The abyss was where I was born, it was what I knew. It was my solace, especially when I was asked to make a decision as monumental as this.

The Void wasn't blessed with green pastures like the Light was. When the sun bore down on us, it scorched the plains, leaving nothing but a crumbling sheet of sand, dead trees and an ever-growing number of Cavities—colossal holes descending so deep into the earth that nothing but the void survived.

I sat at the mouth of one such Cavity, staring at the infinite abyss. Ravaging my mind for a solution.

Our lands were bare of most necessities, but what we lacked in nature, we mined. The largest, deepest Ether mines were found in the Void after all. Ether was the bloodline of a mage, the basis of the magic crystals that harnessed the forces of nature. The basis of every weapon forged in the Void.

Even a High Mage like myself always carried a bag full of ethereal crystals in every shape and colour. Large gold ones to summon the heat of the sun, small white ones to freeze the earth into oblivion. Red ones, green ones, blue, black, silver—each with their own purpose, each just as deadly as a blade in my hands.

I rummaged through my worn, cloth bag to fetch the smallest gold crystal I could find. I watched it glow in my palm, encapsulating me with its soothing warmth.

But that wasn't why I had retrieved the Ether from my satchel.

I shut my eyes, trying to recall Merikh's arrogance. She had called me a child! A naive optimist! She had tried to justify murdering children.

CRACK!

I popped my eyes open just in time to see a dark fissure on the gemstone growing wider and wider. As if the jewel was being eaten from the inside by the very abyss I sat dangling my legs in. Until nothing but ash remained in my palm.

I blew the ash into the darkness under my feet. Could I do this to an entire nation? Was I ready to?

"I thought I'd find you here!"

I had barely looked up when four fingers dug their way through my hair, in an attempt to muss them. I winced at the force of it, at the calloused fingers digging holes in my head. I slapped the hand away, suddenly overcome with a nauseating, throbbing headache.

"It wasn't amusing twenty years ago, and it's not amusing now!" I declared, massaging my scalp. The knight that slunk beside me was  tan with shoulder-length, raven hair.

All the inhabitants of the Void had dark hair and skin, just like those of the light were fair and blonde. Yet this particular dunce shared more than just the motherland with me. He shared my ancestry, my blood and for a long time, my very home.

"What do you want, Enzo?" I snarled at my older brother.

"I heard someone threatened the High Lord today," Enzo said, a wide grin plastered on his ridiculous face, "and I knew there was only one person in the Void foolish enough to do that."

I urged the desire to roll my eyes. Gossip didn't take long to spread even in times as deadly as these, "How did you hear of it?" I demanded, arching both eyebrows. Enzo was a knight, a warrior, he shouldn't have been anywhere near the capital city to hear the fruitless whispering, which raised the more important question, "What are you even doing here?" I corrected myself, "You told me you were to be sent to the battlefield yesterday!"

Enzo narrowed his eyes at me, "No," he said stretching the syllable like a child and poking the side of my head with his finger again. A twinge of annoyance began to form in the pit of my stomach, but I ignored it as my brother spoke. "I said the day after the summer solstice," he said, "that's tomorrow."

I inhaled a long, deep breath before I sent my last living blood relative plummeting headfirst into the abyss. I had just the right crystals too. One blink and I could toss him into the Cavity with a gale strong enough to fell trees.

Although killing my strongest advocate wouldn't be the wisest move. Aggravating as he was.

"So," Enzo continued, completely oblivious to my irritation, "What happened?"

And the crushing weight returned in the pit of my stomach with a sickening pull, anchoring me down, drowning me. I shut my eyes for the umpteenth time today, "Children are dying, Enzo," I told my brother, straining to keep my voice from breaking, "Something foul is afflicting them. I buried four alone today and then Zarethia—my apprentice she—" I paused, talking about Zarethia stung.

I hadn't even stayed back for her funeral, I couldn't watch another friend die. I couldn't watch them burn her body, even if it was the only way to stop the affliction from spreading.

Enzo wrapped an arm around my shoulder amid my shuddering breaths, "You're allowed to cry, Valeria," he said. As if he were a completely different person all of a sudden. My rock in this sea of madness. I could let nausea overtake me in his presence. I could be Valeria Oengus again.

I shook my head, forcing back the bile rushing up my throat, "No, I'm not," I choked. And it wasn't because of how improper it was for the Viginti Vacuus to cry. I had brought this upon myself by refusing to take part in the war. I cleared my throat in an attempt to stop my voice from breaking, "I asked the High Lord to grant me permission to go to Etherea."

"For their magic fountain?" He scoffed. And though I was not looking at him, the derision in his voice was as apparent as the endless abyss below my feet. 

I turned to my brother in cold fury, "Would you like to repeat that statement before or after I dangle you over the Cavity, with the very magic you mock?"

Both of Enzo's eyebrows arched, "You wouldn't dare."

I reached into my satchel to grab a fistful of crystals and show my arrogant brother exactly what I had meant, but all I could feel was powdery residue.

"Deodamnatus!" I swore, opening my satchel wide, yet instead of glittering crystals, I was greeted with nothing but black powder.

My brother laughed, doubling over and clutching his chest until tears streamed from both eyes. My jaw clenched a little, but I let the laughter slide. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally eradicate magic from the Void.

Enzo wiped the tears away, clearing his throat "Jests aside," he said, offering a more supportive smile, "it's not the magic I doubt, it's the concept of magic water."

"Ah!" It was my turn to arch my eyebrows, "But magic stones and magic people you believe."

"Valeria—"

I stood up again, clenching my fists, "Did you come here to make me feel worse, Enzo?" He was supposed to be my unending support and yet all he had done was aggravate me and argue with me. My solitude had been more fruitful.

"No," Enzo said as he placed a hand on each shoulder, "I came here to offer help."

"By judging me?!"

"By being your voice of reason." Enzo's voice was oddly calm as he squeezed my shoulders. "Valeria, you cannot just march into the capital city and ask for their most sacred item."

I turned my attention to the abyss, "I don't want the entire fountain," I muttered, "just enough to carry home." A few flasks would be enough to cure the affliction and then some.

Enzo arched an eyebrow again, "They're not going to give it out of the goodness of their hearts." I could hear the criticism in his voice even if there was none in his face.

"Then what am I supposed to do, Enzo?" I was going in circles now. Even if I agreed to the heinous act of destroying an entire nation, there wasn't much I could offer a prosperous kingdom that already had it all. "Short of bribing them with the biggest Ether crystal I can find, we have nothing."

I laughed at the absurdity of my suggestion but Enzo didn't laugh back. He looked at me, eyes wide, as if my suggestion was the wisest nonsense I'd uttered.

"No!" I narrowed my eyes at my brother, "It won't work! One crystal will not eradicate years of resentment."

Enzo was smiling now, his eyes ablaze with whatever idiocy his mind was churning out. "No," he agreed, "one crystal won't make a difference."

I had to pause a minute to try and understand my brother's implication, but it was useless. He was an idiot. "I am not loading a carriage full of crystals!" I finally snapped, "How do you suppose they would react to the High Mage of the Void? Much less the High Mage appearing at their gate with a carriage full of weapons?"

Enzo snorted, "The way your temper flares, you'll probably appear at the gates with a carriage full of ash."

I didn't share his humour, "Hilarious," I said dryly. It wouldn't be as amusing when my temper turned his weapons and armour to ash too.

"No," he said more seriously, squeezing my shoulders again, "I was thinking a trade." Enzo looked at me hopefully once more, as if somehow his thoughts would magic their way into my head.

I raised an eyebrow, "You need to elaborate a little more, brother."

"We can offer them ethereal crystals!" His eyes were still ablaze with passion, "A percentage of what we mine as a sign of goodwill—the beginning of a truce."

I didn't say a word at first, it was a good strategy. The end of a war that had nearly destroyed us. I almost told him it was a brilliant idea, but I remembered the Life Oath. And the weight dropped down the pit of my stomach again, the nausea returned, "Merikh will never agree."

Enzo sighed, "No," he agreed, "but we don't need to tell her." There was a twinkle in his eye. He may have been thirteen again, convincing me to climb the tallest tree in our hometown of Umbra.

If I was naive, my brother was a newborn babe. I smiled sadly at his attempt regardless, "It's not that simple," I told Enzo. If I agreed to go to Ethera, I agreed to the Life Oath. And that meant I would either betray my people and die or betray the people I was trying to make peace with, and get them killed.

The Light or the Void. I had to choose one. I had to condemn one.

"Well ..." Enzo began slowly, granting my mind a much-needed interruption, "how far are you willing to go?" He looked at me hopefully, questioningly, "For the children?" he added.

There was no judgement in his voice, no malice. The question was innocent enough. Yet it was exactly what I needed to hear. It was what I needed to ask myself. I thought of Tomlinson, small and fearful as he lay dying away from the warmth of his family. Was I ready to doom every child to the same fate?

"What does she want in return Valeria?"

I shook my head, "Nothing I can't handle," I decided. I wasn't going to condemn the younglings to a fate as cruel as that. Not as long as I lived. "The children have suffered enough."

I caught my brother beaming at me out of the corner of his eye and I returned his smile. I would figure a way out. Something that would please everyone.

I was certain.

(1967 Words)
(Total: 5,084 Words)