The Emperor's body was still warm when Livia buries him in a small clearing between two towering trees in the forest of a mountain. It's only been a few hours since she escaped the palace. The night sky was still dark, and the stars still twinkle cheerily above her. The two moons were at full mass, and Livia stared at them as a breeze blows her hair around her head. It cools the still damp tracks of tears on her face, causing her to wipe at them with thick fabric of the Emperor's cloak.
Death was horrible.
No matter how many times she has witnessed it over the months, it still felt abrupt and too cruel.
A pale trembling hand hovers above the grave. Purple light sparks to life instantly between her slim fingers. Her magic dance in her hands, energetic and happy to be free and at full capacity.
Livia would have given anything to see it only days before. Her magic felt like another limb to her body, and once it had been removed, she had felt crippled and off-balance. She has been so desperate to gain it back. She had even been willing to endure the grave pain it caused her to access even a small droplet of it.
But now...
Livia sneers. Her hand whips over the grave aggressively and she turns her back to it. The small mound of dirt, the exact length of a human body, disappears from sight.
With her back still turned, Livia closes her eyes and concentrates. Her arms raise up to the sky, and she begins a long lengthy chant in a language completely unknown to the humans of the world.
It was the language of the Old Ones.
They were first to ever be born on the land of Etheria. The ones who once ruled the land when the humans were barely learning the power of fire. Back when the elves were just starting to wander outside of their mystical fortresses, when unicorns were more common, when faeries and the fae were still visible, and when orcs were still primal, when monsters weren't as deadly as they are now, when demons didn't even exist.
It was a more peaceful time.
It's a language she shouldn't know, a way of magic that she should be completely oblivious too.
But Livia does know it.
The memories weren't of her first life, in a world where magic was just fictional and where technology remain dominant and convenient.
No, the words echoed from another memory, one she realized came from another lifetime. Meaning, the life she lived now was not her second, but her third. Unfortunately, these memories weren't so much visual as they were a never-ending stream of knowledge that she comes to know over time. It was dry and gave her little to no insight into her second life. But with the newfound information came a rather traumatizing growth in her magic.
She was powerful now.
Or more like, the power that she had been born with had been completely dormant until she regained her memories. It was almost as if she had to meet some sort of requirement to gain access to her magic.
Almost like a spell had been lifted...