PROLOGUE

Dark shadows cast themselves upon each other in an effort to create eternal dark.  Immense stone gargoyle statues watched the golden moonlight filter through the grating on the castle's granite floor.  Auric streamers caressed an obsidian petal.  The night's light could not be withheld from the thorny atrocity.  Each ebony oval drank in the small dribble of neon from above through the crystal casing.  An enchantment could not last forever…

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CH. 1 – THE MEETING

            Ghostly shadows drifted from aspen to pine in an effort to confuse a weary traveler.  Nymphs never seemed to tire of their meddling in other's affairs.  In fact, he could not seem to remember a time when they didn't.  Hours usually pasted quickly for him when he passed through a forest.  Never had its spirits been so restless.  Tree spirits.  Bah!  Each thought became more bitter as he trudged on.  A vine snaked onto his path.  Nice try, he thought as he stepped over it only to trip on another hidden under the decaying leaves.  "Blast you!" he cursed at the rustle of tree branches.  Their laughter was often mistaken for wind whistling through the crowns of the wooden giants.  Women!  He thought.  Even those that weren't human gave him trouble.  Instantaneously one of the branches caught fire and the rustling stopped.  Speaking across his extended hand, he sneered, "That'll teach you to mess with a fire adept!"  Immediately he regretted his words.  It was one thing to go up against one dryad, but a forest full?  Branches and vines whipped and lashed at him, tearing, clawing, seeking revenge against this young man who would dare attack them.  "You are a fool!" they seemed to voice as he ran.  "An impudent little fool!" Casting fire about him in an effort to protect, he fled towards the exit.  Just two miles away…

            What felt like hours later, he collapsed outside the forest boundaries.  Several cuts were inflicted on his body, scattered around the bruises blanketing his being.  "Stupid trees," he panted around coughs of blood.  This was the second scrape he had gotten himself into that day.  First it was one of those blue-haired women from the Mercury Clan.  Thinking about her enraged him.  No, I must not think about her. Little snot-nosed…  "My, my, what have we here?  An angry little fire adept?  Hmmm…couldn't be.  I've always heard that they were so good at keeping their temper," she said sarcastically.    Scrambling up, he dusted himself off to look down at a beautiful young woman.  A wind adept, he judged, if she could mind read.  "What do you want?" he muttered.  "What do I want?  To help you.  Weren't you just coughing up blood?"  "I don't need your help," he managed around another hoarse cough.  "Now see here.  Of course you do. You can barely stand," she flicked a strand of blonde hair out of her purple eyes, "I won't take no for an answer."  He grunted as she guided him along.  "What do you expect to do anyway?  Unless I miss my guess, you have no healing skills."  She stopped and looked at him as though he were a complete moron, "I know a water adept with exceptional skills.  She'll have you fixed up in no time."  Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought sourly.  "By the way.  My name's Kazay.  Your's?"  "It's Retsu," he mumbled, "just Retsu."