CRESCENDO
PART ONE: Lightbringer
Chapter One
THE WORLD WAS crumbling down around him.
He held his knee, hair stringy and bloody as it rested against his eyelids; a stone from the mighty keep fell before him, and he jumped back with a cry, bare hands scrabbling for something to cling to along the pavement, heated with fire; he curled up, back to a wall and hidden in a shrub, and buried his face in his hands. He heard voices shouting; his father's, calling for him, and Lothar's, a ring of urgency in it as he agreed to the boy's father's request and hurried across the floor.
Blood stung his eyes; he'd cut his small, tan hands on the stones,