Prologue: Memory

Drumming. There was drumming. Low and ponderous, it shook the ice with each rhythmic beat and the darkness followed soon after.

Ash. There was ash, now – floating, drifting, it looked so…so gentle.

But the screams – the screams were the loudest, the running was the loudest; the entire world of ice was trembling at what might have been the end. An end to all suffering, an end to all pain. But it was not the end. It could not have been.

The ships were moored, now, the ramps lowering as fire spilled from its metal womb. They looked like fire, they were fire; crimson like…like blood. Like blood, they were so red. Red did not scare her. Red did not.

Red terrified her.

Red killed.

Red stole.

Red was blood, and it was fire, and it was fierce.

They were marching now, a sea of crimson and gold. They looked beautiful, elegant, but dangerously so. It was almost wondrous to her – how starkly they stood out against the ice, these people from a warmer world.

She barely noticed those who were running all around her. Blue was running, blue was afraid, but it was not weak. Not even when the soldiers stopped marching and stilled, not even when the only sound heard was the lapping of the pale waters against the ice, did anyone speak. The screams had stopped – this white world was at a standstill. And still the ash floated down, down, dusting the snow with black dots.

A man came forward then, emerging from the great red sea. He looked like the rest of them, wearing armor of fire, but his helm did not fully enclose his face and she could see a black beard that came to a point beneath his chin. His face was hardened and wrinkled from war, his eyes a dull yellow save for a sparkle that appeared only when he smelled fear and he grinned and it was malicious, so malicious that she could not look at him for too long, but then this face was changing, swirling, and there was a scar that appeared on the left side of his face but this was not the man! It was not him…Who was he? The man with the scar and the beard was gone, the wrinkles were gone, in their place unbroken and pale but that scar…It was so red and his eyes were no longer a sickly yellow but a shining gold, but she did not like them, she could not stand them.

He stopped in front of the blue people, his face dark and – my god, that scar – he looked around slowly, his brows drawing together as the wind picked up around the small world of ice.