All Shades of Magic

Darkness Overtaking

I stood up quickly and held the neck;aces charm in my hand, turning abruptly to face the alternative direction, a dying hope inside me that it would turn.

But it didn't. The moonstones magic was gone.

A horrible thought occurred to me. Or it's been overtaken.

It would explain the powerful dark magic essence that had formed in the woods, and why the necklace, which was used to track powerful light magic, was all the sudden just an accessory. But none of that was a good thing.

And apparently none of it is something I can hide from Kimi.

"VALERIE ANSWER ME," she screamed. I faced her, finally realizing she was talking. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" she asked. I could tell I had stressed her out. But when she saw my face she knew something was wrong. "Valerie... what happened," she said calmly, which i knew would be a completely different story in a couple of minutes.

"Kimi, I need you to help me with this. Ok?" I asked, my voice shaking. Kimi nodded. "I'm going to turn around again, and I want you to see if my necklace moves," she nodded again, but now she looked even more scared and fearful as before, maybe even as fearful as me. She walked over and I slowly turned around and she watched with me as the necklace stayed frozen pointing downward on my neck. Kimi gasped as a few silent tears started to fall down my face.

"That can't be right," Kimi cried, a hint of desperate hope lingering in her tone.

"Kimi what are we going to do?" I sniffled. I of course could find the gemstone easily, but who knows if I could restore or even defeat the force that turned it dark.

I then realized I sounded awful, because I practiced black magic and was shunning upon its evilness. But truthfully it could be used just as productively, and who knows, maybe the person who changed the stone might not even be like the mages in the world that give magic a bad reputation. Maybe they're even like me. The thought was wonderful, because I had never even met another mage, and I couldn't imagine meeting a multi-shade mage who was like me. It was a beautiful hope.

But still, highly unlikely.

And I also could not even try to put any such thing into action because if Kimi found out I could do magic, well who knows what she would do. Maybe she would do something out of hatred. But the worst thing she could do though was start to fear me, because i had stayed up at night in my castle thinking about the fear overtaking her face, shaking, mouth open, weapon drawn, calling for the guards or stabbing me straight on, calling me a monster, calling me a freak, but not out of hatred, out of shock and fear.

Because fear was what gave mages the horror of being discovered.

And fear was something I hated.

It's possible to make someone love you after they've hated you, but fear stays forever.

So if Kimi fears me when she finds out I'm a mage, then I will never let her know.

Which means that I needed a really good explanation on how I knew where the moonstone was. Because I could not give up on this mission while me and Kimi's kingdom were in danger.