The Shadow Wanderers

Chapter 10

That night, laying on the softest sheets in her bed, she flipped the pages of a book about Vakenian wars, looking for a specific one. She peered at the night sky through the glass doors of the balcony, wondering about her father and best friend. Not even twenty-four whole hours had passed since she had stepped on a new planet and she marveled at the new ideas and knowledge she'd discovered in this short time.

But she felt like she might piece together some more confusions if only she found out about the war Claudia talked about. She didn't know which one it was exactly or what the war was about. Was it a war with the mortals or someone else? Why was this war important in the course of breaking things with the mortals?

She flipped through the pages until she found an illustration of a battlefield; the sky was crimson and the knights or soldiers in armor seemed to be running in a low waterbody. The water was red, she didn't know if it was from the blood of the fallen soldiers or if it only reflected the sky above. She flipped to the next page to see the words "the Red War" as the title on the top. Intrigued, she read the details.

Kingdom of Vakenes and Liggen as allies, ruled at the time by the King Lugus of Vakenes and the King Oleander of Liggen.

Against

The demon Arik and the Shadow Wanderers.

Battle Fought in 49,586

Locations: Ionov, Vakenes and Liggen

Duration: Three months

he sat up at the familiar name; the demon Arik. Her heart dropped. So, Vakenes had already fought with the demon once. She could now imagine the reason for Zayden's unease regarding the demon. Apparently, the immortals were living in their year 50,210 according to their latest calendar. Arik was their millennium-old rival.

Beneath the details was the description of the reasons that led to the war and what both sides had prepared in their armies.

The demon Arik only saw the mortals beneath him, powerless and fragile, like tiny insects whom he could crunch beneath his feet. In all the years since his knowledge of the mortals grew, he grew to hate them, not willing to understand why their rights mattered to most immortal communities. Still, he stayed low, stayed clear of the mortals until one day the word came that a mortal had been killed by the hands of the demon.

When the mortals started begging for protection from the demon and came to the immortal kingdoms for help, their pleas are heard. The kings of Vakenes and Liggen gathered their armies to go after Arik and his followers, the Shadow Wanderers. They raided his planet Ionov as they fought against him.

The demon was famous for his rage and the fire that slipped his fingers and could catch anything. He wreaked havoc everywhere and when it was time for him to face the king of Vakenes, Lugus, he was defeated by the power of his sword, the Stormrage. The king summoned such a storm through the sword that the demon's powers went useless in the strong wind and hence fell to his knees.

After capturing Arik and putting him in a magic-free cell, the kings went to hold meetings with the communities of other planets, and a decree was launched to cease all trades with the mortal worlds. They provided the reason that as long as the mortals and immortals prospered together, there will always be immortals who would try to conquer them and will remain a danger to them. With the help of the Serafiels, any memories of the immortal worlds were wiped from the mortal minds for their own protection, and they were left to thrive on their own.

Calista saw what it meant. A murder of a mortal led to the war of the millennia with the demon. If it hadn't been for Zayden, he would've killed another mortal. Her.