Prologue

       She stood in a corner of a white walled room, the white seemed overly bright to her eyes as she took the time to let her eyes adjust to the room.  As she waited something soft brushed against her bare foot, bending down she picked up the large feather.  Carefully, she studied it confused as to why a feather as long as her forearm would be laying on the ground.  That its bright iridescent blackness faded gently to a dark shade of blue towards its tip, only puzzled her more, for the only bird with such coloring she could thing of was a raven but no raven ever had feathers this size.  As her fingers ran along the length of the feather the room beyond finally focused in her vision and as it did one hand rose to cover her mouth while the other fell to her side, the feather dropping to the floor from numb fingers.
       At the opposite end of the room the wall color gradually shifted from white to various tones of red.  Pools of the same red tones littered the floor, seeming to coat it almost completely.  It took her mind several moments to realize that the red color was not paint but the stain of blood.   Feathers of various sizes laid on the floors and walls sticking to the blood as if glued there. Lia’s eyes finally focused on the male body, or what was left of a male body, hanging from chains that attached to the ceiling.  Swollen welts covered his back, some only fading red marks while others lay open and still oozing fresh blood.  Beneath those welts rested the aged silver scars of long healed wounds.  Two large gashes lay over his shoulder blades, which still seeped blood heavily.  Even his arms held blood trails that ran from where the metal shackles dug into his skin.  Lia cried out and tried to rush forward to help him, to stop the bleeding, to do anything just to help him. But she couldn’t move; the dream held her in place, held her captive an unable to act.  The sound of her cry echoed off the walls must have announcing her presence to the hanging man, who moved rattling metal links as he tried to peer over his shoulder.
       His sounds summoned others to the room, but what entered; Lia was in no way prepared to see.  Two men entered, but while they looked like beautiful men, wings as long as their bodies erupted from their backs.  Beautiful white feathers adorned their wings, as well as a fair bit of unusual jewelry.  Her eyes were drawn down until she found the tips of their wings which were stained the color of dried blood.  but a closer look revealed tips stained with blood.  They spoke sharply to the hanging man in a language foreign to her, but while being unfamiliar, Lia found she could still understand the language.
       “With your refusal to follow orders, you caused this.”
       “This pain, this agony we’ve been entrusted to administer-”
       “Is because the oath you took lies broken.”
       “By Jartal’s order, you are banished, exiled for your crimes.”       
       “For your sins against him-”
       “You shall be cast out of this world and into the world below. “
       “This is as it must be.  Be grateful for his mercy.”
       “Exiled.  Forsaken.  Broken. You are no longer belong here.”

::

       Her stomach churned and her vision darkened for the span of five heartbeats before she could see again.  The white room vanished and instead she stood in the shadow of a great oak with soft cool ground beneath her bare feet, far from the body of a man lying curled on the forest floor.  The forest around her emitted a feeling of peace and calm until she realized that it lacked all animal sounds found in a normal forest.  All she could hear only the sounds of the leaves of autumn rustling above her in the breeze.  Surprised by the lack of normal noise she returned her focus to the body laying almost fifty feet in front of her.  She thought him unconscious or worse, but with the filtered sunlight reflecting off the blood that coated his back from the myriad of welts and gashes, she could see his back raise and fall with the haggard rhythm of his breathing.  She covered her mouth with her hand and watched as he rose to his knees with his hands clenched around the lush grass, as they supported his weight.  His head hung down between his arms a posture of defeat.  Thinking that he was going to crumple back to the ground again she almost took step forward to help him.   His body jerked once before he threw himself backwards almost bending in half and screamed towards the sky, the grass he’d clutched ripped out of the ground and fell from his spread fingers.  Lia jumped as the sound sent shivers along of her skin. The scream carried so much emotion it brought tears to her eyes and made her heart ache, but the pure rawness of it made sound much like tormented animal. His scream continued to echo throughout the forest long after the man had actually stopped.
       At some point, while she’d focused on the sound of his scream, the man rose to his feet and stood perfectly still for a moment.  The hand she had moved from her mouth quickly moved back as she looked at him for the first time, as he rose to his feed head held high, her heart almost stopped.  Injuries that almost matched the ones on his back covered his chest, and while numbering fewer the gashes ran deeper than the others coating his chest with blood.   He turned and faced Lia directly though he did not acknowledge her presence at all.  Lia stared without meaning to.  His own dried blood speckled and smeared the skin on his face.  A cut over his left eye seeped blood that ran down his cheek in a continuous stream.  Even with his wounds, which would eventually turn into scars, Lia found she couldn’t help being mesmerized by this man who had endured so much already.
       He took that first step forward and the forest seemed to shudder around him.  At his second step, leaves of the brightest colors of fall began to summersault in a storm around him.  Lia watched in awe at the spectacle, as the forest itself paid homage to him by shaking off the last remnants of the year and laying them at his feet.  She clamped her hand tighter over her mouth to keep silent.  By his twelfth step the final falling leaf settled to the ground; by the sixteenth, small white downy feathers began to float down softly from the sky.  With eyes wide with amazement Lia reached out with the hand that had covered her mouth, catching one of the in the palm of her hand.  But the one small feather that rested cradled in her palm wasn’t like the others falling around her, this one was shaped more like a primary flight feather in stead of a down feather.  She studied the feather admiring the almost pearlescent black color along with its similarity to the one she’d held in the white room.  Only the shorter length and the dark red blood splatter that covered this one made it different from the other.  
       When Lia looked up from studying the feather, the man stood within touching distance of her.  Surprised and afraid of this man who controlled such a large amount of power, Lia unintentionally cried out.  She took a startled step back, pressing herself against the bark of the tree, dropped her eyes from his face to his bloody torso then slowly back up to meet his gaze.  Once she made eye contact with him she found she could not look away from him.  Green the color of grass right after the rains made up most of his eye color, but the outer edges blended with a darker tone that blended with blue to create a dark ring around the outside, as a small unique abstract tattoo directly below his left eye in stark black ink accented the strange color of his eyes.
       He broke eye contact first as he looked down to the feather that still lay cradled in her hand.  He cupped her hand with one of his own slowly and gently closing her fingers around the feather.  With his eyes looked back up to hers and his hand carefully holding her own, he started to speak in the same unfamiliar language as the two men before him had.
       “You’ve witnessed my fall, as no one should have; now you shall stand witness to my vengeance.”  His voice held both the danger and attraction of the thunder of an approaching storm, her body thrilled with it.
       She stared at him, trembling, afraid to move as she recognized hatred and malevolence in his eyes, and beneath that was what she assumed was puzzlement.  Lia remained as still as marble as he leaned forward placing a delicate kiss in the space between her eyes.  As he pulled away he lightly used one of his blood covered fingers to smear blood over the spot he’d kissed.
       Lia cried out as pain seared from that spot.  She bit her lip hard and shook as she tired to keep from crying out again as the coursed through her body leaving her nerves raw.  When the pain subsided she opened eyes she didn’t’ remember closing to feel hot tears grace her cheeks.  He smiled tenderly, knowing, but his eyes still held a muted portion of his hatred in them.  He leaned in again and kissed her lips, his eyes still open and glued to hers.  The kiss was a mere brush of skin before he quietly whispered words of that foreign tongue.
        “Ashavanti”  
       Remember.