Excerpt From
The Burning Sea Saga Volume І
Through His Child Eyes

Those pallid eyes, eyes that have seen pain and horror upon a scale that no child should ever see. They were calm, wise, calculating. Firmly they attached their gaze upon the trial before them. Here he stood, at the beginning of the ever deadly “test.” At the age of fifteen he was the youngest in history to be called to take the test, while most took the test in their early twenties.
Before him stood the gleaming bronze doors of the time test. Calmly he walked up to them and put his hands upon the smooth metal doors then with little energy he pushed and they opened to him. Walking into the room the doors silently closed behind him and the expanse of nothingness overtook him. Lightning flashed in the corners of his sight but he walked forward into the white nothingness. It was then that a voice shook his flesh, to his bones, to his soul.
“Another fool child. Yes. Young, yet wise.” The deep voice boomed, seeming to echo on forever. Alaron kept his mind clear, strong and continued walking forward, even as the arcane magics began to burst around him.
“Young and very powerful, you have high standing with the gods I see.” Explosions of every color grew in intensity around him, probing, testing the power of the young man. Alaron felt them dig and pry, the powers of the arcane testing his own. Still he continued to walk forward, as the ice of the frost lands had done far worse to him, this was nothing. As he continued the powers increased into a storm that flowed over him like a wave of the sea, above, below, and all around. Loud crackles and booms echoed and grew in noise.
“While you may be in high standing with the gods that will not help you as time judges you, young mage. You may be the son of a king, and the lord elementals, time will decide whether the titles are just that, yours.”
“Who are you?” Alaron shouted out into the nothingness.
“Bold as well,” Returned the booming voice. It was silent for several moments before a sound arose as though there was a waterfall nearby. Walking further he soon saw what made the sound.
Before him opened a vast expanse of sand and it seemed that sand fell from the sky, seemingly from no source. The sand was a dark black, grain and all around electric bolts danced, explosions sounded and crackled. Upon the horizon he could see a structure of some type. He continued walking and as soon as he was surrounded by sand it seemed to leap up and fly around him like a hive of bees. Then all at once the sand seemed to plow into him, he coughed, spit and gasped for air as the sand entered he nostrils, mouth, eyes and ears. He could feel his lungs fill with sand and in the back of his mind he heard a grating sound, like stone on stone. He fell to the ground, no longer able to draw breath. His vision waned and soon everything grew black. The sand beneath him seemed to swallow him and in seconds he was gone.
Hanging on the edge the visions came, visions of time. Each image blasted through Alaron’s brain. He saw a floating city, presumably held aloft by magical forces over a large plane of grass. An instant later he saw armies spread out around it but the soldiers were shadows. Then he saw the massive explosion that decimated the plane, the vast blast that sent the city and its tall slender spires and all of its inhabitants falling to the ground, shattering it like a piece of glass. He saw it and the land around it wither as time progressed, as bones became dust, as stone blocks became pebbles.
In a flash later Alaron saw himself, standing in the center of the fallen city, its ruins ancient and quiet around him. He knew it was himself but he didn’t know how he knew. He stood like a shadow, darkness in a dark land then the image of himself faded to the wind like sand.
Another blast of imagery came to him, this time he was aboard a ship. There were many ships and they seemed to surround an island, an island with a great fortress set upon it’s only beach. He saw the image of himself again, another shadow and he raised his hands and in a burning light and a spray of flames and great waves of red fire everything was gone. Again the shadow faded into the wind like sand.
Time marched onward and each image seemed to grind him even closer to dust