1: Demon War

I remember the streets of Ezna. I remember the houses falling in flames, the screams of raw terror, the rivulets of blood between the paving stones. I remember the people running blindly, hoping somehow to escape from us. These were no soldiers who had gone into battle knowing they might never return. They were innocents, defenseless; many were children.

I remember the young mother on her knees before me as she cradled her dying child, the child I had just butchered. She looked up at me through her tears and uttered but a single word.

"Why?"

And I regarded her without a shred of remorse, and did not reply. Then I grabbed her by the hair and slit her throat. She is a hundred years gone, yet I still see her clearly. Now, the scene is etched with sorrow and I shed tears of pity, but then — back then I felt nothing. I knew I had power, frightening power. But there was no anger, no lust, no mercy, not even excitement. I moved as if in a dream, without volition, and I killed mechanically. It was what I was made to do.

She is a hundred years gone, and still I cannot answer her question. I don't know why.

2: Captivity

I remember waking to the sound of the ocean, groggy in the remnants of a half-forgotten dream, seeing all the other Warborn looking as bewildered as I must have. I understood only that some part of me was gone; the thing that had driven me was silenced. Many years later I would learn the name of that thing: Akasch.

Some Harani led us away and we followed like lost sheep into captivity, into slavery.

3: Escape

The day I left Sunbite was cloudless and hot, like any other. I scurried through the marketplace at Fleurstad, trying vainly to stay in the scant shade of the buildings. Rounding a corner, I nearly bowled over a Harani woman. But when I apologized profusely and began to bow before her, she held up a hand.

“Please, it's not necessary to bow.” I was startled. “Where I come from, there are no slaves. But perhaps you would be good enough to carry these bundles to my cart? I will pay you for the work, of course.”

I did as she asked; after all, she was Harani. But I was puzzled by the concept of being paid for this. When the cart was loaded and the driver had begun his slow journey with her goods, she offered me 20 gold coins, leaning in close as she did so.

She spoke very quietly. “You are welcome to step through my portal to home. I own a concert hall in Rokhala Mountains and there is a performance today. Come and see it.”

We slaves were not allowed to use portals, and for just an instant I wavered before jumping in and leaving my entire life behind. Dazed and disoriented, I came out the other side to a scene I could never even have imagined. A cool fresh breeze wafted music over a sparkling lake surrounded by tall pines. Beautifully appointed buildings and gardens lined the shore. And people of all races mingled freely, drinking and chatting, enjoying the music.

I sank into the nearest chair, afraid my knees might buckle. That was when I saw her. She had human proportions with the ears and long tail of a cat, and she was covered in white fur.

“What...what are you?” A few gasps and giggles around me told me that question was rude, but I was too unstrung to care.

She merely smiled, exposing the points of her fangs, and bowed graciously. “I am a Firran. My ancestors were the original inhabitants of Haranya. I am called Snowberry.”

Without her generous spirit, I would have been lost in this unfamiliar world. For the moment I saw what was out here, what all of my kind had been denied, I vowed never to return to Sunbite, though I had no idea how to live outside of slavery. Snow took me in and taught me everything, never scoffing at even the most naive questions.

4: Obsession

I've learned that my people existed before we became Warborn. But I recall nothing of that life. Who were we, and what befell us? I must know.

As autumn deepened, so did my hunger for knowledge. I sought every available source, but found frustratingly little. What I did find gnawed at me until I began to lose sleep and forgot to eat.

5: Windstone

I am on my way to attend the Gweonid Lantern Festival, for only during the festival are the Elves open to talking with outsiders. Elves hold the key; I have heard the memorists know more of my people's history than anyone.

When I told her I was leaving, Snowberry looked out at the rising moon for a long moment, then embraced me.

“My dear friend, may you find what your heart truly seeks. And may the wind carry you back to me one day.”

Riding through darkness, I held aloft her parting gift to me, a smooth stone with numerous holes piercing it. She called it a windstone, and told me it would sing in the wind, it would sing my soul. The melody was haunting, rootless and melancholy. And I had heard it before. But where? And when?

6: Memory

The memorist must have taken pity on me, for by then I was ragged and desperate. She agreed to share the secrets her people had teased out of ruins and bones.

"You were called Nuons once; you were warriors unparalleled, dragon slayers." She swept a hand through an arc. "This city, Memoria, you built this hundreds of years ago. The statues around Gweonid Lake are all Nuon work, and the structures that stand in Karkasse Ridgelands."

For days I wandered among stone walls, touching the carved ornamentation, trying to hear the echoes of lost ages. I gazed at the statues on the lakeshore for hours. They were proud, heroic, and they looked a little like us, with wings instead of horns.

7: Dragons

A red dragon flew leisurely loops in the distance. Why had we sought to exterminate such magnificent beings? For weeks now, I had wandered Karkasse, walking among half-fallen citadels, hoping to understand. And everywhere were the weathered bones. Misagon, the dragon-god, this was all that remained of him. In our arrogance, we had taken him down.

Once, the dragon had been unimaginably strong; now the bones shouted helpless rage into my nerves. I wanted to know why we killed him, but the Elves wanted to know how. There was lust in the memorist's voice when she spoke of the power the Nuons possessed, power to destroy gods. They thirsted for vengeance, for destruction. I heard a voice carried through ages, from the dark streets of Ezna.

"Why?"

8: Windsong

Night fell, cold and clear. I shivered as the wind flowing around the dragon ribs began to keen a song. It was slower, deeper, but unmistakably the melody in my windstone. Transfixed, I listened for an hour as a moon crawled up from the horizon, perfectly framed between the bones.

My mind's eye saw Snow gaze at the moon, and I remembered her parting words, "May you find what your heart truly seeks." I understood then that she hadn't meant knowledge. She had meant equanimity, peace with the unknown.

Pulling the windstone from my pocket, I held it up. But I had turned the other side to the wind, and the song was changed. It was rooted now, lighter and more free.

In the morning, the wind will carry me back to her. The wind will carry me home.