OVERALL WINNER of the WattALegend: Quorin Saga collaboration contest hosted by the Fantasy family of Ambassador profiles (2021)
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There is a strange restlessness in the magical land of Quorin.
A teenage girl sneaking home one night finds herself...
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Kingdom of @WattpadUrbanFantasy
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When the night is at its darkest, we crawl out of the shadows.
Qreton is deep in the fitful sleep it has known since it started paying the price for the experiments carried out in the research centres. Silence rules the streets in these late hours. There is no moon to witness what we're about to do, only the stars and the infinite black sky.
I pull the high collar of my suit over my neck. The material stifles me on such a warm night, but I can't wear anything else.
Impenetrable to all teeth, the suit's label brags. I only hope that includes those of man-eating plants.
"Damali, everyone is here except for Thomas," says Emmy beside me.
I turn to her. She shrinks under my glare, even though it isn't meant for her. I readjust my goggles so I can see better, then flick my eyes to the group of people standing around me in the shadow of the clock tower. Like me, they wear protective suits and goggles.
Like me, they know the ways of magic.
Eight pairs of eyes stare at me, bright in the darkness. The ninth is missing.
Under my breath, I let loose the curses I would send Thomas's way if he was here. He may be my best friend, but this is one time he couldn't oversleep. Every dark hour is sacred if we want to save our kingdom.
It's the only time I can gather a group of magicians without the scientists sending the city guards to separate us.
There's no such thing as magic, the scientists say. Only trickery.
I scoff at the idea. The scientists aren't as clever as they think they are.
My family uses magic every day, but its existence is something Qreton still denies, even when a mysterious experiment went wrong two days ago, causing carnivorous vines to grow around the research centres.
I have seen the scientists hack the plants to pieces and rip the roots from the soil.
I have seen the plants reform moments later, their roots taking hold in the earth once again.
And the scientists still claim it isn't magic, that magic doesn't exist.
They must think we're all imbeciles.
The group of civilians I gathered yesterday discovered that the scientists scattered a foreign plant's seeds around the research centres as part of a failed experiment many years ago.
Our best guess is that the researchers' mysterious recent experiment involved magic. They lost control of it, and the foreign seeds fed off it, growing into something more terrible than we imagined.
