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'With an eternal night comes an eternal snow. Blizzards and snowstorms rage in its black cold.'

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Chapter Three: Annihilation

When Lumiere opened her eyes, the roar was still reverberating in her ears. It took another minute before she was fully awake, and realized the roar was not carried over from dreams, but belonged to reality. She sat up in shock; the room was moving. Astonished, she struggled to walk in the shaking room as it rocked back and forth violently like nobody's business, and hurriedly dressed, slipping a pair of white wrist gloves onto her hands, hiding her pale, colourless fingernails. It was then that the newly-graduated Spellweaver heard her name.

'Lumiere!'

She followed the sound, not replying, eventually seeing Sylvia's frantic self materialize in front of her. 'Mother?' she asked. 'What is going on?'

Sylvia gave no answer, instead clasping her gloved hand and dragging her along one of the crystal corridors, which was trembling and shaking. They emerged into the dining hall of the palace; numerous Spellweavers were translocating: disappearing elsewhere, and re-appearing with valuable spell scrolls and other items precious to their kind. Sylvia dragged her to a corner, thrusting an unusually large sling bag into Lumiere's hands. 'Carry this,' she instructed.

Lumiere took it reluctantly. It was incredibly heavy for a mere sling bag. Small pieces of crystals were falling like glittering raindrops from above; the ceiling was shattering, but the shattering process was slowed by the thousands. The violent shaking was weakening the walls and floors – she could see cracks snaking their way through the once-flawless crystal. 'Mother – '

Her mother shook her head, mumbled a few incomprehensible words to a fellow Spellweaver, and turned to her. 'Go,' she said quietly, pushing the girl towards the entrance. Others were also being shoved out, she noted with an apprehensive look. 'Go, run for your life, and do not ever look back.'

'But, mother, I can't leave you!' the words were out of her lips before she could properly register Sylvia's words.

'You must,' she replied firmly, almost proudly. 'We must seal what must not be touched. Our role is to remain.'

'But – what will I do out there, mother, without any guidance?'

Sylvia smiled, drawing her daughter into a warm embrace. 'Fate weave. Spellweave. Remember. Wryda will guide you. The time has come; for it is beginning.' She let her go. 'I love you, my child. Go. Bring our legacy with you, and with all those who will live. Let fate guide you, but always remember.' Sylvia touched Lumiere's cheek. 'Remember the song. You are one of us. A full-fledged Spellweaver, albeit newly-graduated. And you are my daughter. I have faith in you; do not be daunted by what lies ahead.'

The building was trembling, cowering, at an unknown force. Lumiere could feel it as well: a thin, black web crawling over her senses, muffling them; crawling over her mind, drawing sweet, empty blackness over it.

But she saw it for what it really was.

'No!' she heard herself cry; she turned and ran, out of the palace, through the road lined by crystal houses on both sides; she did not stop even when she saw them collapsing, she kept running; her surroundings whizzing past her in streaks of colours, in fact she was not running, but rather, flying, or so she felt like, restrained only by the resistance of air. As suddenly as it had possessed her, the wild exhilaration left, and she collapsed on a grassy cliff overlooking the city. Gathering only enough energy to lift her gaze to the city, she watched, terrified, mortified, enthralled even, as shadows fell over Crystalia.

She watched, utterly silent, as other Spellweavers tried to run as well, only to be threatened and backed into a corner by the rolling black clouds. Darkness was at the pearl gates, swallowing it whole; she could barely see the glint or sparkle of the crystal, which even rain and storm could not dull. Her violet eyes sought out the glistening, majestic palace of crystal white: there it stood, proud and unyielding, against the fathomless pit of black. The sun had disappeared into thin air, ran away from the darkness, so dark that not even light could penetrate through its cloud, shrouding the land in gloom and shadow. Yet the clouds now advancing towards the palace were darker than the gloom itself, darker than the darkest shade of black. The Quintessence; it was in the palace, all three parts of it. The Spellweavers resided there, for their greatest duty was to protect and sustain the life of Faena –

Its progress was slow, for tendrils of black fumes reached out to touch the palace walls, and recoiled. Lumiere could feel the spell surrounding the palace, a spell weaved by many Spellweavers in unison; she could almost sing along, for she knew this spell well, its mechanics having been the very first she grasped. But with the obstruction of distance, she could not, and so could only watch with a terrible feeling of helplessness.

Their repulsion spell was powerful, but of a weaker caliber than the cloud of which nothing could emerge from. Slowly but surely, the palace was losing its resistance: tendrils threaded its way through, inching closer, and closer, yearning to wrap around the gleaming palace walls.

The first tendril made contact with the door, meeting absolutely no obstruction. The sky began to weep, its tears mingling with her own, as the cloud devoured the palace whole, while the light of the city of crystals flickered once and died.