Chapter 10

The setting sun hung loosely as I made my way back to my father’s farm. I had no idea what I might find in the small wooden box, however, I was hopeful that it would clear up the mystery surrounding my mother’s supposed magical background.

Whether my mother was a mage or not, was irrelevant to me, however, every bit of information was useful at this point. I was curious as to why I had no affinity with an elemental and I was hoping that my mother left a note or letter explaining something.

I didn’t know much about her, but Gladus said that she was able to rescue the family farm from decay, so she must have been a knowledgeable lady, magical or otherwise.

I opened the ironclad gate and raced up to my father’s bedroom. The door to my father’s room was always open and I continued this trend following his death. I walked inside and spotted the box on the bedside table. I had left it there after preparing the clothes for dinner at the Inn.

I grabbed the box and sat on the bed. Time had not been friendly to this box. The wood was beginning to become discoloured and the latch was rusty. Thankfully there was no lock. I placed my fingers on the latch and attempted to raise it to open the box, it was stuck.

I put some force into pulling the latch up, but no matter how much strength I put into it, it wouldn't budge. Despite its rustic look, the box was firmly closed. Just before I was about to give up and find a tool that I could use to break the latch, I cut myself. It was a small cut, but a cut nonetheless. I had caught my finger on the corner of the latch and blood had trickled from my finger, onto it.

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I pulled away and was about to go and find something I could wrap around my finger to stay the bleeding, when I noticed something. The blood that had trickled onto the latch had vanished. I was certain that it was there a few seconds ago and I was also sure that I hadn’t smudged it away. I curiously reached for the bottom of the latch and lifted it, it opened.

The stiffness that prevented me from opening the box had disappeared. I slowly lifted the lid and peered inside. A silver locket emblazoned with a dark and leafless tree rested on a stack of velvet cloth. The locket sparkled in the orange hue of the setting sun. Unfortunately, there was no accompanying note or anything else for that matter. It seems this box was only housing what looked like a priceless family heirloom.

I reached for the locket and lifted it out of the box. The second I took the locket into my hand, I felt a jolt of pain run up my arm. Before I dropped the locket on reflex, the pain instantly disappeared. It seems the cut on my finger had also stopped bleeding.

The tree faced locket seemed to open with a press of the button that connected the locket to the solid silver chain. Something told me, that if I opened this locket, my world would never be the same. Whether it was instinct or a sense that mankind had yet to discover, it told me, that opening this locket would unlock a path that had remained closed to me.

I stood motionless. If someone were to walk in now, they would see the light of the setting sun, transmit through the bedroom window and overshadow a stagnant young man.

Time passed, Astoria’s determined look flashed in my mind and I used my thumb to open the locket. The front of the locket opened with a hiss and the leafless tree illuminated a purple hue. Before I could even contemplate how it managed to light up like that, time stopped.

“At last.”

I heard a mature and strangely familiar voice. A purple haze excreted from the open locket, it coated my body and the whole room in a violet myst. I lost the ability to move and became extremely lightheaded. I had never been able to hold my liquor, a trait that I had inherited from my father, but this feeling was a little different from being tipsy or plain drunk. I stood paralysed, just before I reached the height of lightheadedness, I blacked out.