The darkness around her was as absolute as the darkness inside.

Cycles of guilt, anger and denial, but sadness was the constant in that torture. It ate at the lining of her stomach. Swelled her throat nearly closed and burned in tears that felt made of acid. The only reprieve was sleep, but even that held its own nightmares.

Anger at Orick for having sent her away, guilt at having let him. She could’ve stopped him, if she had really tried. She hadn’t even fought Naon, and no matter how weakened she was, she should’ve at least tried. In every way, she had failed.

Her mind went around and around on that argument.

Anger. Guilt. Loss. Failure.

Time became meaningless in the prison that was her mind. Days or weeks, it didn’t even matter anymore. Time slid by, it’s passing marked by pangs of thirst and hunger that she at first welcomed, and then despised when they became all she could focus on.

She deserved the pain, deserved to die slowly, but her flesh would not succumb so easily. When she rose and began exploring the pitch black Orick had sent her to, she didn’t even know. Her body’s needs overpowered her depression, the darkness lending a dream-like state to the experience as her breath sawed through the silence, arms sweeping through emptiness until they brushed against the cool stone of a wall. It was the same texture as the floor she had laid upon, a silicate carved so flawlessly her fingertips slipped across it like wet soap.

Trailing the wall she mapped out the square room, circling again and again when her explorations yielded nothing but smooth walls. No shelves or keyholes. No entry or exit, not even gaps where a door might have been.

It was a tomb.

A laugh scraped through her throat still raw from mourning at the ironic thought. What had Orick said not that long ago? She looked like a corpse, yes. How fitting to find herself in a room that was perfect for a final resting place.

Struggling to swallow past a tongue thick from dehydration she turned her focus inwards, to the small ember that was once a roaring inferno. Fire was easy for warlocks to summon, the basis of their creative yet chaotic magic. The first step in their dark arts, and lately their last.

Frail light filled the space, sparkling off the grey crystalline walls and refracting the dim glow into a million sepia stars. Saraf turned in place, awed at the subtle beauty and simple perfection before her eyes came to rest on the wall opposite of where she stood.

Written in old blood was three circles of runes, the outer band a security protocol, the middle a preservation, and the inner a power siphon off of…

She gasped in disbelief, crossing the distance to study the name closer, as if she had misread it to begin with. But no, there in flawlessly detailed script was Nuada’s name implored and granted.

With the blessing of Nuada there was no need for blood to activate the stored memory, at least not in theory. The sacred grimoires predating their God’s betrayal they had in their archives were inaccessible because their source of power had been tethered to Her. Many warlocks past and present had endeavored to unlock their secrets to no avail, yet someone had done it.

Did that mean they had been able to access the lost knowledge too?

Even after all she had been through fear sluiced through her veins, making her hesitate to place her palm atop the handprint in the middle of the runes. She had a pretty good notion that the answers to her questions lay there, but did she really want to know?

What was the old saying again? Ignorance is bliss?

“Fuck it,” she whispered, and having nothing else to lose besides her life she slapped her hand atop it.

The runes blazed in azure, illuminating the chamber. The walls, floor and ceiling vanished as the crystals in the stone caught the light, creating an optical illusion that she stood among the stars.

No, it’s not an illusion, she realized, mouth hanging open in wonder as celestial bodies she knew became three-dimensional, distant clouds of prismatic colors speckled with points of light.

“They’re called nebula’s,” Orick’s voice interrupted. Startled, she turned to find him standing behind her. Gone was the frailty, his skin flush and cobalt eyes sparkling as they met hers before he gazed upwards. “The birthplace of suns, of entire galaxies like what our world is but an infinitesimal part of. Our ancestors had begun to learn of such things, in comparison we know nothing.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Orick, you’re—“

“Dead,” he finished for her somberly, though he offered a gentle smile. “This was created in the event of such a thing; I couldn’t be the last.”

“But why, how?” She managed, fresh tears blurring his details as her chin wobbled. At her emotional response his smile failed, and he exhaled slowly.

“It was no genius of my own; Nuada chose to allow me to activate one of the old scriptures. I think— I think she is lonely. Has been for a very, very long time. She’s waiting, Saraf.” His expression turned worried, doubtful as he chewed on his lower lip. “She’s waited for a very long time.”

“Waiting for what?”

He shook his head grimly. “The memory she allowed me to see was a time from before the demons, before the world was torn apart into the tatters we know it as, before we were even known as Warlocks. An age where she spoke to our ancestors from across the veil.”

Cupping his hands together he reached out, and she felt the echoes of power activate…something. It was as invisible as the wind, just as simple and easy to feel, yet she could not understand how he had done it. Stars fell into his palm, gathering together into a single bright orb until he set it free to float back out again for her to witness.

“She taught them things that would’ve taken centuries to learn on their own,” he continued. The orb rotated open like a kaleidoscope, a halo of light framing a darkness so deep it warped the space around it.

“I don’t know why, but they betrayed her after opening the way into our veil— our reality.”

The ring collapsed in a blinding flash of light. Saraf shielded her eyes and cringed away from the painful glare, and when the light dimmed enough to see again a single blue moon now hung full where the black orb had been.

“It can be reversed, Saraf. This could change everything for us, for our people.”

She watched as the moon shifted to red, then turned a dead grey. Such a casual shift of colors, as if the history associated with those events had not been so catastrophic to their world.

To their kind.

Saraf waited a breath. Two. Still the lunar satellite did not alter colors but remained the muted grey, just like the one that truly hung in the sky above them. “I’m sorry to say but your hope ends here; I have nothing left but embers of my power, of my life.”

“Ah,” Orick replied, offering a sly smile. The map of the sky faded as the walls began to glow, highlighting veins of iridescent blues that ran through the smoky depths. Like flames captured in stone.

A frozen fragment of Nuada’s power that stretched like the extensions of roots in varying, random directions every which way through the earth, the main line vanishing far, far into the distance. It was as impossible as the spell was, as Orick’s presence was, yet it existed.

Without needing to be prompted she reached out, the magic as welcoming as a mother’s embrace. It sank into her skin, nourished her emaciated body and restored her soul. She took a deep breath, the first one she had been able to take in so long, and the exhale came out as a keening sob as her sorrow began anew.

If she had just picked herself up off the floor. If she had just got the fuck up and raged against this prison she had found herself in.

If. If. If.

“Find a way to release Nuada, Saraf. She can teach you the depth of your true powers, and return me to your side. Forever.”

“Again, you’re tasking me with the impossible,” she whispered, lips trembling again. “My appearance is known, and just as surely my eyes mark me for what I am.”

Before she could tell him of their annihilation on that hill in the Cambion territories, fragments of the smoky opalescent stone broke off from the illuminated tomb. Marbles no larger than her thumbnail gathered for her to take from the air, a single one lowering into Orick’s waiting palm.

“When it is time, return to me and I shall make you whole again.”

“Come with me,” she implored to Orick, but the warlock shook his head.

“You know I cannot.”

“Because you’re not Orick, not truly.”

“No, I’m not. Your Orick did find this place, and his will became the new controlling parameter. He intended for you to continue his quest, which is why you’re here.”

His expression turned grave, and he stepped closer to her without offering an explanation of anything he had just said. “But he could return. He could be resurrected with Nuada’s power. Before the humans named you Warlocks in their hatred, you had been known as something else.”

He reached out to touch the stone below her breast, and she gasped as the first wave of pain choked her lungs.

“Soulcasters.”

[https://i.postimg.cc/ht3bqpkV/blue-moon.jpg]

From the black maw of a nondescript mausoleum, an old crone stepped out into the darkened cemetery.

Time had curved her spine, thinned her so that bones as fragile as birds were visible under papery skin. Taking a moment to gather her bearings, she pulled her shawl up over her freshly shorn skull to keep the evening chill at bay, casting her face in shadow.

Hiding the sharp, alert eyes of blue-black that did not match her withered frame as they came to rest on the castle on the hill.

She hobbled down the steps onto the gravel pathway, and began to make her way towards those lighted parapets.