Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)

The Beginning

Standing on plain of ice and ancient magic, Medea Crimson took a deep breath, leapt into the darkness and died.
It was not for the last time.
Our story begins with this first death. It was a mild one, as these things go. Prompt and unmourned, except by the wailing wind, which seemed more offended at the rather obnoxious dying cry than the sudden loss of life.
This was a fitting beginning. Our story is strewn with death, its paper crusted with blood, its ink smudged by ruby droplets and tears. Ghosts cling to the spine and lie pressed between the paper like captured butterflies used for bookmarks.
But the first death is, arguably, the most important, for all its mildness.
Medea's life ended swiftly and with a great deal of pain, much like the sudden visit of a tax collector. Good. She wanted to get this over with.
For a long while she lay there, mortal body broken on the harsh ice, blood dripping into the slight crack her skull had made on the way down. All around her, the world was silent in an uncanny sort of way. A poetical observer might have claimed that it was lamenting this young woman's terrible death. A practical observer might cite the remote site of her demise, which lacked any sort of animal or human populace. An observant observer would realise the world was not silent for her but for fear of the ones who had watched her fall and now gazed with an eerie fascination at her corpse, which had now acquired a thin layer of frost and blood.
Though it must be said that some credit is owed to the practical observer. Indeed, the hostile ice plains where Medea had breathed the final breath of her first life had been picked clean of animals or humans. It had been picked clean of their somewhat benign
relatives too, the elves and valkyries.
Only the witches remained, and it was the witches that Medea Crimson had come to
see, and it was the witches who watched her crumpled body now.
In many ways, this is a story about Medea Crimson, and all the destruction she
wrought. It's also a story of everyone who wants her to die for the last time, and they're a much more likeable bunch than the woman herself.
But back to the present.
After a long, uncannily silent moment, one of the witches skittered down the harsh icy face like a malevolent bug and knelt beside Medea's body.
To say she was a crone would be misleading. You will assume her to be very old but in a very mortal way—ninety, perhaps a hundred. Both would fall ludicrously short. You might also think her ugly, which is again wrong. There was a kind of beauty in the power that lurked in her eyes like a coiled snake.
Instead, let's say she was ancient, as ancient as ten empires, and that those empires were written with an unforgiving hand over her cruel face.
With a shark's smile, the witch lifted the broken body—apparently with little trouble, despite her slight form—and carried it to a great fissure in the icy walls of the ravine, deep into a cave filled with her kin, who had skittered down after her.
A poetical observer might call it the Never-Ending Cave, or the Void Cave (if their descriptive language was particularly shoddy, that is) for it was utterly dark and appeared to go on forever. A practical observer would merely christen it 'a cold cave', in their remarkably scientific and blind way of looking at the world. An idiotic observer might label it the Cave of Wishes, or Dreams, or Possibilities, because it held all of those in spades, and for a very hefty price.
An observant observer wouldn't have called it anything, because they wouldn't have jumped off the ice cliff at all, or indeed come within a five kilometre radius.
Slowly, the witch laid Medea's body on the icy floor of the cave and woke her up as easily as rousing a sleeping baby.
And so Medea began her second life.
———
Medea
When her eyes rushed open, she could see only the harsh rock of a dark cave. But ancient, half-remembered stories were now her guide, telling her that it existed beyond all time or reason—and that it was filled with witches.
A shark's smile touched her lips. She allowed herself a moment of relief.
In the last few months she'd travelled across deserts and wastelands, oceans and mountains. Over her long and weary journey, this place had found her in her pipe dreams and her real dreams and her nightmares, and now she had at last found it, and—she hoped—all that it promised.
Millennia ago, the witches had declared that all those who wished to bargain with them for anything must first surrender everything—by willingly leaping into the Petitioner's Ravine and embracing death. Once they hit the ground, the witches would glimpse their fading souls and decide whether they had bore enough mettle and an interesting enough wish to be worth bringing back. Only one in ten thousand would ever open their eyes again after taking that leap.
There was still a plethora of foolish, desperate people willing to take the chance. Most died on the journey. But Medea had died a thousand times in a thousand little ways over
her bitter handful of years, and always came back fiercer. Bitter wind and merciless ice had posed no threat to her.
She'd known from the start that the witches would not deny her. Her mother's tales had been clear: they were only interested in the most powerful wishes. The wishes that could change the world. And the people with a will strong enough and a heart dead enough to carry them to their bloody end.
Medea Crimson had both.
The witch that had brought her back to life skittered away. After a long moment, another came forth.
Slowly, carefully, Medea sat up and came face to face with a young witch.
"What do you seek?" The stranger demanded, voice deep and cool and harsh as the bottom of an icy river. She knew enough of the Triple Tongue—an eclectic mixture of Valkyrian, Elfin and the human dialects that now served as a common language for the strained diplomacy between nations, as well as dialogue between witches and their supplicants—to recognize the form of 'you' she used. While her mother tongue had only one, in Triple Tongue there were five to indicate varying degrees of friendliness or formality. The witch had used the near-archaic Fifth Form, vey, the least formal and the least friendly, which meant she considered her the scum of the earth, and miles beneath her.
Oh well. She was human, after all, and used to such things.
Medea examined the speaker, the first to greet her after she woke. She was not beautiful—the word seemed too petty and mortal for the otherworldly, glorious pulse of the creature before her. The witch's eyes were of pure gold, her lustrous, flowing hair black as the gaps between the stars.
There was evil in her smile. Deep, merciless evil.
It was said that not all witches were dark and fell. She remembered the legends of their kinder sisters, who had been merciful and generous. None had survived. Such weakness was not tolerated in the Witch Queendom. That, at least, they could agree on.
"Power. I seek power." She answered at last. And there it was—the wish at the bottom of her soul, buried deep inside the raging heart of her. If the witch's voice was an icy river, then her wish was snugly buried at the bottom of an arctic ocean.
"Is that all?" The witch scoffed, looking bored already. "A sword that never rusts? A charm to ward off all blades? The strength of ten men? Come, there is a darker, deeper wish at the heart of you, my child."
"I want power," Medea said, her every word measured. "But not the sort that you describe. I want the kind of power that changes the world. I want the sort of power that lays everything at my feet. I want the sort of power that burns the history books."
That was her impossible wish. The wish that was so cold and furious it burned,
because a human like her might as well ask for a piece of the stars for breakfast. Her dream was more ludicrous than a fairytale brought to life.
But it was no fanciful, flighty thing. It was a wish that had been birthed from the blood of her family, when those petty warlords had destroyed what precious little had belonged to her. It was the wish that had whispered in her ear for years now, begging for more, more, more. It had set down its roots in her heart and anchored itself by her soul, and now she could no sooner deny or abandon it then she could live without lungs.
And when you had a wish like that, an impossible, desperate wish...only the witches could grant it.
"That sort of power comes at a price, girl," the witch replied, though Medea could tell she was interested. More than a few of the others were too. One by one, each turned to look at her. Some of their eyes flashed with anger in the dim glowworms' light, presumably at her boldness in asking so much. Others tilted their heads, curious. She tried not to wilt under their assessing stares, and focused instead on the strange carvings etched on the black walls of the cave, before realising they mostly depicted the slaughter of her kind by Witch Kings and Queens.
"Everything comes at a price." She replied. "And I've come willingly to pay."
"There are so many things I could take from you," she mused, still—to her fury—using the Fifth Form. "So many things—and yet, none quite enough, not for what you so boldly seek." The witch paused, considering. "How about your memories of your poor, dear family?"
"If you know about them, you know that isn't on the table." Regardless, they flashed before her eyes: her mother's smile lighting up her emerald eyes. Her father's wild black hair and her brother's sheepish grin. "No," she repeated uselessly.
The witch pursed her lips. "Fine. Would you give me your Name, then?" The witch pressed. "Your true Name? I have the power to rip it from you forever." Medea stared at her, shocked. Names held the very heart of a person in a few syllables. They told of all they had been and all they were now, and even what they could be.
Most people knew their Names instinctively, but if the witch could somehow remove the knowledge...she'd be left with only their own vague, biased guesses. She'd have an easier time trying to read words written on her own beating heart.
"Is that all you want?" Medea asked, surprised. Almost everyone held their Names sacred, giving them out only to beloved family. They would sooner go without heads or hearts than their Name. She didn't care for the tradition. It made people weak and sentimental.
The witch looked vaguely sick at her nonchalance. Even a creature like this respected Names.
"So you would be willing to hand it over." She paused. "Your lies. I want your lies as well."
"There are too many of them for me to recite or even remember, witch."
"No, no, no. I mean your future ones. A simple spell and you'd be cursed to tell nothing but the truth to me—or anyone."
Medea did not even falter before she answered. With such power, who needed to lie?
"I accept." She smiled. The witches could have asked for more for that which she craved.
"Mora," another voice began. This one was different—high and throaty and ancient.
"Silence," Mora snapped back. "I have made my decision."
"And if wish to make her another offer?" The voice threatened, and its owner stepped into the glowworm's light. Her skin was wrinkled more than Medea had thought possible, the stories of ages marked on the creature's skin. Her hair had gone pure white, but her eyes were dark enough that they seemed to devour.
"Be careful, sister. There is cunning in the heart of the human." A third voice cautioned. It was at once one and many, flowing and rich.
"Enough, Estra." The ancient witch snapped.
"She is mine," Mora hissed. "She has agreed. It is done."
"Not yet." The second retorted. "Girl, do you wish to bargain with me as well?" With a flush of pride, she noted the witch used the Fourth Form, which still indicated inferiority but was far more respectful.
Medea hesitated. She'd made a deal already, one she was content with. She risked angering Mora and losing all she'd gained if she negotiated with another witch now, but...
There was a hierarchy among the witches. Mora was young and inexperienced, but this one was as ancient as the stars—no, she had made the stars. She had killed goddesses and forged new worlds. And there was so much more that she could offer her.
Already she could feel her wish drinking up hope like a starved plant, roots digging deeper, tips stretching higher. She had everything in her grasp—and yet she wanted more. Would always want more.
"Yes," Medea answered at last. The witch smiled, and her grin was death incarnate as she whispered in her ear:
"I know what you plan, girl." Medea froze, knowing she'd made a terrible mistake. "Hush, don't worry. I'll keep your secret. Bargain with Mora now, my dear. Get what you seek. My only request is this: you let me help you do it. And you let me walk away with you when you unleash what prowls inside your heart." She didn't bother to nod. The witch saw the answer in her mind anyway.
"Why would I do that?" The mocking words were for the other witches' benefit, loud enough that they could all hear. "Mora has offered me a far better deal." She turned to the foolish young witch. "I accept."
Mora grinned like a satisfied cat and pressed a hand to her forehead.
With a single touch, everything Medea had offered up to her was gone. She felt a strange sort of emptiness where her true Name had been, then a throttling panic when she she tried to utter a lie and her jaw locked up. It tasted too much like helplessness.
Then the witch held out her other hand and passed a single kernel of darkness into Medea's outstretched palm. A shiver ran over her skin, settled into her blood and surged to an earthquake. Soon she trembled with the force of it. Power hit her like a tsunami crashing over her feeble human body.
And she died again. And again. And again.
When she stumbled back into life one final time, she was the tsunami and the earthquake and the darkness. For a moment her wish was sated and she knew a kind of peace.
Then the hunger grew stronger, fiercer than ever before. The roots sunk deeper and their claws clung tighter, until she could barely breathe from it.
With a sharp smile, Medea got to her feet, drew her dagger and slit Mora's throat before she could gasp.
Then the ancient witch grinned at her and the slaughter began.