Saint-Emilion, France, 2007

She was unusually restless; her slender figure tossing and turning with an inexplicable sense of impending doom as the light of the full moon shed gentle streams of heaven down upon her. Her beauty was incomprehensible, yet her character held a timid modesty that revealed she was neither aware nor concerned with the effects of her empyrean features. Growing tired of searching for a slumber she couldn’t find, she rose like a swan from its nest to stand beside her bedroom’s window, the curtains undulating methodically with the gentle breath of autumn winds. The home she shared with her parents and elder brother was entirely unremarkable, one small cottage in a succession of small cottages that made up the quiet town of Saint-Emilion. It had been this way for as long as she remembered, a small town of no special interest other than the timeless charm it held, and its surplus of magic for those which an eye to see it; which for Giselle had always been enough to hold her completely enchanted by the village she had always called home.

She looked out at France’s rolling hills, like petrified ocean waves content to bask in the light of the stars above them, with emerald eyes as wide as the moon she gazed to. There was an unfathomable depth within the siren’s viridescent irises, comparable to those of someone who had lived a thousand lives and experienced an infinity of moments; drawing her as a rather old soul within a fresh, vibrant mind. Unrelated wisps of thought trailed in and out of her mind, none making a lasting impact as she tried in vain to shake the foreboding shadow that had drew her from her bed. In the light of the moon is was as if every curve and line of her figuring was glowing in a silvery light; her body the image of a woman men had tried to immortalize with paint and canvas for centuries before her. Her lean, lengthy limbs placed her among the statuesque women of the Amazons (despite her ivory skin tone, tanned from an innate adoration for the vivifying rays of the sunlight), while her romantic facial features and dignified bone structure placed her among the royals of her homeland. Altogether her visual was a sense-numbing drug to the human mind, clouding all intellectual thought and inhibition with the overwhelming desire to capture her essence and breathe in her beauty.

The sound of shattering glass shocked every one of her nerves, breaking her away from the mesmerizing pull of the moon and back into the present. Turning her golden head wildly to where the sound had originated, a chilling silence following the violent disruption of what had moments before been a comforting silence. Slipping into a royal blue chemise, which hung like thin smoke around her body, she padded in silence downstairs to the main floor of her home, where the rest of her family had not stirred from their quarters. Cautiously peering out the house’s windows that opened to a view of the street she lived on, it seemed to her that the entire town seemed unperturbed by not only the clamoring sound, but the tense malevolence that hung in nighttime air. Just as she had fully convinced herself of the insanity of her paranoia, another sound, more steady than that of shattering glass, crept increasingly deafening toward the slumbering town of Saint-Emilion.

“Réveiller (Wake up)!” came her usually aphrodisiac voice, marred by fear into a horrifying shriek. But it was too late.

As the lights of homes all across the town turned on to shed understanding on the source of the thundering noise, they were met only by the violent hands of its creators. Dozens of men clad in intimidating armor resembling that of a Paladin knight rode on the backs of horses with coats so dark they seemed to form endless abysses. They rode ferociously through the streets like streaks of obsidian lightning, equipped with the lashing flames of torches which they threw mercilessly into the windows of countlessly homes, setting the entire town ablaze with indomitable towers of baleful fires and the relentless cries of those too slow to escape the unsympathetic and all-consuming inferno.

Those who managed to run out into the streets, completely void of rationality due to the icy spear of fear having been thrust into them without warning, where swiftly and remorselessly slain with the shimmering sword the knights carried, their silver blades glowing with a horrifying beauty they didn’t deserve within the light of the moon.

Having yet to reach the Delacour home, Giselle watched with a transfixed terror the sight of her once peaceful hometown being torn apart in what seemed like a single instant. She was remotely aware of her brother, trying to shake her from her paralysis and screaming out her name continuously. Turning as though her muscles and turned to molasses she looked up at him, his blue-toned skin and elfish features barely recognizable through the fear that enveloped her.

A clamor at their front door caused her to break away from her coma, her senses now more alert than she had ever remembered them being as her mother took over the role of comforting her as her brother and father both rose in preparation to face whatever was fighting to enter their home. Her brother drew a pair of swords that had been hanging in their living room, his demonic tail swimming relentlessly through the air in anticipation while red magic energy swirled around the clenched fists of her father, his face stone-cold as it always became when their family needed him to protect them.

All in an instant the three ebony knights crashed into her house, one instantly falling lifelessly to the floor as one of her father’s bolts struck him while her brother’s swords clashed with surprising skill against the second knight’s blade. They parried for what seemed like an eternity until her father raised another open palm to strike the second knight as he did the first, entirely unaware of the third knight raising his sword in what would have surely been an execution had Giselle not lashed out in pure horror with a power she hadn’t known she possessed.

Raised by a prodigious wizard father and a moderately-talented witch as well as incredibly talented herbalist as a mother, Giselle had picked up on a few of her parent’s tricks without interest in seeking to further develop her inborn arcane abilities. But now, without warning or premeditation, a blast of magic origin shook her entire home with telekinetic energy that sent her family’s attackers flying with bone-shattering force against the walls, their bodies dropping limply to the floor. She had little time to contemplate the amazing and terrifying raw power that resided within her, for three more knights replaced those who lay motionless in the entrance to their home.

Flanked by two knights whose ensembles matched those who had just previously attacked her father and brother, a third knight donned an obsidian cape which seemed to flow form his shoulders as the physical embodiment of fear; as though the very threads which created it were woven from the hopeless cries of its wearer’s victims just before he brought their life to a violent end.

When Giselle spoke it was as though the sun lent its life and the ocean lent its pull and the stars lent their captivation to her voice, her every word a note from a siren’s song. But when this man spoke, it was as though his tone was actively fighting against all joy in the world. Giselle’s word’s dances off her lips and swirled like rich perfume in the air, while his poured out from him like heavy tar and reeked of death and despair. She recognized his speech as English, but was less than acquainted with the language and understood little of what he said. However whatever it was that came slowly and wretchedly from his mouth seemed to strike fear into the heart of her parents, especially her father, who grew wide eyed with horror and rage with the message:

“Nicolas, you have run from us long enough. Now you and this town of magical misfits will be swallowed by and endlessly reign of fire and death until every last one of you, wizard, werewolf, and whatever other abominations of nature resides in this town are wiped clean from this earth. And finally, the last of the Delacour bloodline will be severed,” he relayed to them with an increasing fervor of hateful determination.

Having nothing to say back to the tyrant her father spoke with his actions, sending his hands forward with a defiant cry and sending a continuous stream of searing magic energy toward the tyrant, his desperation and loathing burning with the intensity of a dying star within his eyes. The cape-clad leader raised his hand with little interest in the movement to erect a force field surrounding him and his companions, which seemed to originate from some sort of mechanism in his glove. Her father continued to pour everything he had into his attack, to no avail, while her mother tried desperately to place any defensive spells she knew around their home. More and more knights began surrounding their home, having completely desolated the rest of the town’s population.

It was at this moment the world seemed to slow around her, sound and movement abandoning her as she came to the realization this was the end for her and her family. She knew nothing of these men or why they had destroyed everything she loved, or how her father seemed to already know them, but it all mattered little in the face of her inevitable death. She saw her father turn to her, still attempting with the very fire that lit his soul to protect his family, and give her instructions barely audible over the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest and the deep and steady intake and exhale of her breath.

“Allez avec Louis, Giselle. Prenez sa main et ne pas se laisser aller jusqu'à ce que vous êtes à la fois sûre. Et ne jamais oublier combien votre mère et je vous aime. Vous serez toujours la lumière qui brille à travers les ténèbres de la vie. Maintenant, allez, mes amours, et trouver la vie nous avons toujours voulu pour vous. Nous vous aimons toujours (Go with Louis, Giselle. Take his hand and do not let go until you are both safe. And never forget how much your mother and I love you. You will always be the light that shines through all darkness in life. Now go, my loves, and find the life we always wanted for you. We love you, always).”

His words were the only thing that registered through her trance, echoing through her mind body and soul and filling all that she was with a warmth not found in any climate on this earth. She replayed his love over and over in her mind, never letting go even as the firm embrace of her brother surrounding her and the brilliant light of her home erupting in a wall of flames reflected in the black pupils of her eyes; his words the only thing her senses registered as, all at once, she was thrust into blackness.

-----

The light of day attacked her as though she had never lived in anything but darkness, bringing the memories of everything that had just happened back to the forefront of her mind. The soothing words of her father were not enough to keep her comforted as she saw her brother lying, unconscious and with a stream of blood pouring from his nose, but alive, beside her. He had always possessed a natural ability to teleport short distances, but wherever he had taken them in seek of security must have taken nearly every ounce of life that flowed through his veins.

Completely alone in a vast jungle of flowers and fauna completely alien to her, she sunk to her knees, buried her angelic face in her palms, and began to sob uncontrollably. She cried out with the gut-wrenching helplessness of a harmed animal, filling the empty landscape with nothing but the sound of her sorrow. She cried for friends, her town, and her home. She cried for the end of her innocence, the loss of her identity, and the inexplicable icy waters that filled her veins every time her mind even tried to conceive the idea of her parents being gone forever. But most of all she cried, without pause or break in intensity or the steady rise and fall of her golden head, for the fear of having no idea what she was going to do next.