Chapter 1
The air was unnaturally warm, even for Liavis, and that made Amber slightly upset.
It was already bad enough that the day had been sweltering, but now the remaining rays of sun filtered through the trees, somehow warming the air around her even more as she trained. Her hand wrapped around worn leather, fingers playing with bits of fraying thread and tracing along cool metal. She let the coldness seep into her skin for a moment before flicking her wrist with practiced precision. Three knives thudded into a roughly painted red circle in rapid succession; the first two biting into the center circle of wood with little space between the blades, the third striking one of the outer rings.
She huffed, finally allowing herself to relax after three hours of warm ups, sprinting, and knife throwing. She almost looked behind her, expecting her father to be standing there, about to comment on her performance. He wasn’t there. He would never be standing there, commenting on her training skills anymore.
Excellent work today, Amber, she could hear him say, though he was nowhere in sight.
Her eyes scanned the clearing several times before she allowed her shoulders to slump. She dragged herself to the target; a tall evergreen, and removed the blades she had thrown into the wood. Sinking to her knees, she ran a hand down her face, streaking dust and grime along her skin at the same time. She blinked away tears that were threatening to spill over and let herself fall back onto the grass.
Soft blades tickled her skin as a gentle breeze blew past; the sudden chill soothing against her sweaty skin. She watched the sky darken from bright blue to deep indigo, with splashes of pink and yellow cutting through a void of black. Stars slowly blinked into existence; millions of tiny diamonds shimmering and twinkling amidst the fabric of night.
Maybe her father was with the stars right now, watching with careful eyes.
She hoped he was. She wanted him to see how much she had improved. She wanted him to be proud of her.
“Be careful with those knives,” he once said when she just started learning the basics of knife throwing. “You don’t want to cut yourself with them.”
“I know Dad,” she had muttered, dismissing it as a necessary, yet annoying reminder. “It’s common sense.”
At the time, she hated these little reminders, thinking it meant that she was not ready to learn a certain skill yet. Now she would give anything to have her father correct her on her stance, her skills, even having him remind her of the basics of weapons training would give her a sense of closure.
She closed her eyes, letting her thoughts run free as she mulled over the past several weeks. In all honesty, it had blurred into one extremely long day that had no start and no end. She couldn’t remember when her father, a well known explorer of Drakania, had suddenly disappeared on one of his expeditions. She could vaguely remember that the group that he had gone with refused to share any detail of what had really happened.
“You wouldn’t want to know,” was what the Captain of the Diavian Guard told her. His brown eyes had held pity and sorrow. Whether it was for her or for himself she did not know, nor did she care. It was his words that she focused on.
“I have every right to know, he’s my father,” she had said, her temper flaring up.
“Amber!” her mother had snapped, her voice firm though it wavered slightly. “That’s enough, go to your room.” The words “don’t argue with me” hung silently in the air between them.
She had listened; silently fuming and trying to rein back her rage the entire time. When she reached her room, she had thrown the window open and climbed out, a belt of throwing knives clutched in her hand as she scaled down the outer walls. She had run and didn’t stop until she had reached the forests bordering the city of Liavis.
The clearing, along with the painted circles on tree trunks lining the perimeter had been her sanctuary within the madness.
The sky was an inky void when Amber decided to recollect her thoughts and head home. She purposely walked slower than usual, wanting to savor the peacefulness as long as she could before she arrived home.
Dried leaves and twigs crunched under her boots as she carefully pushed branches out of her way and jumped over fallen logs. Trills and squawks of unknown creatures sounded somewhere to her left and was answered by a series of calls that came from the foliage around her.
It unsettled her enough to not venture off and follow the sounds — especially since it was nighttime — and she wasn’t going to risk her life exploring, no matter how it intrigued her. For all she knew, this was how her father went missing; trailing after some creature in the dark hoping to study it, only to fall prey to whatever sinister motive it had.
A small lizard with glowing dorsal spikes suddenly scuttled onto the path in front of her. It stared at her with intelligent green eyes, a forked tongue darting out and licking its eyeball as it sat there, motionless save for the rising and falling of its chest.
“Hello,” she said softly, kneeling down to examine the reptile more closely. It resembled a tiny, wingless dragon, emitting a sort of energy that was familiar, but she couldn’t place her finger on why it felt that way. Maybe it had something to do with the stories she’d heard so many times when she was younger.
It let her gently pet its head for a few minutes before it chirped and suddenly disappeared into the darkness in a bright flash of green. She could’ve sworn the lizard gave her a knowing look before vanishing completely. Just as the glow was fading, she caught sight of something round, glinting softly in the dying light.
Lunging forward with the little bit of visibility she had, Amber felt around for whatever it was she saw; a stone or maybe a random scrap of glass. Her fingers brushed something smooth and glassy before they closed around the object.
Without bothering to examine what she just picked up, she continued her way home. The item sat in her pocket, seeming to grow heavier with each step she took. Yet at the same time, it energized her, pushing her to keep going when she thought about spending the night in the forest instead of going home.
Not long after, she stepped from the treeline into the warm orange glow casted by candle lanterns surrounding her house and lining the path that led to the front door. The building itself was not far in the distance, lit up by more waxy beacons.
She brushed some grass and debris from her clothes in an attempt to tidy herself up and ran up the steps two at a time.
The door swung open before she could open it herself, revealing her mother. An expression of slight disappointment was barely concealed on her face as she opened the door wider.
“Amber, we need to talk about your time management,” was all her mother said.
The seventeen year old didn’t try to argue as she stepped into the warmth and comfort of her home.
The small glassy stone inside her pocket emitted a pulse of energy, unnoticed inside the brightly lit rooms. It snaked up her arm, leaving vein-like patterns of green along her skin as it made its way to her heart. The patterns, though covered by her shirt sleeves, slowly faded away until it disappeared entirely. The energy however, remained — a hidden power buried deep in her soul, waiting to be unleashed.
Two years later
A polished, triangular stone of shimmering green hung around Amber’s neck, reflecting bands of blue and yellow across her clothing and complexion. The girl herself was slouched on her bed, staring at the stone with boredom etched on her face. There was also a hint of anger amidst the indifference, something darker glimmering in her blue-purple eyes.
She lifted a hand, staring at each individual finger before lifting the necklace, watching it slide around on a thin leather cord. Beads clicked against one another; small, polished spheres of labradorite and obsidian framing either side of the cursed stone. To everybody else, it was just a pretty necklace. If anyone asked her, she could just say it was something her father gave her before he disappeared.
Clutching it tightly in one hand, she held up the other, this time narrowing her eyes in concentration.
A swirl of bright green energy surrounded her open palm, humming and buzzing as it came to life. She glared at the display of power and the energy slowly formed the shape of a dragon, the wispy winged beast flying around her open hand for a second before dissipating into sparkling emerald particles. She slammed her hand onto the bedsheets and a hissing sound was heard, along with a small plume of smoke curling up from the wrinkled blankets. A blackened handprint remained burned into the fabric when she removed her hand. She muttered a curse under her breath. This hadn’t been in her father’s stories. None of this had been in his stories.
With a growl of annoyance, she shoved the necklace under her shirt and glared at the walls. She hoped that the excuse of “I got paint on my blanket again” would work for the seventh time.
She knew that the stone she had randomly picked up two years ago was an arkey; an object so rare that, in recent years, had begun to transition from reality into legend.
She knew they formed when small Drakanian lizards, known in the human kingdoms as arkus, died, were fossilized, and had a tremendous amount of pressure applied to the bones. These lizards are believed to carry a weakened form of dragonfire in their veins, which could be preserved in their remains when they passed. Assuming that the fossilization process went without a hitch and the bones had been subjected to a high amount of pressure, it would be metamorphosed into a stone. The power within the stone depended on what sort of arku it came from.
Anyone who possessed such a stone was gifted with powers that most humans would only dream of having. They were called the Unlocked, as they’d “unlocked” the secret ability that was believed to reside dormant in all humans. A creative name, because humans are creative creatures.
She recalled that her father had a stone pendant like hers, only it was red. But he never gave any indication that he had powers. It could very well be a normal stone pendant.
She had no idea what kind of power she had awoken, only that it burned like fire, but what kind of fire was green? Maybe it was corrosive, like acid. That would explain the color, and the properties of the energy. For a moment she thought that the lizard might have had something to do with this whole situation she had gotten herself into. It had seemed more intelligent than normal reptiles, and there was a subtle glow to it when she saw it. Not to mention, she found the stone almost immediately after the reptile disappeared. It was as if the lizard had gotten her attention just to drop the stone off, right where she would undoubtedly notice.
Amber took out the stone again, gazing at it as if she was captivated by the bands of red, blue and yellow that swirled beneath the glassy surface. She remembered how the energy had shot out of her hand during one of her training sessions and left a charred black crater in a tree trunk. She remembered how she nearly threw the stone away after, but some voice in her head had convinced her to keep it. Even though she had gotten relatively used to green energy randomly bursting from her palms whenever her emotions ran wild, it still took her by surprise. She’d have to practice these abilities more during her training sessions.
In an attempt to pass time, she created a small glowing ball and let it float above her head, focusing on keeping it from exploding in a shower of corrosive sparkles. For a while, it just hovered above her, shimmering as the surface swayed and rippled like an ocean. Small droplets resembling green slime dripped from the base, falling for only a second before they fizzled out of existence, leaving a faint but acrid smell behind.
“Amber!” The voice of her younger sister reached her ears, muffled by the closed door. It broke her concentration and she started, the ball promptly exploding in a shower of corrosive sparkles that shot to the walls of her room, burning through the wood as residual energy ran down the panels. “Your friends are here, come down!”
She’d also have to come up with another excuse for the black streaks.
She slowly made her way out of her room, not bothering to hide her necklace under her shirt. No one had to know that she was an Unlocked, and no one would know. She would tell her family in the future, but only when she had figured out the secrets she’d unlocked.
Unbeknownst to her, her eyes flashed green once before returning to their normal blue-purple color.
Amber drowned out the chatter that surrounded her and focused on the massive chalkboard at the front of her classroom; a large colosseum-esque lecture hall with rows of seats arranged in six tiers a level, four levels up. In neat, elegant cursive, her professor had scrawled the words Diavian History along the upper edge, with section upon section of notes, timelines and important events listed below.
She sat on the first level, on the third seat tier, with the ones around her taken by her friends. They were all murmuring to each other with excitement, as there would be a representative from Regia Diavum arriving at Autarcus. The reason for the representative’s arrival was unknown, but it was enough to make all the students pay more attention to the lessons. It was probably due to the rumor that a few lucky individuals would be selected to continue the next part of their lives at the castle and various manors scattered throughout the kingdom. The rumor that had been confirmed by her best friend, who had overheard it from his father.
“Representatives from the Regia expect you to be well informed in our kingdom’s history,” was what the professor had stated before the lesson started. He seemed to pause for a moment before continuing, “And if you’re lucky, you’d get to learn more at the Regia yourself.”
Amber lost herself in worlds and battles brought to life by her professor’s teachings. She imagined standing in the middle of a battlefield, facing down dragons and enemy soldiers. She imagined flying across the fields, green energy trailing from her hands as she tore through different opponents. A metallic scent hung in the air as more fighters from both sides fell, the ground slick with blood of the dead. Then she blinked and found herself sitting astride a large dragon, hovering above a castle while other dragons brought destruction and ruin upon the unfortunate inhabitants. The wind roared as her dragon dove for the castle, stirring up small cyclones of dust and debris, obscuring her vision and—
She managed to pull herself from her thoughts and daydreams just in time to hear the topic of the lesson change from Diavian history to the origins of the Unlocked. Even if the kingdom’s knowledge on this subject was limited, she still might learn something new. As her professor finished describing the process of arkey formation and called for a ten minute break, she heard someone whisper, “I’m pretty sure they just made that up to confuse us on examination days” in her ear.
She could say for almost absolute certainty that these facts were not made up.
She turned, meeting the slightly bored gaze of her best friend. “I’m pretty sure you’re just saying that because you have little interest in the Unlocked, Casmir,” she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the board despite her thoughts already drifting away to the daydream world again.
“Wait, if you’re going to be a soldier, shouldn’t you pay attention?” a blonde girl cut in as she leaned against the back of the seat in front of her.
“Mel, you know he’s going to be good at anything he does,” Amber said, lightly nudging the boy beside her as she spoke. She let a playful smile flit across her lips despite her anxiety. She wasn't going to pass up a chance at messing with her best friend. “Isn’t that right, Cas?”
He laughed softly and showed her a page of notes, which had a few lines scrawled along the paper. “I do pay attention, I took notes.” Casmir said, much to his friends’ amusement.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Melody snickered as she leaned back in her seat.
“Say what you want,” he countered, crossing his arms. “I know an Unlocked when I see one. I don’t need notes for that.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it.”
Amber’s face paled at his words and her hand instinctively clutched at the necklace that rested just under her shirt. She forced herself to remain calm. It was unlikely that anyone had found out about the powers she now possessed, but she shouldn’t always count on such luck to hold out for long.
“I saw one last month.” Casmir continued. “And—”
Her eyes flew open and she gasped, disguising it with a very obviously faked coughing fit, earning glances of concern from her friends. “I’m fine,” she choked out, waving a hand dismissively. She pointed shakily at the front of the room, where their professor was talking to several people wearing Diavian castle regalia. “We can continue this…interesting discussion later. It looks like our representative is here.” Maybe I’m just paranoid, and there’s another Unlocked that I’m not aware of.
“Oh wow, it’s the Captain!” Melody exclaimed as the chatter in the room dimmed and slowly faded away. “Wonder what happened this time.”
“It’s probably just some announcement,” Amber murmured, silently praying to all dragons that the Unlocked wouldn’t be mentioned at all.
She nearly laughed out loud — albeit sarcastically — when the first words the Captain said as he strode to the front of the hall were “It has come to my attention that there is an Unlocked within our kingdom.” His words effectively captured the room’s attention and everyone hushed. “While these are only rumors, we must still take precautions. I’ve been told that this particular Unlocked has,” he glanced at a piece of paper in his hand, “pretty, glowing, green energy balls that burned through wood, according to an eye witness.” It might’ve been her imagination, but she thought she saw the Captain smile with amusement as he read out the description.
Amber slumped in her seat, the action unnoticed by her friends. Of course. My luck is terrible anyways, so he’d find out and tell the entire school. How many people did she know who were also Unlocked and can create “pretty, glowing, green energy balls”? One person; herself.
“I am aware of the laws surrounding the Unlocked, but please, I ask you to not kill them on sight should you encounter them.” His eyes seemed to sweep over the crowds as he spoke, sending a silent warning to those who might’ve been considering the possibility. Knowing that most of the students here were desperate to prove themselves to be better than their peers, Amber knew there was a high number who thought that. “We don’t need another Serena Heidurn incident happening.”
She almost scoffed with disbelief at his words; there was no way she was going to end up on a rampage spree like the infamous blue-haired girl.
“But if we don’t kill them, how do we prevent them from becoming even more of a danger?” someone from the back of the room asked, shouting so their voice was heard. She shrank more in her seat, disguising the action as one of exhaustion.
“We’re trying to ask questions first before shooting,” the Captain said dryly. “And unless anyone else has a better idea, this is what we are working on.”
“This isn’t what you should be worrying about,” he continued. “Most, if not all of you are soon to be graduating Autarcus and will be pursuing your own lives.”
That might’ve been the end of the speech, it might’ve not; Amber didn’t stay long to listen anymore.
Her head was buried in her hands, fingers curling and twisting through strands of auburn. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps as panic and anxiety coursed through her veins. With a pounding head as blood roared in her ears, she managed to pull herself into a sitting position, with her knees hugged tightly to her chest.
Her mother and sister didn’t question it when she had thrown open the door with more force than necessary and stormed up to her room. They didn’t say much, really. The most conversation that happened between them that day was Evangeline asking, “You okay, sis?” from the other side of her door.
She had given a dismissive reply, something along the lines of “Yeah” or “I’m fine”; vague, but enough to sway her sister to leave her alone for the moment.
Then her body was wreathed in green and a wave of corrosion and fire was thrown outwards. She might’ve screamed, or at least exclaimed with surprise, but she couldn’t remember. It was like the energy had thrown a veil over her mind and dulled her senses.
She willed the brightness of the glow to dim to a bearable degree. To her surprise, it did. The white in her vision faded until she could see clearly. She gaped at the sight before her.
The walls around her were streaked in black, some parts with wisps of smoke curling up from the ashes. A few straggling bits of green energy remained, hovering around her head like a halo, fizzing and sparking at random intervals. She would’ve thought it was ethereal or beautiful if she hadn’t done this herself.
Another strangled breath escaped her throat and her hands subconsciously curled into fists, fingernails digging small crescents into her skin. Never before had this much power been expelled from her. She didn’t know she was even capable of doing something like this. Most of the time, she only managed to create a few energy balls that floated around before fizzing out.
She would have to make a really good excuse for the blackened walls, the slightly charred bedsheets, and smoky window glass.
:Child of Drakania: a gentle voice whispered in her ear, a ray of light breaking through her clouded thoughts. :Why so glum?:
Amber’s head shot up, her eyes darting around wildly. They swept over every corner of her room, seeking out the source of that voice. It sounded feminine, and though it might’ve only been a figment of her imagination, she could’ve sworn there was something more guttural and wild under the words of comfort as well. The green energy that floated around her head exploded outwards; a shower of sparkles like the display of flares so often seen during the Summer Gala. They, too, burned through the wooden panels on her wall.
:Dragonfire burns within your veins:
She didn’t miss the underlying pride that was disguised with soft murmurs. Or maybe it was jealousy, she didn’t know.
Something slithered over her shoulder, lightly brushing through her hair. She started, whipping around, expecting to find something or someone behind her. There was only a blank wall. Knots in the wood stared back at her. Taunting, challenging, piercing. She blinked and the images faded away.
Hesitantly, and feeling rather foolish as she did so, she called, “Hello?” half hoping that something would happen.
There was no reply from the voice, or from her mother and sister even though both were in the house.
Heaving a sigh, she returned her attention to streaks of black that lined her walls. Smooth curves and sharp angles blurred together, twisting and writhing until an ashy dragon crawled along the perimeter of her room. It stared at her, a small puff of smoke escaping its nostrils as it shook its head and huffed.
:Child of Drakania: the voice said again. She didn’t so much as flinch this time. :You have a great power, a great gift. Not many in Drakania are willing to share the Dragonfire:
“You mean this?” Amber lifted her necklace, tilting her head, forgetting momentarily that she was probably talking to an empty wall. “It’s an arkey.”
:A Dragonstone: The wispy dragon on her walls huffed out another puff of smoke, the action almost convincing her that this was the source of the voice. :Use it well:
“Everything’s to do with dragons,” she murmured. A sudden thought came to her mind and she nearly scoffed. “Next thing you tell me, my father’s gone because of the dragons.”
The voice stayed silent. The ashy dragon was once again a tangled mess of charred, black wood.
“Great, now I’m hallucinating,” she grumbled, pushing up onto her feet. She cringed when she laid eyes on the state of her room; it was worse than she had initially thought. The rumpled bed sheets were dusted with a fine layer of ash; the walls had long black streaks that were still smoking running down the panels; the windows were coated in more dust than before. She quickly used her sleeve and wiped the windows as best as she could, then bundled up her blankets and shoved them in her closet. She could deal with them, and the charred wood later.
Taking off the necklace, she left it in a drawer by her desk, intending on leaving it there for the rest of her life. “Goodbye, pretty gemstone, you won’t be missed,” she said as she slid the drawer closed.
It felt strange. Liberating, almost. Like taking the necklace off had lifted some sort of weight that had been pushing down on her shoulders. But at the same time, it was like she had lost some part of her.
She had only taken a few steps to the door before the voice spoke one last time.
:You’re leaving that there? The power? The ability you were gifted with?:
The emptiness from before grew. It became unbearable, painful. It was perhaps more painful than when she found out her father was never coming back. She gripped the knob tighter until engraved metal bit into her skin. An indentation of a curled dragon remained on her palm when she let go.
:Keep the Dragonstone safe, child:
She scrambled back to the drawer and threw it open, grabbing the necklace. She managed to fasten it around her neck after fumbling with the clasp for a moment.
:Good:
Amber closed her eyes, inhaling deeply to calm her racing heart. That should not have made her so anxious. It was just a necklace, it shouldn’t affect her that much.
When she opened her eyes again, she really did scream.
Her vision was tinted green.
