Tristan paused, catching her hands in his to blow his warm breath on her fingers. “It’s a little early in the year for these temperatures,” he murmured.
Over his shoulder, a glimmer of faint blue light glinted, vanishing around an alley corner. Aloisia frowned. Three times in one day she had seen such a light. She pulled free of Tristan and, emboldened by the alcohol, strode to the alleyway.
“Lis?” Tristan grasped her wrist, turning her back to him. “Where are you going? The Temple is this way.”
“I have to find it.”
“Find what?”
She tugged him with her. “The blue light.”
“Blue light?” He scrunched up his nose yet followed all the same. “What are you talking about? How much did you drink?”
“It’s taunting me, Tristan. It has been all day.”
He regarded her suspiciously. “A light has been taunting you? Are you quite well?”
They reached the opening of the alley. Darkness clutched to its edges where the streetlamps couldn’t reach. A sinking type of darkness which only deepened the longer one beheld it. Aloisia hesitated, her fingers tightening around Tristan’s.
Within that darkness, a flicker of blue flames grew. It struggled, pushing back the darkness with each spark as the shadows threatened to consume it.
“There!” She pointed, slipping out of his grip as she bolted into the narrow lane.
“Where? Lis?” Tristan hurried behind. “Where are you going?”
Darkness gathers.
Aloisia froze at the sudden voice, grating across her ears as it rasped each syllable.
And death with it.
The shadows pressed upon them, a deep, swallowing darkness closing in on all sides. All she could focus on was the blue light, shimmering within those shadows; a beacon against it. It did not flit away this time, under her gaze. Instead, it appeared to burn brighter.
“Do you see that?” she whispered, too loud in the hush.
“See what?”
Aloisia kept her sight trained on the light, as she would a deer in the forest. It swayed back and forth like a candle caught in a breeze. Though it threatened to putter out, dimming every few seconds, it continued to blaze through the darkness.
“You cannot tell me you don’t see the light.”
“Again, with the light.”
She stepped forwards, reaching for it. Tristan clutched her wrist, holding her back.
“Don’t go towards it, whatever it is!”
Panic lit his voice, but it hardly reached her. As she stared at the flames, the light intensified until she could not bear it and covered her eyes.
“Divines have mercy!” He fell to his knees, shielding his face, finally able to see it.
The light faded into a soft blue glow, chasing away what shadows lingered in the alleyway, and Aloisia lowered her arms. A silhouette of a person stood before her, lit with the ethereal glow of the blue flames dancing across their lithe frame. It tilted its head. It bore no face nor eyes, yet she could feel the weight of its gaze upon her.
“What are you?” Aloisia asked.
She received no answer.
“What do you want? What are you here for?”
