Last Light

Daybreak - II

The Witch stood on the crest of the hill and looked down at the Castle. She had never seen it with her own eyes before, having only heard about it in stories. Now, after this stormy night, it felt as though a long journey had finally reached its end; yet, she was acutely aware that her journey was only just beginning with her arrival here.

She had been traveling for days, weary and exhausted, drenched and hungry. She looked up at the sky. The thick cloud cover was breaking up, revealing patches of the early morning sky that looked like dark blue velvet, heralding the much-anticipated dawn. Between the dispersing clouds, the Witch could see the glow of the twin moons: The Red moon shone full and strong; its red glow, always reminiscent of a giant fiery wheel, illuminated the dreary, perforated canopy of dark clouds and tinged them a deep red. In accordance with the law of the twin moons, which states that both moons are never fully visible at the same time, the White moon was only faintly discernible, a blue-silver shimmer of a thin crescent against the lightening backdrop of morning. The Green moon had already disappeared behind the horizon. Due to its proximity to the sky, it only appeared during the hottest summer months; one reason why scholars also called it the Earth Moon, as it seemed as if it could crash down onto the world at any moment. The Witch loved the sight of its huge, greenish corona when it appeared late in the evening, touched the horizon, and was slowly swallowed by it; just a green flicker in the orange-red of the setting evening sun.

The Witch looked down at the Castle again. She hoped that the information she had received was worth its price and that the Book, which was supposed to be in one of the many libraries, was truly there. It was her last hope. She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the memories that were surfacing – the expulsion from her home village had happened years ago, but the wounds were deep. Just like the hatred for the people who had driven her away.

The origin of her dilemma lay far back, reaching into her early childhood, for even as a young girl, she was shunned by the other children because all the animals in her immediate vicinity would flee and food would mold in her hands. The accusations of the villagers grew louder when shortly after she had argued with some children, they developed warts and parts of their hair turned ash-gray. Even her parents, who had always defended her, became skeptical when the crop fields and meadow grass withered under her feet, and pregnant cows lost their calves. And then, after overhearing a quarrel between her father and the Reeve, and the reeve's house subsequently catching fire, she was finally expelled from the community. The villagers called her a servant of the Black Lands and sentenced her to death; and even her parents raised no objections.

The Witch had fled from her makeshift prison at night and narrowly escaped the three men who had been guarding her. It was one of her gifts to sense the fears of others, and so she had summoned a swarm of reptiles and insects from the darkness, which enveloped one of them, devouring him alive within moments until only bones remained.
Driven to fury by their comrade's death, the other two had pursued her; the one who caught up with her first turned to stone, becoming a statue in the night just as he was about to grab her. The last had caught up with the Witch only a few meters further in the tall grass and hit her so hard with his fist that she almost lost consciousness. Even after all these years, she could still remember the taste of blood –

Get up!

It was the moment when it had first burst out of her, unstoppable and deadly; and it had never disappeared. It had been lurking within her since that night, the night she had fought her way through the forest, covered in a dead man's blood, whose head and heart had burst like an overripe melon.
Were her thoughts of returning to the embrace of her family in those initial days of her imprisonment knowingly misguided, yet still somewhat hopeful, they were now irreversibly engulfed; consumed by a void within her that knew no sense of satiety or fulfillment. Only hunger for more.
She had wandered through the wilderness for days, almost succumbing to hunger and despair, until she was finally found by her foster mother. The old woman recognized the abilities within her, felt no disgust or fear, took her in despite all adversities, and gave her something that felt almost like a home.
The Witch thought back with deep sorrow: If only the old woman had treated her like everyone else had and left her to her inevitable fate in those woods! Maybe the darkness within her would have consumed her first and then itself – but as it was, she now led a life filled with only pain and suffering. And the darkness within her. Although she had come to understand and partially appease her magic and the shadow as she grew up, she could not truly control them, neither of them. There were still moments full of uncontrollable emotions, in which the magic and the darkness simply flowed out of her; uncontainable, lashing out, consuming, extinguishing. To feel acceptance, even admiration for it, was something nearly unthinkable.

A normal life; without magic, without suffering and deprivation, that was what her innermost self wanted. And if the legends about the Book were true, all of this was within reach. She just had to find it.

It was, indeed, her last hope.