Her Fear, His Obsession

Let the plotting begin...

Luca sat, waiting for the Council to settle. They had been up in arms for the past 30 minutes. Apparently, the spells holding the Darkness were no longer enough. Even after Luca had placed more spell casters, the counter spell readers had become more powerful. They changed the type of spells they were casting, and the counter readers were prepared.

This likely meant that the counter readers were being fed information from the inside- meaning in Luca's castle. Among the slaves, there was a traitor.

While Luca was seeing red in anger, he knew he had to be smart. If the slave was skilled enough to evade the force of the command Luca held over him, they weren't going to easily give up the information Luca needed from them. Who were they, why were they trying to free the Darkness, where were the counter spell readers.

The council didn't like that. To them, the longer the traitor was given information, the more dangerous they could be. And they were confident that Luca could torture the truth out.

"My King! We must act now! If we wait too long, the Darkness will break free and weak havoc!" One of the Elders, Dromius, cried. Dromius had been apart of the Council long before Luca was even born. He was wise and cautious, a little too cautious if you ask Luca.

But he was also the only one that remembered what life was like before Luca's predecessor, Simia ruled. Simia was heartless and ruthless but he brought order to the Darkness- he was the one that built the maze to make it that much harder for the Darkness to prevail.

You see, the Darkness couldn't be harnessed, its force was too mighty. It could be utilized as the rulers did but that came at a great cost, to the user and the surrounding folk. Simia wanted the power but he didn't want to lose his people to the Darkness, so he built the maze.

The Darkness had a mind of its own. It learnt how to navigate the maze, reaching the ends of it to snatch people away without ever revealing how much it had learned. That's how Luca's mother and sister were killed. They were servants working in Simia's castle. At the time, everyone taken by the Darkness used to disappear so Simia used his power and might to collect all the wealth of the world. Which he used to help create his empire.

Luca was nothing more than a child, only 12 at the time. But he had always been a bold child, ready to defend his mother and sister. When he learnt of their deaths, he plotted his revenge.

After 5 long years of training and strengthening, he wreaked havoc on the maze, only stopping when the Darkness was contained. But deep down, he knew that it was only a matter of time  before it broke free so he started using magic through witches to keep it contained. These witches were young women who he had seen get trained alongside him with only 1 purpose, avenging their losses to the Darkness.

Their trainer, Simia, had grown more and more evil with time. The small sliver of humanity in him knew that once he completely gave over to the Dark side, he would have no return. So, he entrusted Luca with one more secret- how to destroy him when the right time came.

Soon, it did. The darkness completely took over him and turned him into an angry soul. One that could only be defeated by the light.

This was the light that Luca had longed to see and wished goodbye to when he took his place on the throne. Viraj, another friend he made from training, came on as his second. His other (more important) job was to select and train Luca's new heir. They had seen what the Darkness could do through Simia so they took as many steps as possible but the eventual turning to complete darkness was inevitable.

But for the time being, Luca had a soul. One that yearned to protect Alia.

"No, Dromius, if we confront the traitor, they may escape. We have to trap them, so that the enemy destroys them for us," Luca replied with glee. Let the plotting begin.