The Amayan Sword
an excerpt

A pair of winter doves flew overhead the next morning. Emaedra wondered at the sight of them. Snow fell gently from the gray-storm sky as she footprinted her way through the fresh white powder of the previous night’s snowfall. She had awoken that morning and decided to clear her head with a long walk in the forest behind her home. Silence struck the air with a cold chord and her breath fogged the morning air. Bundled in warmth she made her way to the well-worn trail that led into the frozen forest. Icicles hung from branches of sleeping trees, while blankets of snow caught in their bare limbs- shielding them from bitter winter chills. She found herself in the intermittent shade of their bare outstretched arms.
She was soon lost in the maze of winter's beauty, each tree looked alike - looming cold and gray all around her. Guardians of some unspoken word; still and silent watchers towering above the world. Her eyes swam in the beauty of the forest and she felt her worries melt into distant memories, as though she were suddenly disconnected from her past existence.
A sudden flash of light caught her eye and she turned to look.
It was unnatural; a piece of liquid forest that was out of place. It was the shape and size of a doorway, quivering with fluidity and reflecting the forest around it. Emaedra approached and stood peering into it’s strange depths. She looked around and saw no one, just the empty forest and the freshly disturbed snow she left trailing behind her. She reached her hand towards it, curious as to what manner of sensation it would impress upon her cold fingers. She pierced the surface and her hand was immersed in tingling warmth. She pushed in further, fumbling to find the other side of this strange gateway.
And suddenly she felt the grasp of a strong hand as it restrained her wrist. She gasped and pulled back violently, desperately, but too late. She was dragged through.
A flash of blinding light hampered her vision as her body shivered from cold to warmth, and she found herself on the other side.
What greeted her was a room of shadows. And a tall, dark stranger who was holding tightly to her hand still, peering at her through a fringe of dark locks that tumbled across his eyes. Beautiful eyes like something she had never seen before. Arctic ice, cold, hard and impossibly blue, flecked with silver light.
She stuttered, surprised and afraid, “Where am I?”
He appraised her in silence for a moment before replying. His voice was like cold water running over hard rock, smooth, fluid and emotionless, “You have crossed the gateway from your world into mine.”
Emaedra was baffled. This must be some sort of dream. “And who are you?” she asked quietly, intimidated by his dark presence.
“I am Braeden, guardian of the Queen of Airlon,” his cold dark stare made her turn away as he replied.
She was uncertain and afraid, “I think I should go back,” she stammered as she backed away and turned towards the still shimmering doorway through which she had just passed.
“No,” he commanded quietly as he grasped her shoulder and pulled her firmly away from the gateway.