Snow gently fell from the cold grey sky, dusting the bodies that lay bleeding on the ground. The girl stared at them. They were all men, young and old, their bodies bloated and mutilated from war. Several were missing their heads, and some had their skulls crushed in, the red insides spilling out over the ground in a grotesque mural. Some had been burned alive in dragonfire. Their skin had melted to their armor and they had boiled alive in the metal. 

     The battle for the First Keep had not lasted long. It had been more of a massacre than anything. The Knights that had held the First Keep for a thousand years were absolutely nothing compared to their honorable and valiant ancestors. They didn't die honorably when Mirandir had arrived with his army and his great white dragon. They raised the white flag in surrender at their approach. Mirandir ignored it. He burned their men and the Keep, his men murdering the men that had surrendered. He left absolutely none alive. 

     She heard footsteps approach behind her in the snow, interrupting her melancholic muling. She did not turn. "The Emperor will not be happy that you attacked the First Keep," she said, her voice cold. 

     "Vhalak is already on his way to scold me," the man behind her returned sarcastically. Mirandir. "He'll be here tomorrow. All I did was clear his way to the Westfold. He'll be angry, but he'll get over it." Mirandir's voice was soft and melodic. It had been nearly a century since he had been exiled from his elven homeland, but he had never been able to lose his accent. 

     Malearyia turned and fixed Mirandir with a sharp eye. "Vhalak has never been one to allow insubordination. He may very well snap your neck as soon as he gets his hands on you." 

     "And lose his most valuable asset in this war?" Mirandir ever so slightly smiled. "I don't think so." 

     Malearyia pursed her lips. Mirandir was arrogant, but he had earned the right to be. A High Born elf, the born Speaker of the Moon and one of the two kings of Thon-Thalasyn. He had been exiled long ago by his brother for blasphemy and treachery; for delving in the dark arts and mutilating his own body to replace it with machinery. 

     Machinery that he himself had invented. Mirandir's intelligence was frightening, even to her. 

     "These men had surrendered to you," she stated, staring at the body of one at her feet. The dead man's eyes stared sightlessly up at the sky through the eyes of his helmet. "You murdered them." 

     "War takes no prisoners, dear." 

     Malearyia looked at him. His black, longtail coat was drenched in blood, and so was the ebony shirt he wore underneath. It was sticking to one spot in particular, the fabric having formed a crude bandage over the wound. His waist long white hair was matted and fell closely alongside his face. His usual handsome, youthful face was now tired and his sapphire eye was dull. 

     The right half of his face, which was the half he had replaced with machinery, seemed unharmed. The ebony metal still went around his nose and mouth, lining the top of his forehead and jawline. The part that circled his almond shaped eye was dotted with blue jewels, and the eye that it held was pure white. 

     "You're wounded," Malearyia said in a matter of fact tone. 

     "Yes, I am." He pressed his hand on his stomach, against the wound. "I'm in a considerable amount of pain and yet I still went out here to find you. Isn't that nice of me?" 

     "Who struck you?" Malearyia went over to his side and began walking with him back to the gates. 

     "I am not sure if you noticed this while you were gazing at the dead, but the Knights had elven soldiers among them," Mirandir answered. He clenched his teeth. "When we made it to the council room I was very surprised to find my nephew there. Half blooded bastard," he cursed. "When I last saw him he was nothing but a baby, and now he's a full grown man." 

     Malearyia looked up at him and saw the hatred in his eyes. "Why would the son of Erandir Thalasyn be at the First Keep?"

     "To be honest, I couldn't care less." Mirandir spat on the ground as he entered the gates. "When this damnable stomach wound is taken care of I'll ask him a few questions to find out why, and kill him the bastard." He glanced at Malearyia. "I'll send his head back to my brother in a little box." 

     "You're a cold-hearted man, Mirandir." Malearyia followed behind the elf in silence when he did not reply. She followed behind him down the cold stone corridor. She could hear the cheers and the shouts of the soldiers inside some of the rooms they walked past. Their footsteps echoed eerily through it. 

     These walls have stood for a thousand years, she thought to herself. The Knights of the West had never fallen. And now all that is left of them is memories. She looked at Mirandir. All because of him. He made the First Keep fall, made taking down its everlasting defenses look like child's play. 

     He suddenly stopped and opened a door at the end of the hallway. A small bedchamber rested inside, with the fire in the hearth already lit. She assumed this was the room he had claimed as his own for the time being. The single window in it had a clear view of the western lands. 

     "Tell me, dear," Mirandir began, taking off his coat and and sitting in a wooden chair in front of a small desk, "are you beginning to regret making your contract with me?" He cast her a charming smile. "Ever since I gave the orders to my men to march on the First Keep you have been acting rather odd, especially after I ordered them to attack."

     Malearyia stared at him, taken aback by the question. "No, my lord. I gave you my power in order to fulfill my contract. You are the perfect candidate for that." 

     Mirandir chuckled. He rested his cheek on his hand and crossed his legs. "You're a funny girl."

     "I'm afraid I do not understand." She stood by the door, her hands at her side.

     The girl had never once had an emotion of any sort cross her unmarred, youthful face. Her expression was always deadpan and monotonous. She was a mystery, even to Mirandir, who had known her since the early days of his exile. 

     Ageless, she was. Older than the oldest elf currently living. She wasn't elven, though. She was human. A human with fair skin and soft, violet eyes. Her white hair was as long and silky as Mirandir's. She was quite short. Her body was slender and lithe, and clothed in a black and white dress. 

     "Isn't it about time since you told me what your end of the contract is?" Mirandir remarked, crossing his legs. "It has been over a hundred years now, you know."

     "No." Malearyia kept her response short and simple. "The time is not yet, my lord."

     She walked over to him and began to gently take off Mirandir's black shirt. She untucked it from his pants and slid it off over his head. The same ebony metal that covered part of his face formed a diamond shape in the center of his chest. It held a red, pulsing mist inside of its glass covering. The mist that held Mirandir's soul inside of it. 

     The mark of their contract. 

     Her eyes went to the wound. It was right above his hip. The blood was smeared all over his stomach. She grabbed a washcloth that sat on top of a washbasin and began to clean it off. 

     "It isn't shallow, but it didn't hit anything important as far as I can tell." She wiped the wound, and pulled out a needle and suture. "I'll stich it up for you and you'll be fine." 

     "Thank you, my dear." Mirandir let out a deep sigh. "Emperor Vhalak will be here tomorrow morning. After he's said what he wants to me, I'll be departing for Esyn." 

     "The port city?" She slid the needle through his skin. "Why?" 

     "The Great Library is there. I have reason to go there." Mirandir gritted his teeth. "You do realize I went ahead and attacked the First Keep so that I could get on with my own tasks at hand?" 

     "I had already figured that." Malearyia glanced up at him. "You need to realize, however, that you are only Vhalak's best Dragonlord because of your talents with inventing war weaponry and your strategic mind. Do not forget that your own men are not very fond of you because of your heritage. They know of the relationship you and your brother had before you were exiled. Vhalak knows. Screw up and you'll be hanged, drawn and quartered." 

     "They can try." Mirandir shrugged his shoulders. "They would be unwise to challenge me. I have my men trained with the tactics of the elves and humans alike. They are deadly killers but only because I made them to be. They are well fed and are victorious in all battles because of me." He smirked. "And they kneel to me, an exiled elven prince who was very good at getting his twin brother to…relax, at night."  

     Malearyia, done with her task, stood up. She stared down at Mirandir, her purple eyes glinting in the firelight. "You're a sick little thing," she said. She grabbed Mirandir's shirt and threw it at him. "I often have to remind myself that you truly do not have a heart. You cut that out long ago." 

     Mirandir let out a light chuckle. "And don't forget that you're the one who ate it." He stood from his seat and threw his coat back on. "I relish in being a heartless man, my dear. Makes my life just that much easier." He picked up a bottle of wine that had been sitting on the desk and filled up a glass with it. He chugged it, and put the now empty glass back in its spot. He then pulled out a flask from his coat, and emptied the wine bottle into it. "I'm going to talk to my men and then deal with my nephew. You can stay here and do whatever it is you do while I'm gone." 

     Malearyia glanced around the room. It was incredibly barin. Just the bed, desk and chair, and then the washbasin. "I'm not staying here, it's boring. There isn't even a book in here." 

     "Go through my personal things then, in the chest at the foot of the bed." Mirandir opened the door, giving the girl an exasperated look. "You love snooping around my things when I'm not around anyway." His eye flashed and he shut the door behind him, leaving Malearyia alone on the bed. 

     She immediately went to the chest he had mentioned. He was right. She always looked through his things when he wasn't around, it was the best she could do to keep herself preoccupied. 

     When she tried to open it, however, it would not open. Mirandir had never locked this chest before, and yet, as she looked at it with growing disappointment, she realized that it was, in fact, locked.