Sealed within Kealie Gothalis are the secrets of a magic destined to flood her kingdom.
Trading her Mortality to disguise the heritage her mother fears most, Kealie is gifted with a blessing. She need only do one thing; keep her kingdom in the dark...
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A world void of color and swallowed in swathes of smoke greeted Kealie as she found her way towards the city's heart.
Slick stone, darkened by fall rain bled into the dirt path she'd come from. Mostly mud now, the caked surface had only just begun to dry out as the heat baked the earth and air.
She felt the grime of it on her skin, settling onto her forearms and grating against her nerves.
Kealie could barely make out five paces before her, the clouds snuffing out the light from even the sun above down here.
Perhaps hiding in the safety of the estate was for the best, though it didn't sit well.
Not as the smell she couldn't scrub or swallow away with water drowned her, burying Kealie in the sorrow and grief permeating the air as well. The screams were deafening now, ringing against the small shops and homes.
It echoed it's way deep into Kealie's chest.
She knew what she was going to see as she drew near, keeping her vision pasted to the cobblestone ground. Her footing was uneven, each step taking the concentration she didn't want to use.
The chime of clinking chains gnawed at her attention, begging for her to acknowledge them. She'd dare engage for a moment, lifting her stare to the Nerydian folk whose wrists and feet were bound. Those chains burned a bright molten copper, their skin charred with sizzling sparks of magic searing their flesh.
Kealie felt her stomach clench in newfound pain and anguish.
They were beautiful humanoid creatures, with gorgeous big eyes the color of the sea and scales lining their prominent features like their cheekbones and hairline. She'd known too, that their spines were lined with small dorsal fins and a thin whip-like tail sprouted from royalty.
To them, she must appear as awful and cruel as any other human girl.
Kealie's own flesh had been reduced to a sad porcelain color, with smaller features.
Nausea crept in, whether from her thoughts or the wretched smells, she didn't know.
But when Kealie turned towards the heart of town, her racing thoughts were flattened into petrification.
A wild bonfire arched and curled, wicked and alive, towering over the smallest of homes. The flames grew over the lip of a large metal container dug into the ground. Water roiled and sloshed over the edges. The fire's body widened to encompass the town square, with hundreds of people coiling around the outside.
Kealie gripped at her chest, clawing down ever so slightly in shock as a woman lashed against four guards, wailing profanities and lunging for their weapons.
A burnt corpse of a man lay on the ground before the flames.
Kealie thought he looked of burnt logs, his bones cracking and breaking apart right before the woman. They had fished him out of the steel pot, dumping his body before his wife.
