“If you’re open to it, I think you’d benefit if I showed you instead,” he said.
“As in spellcraft?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t hurt, will it?” The question made me feel like a child, but I hadn’t the faintest idea how it all worked.
He sent another disarming smile my way. “No, you’ll be perfectly safe.”
My heart pounded as a surge of excitement and unease coursed through me. Feeling jittery, I nodded in agreement.
With a snap of his fingers, the surroundingwoodland dissipated, and darkness enveloped us. The faint glow emanating from our bodies was the only source of light.
As the king spoke, his voice sounded like the darkness itself was telling the story and we were magically teleported to the heart of his narrative, experiencing the vivid detail as if we were there.
“Legends dictate that long ago, the gods of old created a planet with their stardust magic—the source of all creation.”
The vision shifted, drawing my eyes upward to beings so vast, they were of incomprehensible magnitude. They were humanoid in nature, yet the nuances of their features and movements were undeniably ethereal. Encircling us from above, each of them stretched out their arms, palms facing down toward us.
Suddenly, our vantage point changed, and we were now observing them from the side at a distance.
Flickers of starlight sprang into existence from the void beneath their fingertips. At first, they were sparse, but as the beings wielded their focus, the clustering embers multiplied to form an orb of blinding light.
It pulsed and I could hear a faint, thrumming cadence coming from it like a heartbeat.
The sphere crystalized, appearing almost overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the energy being offered. In response, more power was thrust upon it by the beings, and its rhythmic pulse surged quickly as if panicked, like it couldn’t bare what it was being forced to endure—I pressed a hand against my chest trying to soothe the feeling.
Within a blink, a blinding light had me turning away before a deafening crack reverberated through my bones. When it felt safe to look again, I had to blink away the lingering brightness to see.
My breath caught.
That orb of shattered light had transformed entirely. Its surface was a glistening deep-cobalt blue, broken only by large masses swathed in verdant hues. A lustrous halo enveloped it like a protective barrier.
Our perspective changed, and I was now on the globe’s surface, looking up at the flickering stars high above. I recognized those patterns. Those were our stars. Our planet. This was Lumnara.
The king spoke again. “The gods created Lumnara to explore mortality, or their version of mortality, forgoing their primordial nature to live an immortal life and explore how stardust magic could evolve under such circumstances. Howtheycould evolve. Why they wanted this? Nobody knows.”
The stars gave way to the sun and the gods of old descended. As they landed upon Lumnara, their forms shifted and much of their ethereal quality faded. Yet, even with only a trace of their transcendence, their power and captivating allure were beyond measure.
“Now ancients, they explored their strange new powers. As time moved on, magical preferences emerged, and factions formed. Lumnara’s cyclical nature provided diversity that the ancients leveraged to form four new courts. Two of them honored our planet’s equinoxes, while the other two paid homage to her solstices.”
The view zoomed out and showed a map of our land and how the courts were divided.
“The two courts rooted in the equinox’s powers were Spring and Autumn, while the Summer and Winter Courts derived their essence from the solstices.” Brief glimpses of each court flashed as he mentioned them, their colors and smells and sounds saturating my senses.
“The first court, known as the Celestial Court, was the original home of the ancients. It stood apart from the rest and was the only one to find balance, staying true to its original source of power, the stars, while honoring the Mother. After what could have been eons, the powers of the seasonal courts were now fully tied to Lumnara—the Mother.”
Flashes of each court revealed the ancients’ transformation as they rooted deeply into their new courts. The changes were…remarkable. They embodied the very nature of the power they were connected to. It was as if the seasons themselves had incarnated.
Those of the Summer Court had luminous hair, and rich, ebony complexions. The Autumn Court’s features were a beautifully blended palette of crimson, amber, and auburn hues. Winter residents were pallid and had blue eyes so piercing, I felt as if they could freeze my soul should I hold their gaze for too long. Spring was powerful, yet delicately featured. Of all the seasonal courts, Spring had held on to their ethereal quality more than any other court. Despite their differences, every court member was stunning, and utterly lethal.
“As the seasonal courts became fully tethered to the Mother’s source, thereby distancing themselves from the stars, new generations lost the ability to wield certain powers. The original stardust magic included the dichotomous powers of light and dark, as well as time and space. Until then, all courts could access these powers and the elemental Mother-given magic of earth, water, fire, and air.”
The powers flittered around me as he spoke. Their presence was like a symphony—stunningly beautiful together, yet vastly distinct apart.
“As the Celestial Court had maintained command over all powers, the seasonal courts believed this was only possible if the first court was somehow siphoning the magic from them. In response to this ideology, the four seasonal courts banded together as one to reclaim what they believed was rightfully theirs. Their prevailing theory: eliminating the Celestial Court would result in the seasonal courts regaining their full breadth of magic.
With cunning planning, they launched a surprise attack. Their combined forces were overwhelming, and the Celestial Court was brought to its knees, and quite literally vanished. It was the first such attack in their histories.”
