Side Story: Unnur
A deep shade of purple, scattered with ribbons of lilac and rose, obscured the twinkling of the stars behind the Havador Mountains. Winter had settled white over the coniferous trees encircling the edges of a lake so clear it could have passed for God's polished mirror; it struck here lightly with cutting winds, although the trees themselves helped to stifle it. Unnur, wrapped in her heavy elk skin cloak, burying herself away from the chill into its downy rabbit fur, watched the skylights flicker and dance in the northern sky behind the swirls of her own breath.
Hrafn watched the lights reflect across his baby sister's face with a growing sense of pride: Unnur looked so much like their mother with each day that she approached puberty. Her body was maturing rapidly and the oracle had foretold what destiny had in store for the girl. He was apprehensive, he did not want to send his sister away to the Order but the changes were showing within her. He could no longer deny it, it was not even a few minutes earlier that he discovered that Unnur had slipped away from her bed in the middle of the night to swim in the lake. He had watched her emerge from the water unaffected by the bitter cold and steaming, despite the frost clinging to her hair and had argued with her the value of wearing his cloak to avoid catching her death.
The oracle had divined that Unnur carried the fire of the Matron Goddess, and then declared that Unnur must be sent to the Order of the Resplendent Mother to preserve her innocence. Hrafn had hoped that the Oracle was wrong; that his sister would be able to live a normal life, fall in love and have children but he saw his hope for her future shatter as the borealis caressed her flushed cheek. The Gods had chosen her and marked her with their light.
"Brother, what does it mean to be an Ember?" Unnur's voice trailed like a chime on the wind, fragile and resonating in harmony with the breeze. She looked at her brother with a growing fire building, a blue light threatened to overwhelm the white within her dark eyes.
"You are special, my little one," Hrafn said after a long moment of silence. "It means that Saule's power burns within you; that you are meant to be the light… to hold back the darkness." He could not bear to speak of what holding that power truly meant for his little sister, her life was to be lived in isolation in a convent to be contained or to be spent wandering Gaia, fighting demons until she was consumed. It was considered more a curse than a blessing to be marked by the magic.
"But… why do I have to leave? If I am special, why are you sending me away? Can't I stay here with you and Janna? I wanted to be here when the baby came," Unnur frowned, the light in her eyes faltered as her mood shifted.
Hrafn bit his lower lip as he pulled his little sister into a tight embrace. Unnur closed her eyes and settled into the warmth of her brother's body. "It is the way… I don't want to send you away- it is the last thing that I would ever wish for you, Unnur. The Order trains Embers to harness and control the powers they have been blessed with; a fire that burns wildly destroys everything in its path until there is nothing left to burn, but a fire that is properly tended provides warmth, creates and very carefully destroys."
"Janna needs my help, the Order can teach me here." The blue light that started to overwhelm the honey brown of her eyes intensified with her conviction.
"No, Unnur, you can only be properly trained at the Temple with the Radiant Sisters," he fought the growing despair in his heart as he continued to hug his sister tightly. "Being an Ember is an honor and a great responsibility, you will go out into the world beyond our mountains, far beyond the reach of the skylights to help give hope to those that have forgotten the voice of Saule and the other Gods.
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Barren branches stretched skyward with skeletal fingers draped with stalagmites of icicles. The normal sounds of birds were distinctly absent, Unnur paused to listen. Silence greeted her, even the wind held its breath. She frowned as she pressed more urgently towards the house, something was wrong and the only way to discover the cause was to enter the house.
The afternoon air inside the forsaken house felt frigid despite the clarity of the sky and the radiance of the sun above. The warmth of the winter's day did not permeate the clay brick walls nor did the slim tendrils of sunlight that peeked through the holes in the straw roof fully illuminate the shadows within the house. Unnur let out a sharp exhalation and watched her breath hang suspended in the air. This place had been consumed; all the energy that gave the building its ability to sustain life had been stolen. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully sniffed the air as a thick metallic odor mingled with the pungent stench of rotting flesh.
The Northern woman's body tensed as she fully opened her senses to the spirit of the house. She had performed this ritual countless times but it still shocked her system every time she did it. It felt like her skin had turned to ice and shattered, leaving her nerves raw and bleeding. A fierce wind materialized abruptly and howled, deepening as it became the deafening screams of the small family that had once lived in the house. Unnur's skin crawled as the edifice pulled her through its nightmare and made her live the agony that stole its vitality away.
The augur fell to her knees, trembling and pushed against the earthen floor with gloved hands to steady herself. Tears rolled unbidden down her pallid cheeks to form muddy pools beneath her as the sounds within the house continued to resound in her mind. The voices deeply disturbed the woman as they pleaded for mercy to only be answered with cruel laughter and silenced with a wet plop. The cold air became sticky with the torturous slow deaths of the previous occupants of the house. The house spared her the faces of its deceased in their death throes, resigning to silence as it relinquished its hold on Unnur's mind.
Staring blindly at the ground beneath her, Unnur's vision returned with startling clarity to discover blood caked on the frozen earth and her stomach retched in violent protest. The urgency of her mission was becoming more apparent with each slaughterhouse she discovered, this man, no, this monster, had to be stopped. She closed her eyes as she tried to regain her composure from what she had experienced.