Sealed inside the towering city walls of Acadia, magic users known as Wielders are feared and hunted for the abilities they have been blessed with. They're living in hiding, terrified of revealing themselves to the Authorities that hunt them.
But w...
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"I will be stronger than my sadness."
-Jasmine Warga
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Adira stopped fighting when the Authorities stuffed her into the back of their van, the doors slamming shut behind her. The sounds of the city continued outside the vehicle, everyone going on about their day like nothing had happened while Adira's world had flipped upside down.
She leaned back, her spine digging into the kraenite built into the wall behind her. The stone drained the powers she didn't even know she wielded. Ironic. Letting out a deep breath she had been holding inside of her, she rested her head back, her chin tilting up towards the ceiling. She stared at one single spot, her eyes burning dry as she refused to blink. She would not let herself cry. She already had shed a tear in the street when she was surrounded.
Never again.
The van roared to life. Adira rocked with the curves and turns of the van, her muscles limp and numb. Gone was the fear. Gone was the pumping blood. Gone was the fight. She should have beat the walls until her knuckles bled, but instead, the backs of her hands rested on her thighs, her palms empty and open, the cuffs still tight around her wrists.
A battle raged on in her head as she tried to keep her composure. The shadow of fear plunged and trampled over her fragments of light, trying to devour her, control her. Her vision of the rising sun that morning was swarmed with the dread of what was to come. The Pit.
She had gone once to watch out of curiosity and she never had gone back. She remembered marveling at the sheer size of the dome, which might have been as tall as it was wide - she couldn't remember. The massive structure was built with the same metallic black stone that caged the island. As intimidating as the Pit had looked to her, it wasn't the dome that kept her away--it was the bloodshed.
Wielders that were on the same side of the war fought each other underneath the black bowl that kept them trapped within. Wielders that had witnessed the deaths of their friends and family during the Great Purge turned on each other under the eyes of the packed audience that had bought their seats just as she had that one day. She couldn't erase the desperation that flickered across the Wielders' faces as they unleashed their powers against each other. It terrified her watching them. She couldn't even imagine being a part of it.
