The clouds moved obscured the moon, erasing its light that had shone on the beautiful cobblestone castle.

Everyone should have been asleep, especially the princess. But she wasn't. In a room on the north side, a teenage girl lay staring at the ceiling.

Slowly, and ever so carefully, she rolled over and slid her feet off the bed onto the smooth wood floor, her bare feet resting upon it.

She carefully lit a match and pressed it to rhetorical wick of her candle, covering both from the door and the window, lest anyone see the princess and question her, for what she was doing was highly illegal.

Still silent and covering the light, Darana finally slipped out of bed and crossed the room to uncover a piece of paper, the paper could put her and her family in danger if ever found.

You see, ever since a witch had done terrible things with dark magic, it had been strictly banned, and writing about it, much less practicing it, was punishable by death.

Darana picked up a quill and dipped it into the ink, and began writing of her experiences with magic. Unlike most people, she had discovered the truth in magic and knew it wasn't evil at all, just misunderstood.

To whomever reading this, you can never let these pages fall into the wrong hands. They hold the answers to the past and the key to the future. I beg you to use the information in them wisely, for the good of Stegalla.

Magic in and of itself is not inherently evil. Our teachers educate us on the old event that sparked the hatred of magic, but they only tell half the story.

The leading witch, the one who killed the general, was using a dark kind of magic, much different than what had been previously used. It was dangerous, and the other witches followed her purely out of fear.

Anyone who dared oppose her disappeared without a trace, presumably at the hand of the leader, though no evidence could be traced back to her.

After the incident, tens of witches were wrongfully punished, and fear drove my father to ban magic once and for all.

Darana paused writing and set the quill down, stock still for fear of being discovered. A noise sounded in the hallway, and she was stiff as a board until she'd determined it was nothing.

I had no more knowledge than what the history books say until a few months ago, when I first discovered the true magic of the woods...