It took my father a full day to prepare for the training. I asked him what exactly we were going to be doing, but he never answered. As time dragged forward I was only left with anxious nerves, going to bed in the same room that had been ravaged by a demon twice over now.
I wasn’t sure what kind of horrible training My father was planning on putting me through, but I figured it couldn’t be worse than anything else. I admitted to myself I couldn’t look at him the same way. after all, he wasn’t the kind and loving father I thought he was.
That didn’t mean he was evil either though, so I tried to remain hopeful, even if it was getting harder every time I saw him. ‘Regardless of what I have to do… I’ll do it. I’ll get stronger… And I’ll win.’
Before I knew it the whole day had come and gone, blending into the rest of my colorless life. I didn’t know what awaited me in the morning, but I had a bad feeling. Even if it was going to make me stronger in the end… ‘Nothing good ever comes from taking shortcuts…’
I laid down in my bed, the room was still torn apart and the wind whistling through the holes in the walls, no one even bothering to fix them. ‘Just look at what happened last time…’
I let out a sigh as I closed my eyes, and at the same moment, the whistling from the wind fell silent. ‘Did I fall asleep so quickly?’ Of course, the fact I was thinking at all told me that wasn’t the case.
I felt the air thicken around me, and I knew what had happened. All my senses were gone, just like my first encounter with the ghoul.
“Show me what you have learned little girl.”
Rafi’s voice echoed in my mind, it was the only thing that told me I was still alive, but perhaps even more importantly than that, it told me that it wasn’t the Ghoule that had brought me into the void.
‘I’m in the void, I have to use darksight to see.’ Just like before I circled the energy from my soul around my eyes, and in an instant my eyes began to see in muted colors.
My body was like that of a doll falling from a shelf, while Rafi appeared in front of me falling by my side. Only she was perfectly calm, and in her little form, sitting cross-legged.
“Not bad, not bad. I guess it’s to be expected from someone like you though. What else you got?”
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Most of my day had been spent learning normal magic, so I only read about grounding. I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but trying wouldn’t hurt.
‘Imagine the thing you hold most dear… The thing you’re fighting for… The thing you’re holding onto…’ I tried my best to sit up and face her as we continued to fall through endless nothingness.
“Rafi… I don’t think I have anything to ground me…”
She flicked my forehead. “Idiot.”
I rolled backward in the air, struggling to find how I was supposed to balance while in free fall.
“You like that strange game you call chess right?”
I finally stopped spinning, looking at her again as a board appeared in front of us. “Can you read minds too?”
She waved her hand, ignoring my question. “If we were going to play a game, would you try to win?”
I felt like it only took a single glance at the board for me to see nearly every possible outcome. ‘Would I try to win? Well…’ “What reason would I have to lose…”
She snapped and pointed at me again. “That! that right there. That's all you need. Your desire to win isn’t unshakable, but it's natural. In the same way, you naturally want to be good, to not be corrupted. You don’t need some special reason to keep being a good person, you just do it naturally… But if the price is right, you might change, you might throw the match. You might kill someone… And when that happens, you get one step closer to becoming a demon.”
It was clear she was very serious about it, and for good reason of course. But… ‘How does that help me use grounding though.’
I blinked, and suddenly she became huge again.
She picked up the black kingpiece, looking down at it with sad eyes. “When you start to get reasons to be bad… Will you? Only time will tell, souls can shift and change like water.”
I gulped as her sudden intimidating presence made it hard to breathe. “You’re asking what my price is?”
We both stopped as I hit the ground. She landed on her feet, while I pancaked on the floor, the pressure around me starting to increase, making it harder to breath.
“Exactly. What would it take for you to be corrupted.”
The whispers started floating through the air around us, but this time they all said the same thing.
“I’m sorry”
The words echoed with many voices, each one bringing a chilling mist that blew like cold wind through the snow.
She looked down at me with piercing eyes. “Would you do it to save someone you love? If someone caught your sister and told you to kill for them, would you? If your mother was burned alive would slaughter for revenge? Or… maybe you’re just down on your luck and need some money… You think that coin would do more good than the evil you had to do to get it… What’s your price?”
‘These… Aren’t just examples… Are they…’ My head began to pound as the pressure around me increased until I began to vomit, still trying desperately just to breathe. “I don’t know… I-I I- Don–t”
Everything around me vanished in an instant, and I was transported to a grand garden-like ruin that was built in the middle of the void. Everything from its pillars to its floors was made out of a pale blue stone, and in the center was a broken archway, through which, there was the perfect view of the moon. It wasn’t any of the three moons I recognized though… It was… Darker, and a mist came out of the center like a black hole, slowly devouring it from the inside.
“You don’t know because you don’t have one.” She said calmly. “Not yet at least…”
I lowered my eyes from the moon in the background to see her sitting on a massive throne just below it. She was in what looked almost like the ruins of a temple, rather than a throne room.
I caught my breath, taking a moment to appreciate the otherworldly view as I approached. “What do you mean I don’t have a price…” ‘That should be a good thing right?’