The Tale of Three in Tonnel
MARY-LOUISE CARTER
Beneath a sky that had forgotten what dawn felt like, the land of Tonnel stretched outward into a restless shadow that seemed to breathe with its own slow despair. The heavens hung low and heavy, the colour of iron cooled too long, veiling a sun that had long since lost its will to rise. The ground below was a cracked mosaic of black stone and ash, as though the world itself had burned and continued to smoulder in silence. In places the soil glowed faintly, embers buried deep, pulsing like the dying heart of a giant beneath the crust of the earth. Rivers dragged themselves sluggishly through the plains, their surfaces shimmering red where faint light touched them, like open wounds reflecting a dying sky. The wind was sparse, tasting of smoke and damp ore, as though it carried the breath of something old and unhealed.
It was said that Tonnel had once been bright — that its skies had gleamed an honest blue and its fields had rippled gold beneath a living, generous sun — yet no one alive could remember such gentleness. Those who still spoke of colour did so like mourners, their words faltering, as if describing a dream glimpsed through fog and half-forgotten upon waking. The few remaining elders swore that once the rivers had glittered like mirrors and that the air had smelled of green things, of rain and new growth, but such notions now seemed like blasphemy in a world made of ash. The wind that wound through the mountain passes no longer carried the scent of spring but the dry tang of ice and smoke. It sang in low tones, like metal dragged against stone, the sound of a memory scraping itself raw. Shadows pooled thick and patient across the valleys, crawling from the cliffs where light no longer lingered. What remained of the villages were only husks of what had been—crooked silhouettes of wood and stone, their hearths long cold. When smoke did rise, it was thin and gray as ghosts, carrying upward the faint illusion that life still endured.
High above, beyond the jagged ranges called the Mountains of Melancholy, rose a tower of ice and iron that speared through the clouds like a blade through flesh. It was a remnant from before time, forged of frost and rock of fallen stars. Within those glacial walls dwelt Kinsadei, the Iron Maiden, she whose skin was as pale as the moon’s underside and whose red-rimmed eyes glimmered with a frozen sorrow. Her crown was wrought from black iron and frozen tears, each point sharp enough to draw blood. She had ruled for centuries, shaping law into the very air, her decrees binding the broken lands with discipline more than hope. And beside her, vast and solemn, was Tuhon — the Dragon of Ice, a divine being born of stillness, wrapped in cold breath and endless patience. When Tuhon moved, avalanches followed, and when he slept, the storms themselves knelt in quiet reverence.
Yet once, they had not been two but three. The Third, whose name the elders dare not speak aloud lest it stir the ashes, had been their warmth. Her scales shone the deep blue of twilight oceans, yet within her chest beat a furnace-heart that pulsed like molten gold. Fins unfurled from her back like translucent wings of ambered glass, and her fangs curved elegantly, always bared in a smile that frightened only those who did not yet understand gentleness. She was both beast and blessing, terrible and kind, and her fire was not wrath but mercy — the kind of flame that invited the cold to draw near, promising not to consume but to comfort.
Together, they balanced Tonnel. Kinsadei’s laws forged structure where chaos threatened, teaching the people that order could be a form of love. Tuhon’s winters granted the land rest, preserving what was fragile through the long nights. And The Third — she walked among the villages barefoot, her scales dimming themselves so as not to frighten the children. She lit the hearths of the poor with sparks drawn from her own breath, carried warmth to widows who could not rise from their beds, and sang in a voice that made the frost weep. Wherever she went, the air lightened, and even the rivers seemed to thaw to listen. Her laughter was a melody that filled the hollows left by centuries of shadow, and in that laughter, Tonnel briefly remembered how to breathe.
But peace rarely endures. When the air is too still, something ancient always begins to hunger. It came as a whisper at first — a ripple in the dark wind — the voice of the Many-Mouth, a bodiless hunger that fed on harmony. It spoke to each of the Three in turn, sowing doubt and pride like seeds.
To Kinsadei, it murmured, “Law alone sustains. Rule more tightly, and the world will never fracture.”
To Tuhon, it whispered, “Only frost preserves. Let your storms cover all before the rot takes hold.”
And to The Third, it hissed with venomous sweetness, “Only your flame keeps hope alive. Burn brighter. Bear it all. Let none but you hold the light.”
Each believed the whisper to be their own conscience, mistaking its poison for wisdom. Kinsadei’s justice grew colder, her mercy locked behind iron gates that no plea could breach. She ruled not with love, but with fear of chaos, convinced that control was kindness. Tuhon’s storms, once a gentle cycle of cleansing and rest, deepened into endless tempests that smothered the land beneath snow and silence. And The Third — beloved, tireless, radiant — began to burn herself away. Every torch she lit, every hearth she kindled, drew from the furnace within her chest. Each infant she held through a frozen night cost her a breath of fire, and with every blessing her scales dimmed from sapphire to ash.
Still she smiled, her glow soft and steady, refusing to let her people glimpse the cost of their comfort. She loved them too fiercely to let them see her falter. Her steps grew slower, her voice hoarse from warmth spent freely, yet she pressed on, carrying the world’s cold upon her back as if it were her birthright.
The people adored her beyond reason. They called her Hearth-Mother, Ember-Sister, the Flame Between Worlds. Songs rose for her; prayers whispered over every new flame. In their worship they leaned ever closer, drawing from her light until it thinned. The Many-Mouth feasted quietly, unseen, savouring devotion as it curdled into depletion. For it needed no hatred to destroy her — only her endless kindness.
The famine came like a slow sigh. The storms grew endless. Crops withered under perpetual frost, and rivers froze until fish became statues beneath the surface. Kinsadei’s rigid decrees forbade sharing, for fairness, she said, must never bend to pity. Hunger stalked every household, and despair became a daily companion. It was then that The Third, exhausted but unbroken, climbed the tallest peak in Tonnel. Alone, beneath a sky bruised black, she looked out upon the dark world her fire had failed to warm.
She whispered a final prayer — not to gods, who had long abandoned this place, but to the memory of what love once meant. Then, spreading her wings, she set herself alight.
The mountain shuddered under her blaze. Flames tore through the clouds like veins of sunlight reborn, and for the first time in centuries, dawn returned. The people awoke to warmth on their faces and saw, high above, a figure of living fire unfurling against the night. Her voice carried on the wind: “Take my fire. Carry it within you. Do not wait for others to bear your warmth. Share it. Kindle it. Pass it from hand to hand.”
When her body fell away to ash, it scattered across the land in a storm of glowing embers. Each ember that touched earth ignited a new flame — in hearths, in torches, in hearts. Where a spark landed in water, the rivers thawed. Where it struck soil, the first shoots of green in generations emerged. And within every human chest, a warmth awoke that no storm could entirely smother.
Kinsadei and Tuhon came too late. Upon the peak they found only a bed of ash, still faintly glowing, and the scent of burnt sweetness in the air. Kinsadei fell to her knees and laid her crown aside. Her tears, red as rust, fell upon the snow and hissed into steam. Tuhon coiled around the last ember, humming a dirge so low that it trembled through the bones of the world.
“We thought strength was in tightening our hold,” Kinsadei whispered. “We thought eternity was frost and iron,” Tuhon replied. “But she gave herself,” they said together, and silence followed.
Grief has two faces — devotion and ruin. For a while, they tried to honour her. Kinsadei sent her knights to guard the mountain of ash; Tuhon forbade storms to cross it. But as years folded into decades, the ache twisted into obsession. Kinsadei’s decrees turned brittle, her people suffocating beneath the weight of laws that no longer protected but punished. Tuhon’s sorrow deepened into madness, their wings frozen mid-motion upon the tower’s summit. The storms they birthed no longer cleansed but smothered.
Without The Third, without her flame, Tonnel withered once more. The soil turned gray and unyielding, the rivers thickened to sluggish veins of rust, and the air lost its pulse. Valleys hollowed into graveyards, their stones etched by centuries of frost, and the laughter of children faded into legend. When the wind rose, it carried the sound of mourning, a hollow cry that moved through the ruins like memory itself.
Those who survived clung to the remnants of what had been. They built their shelters from bones, broken timbers, and the fragments of the old world, huddling close to fires that flickered more than they burned. Each clan guarded its spark as though it were sacred, for in the endless dark, even a candle was a sun. The Salt-Blooded of the river basins, the Stone-Keepers of the high caves, and the Veil-Tenders of the plains no longer shared their warmth, for trust had grown as rare as dawn. They taught their children to fear the horizon, where the light once rose, saying it now hid only hunger. The sky had not known true morning for a hundred generations, and the stars above shone like the last teeth of dying gods.
Still, silence could not drown story. When the night pressed too hard against their walls, the elders gathered beside meagre fires, voices trembling but unbroken. Their words rose with the smoke, retelling the tale of Kinsadei, the Iron Maiden; of Tuhon, the Dragon of Ice; and of the forgotten Third, the Flame-Bearer who gave herself so that others might endure. They spoke of her scales turning to embers, her heart scattering across the land, and the belief that her fragments still slept beneath the stone, waiting for those brave enough to remember warmth. Children listened, faces brightened by the glow, and though they did not know her name, they felt her in the crackle of the flames.
The Many-Mouth lingered still, crawling unseen through the ruins, feeding on solitude. Its voice slipped into the sleeping minds of humankind, soft as breath: “Keep what is yours. Share nothing. Fire dies when divided.” Those who listened forgot the warmth of others and lived by their own faint light. Yet even the Many-Mouth could not devour remembrance, for memory, like flame, needs only the smallest breath to live again.
And so, when the final night grows deepest and the last coals glow in the hearths of the weary, someone always begins to sing. The song is cracked, thin, and trembling, but it carries her name in tones of gold and blue. Each note, they say, seeps into the buried heart of the world, waking the embers that once were hers. When the last singer refuses silence, when one voice endures through the cold, the Flame-Bearer will rise — her scales bright as dawn, her furnace-heart burning the shadow from the sky.
Until that day, Tonnel endures — suspended between ruin and remembrance — held together not by iron or ice, but by a fragile ember of faith: that warmth, once shared, can never truly die.
Mary-Louise Carter is a young aspiring author in Central Queensland. She grew up in a military family, moving around Australia. She writes fantasy novels ans short stories inspired by her life and the things she has endured. Mary-Louise is currently studying full time at Macquarie University, undergoing a Bachelor in Arts, majoring in Creative Writing.
