Prologue
833 Words
Prologue
Darkness.
Eternal darkness.
Malysa was trapped.
Trapped forever in this place, under this rock. Her world for so long had been nothing but this hell. A world only large enough to shift from side to side. No more than a foot of breathing room. Nothing at all but her own mind and the shadows.
Others would have gone mad by now. Years passed in a blur as easily as days once had. Thousands of years in imprisonment for building the life that she had always wanted. For seeing something more than the happy ray of sunshine her sister, Benetta, had wanted for this sad, backward world.
They were Doma.
The first Doma in Emporia.
Goddesses from on high.
They would not need to submit to a Doma council. They would not listen to a rule of the many. They would not allow these mongrels to believe they were better than them.
Except Benny had.
Malysa shuddered in her prison. She hated thinking of her sister. That traitorous wretch who had found a way to break her and leave her here, in these mountains.
No. She would not think of Benny. It depleted her limited energy. She had too much to do, so much to accomplish, that she could not waste it on her sister. But she knew that, when she got out of here, the first thing she would do was hunt her down. She wouldn’t kill her…not at first. Torture. At least a thousand years of good torture before she was satisfied.
She gritted her teeth in the darkness and shifted another step over. She had had a long time to consider all the things she would do to her sister for trapping her here. But that was neither here nor now.
She needed to conserve. Because her sister had not accounted for her influence outside of the physical. She had always been better at mind games than her, and she had only gotten better while trapped here. Her favorites still answered to her calls, though they could not see her. Control had gotten easier and easier. Two thousand years ago had been the height. She had believed that she would have the energy to escape. Then, that b***h had ruined everything.
Malysa steadied herself.
No, she would not let that happen again.
She would get out, gain control, and win this battle once and for all.
Suddenly, an energy blast seemed to crash through the mountains. It didn’t touch Malysa, of course, cocooned as she was, but it rocked her mountain home. Her eyes lit up as the earthquake erupted around her. Something shifted, just enough for a sliver of light to break through to her prison cell.
Light.
The first beam of light in thousands of years.
She probed the area with her magic, and to her delight, she found its weakness. The light could not respond to the darkness any more than darkness responded to light. They were anathema to each other. Cracking through the defense was like slicing through an open mind—effortless.
The rocks split away.
A hole appeared before her.
And then she stepped out of her prison cell for the first time.
Malysa breathed in deeply, pulling in that first breath of fresh air. It was glorious. She looked out to this world from her prison in the Haeven Mountains. The world was blanketed in snow and ice. Sunlight bounced off of the white winter wonderland. And her darkness settled into it all.
It was a new dawn.
“I’m free, sister,” Malysa said with a laugh. “Free from this prison you created. I loved you, and this was how you repaid that love. I will remember that.”
Malysa stared down at her form. Not even corporal any longer. Just shadow and ash and smoke. She was but a hint of what she had once been. Before, she could have torn these mountains asunder with a wave of her hand. Now, she could barely call her followers to her.
Perhaps Benetta had used these mountains as a prison, but until Malysa regained her strength, she would use them for cover. She did not want to alert anyone too soon to her freedom. She could wreak enough havoc from here.
But, to replenish her powers, she was going to need a lot of help. She closed her eyes and dug deep until she found the closest village. Any farther, and she wouldn’t have even been able to get into their puny minds. Only those who called for her could she usually maintain. But today was different. Today, she was free.
She reached her powers into every single mind and commanded they journey up the mountain.
One by one, the villagers assembled before her.
They fell to their knees at the sight of her. Tears streaming down their faces. Then, she sliced their necks open and let the blood turn the white mountain red.
She drank in their sacrifice, imbuing her essence with blood magic. Letting it fill her and fill her and fill her. And still, when the entire village was dead at her feet, she felt nothing. She knew what she needed…
War.
That was when the real fun would begin.
- Writer
