Short Story; Frostfall

The Stone Henges were said to have been set by the Sons of Cain in the days before even the Nielda had begun to travel through the stars.  They could be found on every major species' homeworld, save that of the Nielda, and even the homeworlds of most of the less important species.  But they were also found on thousands, if not millions of worlds that had been home only to trees, grass, and rodents, who the Sons of Cain may well have brought with them.  The first one that the Nielda had found had been on Appeni, known even after the Frostbourne war as a garden world.  It had been found by the sage of that world, a woman named Ceanne.  But on the records, the first one discovered was found three years later on Decidua, the homeworld of the Ga-Vok.
The first explorers had discovered the greatest property of the stones that very same day.  In trying to escape the Ga-Vok, the team's mage had tried to set wards on the stone circle, already a safe point as a result of its location and design.  Instead, he managed to trigger the magic already set upon the stones and found that they projected an impenetrable barrier.  Thousands of years later, a Gascan princess and general tried to breach one of these barriers, causing incredible damage to the surrounding hillside and permanently altering her own appearance.  Her name was Tala, and she always referred to it as one of her only two failures in life.
They had other properties too.  While the barrier was active they could generate enough food to satisfy the hunger of their inhabitants.  Waste, excrement and otherwise, seemed to magically non-exist within the barrier.  And there was always your first choice of beverage on the altar stone.  And none of it seemed to be affected by any of the laws that normally governed those sorts of enchantments.  There was no power source, save perhaps the stones themselves, and none of it seemed to come from or go too anywhere.  Official statements from both top enchanters and scientists, and the military, stated that this was clearly a divine or 'natural' magic.  

Of course, this wasn't the first stone circle that Kate Immersfeld had encountered.  She'd basically done her dissertation on the matter, and this one defied any of her prior knowledge.  The stones were cracked, and the altar was riven.  But those were merely physical problems, any team of Imperial Guard relic restoration specialists could have fixed that.  The problem was that the magic felt wrong.
Now magic was not generally a natural thing, so its hard to say that it ever felt right.  But this was a particular, and she found this part especially bothersome, familiar sort of wrong.  She'd felt it on her trip to visit the circle on Anatolia, the whole planet felt like this.  The Library at the Arcane Academy felt somewhat like this, but more muddled.  It was the way a demon's magic felt.  And even on Anatolia the circle had felt, for lack of a better word, shiny.  But here it felt rather the way that a black hole behaved, like a puncture in the fabric of whatever it existed in.  You felt drawn towards it, but it was also dangerous to get too close.
But if Arcania, for so she called herself, was anything, it was curious.

"ZeeGee, you want to have a look?"
The cold around her coalesced into a sort of man shaped white mist.  The Frost King, who's true name she alone knew, would have been more than a match for most any threat that faced them.  But Arcania knew that the same could have been said of her, for she had studied magic her whole life, and had the strength and skill to kill nearly anything that they would face.
Including, as she had proven in the past, a demon.
"My lady, I do not believe that would be wise.  This presence is powerful beyond anything we have encountered in the past.  I do not wish to see you come to harm."
"Oh dear, is it really that powerful?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Then I guess we'll just have to both go."  And she climbed over the fallen stone and into the circle proper.  ZeeGee fell weirdly silent, although she was aware of his yelling to her.  The rest of the world seemed so far away all of a sudden, like it was another plane of existence.
"Good.  Good.  Just as Legion predicted.  I am glad all my years of waiting shall finally pay off."
"Hello Demon.  Shall we start by you telling me your name and end with me banishing you from existence?"
"Overconfident, bold, and powerful are three of my favorite traits in an immortal.  You have them all.  You shall do quite well as the figurehead for my armies." 
"And you'll be a fine story to tell my sisters.  Are we going to stand her all day or will you just stand there talking like my mother?"
Arcania had been too involved in the banter and she realized it as the first blow came.  Not from in front of her, where a shadowy giant stood, but from behind.  A tendril of darkness caught her by the leg and flung her against the stones.  She lashed out with a flurry of sharp, icy blades, severing the tendril and a dozen like it.  She erected a barrier against the rest and incanted a series of wards against demonic assault.  But they all fell away as soon as they'd been incanted.  The circle's enchantments hadn't just been broken, they'd been inverted!  She couldn't get out, she couldn't be protected, and she was starting to feel hungry.
"I like your trap, its very clever."
"Oh do you now?  I rather hoped you'd appreciate it, I've put a lot of thought into how I'd bring you under my domination."
Arcania sundered the earth beneath his feet, forcing him to unfurl his vast leathery wings.  A hail of her favored frozen flechettes cut through them and she joined them with a wave of raw arcane energy.  His wings were left tattered, though still functioning, but he brushed off her magical onslaught with little regard for the effect it would have had on any other manner of being.  But that was as she expected for a demon, its main purpose was to occupy the monster's vision while she prepared a ray of light.  And as the demon's form showed through the blast, she loosed the pure white ray.  It missed the demon's heart, but tore through its abdomen.  She could hear its bones splinter as her blast glanced off of them.  It howled in pain, but it was not beaten.  She found herself barely able to shield herself against the barrage of corrupted bolts that it cast, and as she deflected one beam of devastating power after the next she tripped over another one of the Shadithic tendrils that emanated from the circle itself.  The Demon caught her under a press of shadowy power, and the last thing she remembered seeing was the hatred in its eyes and the black blood flowing from the wound she'd dealt it.