Dark Fantasy Winning Features

The Chosen Darkling - Best World

Birdpaw with Out of Evenfall: chapter one.

—deep beneath the boughs of the trees, magick whispered a wish. One lone hero braved many dangers. Gleaming sword in hand, they faced their trials; triumphant against the evil plaguing the land, derelict in its manifestations...

Rain made a sad mood setter for a fairytale full of light, and a day filled with blood. Each drop slipped along the wooden posts which dotted the street, and flames tickled the insides of lanterns. Shadows danced along the damp cobbled path, leading a trail of darkness up to the town square. Several knights stood atop the platform, and a headsman's block took center stage.

Adara ran a finger along the soft trimming of Mother's crimson cloak while the pitter patter of feet and tears from the sky sounded around her.

People shouted. Bells tolled.

—and in the echoes of the battle, the light shone. Both the moon and the sun illuminated a healing touch on the injured hero, who fought for hope and justice, so they could rise again from the ashes of the phoenix—

A glint of silver rushed down, and people gasped when a head dropped to the platform. One more execution of a suspected Magickae, but none of them had anything to fear, for they weren't 'cursed' with magick. Adara clutched the inside of her cloak while blood mixed with rain, and the man's mouth hung open in a last minute wish, for the right to live in peace.

"But you shall find no justice here."

"Anyone found harbouring Magickae is subject to the king's law," a knight in plate mail spoke over the screaming silence of the crowd, giving no care to the headless body beside him. "Anyone practising magick of any form will be executed."

Fire caressed her veins. A promise, a wish, but she didn't have to look farther than the front step of her home to see that the magickae found no quarter against King Brien at the turn of the queen's death under suspected magickal means. Whatever they used to combat their magick, it had devastating results. Fists clenched, Adara released a tiny breath as the townsfolk of Prunal scattered to return to their business. Some of them with relief writ plain on their face. No more magickae to haunt their dreams, or ruin their stories. 'Evil,' they uttered. In their fairy tales magick was the reason for all the problems in their world. Adara bit her lip and turned away from the bloodied platform.

"Breathe ten times and feel the pulse. Never let the fire consume you from within." One of the lessons Garren tried to beat into her mind in his rough, seaborn accent. "They'll kill you if they find out what you are. Drag you up onto that platform and lob your head off like all the rest of them."

As they had done fifteen Turns ago, when she was no more than a child who expected someone to read her a bedtime story. Her backdrop formed into the moss covered forests of Tebora, with flaming mist over the trees. Whenever she tried to think back to the purge against magickae, her memory failed her at the most crucial of moments. It was as if she hadn't been there at all, but the fire licking at her blood spoke another tale. The loss of both her parents left her with Garren to hide in a small log cabin, away from the mass destruction. One last word from Mother, until it faded into ash.

"You can't let them find her."

Basket held tight in her hands, she drew further from the last remnants of the crowd. Many of them she recognized on her day to day schedule. Go to the tavern. Work a few bells. Break. Go back for a few more bells and gather whatever coin she had to place it into her safety box. Four Turns worth of working at the same place every day. It didn't help that Gregor, Prunal's self-proclaimed best fighter, pushed himself onto her whenever he got the chance since Tara's disappearance, but her mind wandered to the festival instead of his relentless advances and the pain in her heart. Anything to tear herself away from the head detached from a body.