Narya stumbled and fell onto the hard earth of the rutted path she saw, overgrown with weeds. There was a smaller laurel tree to her right and for as far down the winding path as she could see, thick, dark trees sprouted on either side. Small shrubs with insignificant flowers bloomed on the path itself and within the foliage as well. She looked up, trying to find where she came from and noticed a small opening in the fabric of space several feet in the air and she could see the ceiling and the very edges of the colossal bookshelves from the room whence she came from.
A few heartbeats later, her mother fell flat on her back, falling inelegantly out of the portal. It closed as she hit the ground. Narya noticed something protruding from her chest. "Mom?"
Her mother, stirred her breathing somewhat ragged.
"Mom, are you okay?" Narya asked, crouching before her. There was a small wooden shaft sticking out of her stomach, from where blood welled and froze in place. The skin immediately surrounding the wound was frozen like frosted glass and it seemed to be spreading rather quickly. "Oh my Gods! No, no no, this can't be happening!"
Her mother turned her head rather slightly to take one last look at her daughter. "Your father shot me with a frost-enchanted arrow," she let out a ill-fated chuckle. "I'll be completely ice within minutes and you'll have to walk away and finish what I began."
"But you just got out, mother, you cannot go out yet," Narya said, struggling to keep the welling tears from falling.
"Once the spell has begun it cannot be reversed," her mother explained, looking into the sky, acknowledging what a beautiful day it was. "I need to tell you something before I go."
Narya looked at her mother woefully, a tear streaking down her cheek. "Anything, mother."
"You come from a line of powerful sorcerers. It is your destiny to find that power and to put an end to your father's deceptive rule."
"How, mother? How?" asked Narya, more confused than ever.
"Seek the Ingolans. Their kingdom is a couple miles north from here," her mother winced in pain as the spreading ice reached the edge of her heart.
Narya remembered it was the city which Malëvoír belonged to. She hoped he made it home already.
Her mother's head shifted into a limp position, her eyes staring into nothingness. The ice had frozen her heart, stopping her blood flow and ate away at the rest of her body.
"Mother?" Narya shook her, not believing how quickly the ice had killed her. Tears streaked across her face. She shook her again, roughly, and upon seeing no movement, she wiped her damp face with her hand, wallowing in the hole which the death left upon her heart. Her mind, rattling in her head, seized sense again, and Narya vowed, "I will avenge you, mother. I swear." The only thing which really resonated angrily within her mind was blood from her father — and much more than what was inflicted from her pathetic needle maneuver, as she dragged her mother underneath the laurel tree and headed out down the path. The noon sun was beating down on her sullen shoulders, heaving with unquenchable vengeance.
Perhaps the hope of seeing her mother again and losing her at the next heartbeat was too much for poor Narya to bear, or it was the daring actions of Malëvoír which caused her to take the path she chose. But either way, her path into the future was now sealed and she could only seek its dark end.