Dark Illumination

Chapter Three

During the summer of Serena’s ninth year, The Dark came for her. She had been returning a fallen chick to its nest high above a tree. She straddled the branch, carefully inching her body forward, crying chick in one hand. Why the mother crow decided on a nest at the very edge of the branch, she had no clue. But bravely she kept crawling forward like a caterpillar on its way to a leafy feast.

When she reached the nest, she gently tilted her hand so the chick slid into the bowl to rejoin its equally noisily chirping brothers and sisters. Smiling to herself in triumph, Serena sat up and whipped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. That was about the same time the mother crow decided to check on her babies. Thinking Serena had come to do hard, the bird dove beak first into her head. She yelped, putting her hands up to protect her face from the onslaught of sharp claws.

In an effort to get away from the attack, Serena waved her hands. The jerky movement caused her to lose her balance from her precarious perch and she tipped over. Screaming as she fell, her last thought was of her parents. How she would finally join them in The Dark.

Instead of hitting the ground as she expected, an inky blackness enveloped her. She opened her eyes to find herself floating in a space where she could see nothing but herself. No source of light. Just unending darkness.

Was this The Dark? She asked herself as she looked around.

Was this the final resting place of all the ancestors?

Then a mighty voice called her name.

She searched for its source, but as far as her eyes could see she was alone.

The voice called her name again. It wasn’t a scary sound. It didn’t even sound like her uncle when he got angry over a mistake she had committed. It was a booming voice, indeed, but a gentle booming voice. If there was such a thing. She felt no fear. No anxiety. In fact, curiosity more than anything else pushed her to keep searching for where the voice was coming from.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am what I am,” it said.

She giggled, not understanding. “What does that mean?”

“I am the darkness in the brightest light. I am the darkness just before the dawn. I am what I am.”

“You are what you are,” she said back, puzzling over the riddle. Then, like a spark from flint, she knew. “The Dark.”

“Yes,” it said like a breeze in the summer.

“Am I…” She paused. A hint of fear at admitting the truth caused her words to trail off. But if it were the truth then why must she fear it? So she swallowed and asked, “Am I dead?”

A silence followed. Not the kind that made her uncomfortable, the way her uncle got something when he was deep in thought. It was the kind of silence that seemed amiable. Like when she was playing with her doll under the shade of a tree. Or like when her mother would make her a flower crown. A distant memory. A happy one. It seemed so far away now.

Then the voice came again. “You are very much alive, Serena.”

A great, heaping mound of relief filled her chest. She breathed out, placing the palm of her hand over her heart. Certainly the beats beneath were steady and strong. “You don’t know how happy that makes me.”

“Yours is the path of the people.”

Another riddle. She wasn’t very good at solving those. “The path of the people?”

“Your happiness is no longer your own.”

With each word spoken she grew more and more confused. “I don’t understand,” she allowed herself to admit. There was no one else here to hear her.

“You are chosen.”

“Chosen?” She hated having to repeat what was being said. Her uncle said if she needed to think something through, it would be best if she did it within the silence of her mind. But she couldn’t think. What she was being told was too confusing.

“It is your destiny.”

Destiny. A word she had never heard before. She should have really been listening during her lessons instead of daydreaming about playing in the fields of wild flowers or swinging from the branches of trees. She should know this would. At least, she thought so.

“I’m sorry.” She chewed on the corner of her lip. “I really don’t understand. What do you want from me?”

“Lead your people.”

“But the High Queen and King—”

“Are nearing their end,” it interrupted. “You have been chosen to lead your people.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Assume your role as Princess of The Dark. You have been chosen.”

This story she knew. All little girls were told about the legend of the princess during their bedtimes. Serena remembered. After her mother tucked her into bed she told her about a girl being chosen by The Dark to become the next princess. She was someone so pure her soul shined from it.

“But I am not pure,” Serena blurted out, recalling all the times she had been scolded for something or the other. Once she broke her mother’s special vase. It had been handed down in their family for generations. And she broke it. That didn’t make her pure. Another time she had punched a boy in their village because he had teased her about becoming an orphan. How no one would love her anymore. Certainly that tainted her in some way.

Yet, as soon as she uttered the words, a shining burst emanated from her chest. It didn’t hurt so much as tickled. Her hands and legs dangled as her back bowed. A tight pressure came from her heart, followed by a tugging she couldn’t quiet explain the source of. Then a force outside of her body yanked at the shining black burst to reveal an obsidian gem in the shape of a tear.

“This…” the voice said as the tear floated in front of Serena’s face. “This is the purest darkness taken from the deepest part of your sacred heart.”

She reached for the gem. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat. As soon as her fingertips touched it, a blinding darkness burst from the gem, coating her once again.

***

The next time Serena opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by people. She found herself in the center of town, no longer in the forest from where she had been playing what could have been minutes ago. But, looking at the fading light in the sky, she must have been gone for hours. Among them stood her uncle in his sorcerer’s robes, clutching his silver staff with a gem so much like the one taken from her chest close to his side.

The gem. She gasped, sitting up.

“Your Highness,” someone said.

All those standing around her took a knee and bowled their heads. For a brief second a troubled expression crossed her uncle’s face before he too kneeled. Warmth pulsed at the center of her forehead. She reached up and touched the gem, now set in a silver circlet that crowned her head.

“I have been chosen.” No truer words were spoken. It was as if something took her over. Gone was the child who spent her days playing and saving fallen chicks from their nests. What came back was a girl put on a path to save her people. She pushed to her feet with a confidence she had never had until that moment. A regal air surrounded her now. Then she spoke the words from one of the many prayers of her people. “I have been to the realm of The Dark.”

“And The Dark has chosen thee,” answered the Teareans on their knees. Her people.

“I have been given the task of maintaining the balance,” she continued the next verse.

“For you are the Princess of The Dark,” came the response.

“I am in the service of my people.”

“For you must maintain the balance.”

“Against The Void I must stand.”

“For if you fail, we all perish.”

“I am the Princess of The Dark.” She scanned all those gathered.

“The purest of the pure. Chosen, not made.”

Then she recited the final part of the prayer, “It is from The Dark we have come.”

“And it is from The Dark we shall return.”

They all got to their feet, reverence in their gazes as they looked upon her with new eyes. She nodded to each of them and raised her hand in benediction. They bowed their head in turn.

The distant thundering sounds of hoofbeats grew closer. The click of claws on cobblestone accompanied the clang of carriage wheels. It seemed like a great army approached judging by the ruckus they made. The children covered their ears, nudging closer to the skirts of their mothers, who then wrapped a protective arm around their small shoulders. Men puffed up their chests, easing the woman and elderly aside to make way.

The Knights in their golden breastplates and capes, sitting astride magnificent steeds, came into view first. The two in front carried poles bearing standards. The High King’s sun and star emblem flew proudly on the left while the High Queen’s sacred heart of darkness flapped regally on the right. All the warriors were handsome and stone faced as they guided their steeds onward, white for the king and black for the queen.

On the inside of the row of Knights ran beastly manticores, their scorpion tails and human heads with lion’s manes held high. They were almost as big as the horses. The queen’s emblem was painted on their golden fur in black. They were as stoic as the Knights, alert to any potential danger that may lurk within the small village. But why must they be careful? The only real threat to the monarchs was minions of The Void. They were too far from the border to be in any real harm.

At the center of the retinue road the High King and Queen in an open carriage pulled by a team of six unicorns. A chorus of “Oohhs” and “Aahhs” came from the humble village folk. It wasn’t every day that they got a visit form royalty.

Serena’s uncle positioned himself beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him for the briefest moment before returning her gaze to the carriage, specifically the queen. Her spun gold hair gleamed in the remaining light of day. Gentle eyes of burnt amber stared back, unwavering in their confidence. Serena felt herself stand up straighter, shoulders squared. She knew why they had come.

The High King raised his hand and as one the entire group stopped. Then he alighted from the carriage and held out his hand for the High Queen. She took the offer of help with a loving smile, gathering her cumbersome skirts using her other hand. With grace, she stepped down from the carriage and whispered something to the king before approaching.

Everyone knelt once against, heads bowed. Serena and her uncle did the same, but as soon as her knee touched the ground, a gentle hand cupped her chin and lifted her face. The queen smiled warmly down at her. Then she touched the obsidian on her crown with two fingers. Afterwards she pressed the same fingers to Serena’s gem. They glowed and pulsed, as if acknowledging each other’s presence.

“Stand, Your Highness,” she said, voice like morning dew—sweet and subtle.

Serena did as she’d been told. “Your Majesty, it’s an honor.”

She shook her head. “The honor is mine, chosen one. We have been waiting for you.”

“Waiting?” Her voice faltered for the first time since waking in the middle of town square. “You knew.”

“Yes. We knew.” The queen nodded once. It was more like a slight dipping of her chin. Then she addressed those gathered. “From this day forth, you shall no longer kneel before anyone. You are The Dark’s chosen one, and thus given the responsibility of serving your people. When I am gone you will succeed me. So has it been before me and so shall it be after you.”

In unison the crowd, even Serena, answered, “Within The Dark we shall remain.”

“Now come,” the queen returned her attention to Serena. “You shall live in the palace and begin your studies.”

Serena took a step forward then paused. She looked over her shoulder at her uncle, who was still kneeling. Turning around, she rejoined him and bid him stand.

“He comes with me,” she said to the queen.

“You are a sorcerer.” The monarch tilted her head.

“I am at your service, Your Majesty,” he said with a bow from the waist.

The High Queen smiled once again. “We are always in need of sorcerers.”