break down completely and most likely go into hysterics. She needed an explanation, but even more than that, she needed to leave.

    Kyrani nodded and followed Kyri as she stepped into the tower room. Grabbing her already packed bags from underneath her bed, Kyri thanked the heavens for the impatience to leave that had plagued her earlier that day. Instead of waiting for the next day to pack, she had wanted to be ready early in the morning so they could leave before Thomas arrived. That hadn’t turned out so well. Kyrani had to rush to throw some bags together, but to keep her mind off of what had happened to Thomas, Kyri hurried down to the stables and saddled Ryii and Elyria, the two girls’ personal horses.

    Thomas was nowhere to be seen in the halls.

    Before long, they were riding hard out of the castle gates, not even sparing a glance behind them.