Sinking Magic

Chapter 1

Long, long ago, she read, there were two divided kingdoms. The kingdom of the Fae, and that of the Man. For centuries, they held their separate lands apart, barely tolerating each other. They traded out of necessity, the men selling their handmade things: tools, weapons, armor, and the agricultural products native to their land. The Fae sold enchanted items, potions… blah, blah, blah…

“Where’s the fun stuff about the dark?” Fulvia muttered, adjusting the heavy tome in her lap so that the thin slit of light shining in through the rotting planks behind her highlighted the parts she was trying to read.

A shuffling sound came from behind the wall she leaned against. “Vee?” called a voice curiously.

Quickly, Fulvia flipped through the pages. She gave a little sound of exclamation. One day the Nyx appeared. The cause of their appearance remains undiscovered to this day. They appeared to attacked man and fae alike, but were never observed to be eating anything, nor killing animals. They came in many forms, ranging from the size of a man’s palm, to the size of a house. They could change shape, but not size, and often copied the image of animals already in existence. The difference between regular animals and the Nyx could be seen in their color, which was always black, and their extra sets of appendages, heads, and eyes.

They appeared to have no leader, and their only obvious goal was killing. With the Nyx as a shared threat, the kingdoms of Man and Fae worked together for the first time in recorded history to fight the dark forces-

Light suddenly spilled into the room, momentarily blinding Fulvia. She threw an arm in front of her face, scrambling to stand up and almost slipping on the hay littering the floor in the process. “Vee!” Her father shouted. “You have work to be doing. It’s almost harvest season. There’s no time to be reading that dusty old book of yours.”

“But Papa! It’s the only one I can find that talks this much about the Nyx!” She hugged the book tight to her chest.

“It’s outdated; the info in is all wrong. Everyone knows Man erected the wall between us, not the Fae. And that silly thing about a fae being in the wall-”

“Titania gave her physical being up to protect both men and fae alike.”

“Rubbish!”

“Papa-”

“No more, Fulvia. Knowing about the Nox-"

"The Nyx, Papa."

"- isn't going to help you with farming. Put the book away and finish your chores,” her father said. The young woman pouted, looking down and toeing the dirt with her bare feet. “Finish them, or I won’t take you to the capital.”

Like that, Fulvia hurried past her father, a good foot taller than him. She chucked the book through her open window when she ran past the house, giving Tillie, the family donkey, a good smack to the rear. The two raced to the plots of land growing various crops, crops that she would get to sell at the capital with her father.

Fulvia worked with her tools as easily as any man, her body muscled as well as any man’s. Her feminine figure gone, she was built to work or, as she prefered, fight. If she had it her way, she’d have joined the royal guard years ago. As Fulvia passed the next couple hours tending the crops, a couple boys her age from the village passed by, calling out to her. “Oi! Vee, you want to go rat chasing with us?” one called.

“Yeah, or we could play ball!” said another.

Fulvia waved at the boys. “Thanks guys, but I’ve got to get his work done. My papa’s going to take me to the capital.”