She could still feel the buzz of power in her veins, sense the bitterness of death on her tongue. Something was different. She knew it in her bones, could see the palpable chaos all around her. Unleashed and unbound by the confines of her mind, anarchy roamed wherever she stepped.
Guilt, pain and sorrow.
It haunted her. Plagued her every breath, leeching off of her fragile soul. A soul she could feel that was no longer hers. There was a price for magic. Just as it was with all else in the world. She'd summoned the Caelestium of The Way to end the life of their only follower. The last man worshiping at their bloody alter. She had no choice now, but to wait for them to claim their price.
Lucretia did not know she could miss the woods that served only as a prison for so many innocent lives buried in its soil. But as soon as she stepped through the fields of never ending green, all she could see was the decaying forest. And her heart broke a little.
The pathways that seemed to have stretched on forever were much shorter in distance now, the viridian grass had turned an ugly ashen color, the towering trees had hunched down, as if bowing down to their new Master. But she would never become him. And so she casted her burning embers of scarlet upon every spot of the Evermore Forest, burning it along with its secrets.
The smoke smelt of death and she was trying her hardest not to hurl. She should leave the woods of her prison as soon as possible and not feel an ounce of guilt.
And yet she felt it burning her heart.
Relief hadn't come to her, and she doubted it ever would. The moment his body hit the ground and continued to lay motionless and dead before her very eyes, tears forged, fighting to be released and stream down her paled cheeks. But she hadn't felt the serenity she'd longed so much for.
For his last words were still echoing in her head; Why did you think I let you go? Could it all have been an illusion? Had she been so blinded by the false sense of calm in her pretense freedom? You are chaos incarnate! Not by her own choice. Nothing had been truly her choice. You cannot run from that! But she tried.
When did her heart start beating so harshly against her ribcage?
Lucretia placed a hand on her chest, coming to a halt within a few feet of the Forest's exit. The crimson fire licked at every inch of rotting green as it made its way towards her, beginning to engulf her surroundings and encircling her trembling body.
She'd collapsed onto the ground, the scorching heat of the unforgiving flames gathering closer to her made beads of sweat roll down her forehead and the back of her neck as smoke gradually infiltrated her nostrils, forcing suffocation upon her.
She was trapped, and she supposed it was the dying wish of the Evermore Forest to prevent her escape a second time. Perhaps she shouldn't survive at all.
What was the point of immortality if it was to be spent in solitude? To share eternal life with no one but one's broken soul? For, in the end, all whom that have been cursed with a deathless existence soon felt its claws slash at their hearts and minds. And all succumbed to an empty eternity.
The burning embers of scarlet sizzled on her skin as her body was splayed atop the grey grass field, but she did not feel the heat. Perhaps, the scorching flames had already engulfed her that she could no longer feel their affects. Or maybe, the Caelestium were too cruel to let her die.
Even now, she was denied the liberty of a wishful death.
Get up child! Get up and see what has become of your world!
Wake and witness the chaos! Wake and hear the whispers.
Lucretia gasped and the last remnants of the Blood Magiya in her body flared so high and so vast it took the forest down in an instant. Extinguishing the scarlet inferno she'd started in hopes of earning her demise.
The woman slowly rose to her feet, her eyes took in the deathly black surrounding the once lively green. The sun no longer shined and the air was thick with a sense of dread. She furrowed her brows at the loudening murmurs, she thought the whispers of the Evermore Forest to have been gone now. But this was different.
She grasped onto the ends of her skirt and followed the susurrations carried with the eastern wind. They spoke of a lurking darkness, threatening to snap the heart of a country in two. They told of a danger waiting to consume all light.
The whispers unveiled a Fold with the desire to drown the world in Chaos.
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