A Tale Of Shadows (Wattys 2023) - REPLACED BY DIVINE ASCENSION

Chapter 15 - The Reckoning

The following night, Maria stood in a dark forest all alone. It was simply a thing that she liked to do. With only the sounds of nature distracting her, she could walk in peace for many hours as she freed herself from her burdensome thoughts, releasing them into the wilderness. That night, the sky was a lovely shade of dark blue, with many stars coming through like beads on a bracelet, painstakingly illuminating the withered black trees along with the Moon that shone proudly way above her head. 

Having walked for hours that night, she halted randomly at one point, intending to have only a slight rest and then continue as normal, but when a letter fell into her lap from the sky, coated by a heavy, stark layer of magic, she couldn't help but stand there like a statue and think about it for what seemed like an eternity. This sparked her curiosity to an unbelievable amount. 

Many theories immediately began to take form in her head. Anything could've happened while she was busy with her plottings, which made her hesitant to open the letter at first in spite of all her curiosity. If she opened that letter, only for some terrible news to be revealed, she couldn't go back. But maybe she didn't need to open that letter. Maybe it wasn't her responsibility. Maybe she should simply let it stay put and walk away, regardless of what may've happened. 

She flinched, stunned by how irresponsible she'd become, which was a first for her, oddly enough. Even if there was terrible news to be revealed, she couldn't simply walk away from it. All this time, she'd thought that she'd been doing her job properly, but now she saw starting to see the faults in her judgment. She played the game, but only when it was convenient for her, which wasn't the way to go at all. This bout of introspection pained her immensely, so she decided to merely ignore it and read the letter out loud. It said:

"Dear Maria,

You won't believe what I found out today. Don't ask me how I did it, but you must read it, for it is crucial if we want to achieve victory. Hemingway has lots of evil plans on which he works on constantly, but none of them are anywhere as important as this one. In two to three weeks, he'll set a nearby village on fire, which is pretty standard for him, but it's only a decoy, for after that warning, which won't mean anything to us because it's rather meaningless on its own, he'll set the entire country on fire, starting with the royal palace, which is supposed to 'help his ideals rise', apparently. 

I was stunned when I first heard of this diabolical plan. I assumed that he could never take the throne, no matter how powerful he was, for we were always more powerful than outside forces. I was foolish to assume this, however. He's a new kind of threat, despite all the potential familiarity one may gain from reading historical books. Dark magic has existed for a long time, but he's been able to make something completely new out of it, and not only that book which seduces people into becoming evil.

If this man takes the throne, the damage may be irreversible. He and his followers will cast a longlasting darkness onto this country, and then the regions beyond, and then the regions beyond that, until the whole world becomes a playground of evil. And what role will I have? I do not know. So please, do the best you can. I hate to be desperate, but I mean it. These following few months may decide the future of our nation, so I beg of you, take care of my cousins, my friends, and especially Jeffrey. Everyone's counting on us.

Yours truly,

Melinda Grey"

Maria was truly aghast by the contents of the letter. The situation was beyond anything she could've imagined. She couldn't even grasp the full meaning of Melinda's words. She could hardly believe it, but could it be true that Obscuria would never recover from Hemingway and that the rest of the world would be impacted as well? And how was she? What was he doing to her? She didn't have the capacity to think of it, and she couldn't fully determine whether it was due to uncreativity or to fear, but she knew that she had to trust her friend. At that moment, she felt that even with a month of thinking, she wouldn't have scratched the surface of it.