She followed north, then east, and then southwest. She circled a massive ironwood as wide as her home. It rushed across a stream, over a hill and past a field of red reeds. The little songbird
seemed to have no interest in being followed and made every attempt to lose her as it flew.
Nearly two decades of hunting experience was all that kept her close behind it. She dove over
ditches and sprung from treetops. She dashed past deer and elk by the score and even passed over
a wolf as it stalked prey of its own.
It was nearly a two-hour chase, in every direction but straight, before the sparrow came to rest
among its fellows. Fifty pure black sparrows and as many corvids lay in a small clearing in the
woods.
Ash was east of the village; she could bear herself as such only by the placement of the sun for the
mountains didn't shatter the horizon, nor did the trees seem like any she had ever traversed.
Nothing within the clearing was familiar, though she had known every inch of these forests by heart.
She timidly approached the newly bold sparrow as it sat – unbothered by her- amongst its host.
The huntress crept, so close to soundlessly as a spirit could aspire, towards the murder and spotted – at their centre – what must have summoned such a grand affair.
There sat what could be called an obelisk, though the sight of it robbed her of a heartbeat. She was
too far to touch it, though instinct demanded she hold it tight. Even from afar, she could see the
sunlight reflecting iridescently from a slick outer layer.
It was small, but large, and angular, but rounded. It was black, though it shone like a pyre. It might
have been a sculpture carved of morphing steel, or it could have been a natural formation – moss
and mould wrapping a pulsating stone.
The base stuck out like a black marble pillar, but it wasn't so vile as what was pedestaled above. No
light bound back from it and all colour seemed to be sucked in; the vibrant flowers around it being
pale and grey.
The... thing above was shifting and pulsing. Halfway between a ball of fungi reaching and clawing
over an old corpse, and a barbed wire box keeping dark treasures concealed within. It could have
been an arrow tip or a flower; a sparrow or a spider.
It had the birds entranced, enraptured, but Ash could barely stand to look at it.
"Ash?" A little voice called from the treeline. She turned to face it and was met with a pure white
sparrow fluttering along a gentle breeze. It circled the murder and host for a moment before landing at their centre. It pecked mindlessly at the obelisk which seemed to warp itself to avoid the little songbird.
"Ash?" The little voice whispered this time, though it still came from behind her. She twisted in place and met her steel gaze. Pure white hair flowed over an elegant red and white dress, unmarred by dirt or forestry.
"Ev?" Ash gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Evara's eyes drifted from her sister towards the gathering of songbirds behind her, and the cosmic
aberration at their centre.
"I... Followed the sparrow; like the Elder said," she answered through dreamy breaths.
"How did you manage to keep up? I near on lost it a dozen times," Ash fussed running a hand over
her sister's head, checking for scuffs or scratches. She found none.
"It guided me, it was no more than a couple of paces ahead of me the whole way," Evara said. She
drifted, almost mindlessly, past Ash and towards the obelisk. "What is that?"
"I don't know," Ash admitted, stepping ahead of Evara as they moved closer. She bound like a
spring with each step, ready to pounce should the need arise.
Then she couldn't help but scream, scratch, cry out for bloody death. A power appeared and tore
through her hand. It tore muscle, bone, breath and will.
"Ash?" Evara called through the deafening torrent of blood and the rushing wings of fleeing
sparrows. The young girl dropped to her knees beside her and readied herself to enact her magics.
"NO!" Ash cried, though she didn't know why. Her right hand jolted out and swatted her sister away as a bloody flow poured from her eyes and nose.
"What's happening?" Evara begged.
The question was pointless though. The answer was written in black ink.
The mark grew and consumed. It pulsed across her hand and seemed to reach out for the oily
obelisk. She couldn't resist the pull. Her hand flung forth and the black mound dashed towards her.
It tore through the air and left in its wake the sensation of a lightning strike.
She gripped it hard, and it seemed to turn to clay in her hand. She felt it wrap around her and seep
within her. She felt it change her. She felt the power, the fate and the design.
She felt dangerous.
Ashtik battled the black with a beastly scream that could wake the dead. She rose from her knees
and clutched her hand forth.
This... thing within her seemed to hate her. It wanted her to be different, and it would make her so.
She felt it battle within her very soul. This thing was changing her, making her its Champion. She
wouldn't let it.
Her hand clenched harder than she knew it could. Blood seeped from her nose as the effort of
resistance burst blood vessels within her. Bruising spread like spilt ink on parchment across her reddening skin. Veins popped and burst, and drool spilt from her lips.
The screams lost their voice and turned simply to breathless wind. Her eyes bulged red. Blood
seeped between her teeth, then something beyond blood. Something black and something purple.
A radiance. An energy. It took the space around her and gouged out the dirt beneath her.
She threw her hand high. She pointed it at the gods, at whichever gods had given it to her. She
showed them the mark that she would conquer. She mocked their attempts, and their given pain.
A final cry slipped her and for the final time, she balled her fist and threw it to the dirt beneath her.
She pounded down, over and over, until she beat the continent into submission. Until the pain in her hand subsided and submitted. Until the mark was not the gods, but hers.
Ashtik grew feint, but she refused to submit; to sleep. She found her feet again and tried to stand on unsteady legs, wobbling for a moment with her head hanged low. Her eyes were too blurred by
blood to see what remained of the mark, but she knew within what she had done. She had beaten it.
She had embraced it.
A voice carried on the wind, but it was muffled and mumbled. It was nothing compared to the
rustling of the trees and the chirping of the songbirds. One had remained from the murder. The pure white sparrow that had so gently guided Evara to this spot. Why had it done so? Why had it
remained? Did it want Evara to experience that same pain?
Her will was strong, but her body wasn't. She could no longer stand on malice and spite, so her legs gave out beneath her. The voice carried again, like the pitter-patter of rain on the hillock she lived
beneath. Calming and warm, though in the background until she slept, and then it was all she could hear.
"Talk to me. Are you okay?" The gentle rains tapped through the hailstorm that had battered
through her head.
Her eyes returned to her, though her sight was dim. She brought her hand high and splayed out her fingers. She didn't even bother to wipe away the blood.
"Oh, Evara," she darkly whispered.
Steel: black, oily, and abominable encased her. It sealed her, trapped her, became her. A gauntlet
of godless design, ridged plate steel with no seams nor rivets at all. Organic armour of unnatural
steel. It wrapped around her knuckles in much the same way her dark bleeding smile wrapped
around her lips.
Ashtik, the huntress, straightened out her back and lavished her bleeding amethyst eyes upon her
perfect little sister.
"I have never felt better."