Chapter 14

The story of the Black Prince

In the beginningthere was darkness. A bottomless, impenetrable darkness that hung over the lands and took the shape of monsters. Great beasts that terrorized and plagued the people.

Magicals were fewer then – and because the darkness was magical and uncontainable – feared.

The monsters hunted the people. The people hunted the magicals.

And so it continued. On and On.

Until Fate intervened, bonding a young woman with five mates. Powerful and brave. Together, they drove the darkness away and were rewarded with the rule of the land. Magicals were no longer feared. They were saviors.

But though the monsters were gone, new monsters had taken their place. The darkness now lay in the hearts of men and a new terror reigned.

The old magical kings ruled as tyrants. Taking what they pleased, doing as they wanted. The great magical families fought to possess the throne. The country was always at war, the people always hungry. They longed for peace. They longed for something better.

In the end, they rose up.

The dark magicals who had used their magic to enslave and abuse were pushed back, further and further and the western border was formed. The magicals that remained pledged to establish a better land, a better world: the republic. The council was formed to rule in peace and harmony, the powerful magical families working together under the leadership of an elected chancellor.

But though the darkness had been driven away, it lingered out there, just beyond the border.

The threat from those disposed to the West remained and the council, wanting to keep its promise to the people, decreed that all magicals should be registered and a protection force – an army – be formed to protect the new republic from attack.

Decades passed. The academy was formed to train the next generation of magicals in battle. The threat from the West never diminished, but it never grew either.

That was until the black prince.

They say he was descended from dragons themselves. They say he had unknown powers – that he could turn day to night and night to day. They say he could wield crimson magic as if it was nothing but child's play.

The forces in the West had been fractured and splintered. They had spent as much time fighting one another as they had the new republic. But the black prince was ruthless and cunning, murdering his enemies, slaughtering anyone who stood in his way, until eventually the magicals in the West fell under his command, united by his fist. He formed them into an army with the intention of overthrowing the republic and reuniting the two countries. Ruling them both.

His attacks on the republic were stronger, more ruthless than anything that had come before. There were tales of dragons, of ancient magic, of new sinister curses. For a time, the republic struggled to keep him at bay. It looked as if the republic would fall.

And then as quickly as the black prince had risen to power, he fell, disappeared, vanished.

A dark cloud dispersed by the wind.

Some say he was killed by his own men, some by an assassin from the republic, some that he succumbed to the charms of a siren.

But he was gone and the threat from the West fell with him.