Queen of Ash

Into the Darkness

Emerson

The first thing I saw was light, beautiful, white, shining light. I squinted my eyes and covered my eyes with my hand as they adjusted to the room. Slowly the light fell away and I was sitting in a field under the stars. The light was chased away by the dark night sky. I sat up and looked around, no one was there. I was wearing an all white chemise that shone in the moonlight. I didn't know where I was.

The last thing I remembered was pain. Pain so searing, so crippling every other thought eddied out of my mind. Every thought except for one, Rye. I hated myself for only thinking of him, but I couldn't help it. He used to be the light in my once very dark life. How is is that someone could hurt me so greatly and I still wanted nothing more than him. Maybe this is who people went mad, feeling guilty for wanting something I know I shouldn't want.

I pushed the thought of Rye away from my head and stood up from the grassy field. I took another look around and saw that a tree was now a few feet from me, one that I was so sure wasn't there a few moments ago. I started walking over to the tree. The soft grass tickled my bare feet as I walked through the moonlight to the tree. I was a few feet away when I noticed a woman with her back against the tree looking out at the field.

Except it wasn't just any woman, I squinted my eyes just to be sure. The woman opened her arms to me and I ran. I flung into her arms and she held me close. I sunk into the embrace of my mother. I took a deep breath and her honeyed scent filled my eyes with tears. I whispered into her ear, "How is this possible?"

She stroked my dark hair, "My dear, I have missed you so much." She pulled back from our embrace, my heart sunk, I never wanted to let go. "But we don't have much time and I have much to tell you." She pulled me down to the ground and I sat next to her, our knees touching, my hands in her hands. It was like all no time had a passed and I was once again a little girl sitting next to my Mother for a bedtime story. She folded my hands in hers and looked me in the eyes. "I will not lie to you Emerson. The time is coming for you to make a choice and I am not talking about the one you're facing right now, to live or to die, but a bigger choice. I can't say much else, but you will know it when the time comes." She paused for a moment and I could tell she was thinking about how much she could tell me. "The gods will not be happen if I dispense your fate before you're ready, but I fear that I must warn you.

A time is coming my dear. One of great change and the gods have intertwined your fate with this change." I shook my head at her. I didn't want to be that person. I was content with staying her, with her, forever.

"I hate the gods and they know that. I am not helping them. They have taken too much from me and they don't deserve my help." She frowned for a moment as if she knew I would say that.

"There's a darker force at play," She tore away from my gaze and looked up at the sky, I knew it helped to calm her. "They know things that you cannot know. Something is terrible is going to happen and you will chose the side of the gods against the evil. Someone is trying to destroy everything the gods have built and with it thousands of people will die."

"Maybe they should destroy it." I muttered under my breath. The way things were now with neighbors at each others throats for powers they didn't possess, things couldn't go on like this. Perhaps someone should destroy everything the gods had done. My mother whirled around as if I had just stabbed her in the back.

"Don't speak of things you don't fully understand. You don't see the full picture yet. Everything that has happened to you, has happened for a reason. Without it you wouldn't be there person you are today and you wouldn't help the gods at all. You had to become the young woman in front of me. You don't understand it now, but all things happen for a reason and you tend to forget that in the moment."