Before me there was nothing.

  I open my eye

  Then there was me

  Light

  I bowed my head and sat quietly looking at the six statues of the gods. It was still dawn, the morning light pierced the blue sky, giving life to a new day. The church benches slowly filled as people arrived, their small murmurs and prayers echoing before reaching heaven—prayers for the sick, protection, salvation, and wealth that reach the god's hearts. The voices of the worshipers stopped when the head priest of the god of light stood in front of the altar raising their hands.

  “We are gathering here again to celebrate today’s daylight ceremony of the Holy God of the Sun, Light, and Justice, The Great Solstice. For another day, the glorious sun god blessed this holy nd so we can live free, grow, prosper, and safely from the demons of dark nds outside the Solstice’s holy light. No foul evil escapes his sight, he sees every sinner and sin. We must not forget how much he has given us in his beloved love. He who raises the sun every day bathing us in his holiness, giving us another day to live, preventing any demon from harming us. If it were not for our beloved god, we would still live in fear of losing a daughter to the demons at night or a son being taken and corrupted, turned into a bsphemous cultist. Let us pray to show our gratitude for all the miracles he has done,” the holy priest preached at the top of his lungs.

  At that moment the sun god perfectly aligned with the gss sky window in the ceiling of the temple. The sun god watches over us while we pray—a single giant eye with a golden iris covered in divine light that brings daylight. The gss prevented his worshippers from going blind for staring at the sun god for too long. One can only get glimpses of his magnificence for so long.

  The other priest beside the preaching priest pulled the rope to ring the church bells, instructing silence. Soon after, people of all ages started standing up one by one in a line at the center of the church to give their offerings to the God Solstice. The golden cauldron at the altar soon got filled with gold, silver, jewels, food, wine bottles, clothes, wands, and all sorts of things people considered valuable to give.

  I sat quietly on the bench pretending that I was not being seen by the eye of god. I felt a little avian cw on my p. My little crow climbed from beside me and onto me and cooed softly. “Are you sleepy?” I whispered. Do you want to rest in my hood? Here, let me help.” I put the small bck crow in my charcoal brown hood. My clothing wasn’t the fanciest of clothing but fancy enough for church, making me blend in with everyone.

  “Oh Solstice, all mighty, we present you these offerings for everything you have done to us. Please bless us with your divine magic, so our faith will grow ever stronger.” The priest prayed once more.

  “Bless us, oh Lord of Light,” everyone said in unison.

  “May your divine sword of daylight shine on our days and vanquish all our evils. May your chosen son come and bestow us with his grace, freeing us from the fear of the demons that lurk in the dark. The people fear. Oh lord of light protect us.”

  Solstice’s single eyelid opens, illuminating even more of the kingdom.

  The morning ceremony ended soon after Solstice’s worshipers sang profoundly his magnificent songs of adoration. I waited until everyone left to exit the church into the market pza and knelt at the exit to show respect to the well-decorated statues of the six mighty gods that looked down upon us. The church was located in the city's center. As the church bells continued to ring loudly, my body tensed up from the loud noise. The strong ring of the bells was to repel any nearby demons, warding them off. Letting them know this city is owned by the gods.

  The market streets were full of life, unlike when I walked the streets earlier when the sky was still shady. Now the air was thick with the scent of spices, fruits, and baked goods, tempting passersby with their mouth-watering aromas. There was a clothing store that had on dispy the most wonderful dresses they had in stock. I took a moment to admire them. All those beautiful silks and fabrics. I sighed and continued my way as usual, greeting the guards who were on patrol and headed to Omen Street where they sold the best magic items the city had to offer. It was my favorite shopping area, some shops had flickering enchanted signs, they had apothecaries full of potions with ever-changing colors like the rainbow, and my favorite bookstore had new magic tomes on dispy today. I will check them ter. There were also collectors selling all kinds of magical trinkets in their small stands on the street, one of them had a small leather-bound brown book on the table of one of the vendors that caught my attention.

  The ages can be seen caught up in the book, it had lived one too many adventures. I open the book, only to find its pages empty.

  “Zephyr, what do your magical eyes see? I said, getting my familiar out of my hood. Their storm-blue eyes examined the book with a curious look.

  “Caw,” my bck crow confirmed, nodding.

  “Thank you very much, I will give you some tasty fruits ter when we get back,” I say, putting Zephyr back in my hood. After buying the book, I started returning to my dorm when I heard Cassia call my name.

  “Alex! Hi! How is it going? She asked.

  “Morning Cassia, Not much just got out of the church, but I bought this book when I passed a seller in the market,” I said, showing her the old book in my hand.

  “Another book for your collection? Or are you pnning to leave it in the too-read-ter pile?” she said, teasing.

  “No,” I stare at her. “I’ll let you know that I have finished reading my books. But more importantly, Zephyr told me that there is something hidden in the bnk pages,” I open the book showing sad empty pages. “There is an invisibility rune that is concealing its secrets. I got it cheaply because the seller did not know about the charm.”

  I took my silver wand from my pocket and with a simple twist of my wand, I cast a dispel spell to remove the invisibility run from the book. The pages were then revealed, and inside it was full of hard-to-read handwriting and recognizable magic symbols. Symbols for targeting and altering the body or object, runes for enchanting muscles, and other weird scripts that I cannot decipher. Yet.

  Suddenly I went cold when my hand flipped to the next pages, the spell book got darker and darker containing pages with forbidden magic. Blood magic.

  Blood was a sacred thing, the fuel for all living things, given by the goddess of water Mar. Yet bsphemous wizards use blood or living sacrifices to fuel their spells bypassing all restrictions the spell may need. Victims are drained of their blood, their life force offered up to empower the practitioner's magic, leaving behind only death and despair in their wake. The evil book had no author written, probably due to not wanting to be traced back to them. A wizard losing their spell book is horrible, all those hours of tedious work of preparing spells are gone. You might as well lose your wedding ring; wizards say all the time…

  “ALEX!” Cassia snapped, bringing me back to reality by closing my book while it was still in my hand. “You were lost in thought again.”

  “Ah sorry, what were you saying?

  “I was saying that my aunt told me to give you this vegetable basket, so you do not forget to eat and stay healthy,” she said, presenting a nice basket of vegetables from their garden, making my heart melt with gratitude. “What were you thinking about? Was it the book? What's written in there?”

  “Nothing. “Don’t worry about it, just some boring old diary,” I say dismissing her question while grabbing the basket of vegetables. “I appreciate this thanks, but I can take care of myself. I'm not a kid, I’m old enough to have back pain already.” I disputed and hid the cursed book under my robes urging to get rid of it quickly.

  “Sure Grandpa, remember to eat your food and fix your posture.” she teased, giving me a smirk.

  “Says the old dy with the walking stick,” I tease back, pointing at the well-decorated wooden rod she was holding.

  “You know very well this is a magic staff to do sorcery magic, you were there when my aunt gifted it to me,” she protested.

  “Yet you use it to walk.” I mock again.

  “It's bigger and better than the tiny wand you use magic with.” She retaliates.

  I gasp.

  “The size of the magic focus doesn’t matter, what matters is their components and how well it channels arcane magic.” I hold up my mother’s wand, showing all of its glory. “Your measly stick is nothing compared to my-”

  “Ah, Tiny wand,” Cassia said rudely interrupting me.

  “It's not a tiny wand!”

  She ughed, like making fun of my mother’s wand was the funniest joke a jester had said. Not letting her sweet ugh and her jokes affect me, I put my wand back in my pocket, knowing that the wand was capable of. She is lucky that she is my closest friend, if not I will not let her honor be ridiculed like that.

  “Anyway Alex, did you hear Professor Oleander will not be giving csses for a few days?” Cassia asked.

  “Yes, I hope he isn't sick, but he left a project for us to make up for the missed csses. More homework, yay!”

  “Alex, you should work on your sarcasm. If I did not know you better, I’d say you were excited about homework.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “That’s why you need to work on it. Right, Zephyr?”

  “Kaw,” Zephyr affirmed from inside my hood.

  “You are supposed to be on my side,” I said feeling betrayed.

  “Oh, Alex, look over there,” she said pointing at the crowd.

  The city’s pza had a stage, performers used it to show off the tricks and spells they had learned. Today a fme dancer was demonstrating her control over the fire, performing spectacurly as the fmes spun around her body without burning her or her clothes. Born with the gift of fire magic it all came naturally to her. I bet she is a devotee of the fire god Phyrelis to be able to practice dancing with fire like that. She spun and twirled showing her feminine beauty complimented by the deadly fire. The audience cpped and cheered her show. She seemed to be enjoying herself dancing to her heart's content. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Oh, to be able to dance like her.

  After the amazing performance, we continued chatting back to my dorm. It is nice that Cassia worries for me, she is a wonderful friend. I met her on my first day in Dimhelm City’s Arcane Magic Academy, and she was the first person to talk to me. Everyone was so bizarre when I got here, compared to the people that lived in the capital. One student was about six feet tall, super muscur, and wearing a cssic wizard hat. Another student was a girl with leaves and squirrels that lived in her hair. I even overheard other students saying a person's name was Healer. When we first met, Cassia was amiable. She was a pretty girl with cinnamon hair, a bit shorter than me, and wore well-kept cream-colored country clothes. I was a fish out of water that day, too used to being inside of my home, but I needed to get out and spread my wings, desperately needing a break from the Capital.

  The center of attention of Dimhelm was not the Colosseum it had but the Academy of Arcane Magic, having one of the biggest libraries in the kingdom. The Gran Library was as immense as Sunshine Cathedral in the Capital, with floor after floor of bookshelves with magic tomes for every element and magic type. Whole sections of books are about curses, blessings, magical creatures, and papers from renowned mages from all over the kingdom. Decades ago, a powerful wizard decided to make a library of their collection of magic books so people could learn from them. They were disappointed that people were using the arcane arts incorrectly and not to their full potential. Soon after, the academy was formed for all ages and anyone with a passion for magic. Students came from all over the kingdom and past the kingdom’s borders to study here, including me. Like my mother, I came to study transmutation and alchemy, the magic of changing the properties of energy and matter.

  I opened the door to my dorm room which was being blocked by the piles of books I had read several times and reminded myself I needed to clean up a bit looking at the un-kept bed against the wall under the window. “Zephyr what were you thinking showing me this book, it contains a clear description of blood magic. We can get executed by just having this,” I scolded my familiar. Zephyr gave me a sorry look tilting their head down and doing a light coo sound.

  Cassia had gone to her aunt’s house where she lives, agreeing to meet to work ter on the project at the academy’s alchemy boratory.

  “Hey, it is okay we make mistakes sometimes, you have never seen blood magic and did not know about its horrors.” I patted their head. “Now to get rid of it before it causes us any trouble,” I pulled out my silver wand from my pocket and cast a simple barrier spell around the area of the book.

  With a quick frisk of my hand, I lit up my wand as a match setting the book on fire. The dorm room did not catch on fire thanks to the barrier I previously casted. The fire took its sweet time burning the book. The walls of the barrier around it soon started to get covered by ash and smoke yet the book remained. I grew impatient and cast a stronger fire spell commanding the book to burn! A spark came out from my wand and the book erupted in fmes. The barrier around it broke and smoke filled my room. Coughing, I went through the ashes only to be surprised to find the book intact.

  “Zephyr if I get cursed I may or may not bme you and you are not getting treats,” I argued.

  Zephyr flew to me in the blink of an eye, grabbed the book, and pecked furiously at it. The pieces of the pages just appeared again in the book. The Zephyr charged his magic and released a bolt of electrical energy bsting the spell off the ground. Yet the book remains. Giving up and wanting to get rid of all the smoke in my room I cautiously hid the forbidden book under the floor tiles.

  I went to open the window to let out the smoke in my room, but instead, a small pigeon invited themself in. Zephyr jolted up suddenly at the appearance of the messenger and started cooing to protect their territory. They tried to look intimidating but ended up looking adorable instead. The small gray pigeon quickly nded on my desk, leaving me two letters, one from Professor Oleander and another with… the royal stamp, and leaving from where it came.

  My family had not contacted me in a while after I told them I needed time for myself to grow and be worthy of my title. I was taken by surprise to receive a letter from my brother, the st time we spoke was before I arrived at Dimhelm to study arcane magic.

  ***

  Dear Alexander,

  I hope you are doing well studying in Dimhelm, I am writing this to cordially invite you to my upcoming wedding with my fiancé, Emery Maria Mora. The wedding shall be at the Royal Pace on the 30th of Fallleaf. I know it's a little soon for a wedding, not having much time for preparation, but she is the love of my life. I hope this letter arrives on time; it shall be a tragedy if you missed it.

  I understand you're busy at the academy, but it would mean a lot to our family if you were able to come home for a while.. Sister and I miss you a lot, especially our father. Do not forget to keep practicing your swordsmanship, I would love to see how much better you have gotten, maybe you can even beat me in a duel.

  With love,

  Your older brother, Conrad.

  ***

  Sitting on my bed silently with the letter clutched in my hand, I y in wondering if I will be able to ever find the courage to take that first step back to the life I had. Memories of the past fshed to my mind while my hands held my mother’s wand, trying to be in her embrace once more.