The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) by Ako Emanuel

Author:Ako Emanuel [Emanuel, Ako]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seaside Grape Publishers LLC
Published: 2012-10-10T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

slowly the light turned, living...

The light died. It turned, slower and slower, turned away, fading to darkness, veil after veil whispering away to black. And with the light came the cold a-borning, filling the darkness with its hardened grip. The cold stung deep within, deep into the soul, a soul-drenching cold that smothered and rolled, like a river of ice, over everything in its path; a deep so cold as to extinguish the stars...

Jeliya woke to a soul-deep cold. And with the cold came a hunger as of the very cells of her body crying out in some need. A yearning, a burning for the vanishing light, the vanquished turning of her life energy to the dark with the cold.

She shuddered with the internal spreading of that dark cold, like the last set of Av. It was a prick of cold so total that she might have imploded in its brittle grip. She moaned, the accumulation of many turns of pervading cold evident. It was the lor’den. The cold-dark sickness. And she was deep in it.

Jeliya moved to a delicious warmth on her face and arm. It was a familiar warmth, reassuring as the embrace of a mother, striving to drive out the cold. It was the light steps of Av, a reminder of life and passing time.

Desperate need drove her unwilling body to action. She took a careful inventory of herself as she lay on her belly, found that she did not ache quite so much, or at least, not so much as to prevent her from getting to the light. The wounds on her back seemed to heal apace, and the pain behind her eyes had dulled so that it did not dominate her dark world.

Having reached that conclusion she decided to try sitting up, striven by cold. She braced her hands against the soft surface of the pallet and pushed herself back so that she was sitting on her heels. The skin on her back felt tight and the air was a chilly match to the strains of silent cold within her as the desi slid off her shoulders. Her muscles were very stiff and sore, but if she moved slowly and carefully, it was bearable.

She sat for a while, gathering her strength, the creeping, consuming fan of frost in the core of her being reminding her of the goal of her exertions: to get to the light. She had not performed the Rite of Solu in well over a ten’turn, possibly two. And apparently her caretaker did not know that he had to do it for her. This negligence brought on the lor’den, the withdrawal sickness that was brought on by deficiency of the light of Av. She could feel the advanced stages of lor’den within her - she prayed that she would be able to keep it from getting much more serious.

She felt about her, arms exposed to the frigid air, and slid forward slowly, seeking the edge of the pallet. She figured it was like any bed, a thick mattress on a low wooden box.

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