Fire of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 4)

TWO

The Conqueror's flames; a stuff of myth, and of great nightmares too. Any other person in the realm would have thrown the seer, Ariel, right out on her backside after hearing her mention something as unexpected as the flames. But if there was one thing that Richard's experience with magic had taught him, it was never to dismiss the impossible.

The Conqueror's flames actually came to popularity in association with a character of an equally mysterious background just like it; the Conqueror himself. Up till that present day, nothing could be said about him except that he had fought to unify the entire realm under one rule, and succeeded; the only man seemly to had ever achieved such a feat.

It was said to have actually been discovered later on that what had really granted the Conqueror his victory was an object of obscure origin, description, and workings; a flame. It was with the help of this flame that he was able to establish the greatest and vastest state to have ever existed: the Empire.

Unfortunately, the Conqueror's rule weakened as he grew older, completely shattering after his death to leave the realm in a more dysfunctional state than before its unification. But the flame itself was still never found even as many took up several quests in search of it. It was later concluded after so many failed attempts that the flame had simply vanished after its master's death as mysteriously as it had appeared.

However, a few others believed that the flame had actually gone to hide itself in a place where no one else could find to use it again; a belief which might not have been so far-fetched after all if the seer was to be believed.

"Explain to me again what in the name of the Creator you meant when you said you saw the Conqueror's flames," Richard said to Ariel as he paced in front of the chair she was seating on; Isidora standing in a corner and just observing the whole exchange with a neutral expression. In actuality, that was the only thing that the king had said to the seer ever since he had decided that they move the discussion from the hallway to a more private area- his private study- where no other person, least of all the lords or the servants, could overhear what she was insinuating and its repercussions.

"I told you already, your Majesty. I'm a seer and the flames came to me in a vision," Ariel replied, a long sigh escaping her lips afterwards; she was obviously very fed up of having to repeat herself again and again all to no avail.

"So, the flames came to you in a vision," Isidora spoke just then, cutting into whatever Richard wanted to say as she moved from her previous position to stand right in front of Ariel. "Mind telling us what it said?"

"It told me that a time of great danger is up ahead," the seer replied. "That the flames are about to be awakened again, and if nothing is done to prevent it, that it’ll burn down the realm just like it did before."

"But the Conqueror's flames have been lost since time immemorial, Ariel!" Richard returned at her, the absurdity of it all starting to get to him. "Now, even if I do pretend to believe you, which I'm not saying that I do, where are we supposed to start looking for something that even the people that lived during its era couldn't find?"

"Well, we use this," she replied and brought out what appeared to be a piece of a glowing crystal from inside her cloak and placed it on the table.

"What’s that?" asked Isidora as she placed her hand over the crystal to feel its magical aura. But no sooner had the dark witch done so that the crystal suddenly burst into real flames, almost catching her hand if not that she quickly withdrew it and the object returned back to its normal state instantly like it hadn't even transformed in the first place. "What in the name of the spirits just happened?" she asked, her surprised and almost scared look mirrored even more deeply on Richard's face; it was becoming obvious that they were dealing with something much more bigger than they had earlier thought.

"The crystal reacted to your Dark power," Ariel explained, picking up the crystal and returning it back to where she brought it out off in her cloak. "I don't really understand the whole of its workings yet but I think it detects the strength and personality of the person who comes in contact with it and uses that to communicate. In my case, visions on the directions to find the Conqueror's flames with the help of the Soul of magic before it can be used again."

Richard couldn't help but sigh at all he had just heard and witnessed. Truth is, while the Conqueror's flames' story might be a little bit hard to swallow, he couldn’t help but admit that a flaming power-reacting crystal wasn’t something that could easily be faked; least of all by a teenage seer. "Alright, Ariel, I believe you," he finally said after a while, sighing once again. "So, how do you propose we begin searching for the flames?"

"We can't begin searching for the Conqueror's flames," she replied much to Richard's surprise, "Not without the Soul of magic."

"Then we’re going to have a very big problem," he returned, a very unsure look suddenly on his face and Ariel immediately picked it that it might concern something very serious. "You see, we haven't exactly been truthful to you about the Soul of magic," Richard explained.

"What happened to her?" asked the seer, a worried expression now on her own face.

"We can't exactly say," the king replied, another sigh escaping his lips before delivering the big news. "Thing is, the Soul of magic is missing, and we don't have the slightest clue as to where she might be."