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[Ember Cawood]

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The cave was dark, as always, when she opened her eyes. No light betrayed the setting sun beyond the tiny crevice that served as an entrance to the west. Both entrances to the cavern were so far from the darkest chamber where she slept that neither provided light. Not that she needed it anymore. Or had she ever needed it at all? The pitch black around her was so thick that it felt heavy against her chest for just a few seconds before her eyes adjusted completely.

Ember rose from the rocky cave floor and shook out her long, wildly crimson hair. The city to the east was calling to her again, though she still didn’t understand why. Umbra had a stranglehold on her, and she resignedly, dutifully made her way to the cave entrance. And as always, she took a torch. People traveling the path to and from Umbra looked at her less curiously if they thought she saw as poorly as they in the blanket of night that covered the land. Ember lit the torch, smoothed the radiant orange skirt of her dress, and stepped out of the stifling darkness of the cave…into the drenching Darkness of the Umbran night.

Ember rarely saw anyone but the shopkeepers, bloodletters, and practitioners of dark magicks who worked within the confines of the city. The darkened streets were most often bereft of life. Of true life, anyway. The occasional frantic soul scurried here and there, nervous eyes flitting left and right as they hurried to do their bidding and get out of the city again. Always, their gaze settled and then unsettled on Ember’s face as they passed—registering the contrast of Ember’s pallid face with her deep crimson lips and hair, they feared the worst.

But Ember had no bidding. Nothing but the emptiness within that drew her to wander the streets of Umbra. And so it was, every night, that she watched the fleeting glimpses of those with a pulse she could strangely hear, a warmth she could unexplainably feel from a dozen feet away. And every night she tried to unravel the feeling that gnawed at the fringe of her consciousness-- the suspicion that she had forgotten something desperately, desperately important.

[Ember Cawood]

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As Ember approached the west gate bridge, she knew that something was amiss. Someone was shouting…someone was fighting. The scent of charred flesh combined with the sickly sweet of burnt nox crystal made her flesh crawl with anticipation. What was there to anticipate? This battle didn’t involve her…

As she approached the bridge, her face still clean of emotion, Ember moved to one side to cross, passing by both the living and the not-quite living, standing one-another down. Ember wondered, momentarily, which side she would take if she were forced to choose. It would never come to that…

And then suddenly, it had. A sword was drawn somewhere behind her as she left the bridge. A spell was uttered, and the battle clashed. And then, there was no choice to be made. Ember instantly crouched, turning to face the battle. It felt as though a white-hot hook pierced her through, navel to spine, and was being dragged excruciatingly toward her neck, searing and shredding her insides as it rent her flesh. Yet, looking down at herself, Ember saw nothing that could cause such agony. Her arms and legs ached to spring, her hand ready at the hilt of her kryss. Nothing would quell this heat and anguish but spilling the blood of the one who held the sword. The one whose heart she heard beating frantically as he slashed at his enemy…the warmth of whose blood, spilt uselessly on the ground, she could feel against her face even as she tried to turn away.

The line had been drawn, this much was clear. More warmth approached from the center of the city. More heartbeats, rapidly building to a fevered pitch. Ember bit her lip and willed herself to run…away from the battle on the bridge, toward and through and beyond the wall of flesh and blood that charged toward the fray. And away from the lust for spilling the blood of these new enemies she had not known three minutes before.