The cell was dark but her pale blue eyes lit it up.

As Ryn came to he sat up and rubbed his arm. He must have been lying on it in a funny way.

He looked around. He was in a dark, cramped cell, about ten paces across.

He winced as the side of his head throbbed with pain too and put a hand to it, finding a big, swollen bump.

Memory crept up on him. In the darkness, images flooded his mind: the rooftops of his hometown all aflame; his mother being run through by an Imperial General’s blade; the last breath leaving his father’s lips.

Dead. All dead.

The memory made him gasp from grief; a quiet, agonised little moan.

“I can’t get you out of here,” said the woman with the pale blue eyes standing a little way in front of him.

Ryn started. Oh, that’s right, there’s someone else in here with me… He had noticed her before, when he had been coming back to consciousness, but somehow his mind hadn’t processed it till now. He must have been hit on the head very hard...

His voice came out hoarse. “I didn’t say that you could…?” It was an odd way to greet someone.

“I know,” said the woman. “But you’re going to ask. My name is Nuthea, by the way.”

He gave her his, took her in.

Her hair was a weave of golden straw that crowned her, wrapped around her neck and fell over one shoulder. Her face was striking, proud cheekbones curling in towards a smooth chin. A weak amber bar built into the ceiling of the cell gave her a faint halo, but her eyes really did glow, like snow reflecting sunlight.

“It’s because I’m Crystal-touched,” said Nuthea.

Ryn got to his feet, rubbing his temples. His head still ached and this woman--girl?--was talking in a peculiar way. Girl? Woman? Woman. “What is?”

“Why my eyes glow like this,” said Nuthea. Her voice was authoritative, patronising. She sounded...rich. She crouched and began to poke around with a finger in the dirt of the cell floor, the light from her eyes dimly illuminating it. “You were about to ask. ‘Crystal-touched’ means I’ve had contact with one of the Primeval Jewels. I assume you know something about those or else the Empire wouldn’t have captured you alive. Not everyone’s eyes glow who’s touched one of the Primeval Jewels, but they do if you’ve touched the Lightning Crystal.”

Ryn shook his head, trying to clear it. Primeval Jewels? What was this girl talking about? Didn’t she understand that he had just lost absolutely everything and everyone that had ever mattered to him? No, of course she doesn’t understand… She doesn’t know about any of it...

“What are the ‘Primeval Jewels’?” he said. Maybe if he could carry on speaking to this girl who for some reason was here in this cell with him he wouldn’t have to think about everything that had happened…

“Oh, you don’t know?” said Nuthea. She said it like he was some sort of slow-witted oaf, but Ryn didn’t mind that too much right now.

“No. Can you tell me?”

“I suppose I could educate you,” said Nuthea. “The Primeval Jewels were made by the One at the dawn of our time and buried deep in the earth.” She sketched with her finger in the dirt of the cell floor as she talked, and Ryn couldn’t see all of what she drew but every now and again he caught a glimpse of a strange symbol in the light from her eyes or the amber bar. She spoke in a voice like Ryn’s schoolmistress, only even more self-assured, if that were possible.

“The Jewels are as old as Mid itself,” Nuthea went on. “There are twelve of them--one for each of the twelve great Peoples of Mid.” She sketched another symbol. “If you touch one of the Jewels, it gives you power over the Element it is associated with. Twelve Jewels, twelve Peoples, twelve Elements.”

Her drawing completed, Nuthea beckoned for Ryn to step closer, then pointed at the dirt symbols she had drawn one by one as she listed off these ‘Elements’: “Water.” A swirling spiral. “Earth.” A line that wound in on itself to form a square. “Wind.” Three wavy lines. “Fire.” A little flame. At the word ‘fire’ Ryn’s cheek twitched. “Lightning.” One bolt, in three lines. “Metal.” A diamond. “Light.” A star. “Shadow.” A simple circle. “Moon.” A crescent. “Nature.” A leaf. “Spirit.” A triangle. “Void.” For void she had drawn nothing at all.

After she said these things, Ryn felt like there was something he needed to remember, something just on the edge of his mind that was important, that he couldn’t quite recall…

Mother. Father. Hometown. And...there was something...

“And where are these Jewels?” he said after a while to fill the gap. He had no idea why this girl was telling him these things but it was better than being left alone for trauma and grief to fill his mind.

Nuthea turned her glowing eyes on him. “Weren’t you listening? I told you. They were buried deep in the earth. Although, most of them have been found, true, so I suppose your question isn’t completely stupid. Some are still in the possession of their respective peoples. Like my people, the Manolians,” she said proudly. “We still own and jealously guard the Lightning Crystal.” She looked sideways for a moment. “Some have been hidden. Some of them have been lost. The Empire is desperate to get its hands on all of them.”

Ryn breathed out through his nose. Twelve Peoples? Primeval Jewels? He had never heard of any of these things before. He was just a simple boy from Cleasor whose only ambitions until very recently had been to one day take over his father’s farm, make a good living, go exploring in the woods on seventhdays and maybe somehow get his crush, Carlotia, to take notice of him. She was almost certainly dead too.

This was all too much for him. At the same time, he felt like he was closer to remembering whatever was on the edge of his mind.

The girl was still looking at him.

“...and what do these Jewels look like, then?” Ryn asked her hesitantly.

“Well, nobody knows what all of them look like, but according to legend they are…” Nuthea crouched down and pointed at the symbols she had drawn again one by one. “The Earth Emerald. The Water Sapphire. The Fire Ruby--”

Ryn took in a sharp breath, making Nuthea pause her recitation.

He had remembered.

He put a hand to his breast where there was a small pocket sown onto the front of his shirt. He patted it, but all he felt was his tunic and the resistance of his chest. There was nothing else in the pocket.

“No!”

Nuthea stood up and backed away from him; at the same time her eyes seemed to glow more brightly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“No!” Ryn cried again, clutching the top of his head, gripping clumps of hair. “My father, just before he... He gave me a ring with a… with a ruby set into it! He told me to keep it safe! I put it here in my breast pocket but it’s gone! I’ve failed him already!”

“Oh…” said Nuthea. She looked down at the ground, and the dirt symbols she had drawn lit up again. “I am sorry that you lost your father.”

Another memory burned in Ryn’s mind now. A memory of fire. “No, you don’t understand...” he said, starting to pace around the small cell, still clutching at his hair, “back in my hometown… one of the soldiers… he tried to kill me… and… and fire came out from me and burned him all up! The ruby, it must have been this ‘Fire Ruby’ you’re talking about!” How had his father even gotten hold of a ‘Primeval Jewel’, if that was what the ruby had been?

Nuthea’s eyes stretched wide. “Yes, it was the Fire Ruby. You are Ruby-touched. But of course you don’t have the Ruby any more. They would have searched you for it before they threw you in here.”

“How long have I been in here? Where is here?”

“You’re in an Imperial cell. You were only in here about ten minutes before you woke up. May I ask...were any other people killed in the Imperial attack, in addition to your father?”

“They killed my mother, my father, everyone in the town. They burned the whole place to the ground.” It didn’t feel real. It felt like it had happened to someone else. But it hadn’t happened to someone else. It had happened to him.

Nuthea put a hand to her mouth. “By the One…” she said, wide eyes staring off at nothing. “I never imagined…” She closed her eyes, contemplating something awful. “Truly the Emperor will go to any lengths to obtain the Jewels, even an act of war… Destroying a whole town… I am so sorry.”

A thought came to Ryn. “Why did they leave me alive, if they got what they wanted? Why didn’t they just kill me as well?” Part of him wished they had.

Nuthea opened her eyes again. “They want to question you.” She said it like it was obvious. “That’s why they’ve kept me alive too.”

For the first time, Ryn considered what this girl was doing in here with him. Disorientated from shock, from grief, from capture, it had not crossed his mind yet.

“Who are you?” he said slowly to her. “How did you get here?”

There was deep, distant groaning sound from somewhere above them and the whole room lurched sideways for a moment, then righted itself.

Ryn put out a hand on the wall to break his fall. Feeling like he was about to throw up, he put his other hand to his mouth. Nuthea put her hands out too, found empty air, swayed where she stood, then stumbled forward, knocking into Ryn and banging heads with him. They collapsed in a pile together on the floor, then immediately disentangled themselves from one another and shuffled apart on their backsides.

Ryn was too surprised to pay too much attention to the awkwardness of their collision. “We’re on some kind of ship?!” he blurted out to the world in general.

Nuthea stood up again and dusted down her dress. “Yes, we’re on an Imperial airship.”