Jewels from the Dark

Disclaimer: While I am a prolific reader of all sorts of material, I have not read everything ever written. As such, I am sure there will be some similarities to other works in the world and that is purely coincidental. All the material I write and share here came directly from my brain and has not been created by any form of known AI. The only “help” I have had so far is looking up Irish translations (which may be wrong – please correct me if it is!!) on Google Translate.

PREFACE
The woman moved forward, slowly, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Every step looked labored and she was bent over at the waist.

Wind whipped up around her, tugging at her cloak, pulling her hair out from under the hood. She dropped her head even more, curling in on herself, holding her hands tightly to her chest.

“Please,” she whispered to the swirling Wind, “Don’t…”

There was a sudden stillness…and then a sharp gasp as the Wind spun up tightly around the woman, snatching the very breath from her lungs.
A single tear slid silently down her face, as a long, brutal sigh escaped her lips.

As the exhale was torn from her body, she fell to her knees, her head now bare and her cloak pulled away from her shoulders in the gale. Her hands slowly closed around the last dying ember, attempting to shield it, as hope ebbed away and the tiny light was snuffed out.

PART 1

She was up and moving, her heart shattered into a million pieces, spilling out of her eyes and freezing in shards of ice on her face.

It was so cold and the wind had only became more ferocious after it stole the ember from her. She tugged the cloak closer and tried to bury her face in its softness. The relentless wind continued the game of wresting it away.

“I have to make it through the Waste,” she thought. “If I can just make it through.”

Looking ahead, she could see the Wilding Woods in the distance. The Wood meant shelter from the Waste Wind, but brought its own challenge of thick darkness. She had lived there since she was a child and knew she could take refuge in the Shadowlands beyond, if only her ember had not died.

The kiss of the Waste Wind tickled her ears, playing with tendrils of her hair, its cold fingers caressing her face. For a moment, she let her guard down and let the Wind speak.

“How tired you must be…,” it hissed. “How alone you are and so, so cold…” It moved around her with a sigh, picking at the corners of her hood, swirling the helm of the cloak open even as she held it firm.

“Rest,” it breathed. The voice was soft, melodic, kind; in stark contrast to the physical force it exerted.

“Rest,” she echoed. Her eyes feeling heavier, the once lingering warmth of the ember now a distant memory. Had she ever been warm? Had she ever held more than an ember? Was the Waste Wind the only thing she had known? Her mind felt achingly heavy, her body sinking down.

Her face felt stiff with the icy tears, but the heavy ache awoke something deep in her. She suddenly realized that as she had listened to the whisper of the Waste Wind, she had been sinking into the soft earth – it was almost to her waist. She could feel the pull of the Void below, gripping at her feet.

“No.” The word came out as a breath at first, choked in her throat. “No,” she repeated, stronger. In response, the Wind pushed her down, gently but insistently.

“No!” she shouted, digging her fingers into the ground and clawing her way forward.

The Wind lashed across her face, forcing the shards of her broken heart deeper into her skin. She felt her flesh open, warmth meeting the cold as blood mingled with tears.

“NO!!” she screamed, heat filling her belly, coursing through her blood to her limbs, consuming her from the inside out as the word turned to a deep keening within her.

She could sense the Wind held back by an invisible force, the whispering voice silenced as a bright light joined the warmth around her. Her eyes shut tightly, blinded by the intensity of the sudden glow.

“Éirí, Laoise, mo chroí lasair. Beidh tú i mo sholas sa dorchadas.”
Arise, Laoise, my heart flame. You will be my light in the darkness.

A new, stronger, deeper voice filled her ears, light and fire burning where ice once covered her. As it spoke, she felt the scars start to heal, the shards of her heart knitting back into a solid form, and an ever burning flame begin to glow inside her chest. The pain was exquisite, almost too much to bear.

Laoise threw her arms wide open as light radiated out of every part of her. The scream echoed out from the depths of her soul, emptying the darkness and leaving her full of fire and light.

What felt like an eternity later, she was able to see again. She reached up and felt her face, which bore thin scars of her shattered heart, yet the flesh had been stitched back together by the light. Although it was dark all around her again, she found that she could see clearly and the Waste Wind was held back, a breath away.

She got to her feet, pulling her cloak around her once more, and moved forward into the darkness, heading for the safety of the Wilding Woods.