#isvarae

A CrossXworlds story

© 2025 - Kevin W. Burke

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Little Aiani wiped her nose on her pants, sobbing, and looked up to plead again with her Ada to stay. But her father was already gone, footprints trailing over the sand dune. 

She panicked.

“Ada?”

The Stormcrawler answered instead, a shrill backwards shriek from over the dunes, moving towards the rogue Pocket. It was chasing her ada. 

He had ordered her to stay, to wait there. In her heart, behind the fear for Ada, she was angry at him for leaving her, for facing the Stormcrawler alone, for not letting her help him. 

She was a good girl, but she couldn’t obey him this time. She had to help him. One man couldn’t take on a Stormcrawler alone, but maybe with her Firebolt, they could fight it together. 

She ran after his tracks in the sand, her courage building as she ran. That is, until she cleared the last dune. She found the Stormcrawler hissing above Ada, far bigger than she had expected. Its tall legs were twitchy and stabbing, its spider shell crusted over with hardened lava, a ghoulish skeleton head in place of a spider’s head. 

Aiani’s courage wilted. But Ada didn’t flinch below the Stormcrawler as it targeted the spot in the sand where he sat crosslegged in front of the Pocket. He was methodically casting a ritual spell that Fire Elves in their clan used to release their elemental fire essence when they were preparing to die. 

With no village elders to contain it, Aiani knew her Ada’s fire essence would flare out, taking the Stormcrawler and the rogue Pocket with him. Ada wasn’t planning to go back to the village with her. He was sacrificing himself for her, and for the village. 

She screamed, calling after him, climbing the last dune. The Stormcrawler turned on her, stabbing at her with those deadly pointed legs. She dodged them and struck back, firing her Firebolt at it. 

It hissed angrily, but was unhurt. It returned fire of its own, and when it burned her, it also consumed some of her memories. Body and mind aflame, she cried out in agony, rolling in the sand. She was helpless against this monster. 

Before it could consume the rest of her, Ada hit it with his crossbow, making it chase him back towards the Pocket, saving her. But the delay would cost them both: A second Stormcrawler came through the Pocket, trapping Ada. 

He charged toward the Pocket anyway, running under the second monster and desperately rushing to finish his ritual spellcasting. 

Just as he finished the spell, one of the Stormcrawlers stabbed Ada clean through with an obsidian tipped leg. His fire essence erupted in his place before the Pocket, the violent burst of fire energy causing the rogue Pocket to flicker and implode. As it did, it sucked sand, fire, and both Stormcrawlers inward. The Pop! of their molten cores bursting were barely discernible over the thunderous implosion. 

Aiani couldn’t even hear herself screaming her Ada’s name as his essence was sucked away. 

And then, just as suddenly, it was deathly quiet, except for a faint whistling wind over the dunes. 

“Ada?” she whispered. Her breathing came in gasps. 

The wind blew, sand stinging her eyes.

She stood, little legs quivering, and ran towards the place where the Pocket– and her Ada– had just been. 

There was a pit in the sand, blackened at the bottom, and smoking. 

“Ada?” she cried, her voice cracking. She knew he was gone, but a part of her fought it. 

Aiani stumbled down into the scorched pit, towards a stream of smoke trailing up from the center. There was a glow down in the sand at that spot, and she reached into it, oblivious of the heat. 

She pulled out a smoke hued nugget of glass, and as she did, the glow came with it. The glass nugget had a vague flame-like shape. The glimmer inside was smaller and much more faint than the pendant her Ada had given her, the one with Nana's fire essence inside. 

But it was there. She hadn’t lost all of her Ada. 

Suddenly the wind picked up, whirling sand around her.

A voice shrieked with the wind behind her.  

“Councilor Caladstone, hand it over!” 

Aiani spun, clutching the glass nugget in her hand defensively, her long legs planted widely in the sand for stability. She calculated her Mana reserves and quickly did a mental inventory of her available spells. 

Isvarae Sivelle floated over the nearest dune in the center of a vortex of wind and sand, one hand extended from her swirling robe strands, gesturing Aiani forward. What was the Council Delegate doing here? She didn’t belong here. 

“I won’t let you take it!” Aiani shouted defiantly over the sandstorm, “I can still save it!”

“You think you’re protecting something valuable, but you’re being selfish! That will endanger all of us if it’s left to grow!” 

“This is all I have left!" Aiani cried out, tightening her grip around the glass ember. 

“You must let it go!” Isvarae demanded, a curl of her hand causing the winds to pull at Aiani, tugging the nugget loose in her grip. 

“I will save him!” Aiani insisted through gritted teeth, clenching her fist around the glass ember.  

The torrent of wind pulled at her fist, and as she tightened her grip, the ember cracked.

“You fool!” Isvarae shrieked. 

In a flash, the ember burst in her hand, and everything went white.

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A CrossXworlds story

© 2025 - Kevin W. Burke

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Flint’s eyes narrowed at her. 

“Aiani? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Aiani stiffened. “There’s… there’s a lot of things I don’t tell you guys. Last night’s ‘paperwork’ is a perfect example why.”

“Yeah, and what exactly did that ‘paperwork’ consist of last night? Obviously you met up with that guy; you didn’t have his number before.”

Aiani raised her chin, folding her arms. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Flint sighed, folding his arms. “Aiani. This is serious. This could be war.”

Aiani snapped. “Didn’t you hear what’s in Gallwraith’s initiative? It doesn’t matter, it’s war anyway, it just hasn’t hit us yet! All this is just bluster from the Council, covering their tails so they don’t lose the element of surprise when they attack!”

Spark sat behind them, watching the exchange wide-eyed. 

Flint tensed his fingers into a fist and then relaxed them again. “Look, I don’t like the Council’s decision any more than you do, but there’s no reason to hurry it along!”

“What does that have to do with me?” Aiani shouted. “All I did was go on a date! We were just having a picnic!” 

Flint backed up. “Aiani? Where was your picnic?”

Aiani bowed her head, mumbling. 

“Gloomspire.”

“Oh, strike!” Spark exclaimed. 

Aiani raised her chin again, defiant. “But they attacked us first!”

Flint flipped back to the first video and tilted the display to Aiani. He stabbed a meaty finger towards the zoomed image where a figure had a hand extended towards the drone, light flashing out from it.

“Is that your firebolt?” he demanded.

“Yes, but they cut out the part where they shot at us first! It was a clear attack pattern, three armed drones in formation. We took evasive maneuvers, but they fired anyway, so we had to defend ourselves.” Her indignance started to soften into sniffling.

Flint flipped to the second video. “And this?”

“Davin was completely non-confrontational. He used some stealth gear to slip away, and when they caught onto us again anyway, he just evaded until he could hide us in the train tunnel. We were literally running for our lives. Those drones wrecked themselves!”

Flint rolled his eyes upwards and sighed, raking his hands through his beard. “Oh, thank the Divines there’s no hard evidence, Aiani. This could have been very bad.”

She bit her lip, still sniffling.

He nodded, processing. “But you’re right, with this Pocket Surge initiative, it probably won’t matter in the long run.”

Flint sighed again, broad shoulders slumping. 

“I can’t stay mad at you, Aiani. I know you wouldn’t have provoked this intentionally.”

Aiani’s lip trembled, and she broke, tears running down her face. “Oh Flint, I was so scared! There was a moment in the warehouse district where the drones were flanking us and I– I realized…” Aiani paused, snuffling. “I realized I didn’t tell you where I was going. You wouldn’t even know where to look for my body!”

“Oh, girl…”

Flint extended an arm to her. She leaned in for a hug, still snuffling. He patted her back.

Aiani straightened up, breathing deeply, recovering. 

“If Davin hadn’t been so amazing on that hoverboard, we would have never– I wouldn’t have made it.”

“Really?” Flint grunted in surprise. 

Aiani’s face beamed. “Flint, you should have seen him!”

“Hmm. Surprising for a human. Tryllian, no less.”

“I’ll say! Luckily, he used to work as a courier for–”

The front door of the apartment swung open, the doorknob slamming with a thunk against the wall behind it, a gust of wind coming in with it. 

Isvarae.

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