Sleep was impossible. I stayed up all night until the morning sun flooded over the stone streets of the village. From my vantage point atop the cliff, I watched the populace slowly shuffle out of their humble dwellings. The fruit peddlers opened the awnings on their stands and the fish mongers pushed their carts up from the docks. I had never longed so much for a bit of normalcy.
Queen Suzerain materialized beside me. "Have you made your choice?" She wasn't one for small talk.
"Not yet," I said, turning to face her. "It makes me sick how the Antecedent Star has toyed with reality. I need your assurance that balance will truly be restored this time."
"No one has ever dared to make demands of me," said the queen, before bowing in front of me and lowering her head, "but I swear to you, Pteridophia Anteres Lumina, that your sacrifice will not be in vain."
Her gesture moved me, despite my doubts. "What of the mortals? The humans? Can't we somehow make them believe in us, believe in the legends again?"
"Humanity has moved on from magick." The queen stood up and looked over the cliff. "All beings are composed of the eternal stardust. Matter and energy can be reformed, but the collapse of both realms could nullify all of existence. It is a risk we cannot take."
Her words were cold comfort. "Hopefully a place like this can exist again one day," I mumbled, my tears long spent. "Fine...I will help you."
"Very well," replied the queen. "My plan is already in motion. We will begin at once."
"What about the other four Antecedents? Why are you acting alone?" I questioned.
"One of the Antecedents does not wish to start anew. They have become accustomed to this realm, and would prefer to lord over it even as it dissolves. They have found a way to amass great power from a source far removed from the magickal plane."
"Poseidon," I said. "I sensed his immense and bizarre power. It was frightening."
"There's only one way to stop him. The Secret Sea must rise once more. When this world has been flooded and his army drowned, even he will be forced to acquiesce to the wishes of the other Antecedents."
"The supposed lord of the sea opposes a flood? Such irony." I picked up a chunk of the ruined obsidian gate and rolled it across my fingers. "Who, or what, triggers this great flood?"
"A mortal known in prophecy as The Courier," said Queen Suzerain. "An ancient phrase containing powerful magick has been concealed within his bloodline for untold generations."
I was taken aback. "A single human holds the key to it all?"
"Yes. He is prophesied to obtain the blood of each member of the Antecedent Star to fill the well of his pen. Once his sacred phrase is written upon The Scroll of The Secret Sea, the waters of five oceans will spill from the parchment to flood the Earth. Only then can renewal begin."
"Death and rebirth. Are you sure an apocalypse is the only way?"
"I'm afraid so."
It's still so hard to believe.
YOU ARE READING
ALOJA: The Journal of Pteridophia Anteres Lumina
Fantasy-A TALE FROM THE SECRET SEA- As a child, Pteridophia washes up on the shore of a small village in Catalonia, a stranger in a strange land. Just as her isolation becomes unbearable, a forbidden object high atop a towering sea cliff beckons to her, se...
