|
|
|
A story by Fluitare
Marciel was still young when she killed her first elf. By her own people's standards, she was barely out of childhood, and she was four years younger than her brother had been when he made his first kill.
Her victim had been a fool and a glutton, tempted by a coy smile and a flutter of her golden eyelashes, slobbering in his haste to lay hod of her. She wondered why someone else had not taken him before.
The dark elves were creatures in hiding, tearing a living from the rocks and shadows that made their kingdom. It had been a long time since they had been driven back from the light.
There was not enough gold to feed all of them, regardless of how much dark magic they called to the land. So it became the custom for each elf to become an assassin when they reached adulthood, taking the spoils of their murder as inheritance. The younger the elf attempted a kill, the less likely they were to succeed, and most elves waited several years past their maturity.
Marciel had been so young that no-one was on their guard against her.
"Mm," she said, stepping delicately over the dead body still lying on the floor. "Light magic." She was wandering her new house, and the glitter of gold sparks caught her eye. It was in a protective glass case, to keep it untainted by the dark magic that always hummed and swirled around the elves. "Come here," she murmured, lifting the glass.
Light magic was a rare treasure. They could not make it, only steal it from the light elves, and it had to be sealed away at all times last it be corrupted by contact with dark magic. Because it was so delicate, anyone lucky enough to possess some kept it protected and unused.
Marciel was felt no such compunction.
She reached out towards the hovering ball of light, and, a moment before her hand would have touched it, her aura of magic made contact. There was an abrupt, crackling shock as the new magic raced up her arm, across her shoulder blades, exploding in tendrils of light across her back, weaving into gold dresses daggers and crowns that melted back into her in an instant.
"I like that one," she said to the magic, freezing a gold-and-blue overcoat into reality. The magic would take a while yet to become hers. Even the magic the dead elf was not fully absorbed into her own, and that was an intimately simple and familiar kind. She doubted that the rushes of power she felt could be used to harm one of the light elves, at least now. But her magic would corrupt it, steadily and surely.
Marciel smiled. She was the youngest dark elf in a hundred years to have made a kill, and she was the only one who dared to take light magic. She raised her hand, and the magic snapped to attention, writhing in gold swirls from behind her as she strode out the door of her house, towards the palace of the king.
For even he was not exempt from the laws of assassination, and anyway there were very few people who could complain when they were dead.
amarzyciel · Fri Aug 01, 2014 @ 06:15pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|