A Spark's Light Read online

  Dedicated to:

  My family, my boyfriend, my pets, and my friends for always being by my side and encouraging me during my writing process.

  Special thanks to:

  Joe Wolf – My fantastic and talented editor!

  Egloria, Melisabetha, Beatriz_Sousa, and Andreea Padurean on Fiverr – Fantastic beta readers!

  Peter de Jong – Artist of the Aethos maps.

  Fahmin Abdullah – Artist of the book cover.

  The McElroy Family – For the hours of entertainment and amazing inspiration

  MFM – For the laughs, the thrills, and the constant encouragement!

  ©2021 Macee Carson

  For more information and lore, visit:

  AnnwnRP.com

  Chapter 1

  I opened my amber eyes on my first day of existence to the inside of a strange flower. It had large orange petals that met at the top, where a honeycomb-like substance was growing down. I found myself kneeling on a spongey yellow disc where, in front of me, there sat two gold coins. I blinked at them slowly, tilting my head to the side as I inspected them when suddenly, I heard a silky-smooth voice. I looked around the flower, confused as to where the voice had come from, only to find the foggy image of a woman materializing in front of me. “Hello there. We don’t have much time, so allow me to cut right to the chase. Your name is Autumn, and my name is Theia. I am the Sun Goddess, and I exist inside of you.” The image spoke quickly and with confidence, so I nodded, taking this as fact.

  “My name is Autumn. I like this name, but why am I named after a season?” I asked.

  “That’s not important. There are plenty of other, more important things to cover,” she dismissed my question, and I furrowed my brow at her, a silent protest that she ignored. “Now, the first thing you should know, is that this is what you look like,” she motioned to herself, a pale-skinned woman with long, brown braids, gold patterns etched into her skin, and wings of golden flame. I looked down at myself, and sure enough, this was true. “Second, you have no memories of your past life, and you will never have negative feelings in this one. This is to protect you from something horrible you did in your last life,” she explained.

  “People don’t normally remember their past lives,” I said from a knowledge instilled in my soul, confused.

  “Well, you have been reincarnated as a race that does. You are what is known as an Ellylldan, a Fire Fairy. People that are reincarnated as Ellylldan are those that in a past life were wronged, committed a heinous act in response, and then killed themselves in regret. Your current existence is punishment for that,” Theia responded.

  I gave her a look of further confusion. “That seems oddly specific.” I scrunched my brow skeptically.

  “Yes, that’s true, but it happens a lot more often than you’d think,” she admitted, but then shook her head. “We’re getting off track. Anyway, as I was saying, you don’t remember things from your past life for a good reason, so while you may ask me anything about your past life, I recommend not asking about anything negative that may have happened. I will, of course, warn you if you’re unknowingly asking about something that has to do with those memories.” Theia paused to get my confirmation, so I nodded in response. “Good. Now, you are welcome to do whatever you want, but you should also know that I will be using your body whenever I see fit,” she continued.

  “Using it? What does that mean?” I asked.

  “I will have control over your body. You will have memory of any time I do, though, of course,” she explained, and I nodded, a little confused still, but accepting. “Very good. Well, I look forward to working with you, Autumn.” The image of the woman smiled and dissolved into the air.

  I stared at the space left behind for a few more seconds until my eyes once again landed upon the two golden coins sitting in the middle of the floor. They lay haphazardly as though they had been rolled like dice, and I scooted closer to them to take one into my hands. The coin, roughly the length of my pinky, was pure gold and gently engraved with the face of Emperor Usra, the ruler of Aethos, his head held high as he stared off into the distance at what I imagined was a grand future. His portrait was surrounded by a gentle filigree that, despite the coin’s small size, swirled with perfect curls into a wreath which met at the bottom behind the Emperor’s seal. I ran my fingers over the shiny details and pondered how I could know a face that I had no memory of. My head began to buzz with light pain at the thought as I narrowed my eyes at the regal figure on the coin.

  My ponderings were sharply interrupted, though, as a voice called out to me from outside. “Excuse me! You in there! Could you come out please?” A woman’s voice asked of me, and though the voice had a hint of sadness, I couldn’t help but find myself smiling at the quaint, timid nature of it. Curious to know the owner of the voice, I stood, tossing the coins into the pocket of the simple brown dress I was wearing. But as I walked around the entirety of the inside of the flower, I realized that there didn’t appear to be a way out of it. I paced around a bit, lost in my confusion, and then leaned against one of the petals in a huff. To my surprise, though, the entire petal suddenly began to move, and before I knew it, I was on my back on the now-outstretched petal.

  I blinked slowly, unmoving at first, before losing myself to a little fit of giggles. Still smiling, I was about to sit up when a woman, a foot taller than me with golden eyes and a long, puffy black ponytail leaned over me. Her face was a mix of confusion and slight disgust. “Hi there. Were you the one that was calling to me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her as I still lay on my back.

  “Yes? Are… I mean, do you need help up?” she cleared her throat and moved around to my side to offer me her hand. I smiled and accepted it. Once standing I intended to thank her, but I quickly lost sight of this as my attention was instead brought to the world around me. For the first time I realized how small I was, as grass, my flower, and even little bugs towered above me. I didn’t remember ever being any other size, but somehow this felt out of place and strange. “Oh right. We’re about two inches tall by the way, though we can grow and shrink as we please.” The woman explained as I turned in a little circle, trying to take it all in. “Since you don’t know that, I’m guessing you weren’t a fairy or anything in your past life?” she asked, flinching a little at her own question, as though she was worried about offending me.

  “I don’t know. But I’m assuming not.” I responded shortly, my attention caught by a beetle that skittered across the dirt in front of us, as big as a horse.

  “What? What do you mean you don’t know?” she seemed very taken aback by this, and Theia’s words echoed through my mind, reminding me that Ellylldan usually do remember their past lives.

  “I don’t remember anything about my past life.” I explained nonchalantly. “I do know my name, though! I’m Autumn.” I introduced myself and held out a hand towards her.

  She looked completely lost by this point, but shook my hand gently, nonetheless. “Riiiight, okay then. I’m Jovaniel, but people call me Jo.” Jo eyed me suspiciously as she spoke, and it was clear that she either didn’t believe me or thought I was crazy. I smiled back regardless, though, trying to make it clear that I was intending to be friendly. “Okay, fine. Let’s play pretend and say that you don’t remember your past life. How come you’re not a babbling mess on the floor with no memories?” Jo folded her arms and questioned me.

  I titled my head to the side in thought and furrowed my brow, “I’m not sure. I mean I know random things, like the types of magic. Oh! I also know a few stories! So at least I have good information.”

  Jo narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, and then taking a step back, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I get put on blossom duty for the first time in decades, and sh
e’s insane. Great,” she rolled her eyes.

  “Uhm, sorry to interrupt, but what’s ‘blossom duty?’” I asked, using my fingers to put air quotes around the phrase.

  Seemingly lost in her foul mood, she took a long moment to rub a hand over her mouth before looking down through squinted eyes. My eyes darted from her to my surroundings as I waited impatiently for her to speak, and almost repeated the question when she finally sighed heavily. “Every time a new Ellylldan is created, one random person living here in the city is chosen to give them the grand tour. We call it blossom duty since the flower comes out of the ground on the day we’re created,” she explained with a tone that made it seem like she grew more exhausted with every word.

  I nodded, understanding, and ignoring her sour mood, decided to question my guide. “So, what is this place?” I leaned towards her a bit to get her attention as I asked.

  She grimaced and sighed once more, “This is Huna’Arda, city of the Ellylldan: the cursed, forsaken, and wretched.” Jo paused for a moment to look into my eyes before turning her tone more towards a business-like formality. “We exist as penance for our past deeds, and in this existence we have only one purpose: to kill. I know that may be hard for you to hear, but you only have to kill someone once every three months.”

  I glanced around in disbelief, “We kill people? Why?”

  “It just comes with our nature. Our punishment in this life is to kill those that have committed the same wrongdoings as were done to us in our past lives that caused us to commit the heinous acts that got us here.” Jo explained, swallowing hard, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

  I didn’t quite understand though, so I simply stared at her blankly waiting for her to continue.

  Eventually Jo caught on and sighed. “See Yenal over there?” she motioned to an Ellylldan with bright red hair and grey skin. “She’s pretty famous around here because she was a queen of an old country a couple millennia ago. Basically, her husband abused her pretty severely, so she killed him and then herself. As an Ellylldan, she now has to kill those that have abused their spouse.”

  “All of this seems overly specific. Why would an existence be so clearly defined?” I asked doubtingly.

  Jo simply shrugged, “The Gods work in mysterious ways, I guess. Crazy bastards.”

  I chuckled at her depressing disposition and threw an arm around her waist in a half hug, since I couldn’t quite reach her shoulders. “Well, at least we’re all in this mess together I suppose. Don’t need to understand everything when you have friends to guide you through the dark. Right?”

  “Wow, you are just relentlessly optimistic.” she said, disgust lining her words. “Also, I just met you, we aren’t friends.” Jo placed a finger on my forehead and pushed me back gently, yet with enough force to make me step back a few paces.

  I smiled at this, playfully swatting her hand away, and Jo looked at me horrified.

  “So, I tell you that you’re going to have to kill people, and yet you’re all unicorns and rainbows? What is wrong with you?” Jo took a step back from me as she asked.

  I gave a half-smile, “I’m sorry if I’m too much. I just don’t feel negative emotions, so I have nothing to be upset about.”

  “You WHAT? Did your soul get messed up in the underworld or something? How is it that you’re like this?” she demanded, crossing her arms across her brown dress and beginning to pace nervously.

  It was at this moment that I realized that we all wore brown, and that although styles were different, the only color for clothes here was brown. I glanced around as I realized this, taking in the different clothing styles when Jo cleared her throat and brought my attention back to her.

  “Great, crazy and no attention span.” she grumbled and rubbed the bridge of her nose once more in frustration.

  Feeling an awkward lull drift into the conversation, I tried to change the topic. “So, how do we know who to kill?” I asked.

  Jo glared down at me in annoyance, but answered my question anyway. “You’ll know when it happens. Something just kind of takes you over, and you can see this light. I don’t know how to explain it, but you’ll see it soon enough.” Jo said dismissively and motioned for me to follow her.

  I did as I was instructed, and we walked together down the city pathways, past rows and rows of orange flowers identical to mine. As we walked, another question occurred to me, so I quickly got Jo’s attention, “What happens if you don’t kill someone within three months?”

  Jo winced at the thought, “Then, the day after the three-month deadline, you kill the first person you see, other than another Ellylldan of course.” she stopped walking for a moment and turned to face me. “So, here’s a few quick things you should know, we don’t get tired, we don’t sleep, we can and likely will die, when we die, we reappear in our flowers, and to fly you just think that you want to do it,” she listed off, ready to be rid of me.

  “Wait, that was a lot. Let’s go back to the flying thing, I guess. How do I do that?” I asked timidly, knowing she was quite annoyed with my presence by this point.

  Jo hesitated, guilt creeping into her expression, and sighed once more. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t just throw you in the deep end like that,” she apologized and waited for my response.

  I didn’t know what to say though, so I just smiled and hoped that would be enough.

  Jo smiled awkwardly in return, and got back onto the topic at hand, “Anyway, so to fly, it’s a matter of will. You just will your body in the direction you want to go, and it listens. Here, let me show you,” she then demonstrated by effortlessly floating upwards into the air. Other than the slight movement of her wings of flame, flying seemed more an act of pure magic than the wings themselves.

  With how easy she made it look, I immediately tried it for myself, and to my surprise, it was even easier. Just a slight thought about how I wanted to move was all it took to lift me high into the air, and I found that I had complete control over how I flew. Once in the air, I looked out over the city of orange flowers where half of the flowers, mine included, sat in a large field. The other half rested just above the lake water and mingled with the grass and lilies of a swamp. It was a bright, sunny day, but even with this and all the little lights from the various Ellylldan that flew above the city, the light didn’t quite penetrate this place. The air was thick and gloomy, seeming to reflect the moods of those that lived here, and a thick fog wound its way around the outskirts of the city, making it almost impossible to see what lay beyond it. I scrunched my face at this, curious how a place with such potential for beauty could be so lost in the gloom of the swamp.

  Jo waited for a few moments for me to return to the ground, but when I didn’t, she simply flew up to talk to me in the air. “This doesn’t take much mana by the way, so we can fly indefinitely. Plus, we don’t get tired or sleep, so you could literally spend the rest of eternity in the air if you wanted to. Not that I recommend that, of course,” she said, though I got the feeling that she said this absentmindedly and was as lost in the scenery as I was.

  I shook myself away from looking at the city of flowers and smiled at Jo. “Well thanks for the information. So, what about growing and shrinking? How do we do that?” I changed the topic.

  Jo motioned for us to fly up higher, and I followed her as we went high above the city until we were up by the branches of the swamp trees. “Alright, that should be high enough. Don’t want to grow and end up stepping on someone’s flower, that’s a good way to lose a foot.” Jo fiddled with her sleeves as she spoke, unbuttoning and rolling them up.

  “Wait, what do you mean lose a foot?” I asked in surprise.

  Jo gestured down to the flowers, “Well, each one of those has a force field surrounding it that burns anyone other than the Ellylldan that it belongs to.”

  “That’s one way to keep unwanted guests from coming over,” I joked, and for the first time, Jo cracked a smile.

  Unfortunately, her smile didn’t last long, and she so
on changed the subject. “Anyway, to grow and shrink is a little more complicated. You have to will it, say ‘grow,’ and then close your eyes.” Jo demonstrated and closed her eyes. As soon as she did this, she grew much, much larger, and though she was likely the size of a normal person, to me she was colossal.

  Not wanting to remain at risk of being squashed by Jo simply moving her hand a little too fast, I shouted, “Grow!” Unlike Jo instructed, though, I forgot to close my eyes. This didn’t seem to affect anything as it worked perfectly, but as I and everything on me grew, the world spun around me and my stomach lurched.

  Jo crossed her arms and shook her head, “Yeah, that feeling of wanting to lose your guts? Next time close your eyes, and that won’t happen.”

  Covering my mouth, I resisted the urge to retch, and Jo patted me on the back gently.

  “Do your best not to vomit by the way. We don’t eat, so all that’s going to come up is little bits of mucus and saliva. It’ll just be a lot of painful heaving.”

  “Describing that does not make it easier to not do it,” I groaned.