Ch 1: The Curse
Adalaide
Once upon a time, in Ariveil, a prosperous kingdom long forgotten by the annals of history, there was a horrific curse. The curse didn’t affect a person or bloodline as it usually did. Instead, it affected the land itself. Bountiful crops rotted, fertile soil soured, crisp rivers became acrid sludge, and any wild life that lived in the area died a slow, agonizing death.
What caused the curse? That’s the odd thing: nobody knows. There wasn’t a warning or signs that signaled its awakening, it just… happened.
However, King Oriel believed that there was a source. A series of objects responsible for the affliction.
The stone obelisks.
Roughly seventy years ago, at dawn, numerous enormous onyx obelisks erected from the earth without explanation. Since then, our lands have been plagued with horrible misfortune.
Many soldiers from the Ariveil royal court were sent to destroy them, but none ever returned, leaving the country to not only mourn the losses but accept their eventual fate.
Until four years ago, an idea was proposed by the research department of the kingdom: what if these obelisks are magical and that’s why our soldiers can’t destroy them?
This idea was taken with speculation and suspicion, as magic and witchcraft were ghastly abominations, allegedly eradicated in the Witch Trials eighty years prior. This reality was unheard of in the human world. At least, King Oriel believed so.
Queen Anna, on the other hand, was intrigued by this notion. Stating that, perhaps, not all of the’heathens’ were condemned to death, and a few were living among the citizens.
An unlawful search for ‘witches’ began, using a dousing rod to detect magical energy. This was how they found me.
Adalaide Winthrope, a nineteen-year-old White Witch who healed the injured whilst wandering from place to place. No home, family, or purpose. And, to the best of my knowledge, the last of my kind.
King Oriel ordered my immediate capture, yet ‘coerced’ my cooperation. With violence and other unspeakable acts against my womanhood.
Those sins would never leave my mind or body as I submitted fealty to the Ariveil kingdom. Signing my magical services over for better or worse.
In hindsight, I should’ve ran away with what dignity I had left.
Then again, the soldiers would’ve found me again. And insubordination was punishable by execution.
So, for four years, my magic was used on various obelisks. Testing the reactions of white magic on whatever abhorrent energy they were composed of.
Today, at dusk fall in the Ariveil Kingdom, after hours of concentration, an obelisk crumbled to the ground at the edge of the castle’s property.
Everyone cheered and celebrated this victory, except for me.
Because I knew it was the beginning of an arduous war, rather than the end of a small battle.
And I would be the soldier at the frontlines.
