Falling Kingdoms

Auranians—when they were more religious as a whole—believed just the opposite.

“I’m open,” Cleo said, eager to learn anything about the Watchers that might help her. “Tell your tales. We’re grateful for anything you’re willing to share.”

Sera cleared the empty plates from the table. “Tell them about Eva.”

“I will. Patience, dear.”

“She was the last sorceress,” Sera said. “She could command all four elements all by herself. No one and nothing else was that powerful except the Kindred itself.”

For a girl who’d seemed reluctant to hear her grandmother’s stories again, she now seemed eager to tell them herself. Cleo repressed a smile. “So a sorceress is a very powerful witch?”

“More than that,” Eirene said. “Eva was one of the Watchers, the beings that live beyond this world in a protected enclave called the Sanctuary. Watchers, as you may have heard in the old legends, were the protectors of the Kindred, four crystals that held the truest, purest essence of elementia. Obsidian for earth, amber for fire, aquamarine for water, and moonstone for air. The magic could be seen inside the crystals, swirling around if you were to look closely.

“The sorceress wore a ring that enabled her to touch them without becoming corrupted by their infinite magic. For as beautiful as they were, they were also very dangerous. The Watchers guarded them to keep the Kindred safe. But also to keep the mortal world safe from the Kindred.

“A millennium ago, the Western Realm, now divided into three lands, was united as one, and everyone lived prosperously and in harmony. Back then, the existence of magic was as accepted as life itself. Harmony in the Sanctuary translated to harmony here.”

Cleo remembered reading in her history books, when her tutor insisted she pay attention, that Limeros, Paelsia, and Auranos were once one large land with no borders. It had been very hard for her to believe. The people from the different kingdoms were so different now, but once they had been united.

“So what happened?” Nic asked. “I know they say the Kindred has been lost for a thousand years.”

“It wasn’t lost, precisely,” Eirene replied. “It was stolen. While the Sanctuary seemed harmonious and the Watchers devoted to guarding the Kindred—which gifted them with eternal youth, beauty, and magic—there were a few among their ranks who aspired for more.”

“More than eternal youth, beauty, and magic?” Cleo asked. “What’s left?”

“Power. It has always been a strong motivator for some. A quest for power—for ultimate power—is the reason behind most evils the world has witnessed. There were two Watchers in particular driven to take more power for themselves. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“I like the part about Eva and the hunter,” Sera said. “It’s my favorite.”

“My granddaughter is a romantic.” Eirene laughed and got up from the table to pour them all more wine. “While Eva was a powerful sorceress the other Watchers respected as their leader, she was also quite young compared to some of the elders. Some might say she was naive. She often ventured beyond the veil of the Sanctuary and into the mortal world. It wasn’t locked then as it is now. In the Sanctuary there is no wildlife, so her favorite thing to do was bird-watch. One day, she came across a hunter who had been mortally injured by a mountain lion. He’d traveled too far into the Forbidden Mountains and lost his way. As he lay dying, she appeared to him.

“Some say it was love at first sight. She then did what was not allowed—she used her powerful earth magic to heal the hunter’s wounds and save his life. Over the next few weeks, she left the Sanctuary to meet with him again and again. Their love only grew stronger. The hunter begged her to leave the Watchers and stay with him in the world of mortals, but she knew she couldn’t leave her responsibilities behind so easily. However, one day she found that she was pregnant, and she began to wonder if it could be different. If she could live two lives or if she’d have to sacrifice one forever—either the mortal man she loved or the other immortals who shared her magic.

“Eva had two older sisters, who learned of her secret, and it gave them more reason to be jealous of her. While they, as Watchers, were also powerful, it paled in comparison to their younger sister’s magic.

“When she gave birth to the hunter’s daughter, the sisters emerged from the Sanctuary and kidnapped the child. They threatened the baby’s life if Eva didn’t bring them the Kindred past the veil into the mortal world. Remember, within the Sanctuary, only Eva had the power to touch the Kindred.

“It was then that Eva made her choice. The thought of losing her baby was too much for her to bear. She took the Kindred from the four corners of the Sanctuary and brought them to the sisters in the mortal world. Each took two for themselves, and the moment they touched the stones, they were corrupted by the magic. It changed them forever.”

“It turned them into goddesses,” Cleo said, barely breathing. “The sisters were Valoria and Cleiona.”

Eirene nodded gravely. “The Kindred were absorbed into the sisters’ very skin. They became fire and air, earth and water. But now that the Kindred had been taken from the Sanctuary, the two were unable to return. They were trapped in the mortal world. And while they had the power of goddesses, they had the bodies of mortals.

“Eva knew this and hadn’t warned them. Their fury combined was enough to destroy her. The child was lost. Some say she died, others that she was left on a doorstep of a peasant’s cottage as a last act of kindness of the goddesses for their dead sister.