Through my eyes, ashes could be seen falling all around me as my hands violently shook in front of my face. Anger seeped through every portion of my body, teething me forward to do unspeakable things. What I felt in my chest was the iridescent pang of an unfamiliar pain. A pain of betrayal, of loneliness. One pain that consumes the soul, drowning it in an unfavorable darkness. Dragging the soul down, to the depths of an unforeseeable doom. These were my hands, but I could not control them because my body was not my own. Seeing the world through veiled eyes, cast by shadow and dust. Each sound heard through my ears was a faint mumble and an awful ringing noise. I was a host in a shell, being used by a force that should not have been meddled with.
My hands, which were once used to create potions, were now sitting before my eyes covered in ashes. These ashes were from the person that The Mage had recently killed, with the convenience of using me, the Royal Warlock. As our hands settled down to the ground, the person's ashes lying before us, I felt The Mage's hold on me tighten for her power was growing. Every time she took someone's magic; her powers began to heighten. Magic stealing was an ancient art, one that was strictly forbidden by the kings of old. As a royal herself, I only see this as spitting on the throne that she was born into.
Her voice could be heard, only slight mumbles, which I assumed were evil chuckles as our body began to move elsewhere. With me, only a passenger within this corpse, it was unsettling having our body move places while we did not have possession of our muscles. I could only assume she kept my spirit alive so she could torture me. Seeing every life that The Mage took, I felt anger build up within me, along with a great wave of sorrow as their ashes floated to the ground. The Mage was never nice to her victims, never quick and painless. Always had to torture, maim, and slowly ease into their death. I wish I could not watch, but my eyelids could not shut. My spirit could only watch in utter horror and dismay.
—
Many screams could be heard throughout the Cloud Kingdom, running scared, frantic, no place to call home. The palace guards wandered through the crowds, trying to discern where all the cries were coming from. It seemed that the cries echoed everywhere, bouncing around from place to place. Their queen, Renata Magic, commanded them at their side, "Only help those that you can, there are too many casualties." All the guards took in her words and scattered throughout the kingdom to search for citizens they could help. The citizens had a range of injuries from minor cuts and bruises, internal bleeding, loss of blood, or the ashes of their bodies left behind in dismay. Morgan Magic, as Henry knew her by, was seeking havoc on the people of Cloud Kingdom, reaching her tormented claws on every corner, enacting cruel deeds on every person she encountered. This left every citizen shaken and in terror, scrambling for their lives on what to do. Their once peaceful kingdom full of purity and kindness, was now filled with an all-consuming darkness that left the soul to feed an ever-growing evil.
The guards that were ordered out by the queen returned, only a few held onto the wounded, the ones who received the lighter punishment from The Mage. While the rest were empty-handed, only remnants of ash clung to their silver uniforms as evidence of perjury. One of the guards who held onto a civilian stated, "There are only a few wounded Your Majesty, the rest have endured far worse, their souls taken." Queen Renata sighed, disappointed there were so few returning and being left untouched. Her regality seeped through her, knowing that there was a great battle ahead of them, one that required the location of Morgan Magic.
Renata gazed into the soldier's eyes and spoke, "Take as many of the wounded as you can find. Place them in the castle and ask for our head nurse Hewae (Huh-way), he will treat them with the best care." The soldiers given this order, shuffled toward the castle, getting all the wounded to safety. Renata then spoke to the ones left without this decree, "All the rest of you, continue your search, I want this beast found." The remainder of the soldiers then scattered throughout the rest of the kingdom, searching for any remanence of Morgan. Renata and Henry understood the fact that Morgan was trapped within that book and was now released, however, they did not know what state Morgan was in. The only lead that they could go off of was Jerus, who was the last person to have possession of the strange book. Renata knew that finding Jerus was of absolute necessity and was planning to go visit him after the guards came back with their report.
___
Taking all of the guards, we all maneuvered through the kingdom, visiting every house. One house we visited was a house that I was rather familiar with, for the people that lived here were dear friends of Henry and I. As we crept across the yard, the house that sat before we were sitting rather eerily, a dark ominous shadow sat on top of the house as its walls seemed to slightly sway in a lulling pattern. My emotions rang through my chest, warning me not to go into the house even though our mission was to find Morgan and capture her. She has become a threat that we had put down.
Inching further toward the door, chills ran up and down my spine. The guards that surrounded me also lurched away from the mysterious ambiance of the house as they slithered carefully toward the house. Reaching for the door handle, everyone stood in anticipation of something terrible. Busting open the door, strangely everything was quiet. Nothing moved in the environment of the house as the guards, including myself, carefully tread into the home. With our swords raised, all of us split up to search the house.
The house itself had a stairwell at the entrance of the house, the living room to the left and the dining room to the right. The guards went to search these areas, while I walked up the stairs rather slowly. The white railings that protected the stairs surrounded me as I waded my way to the second floor. Touching the second floor, I held my sword like a dagger as I held my left hand up at my chest to protect my heart. I shifted my feet leftward, as I looked back and forth in each direction. The halls seemed to go on forever as I glided across the marbled flooring of the home.
The lights slightly flickered throughout the halls as I made my way to a door that was situated on the right side of the hall. Slowly, I backed myself up against the wall to brace myself for an attack. Touching the handle, I opened the door and waited a few seconds before moving into the room. The room itself was a bedroom for a young fairy girl, the bedframe was pink, and lovely curtains hung around the bed, to give the young girl a feeling as if she was a princess. A dresser lay across from the bed, allowing access to all of her clothes and accessories. Young fairies haven't learned the proper skills of cloth swapping and creation yet. So, fairies must wear handmade clothes until they have mastered this art. A desk sat near the window that was at the right of the bed, it had colored drawings lying on top of the desk as crayons, pencils, and other crafting objects were scattered across its surface.
Making my way into the room, I quietly shimmied toward a door that was at the corner of the room, on the other side of the dresser. Opening the white pine door, I peered in and saw that it was a small bathroom that had toothbrushes and other feminine products sitting on the bathroom counter and sink. There was nothing in this region, so I slowly closed the door of the bathroom.
Suddenly one of the guards yelled, "Your Majesty, come look!" At these words, I bolted out of the room and ran my way down the stairs. The voice came from one of the other rooms situated on the first floor, it was the bedroom of the parents and my dearest friends. Dashing toward the room, I could not have braced myself for what I was to see next. Swinging the door open, one of the guards was crouched down next to their ashes. Their ashes were in a corner of the room, all huddled together to try and get away from something. The people that I knew, Danielle and Jason, along with their little girl, Elle, were the kindest. They always had the biggest smiles on their faces and gave back to other people without a reason to.
I collapsed before their bodies and let a silent tear run down my cheek, "Tell me what you can decipher from this." I gazed at the guard who decided to get up from his crouching position. He marched around the room in a circular pattern as he pointed at clues through the space.
The guard doing this said, "Whoever it was, came in here rather maliciously and very clumsily as well." He stood at the foot of the door, and imitated the assailant's movements, "The killer, charged into the room. However, their feet stumbled on top of themselves. The foot patterns here seem to indicate that they were struggling to walk." Then he came back up to me, where the ashes lay, "The killer took their souls here, even if they were struggling to control their movements. This means whoever we are looking for, isn't the actual killer for they have been possessed by the actual perpetrator." The guard then stood firmly next to me and placed his firm hand on my shoulder for comfort. Getting up from my kneeling position, I shakily whipped the tears away from my face and turned to look at the guard. I was slightly shocked for this meant that the last person who was with Morgan, which was Jerus, was being held captive. This posed a great problem for us all.