Fire of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 4)

Running through the corridors of the great castle, all that Oswald could see around him was the chaos that the war was bringing upon his glorious kingdom; a war which was plaguing the realm in its entirety. For many years, Oswald had successfully done all he could do to protect his kingdom from suffering the same destructive fate that every other established state in the realm had suffered. He had made sure to stay out of the matter in its fullest, choosing only to interact with the affected areas and persons in indirect manners. He had built up his guards and army, fortified his cities, made sure that the every province in his territory was accounted for and watched over at all times; and as luck would have it, it worked. But unfortunately, that luck seemed to have run out for the king. There was just no escaping one's fate really; not if its handler was him: the Conqueror. In actuality, there wasn’t much that was known about the so-called Conqueror. No one knew his identity, his origin, not even the drive of his quest. The only thing that was sure about him was that no army no matter how mighty could stand against him; many had tried really, but they all failed. Those who had been witnesses of the Conqueror’s conquest described it as a flame that sweeps in, burns everything in its path, and leaves nothing but the tales of desolation in its wake; and Oswald’s kingdom was next on its seemly never ending list. Looking around him at that moment, Oswald contemplated that perhaps he should have negotiated a surrender with the Conqueror; perhaps then, he wouldn’t have been afraid as he was that all that he and his ancestors had laboured to build over the centuries would be lost to a force that had no appreciation for it or any other thing for that matter. But in all honesty, if the king had been advised to do just that, he wouldn't have been able to go through with it. Oswald had never been a man to surrender, not even to a power that was said to be beyond his own; and that was why he truly had remained the last king of the realm even as the other leaders of the established states had been done with months earlier. When the scout’s report reached him that the Conqueror was on his way to his kingdom, instead of fretting, Oswald had decided to send a message to every one of his soldiers all over the realm, calling them to come and fight for their kingdom in what he termed the battle of battles. He even hired mercenaries and swordsmen from every nook and cranny of the known lands to help, drawing them to him with the promise of valour; alongside that of a whole lot of gold, that is. But as fate would have it, even with what was almost undoubtedly the mightiest army in the realm at his disposal, the king was still unable to put an end to the Conqueror’s advance that day; and that failure meant that the flame was going to sweep through all that he had struggled vehemently to protect, just as it had the others before him. Just then, Oswald arrived where his mind had been since he saw his army fall and the enemy crash through the gates; in a previously beautiful part of the castle that had become desolate in the light of everyone's hasty escape as they realised that the battle was lost, exactly as he suspected it would. He walked to a room at the end of a long hallway there, and pushing the double doors open, he entered to see a boy of about six years old who looked very much like him; except a lot more scared. "Father!" shouted the boy when he saw who it was that had entered into the room, dropping the dagger he had previously been clutching to his chest to go hug him. "I'm scared," he cried into his chest. "I know, my sweet Edmund. I know," Oswald replied, holding the boy very tightly to his chest. "And it's all because I wasn't powerful enough to protect you from it. Forgive me, my son." Just then, a loud crash sounded through the castle and the very walls shook with it. "What is it, father?" asked the boy. "Fire, my son," he replied as he looked to the window where the sky had turned fiery red as if in obeisance to what had arrived. "The fire of magic."