Prologue

She smiled as the ruins’ song filled the air.

To mortal eyes, it would seem mere broken, cold stone. But Atastimina felt its warmth. The wooden beads buried within the blocks kept their sparks, memorials to minds long departed. 

Yet their memories lingered. To those who heard, they would never die.

For a time, Ata stood and listened. When she opened her eyes, the day had passed, and night had fallen. Guilt stirred in her. Time had once been as abundant as leaves of grass; she had grown used to spending it in idle freedom. Now, eternity had contracted into moments, each as precious and vital as those of her infancy, centuries before.

“We are reborn…”

Cackling to the unhearing castle, Ata strolled through its rubble-strewn corridors. She sharpened her senses as she probed the tumbled stones with purpose. Most of the world yielded to her touch, but there was resistance here.

A barrier. Nearly imperceptible, but plain as sunlight to her keen senses.

Ata caressed it with her heritage. Like light reflecting on the surface of water, the magic made the barrier discernible. She pressed harder; the barrier yielded a measure. She thought it might soon give. 

Then water hardened to glass, then stone, then diamond. She could press no further in.

Ata relented with a sigh. Few things could resist her, and all those that did posed a grave threat to the Kin. But she had lived too long to heed fear.

“Even if I should…”

Lifefire flickered above, drawing up her gaze. In the sky above the ruins, clouds swirled together, forming a towering column, gray and tumultuous. Within it, energy was building and taking shape.

Ata grinned up at the storm.

“You are not the only one who hides, my little friend,” she murmured, pressing a hand to her chest. Her talons pressed through the silver fur spread there to touch the beast nestled within. “They were here all along, tucked inside their den. I wonder if you knew it. And here I thought your loyalty was to me and our mutual friend!”

The thunderhead flickered with lightning. The sky rumbled. Clouds spilled over the jungle beyond the ruins.

Ata sighed and lowered her head. “But I’m afraid you must leave me now. We each have our duty.”

She pressed her nails in harder until her amber ichor stained the fur. But that was only a slight pain next to that from the other creature peeling off her soul.

As the silver fox departed, Ata shed her fur. It fell in a shimmering cloud around her feet, and she shivered. Only in moments of transition did the cold touch her.

Then it was done, and he sat before her. The fox’s fur shone as bright a silver as the coat she had discarded. His sunset-orange eyes stared up at her. She might have thought him reproachful but for the flick of his tail.

“Then why must you make the parting so difficult?” she chastised. “You’re as eager to be on your way as I am.”

A peal of thunder drowned out the ruins’ singing. Ata glanced up to see a shadow brighten against the belly of the clouds. It was wide as the ruins themselves, looming and formidable as few creatures were the world.

The shape tilted its flight to plummet toward them.

“Watch over her, little one,” Ata said, unconcernedly looking back at her companion, “and watch well. I think her time of awakening is not yet complete.”

Pausing only a moment longer, the silver fox darted away, fleeing the storm. 

Ata remained where she was. Anticipation burned through her. Death descended, yet a laugh stole free as its power rippled across her wooden flesh.

Lightning struck where she stood.

Stones shattered. Ancient ruins broke apart. Powder rose into the air, shrouding all in dust.

The clouds flew back up from the desolation, spinning in a circle before spreading out across the sky. As quickly as it had come, the storm departed.

The dust slowly settled in the courtyard below. Empty of intruders once more.

Ata, unharmed just beyond the entrance archway, smiled up at the sky. “Next time, perhaps, my old enemy.”

With a flourish of her feathers, she stepped through the world and vanished.

Select the next chapter to keep reading the sample or pick up the full book on Kickstarter.