The Last Hope

Prologue

SONG FOR THIS CHAPTER - War of Hearts, Ruelle. Linked above! If you enjoy the chapter please vote, it means a lot.

________________________________________________________________________________

After the drought, Allunyah

It began with the stars, visible through the vapid pink light of dusk, which flickered, sputtered, and then vanished. Not all at once. Slowly, like flames on a candelabra being snuffed out. Then the wind, which always screamed through rifts in the mountains to the south, whipping the trees into a frenzy, causing tiny earthquakes for the critters who called them home, the wind stopped. The forest utterly silent. The critters gone. Once towering trees, standing sentry over Ellyheim for centuries, now leaf-less husks of rotten wood. Flowers died in the meadows, petals withering, turning to ash that lay in static heaps, undisturbed. Grass dried up into clumps of brown earth, which cracked into a great dry expanse, spanning far as the eye could see. The raging river, which had always cut unfaltering through the mountains, snaking down to the sea in the distance, became a stream. Became a puddle. Was no more. The sea vanished, draining away into nothing. Above in the sky, both suns which had always burned so brightly, cast little more than milky, stifled sunlight, fading fast.

All of this happened in an instant, as the very essence of the earth was stripped away, a straw sucking air from an empty glass. Far away, in what were once great sprawling fields, the bodies of those who'd fallen in the battle melted away into the dirt.

Mona Lucille De Nova lifted her heavy head from where she'd been staring into the cauldron. Its swirling obsidian mists held no more answers. She had no way to stop the carnage. No way to avenge the men and women who had given their lives to protect their kingdom, in vain. In the corner, the child huddled closer to her guards. Tear-stained cheeks now dry, red-rimmed eyes full of furious rage as she stared out the window of the small wooden cabin. The one tiny bubble in their whole world that was unaffected by the drought.

The cabin was small - Mona's home passed down from High Witch to High Witch for generations and so protected by millennia of spells and enchantments. Those enchantments had protected them from the dark curse that had ripped the life from their land. The cabin was barely large enough to contain the raging fire in the hearth. Various bottles of all sizes, colours, shapes sprawled along the mantle, with shelves on either side that contained jars of much worse things than herbs. In front of the poxy window sat a small bed, just large enough for one person, its rumpled sheets hidden by a blanket of open books. Across the room, the small desk was also piled high with books. Tomes, grimoires, manuscripts; any spell books Mona could get her hands on. But none of them held the answers of how to save their world. The sprite light in the corner, a glowing orb no larger than an apple, cast the room in a sickly green in hue, as it hovered above the heads of the four guards and the young princess.

"It's all gone," the young Princess said, barely a whisper - as if to shout too loud would disturb their bubble of safety. "All of it. Gone. My parents... " The young girl bit her lip hard enough to turn it white, choking sobs wracking her small frame. Eyes glassy with tears as she leaned back into the legs of the man who stood behind her. She reached up to her brow, to touch the dangling gem that should've been there, a phantom limb that had sat below her hairline since her birth nine years ago. But the gem was lost, like the rest of her world. Like her parents, and uncles and aunties. She began to tremble, a small, strangled sound escaping her. Behind her, the tall man put his hand on her shoulder. The only touch guards were permitted to bestow upon the royal family – unless their lives were in grave danger.

Mona stood from where she was kneeling beside her cauldron, crossing the room in three small strides and sank to the ground in front of the child, not even ten years of age. The witch held out her arms to the Princess. A safety net.