The Lord basked in the essence of the pure light and reveled in it. He knew she was coming to see him. Perhaps even fight him for the throne. It would be a relief, as he never thought that she would ever show the guts to do something like that on her own.

She showed herself to be so obedient. So attentive to their lessons as she so meticulously recited ever spell, every casting and every incantation that he instructed her to do. She was the perfect protege, a bit too perfect.

He absorbed the sensations of the entity as it shone its glory all over the room and it totally accepted his presence being there. For he was once the only one that could do such a thing. Many of his opponents had tried to enter this very temple and claim the energy as their own. After the lord’s victories over the years, again, and again, and again, who wouldn’t? After a planet knew only decades of war, here came this unknown entity, to cease it all within an even shorter period of time?

Unfortunately for them, they desired to claim it as their own, but due to their lack of training, their discipline… their belief, the entity claimed each and every single one of them as its own. Inside the light that basked the entire temple was a beauty to behold, but that beauty came with a price. The energy that flowed through it was the strength of a dying god’s wish for the universe to find itself again, and those who could not understand it, were consumed by it, physically and literally.

The lord smiled knowing his purpose was righteous and just, and why the entity allowed him the grace to be a part of it. For this little secret is what he knew that his enemies didn’t, and that was total respect to its power. Something that none of them provided.

He heard her footsteps coming towards the closed doors of the temple, he closed his eyes.

And definitely not something that she was ready to either…

She proved it by pushing open the doors with such force, making a ruckus with those loud boots. Who would have ever thought a lady with a small frame could make such commotion.

“You know why I am here.” She asserted her presence in the room as if she didn’t announce herself enough already.

The Lord smiled and retorted, “No. You want me to believe why you think you are here. But you do not truly know.” He continued, “Because if you did. You would either run, or beg for my mercy.”

She laughed at his empty threat, “You foolish old man. I am to be your equal, this is what our training has always been about.”

He silently listened, waiting for a redeeming answer to his challenge, to see if the silly young girl had learned anything from him yet.

“I am to be your successor, you have put me, put all of us through so much torture, you may think that the kingdom loves you, but they do not. They pay you the smiles of falsity so that you do not see their faces of discontent. They look to me to rule, they see me as a fairer, more just, leader. You have always told me, after all these years, I must wait my turn, until my final test.”

She moved closer to the Lord.

“Well father, today, right here, this is the final test.”

Her hands raised, the strength of her magic forming between them.

Behind several of her followers with magical abilities waited outside the temple, they knew that by entering the room without being fully initiated, they would be consumed by the powers inside.

“You are only able to enter this room unscathed because I allow it.” The Lord scolded. He finally turned and opened his eyes to meet her challenge. “You are not ready for the power of the Enixar.”

He raised one hand towards his daughter, in defense and in caution, “Kali, end this now and all will be forgiven.”

“I am ready, I am ready,” She muttered, feeling slightly apprehensive from his mannerisms and his caution to her.

Energy began to form from his outstretched hands, prepared for the inevitable,

“Then show me…”

She screamed and rushed at him with furor. She fired the blast of energy from her waiting hands and it sent shock waves along the room. The Lord was able to block the majority of the blast and the little that did impact knocked him back…slightly. He was impressed. She was learning.

She continued her bombardment of strikes, each one seeming to meet its mark, damaging the Lord’s tall and old frame more and more.

He staggered back awaiting her next moves. This time, his both hands were outstretched. Perhaps he underestimated her before.

Feeling a boost in confidence, the young spellcaster generated a massive wave of magical energy in her hands and blasted all of directly towards her father.

The Lord stood in place, feeling the clothes and skin ripping from his body as it absorbed the majority of the impact. Her magic was very powerful indeed.

The supporters outside witnessing the fight cheered for her as she subdued her father. The rule of Gramadon was soon to be in her hands.

“Hail to the Queen! Hail to the Queen!” they chanted as she continued with her onslaught of energy towards her opponent.

She smiled at the reality of it, the supporters chanting her name as she made her way through the royal palace, walking towards the throne with thousands of onlookers admiring the dawn of a new rule. One that they were finally ready for. The power of the Enixar by her side, she would be unstoppable, and feared, no, that’s fair. She would be fair.

But what was this sensation she was feeling.

At first she thought it was exuberance. But then she realized no, something is wrong.

This isn’t euphoria…

This is fear!

“What is happening?” she questioned, she was feeling her energy being drained from her with every passing second.

“I told you daughter,” the Lord began to re-materialize. The entity that stood in the middle of the room, the same one he basked in earlier, was now giving revitalizing his body, removing all the damage he had inflicted from the battle. “You are not ready for the power of the Enixar.”

As his body revitalized, she and her supporters watched in horror as hers began to drain,

“And now…”

“Please, stop this.” She begged. She halted her powerful energy blast but it only seemed to speed up the debilitating process.

“You will learn the power of it.”

“Nooo!” She screamed, but to no avail. She was barely recognizable. Once a beautiful young woman mere moments ago, she started to look even older than her father.

“I am sorry you did not reconsider my dear.” He taunted.

The supporters began to flee from the temple, knowing that their King would definitely punish them all for this insurrection. With a single swoop of his hands, each supporter stopped in their tracks, being held by a strong magical force.

“I still have use for you, do not go anywhere yet.” He instructed them.

The old woman that stood in front of him fell to her knees, completely drained of energy. Her eyes closed and as she was falling to the floor, her father used his magic to stop her mid drop.

“My dear Kali,” He hovered to her side, still basking in the light of the Enixar. “You will learn to understand my rule in time. Until that time, you will be banished to the forest, living the rest of your life either in contempt for me, or in appreciation that I have given you a second chance to redeem yourself. However you may choose, this is your fate.”

With that, he motioned his hands towards her supporters, and in an almost zombified fashion they entered the room, one by one being absorbed into the Enixar. For the few seconds they existed within the room they dragged their Queen out until she was completely outside the temple.

Those that survived carried her on their shoulders, bound for the forbidden forest where wild creatures and strange experiments of the Lord existed.

He watched as his daughter and her group slowly faded in the distance. He felt no regret in his decision.

“Goodbye Kali.” He whispered, “From now until the beginning of the end.”

***

The forest was dark and unwelcoming to many travelers that ventured through it. It was created by the lord during the year of the wars as a means to prevent the warring factions from reaching closer to his established headquarters in the middle of Gramadon. However, since his victories during the engagements, it became a place he had long but abandoned. He opted to move his regime to the previous King’s palace, to the western regions of the domain. Some said he did it as a remainder to those who would ever cross him and defy his rule, that there would be consequences.

And it seemed those consequences followed his daughter, the latest participant in a failed coupe de tate. As her supporters carried her in the weakly state, she opened her eyes and observed her surroundings. She could not believe how overconfident she was, and how easily her father defeated her. And yet, he let her live, she hardly thought it was only due to his benevolent nature, but for her to truly live with the reality of what she did and that she would be cursed to live in the presence of his rule.

Seemingly in a Zombie like state, the followers took her to an open field of grass, lush and with an evergreen tinge of excellence. They all assembled to the center of the environment and laid their queen down to the ground.

“What are you doing?” She meekly questioned. She was still drained by her previous encounter. She was not in a condition to help them, but only to observe.

Her supporters turned to face outward into the wilderness of the field. She couldn’t tell how much of them were still left after the onslaught at the temple, but she was extremely happy that they were all there by her side still.

The attack on the temple, attempting to overthrow the Lord and claim the Enixar, was planned for almost a year. She thought,

Perhaps there is still a chance…

She looked as the supporters moved further away from her, still watching focused in the distance,

Perhaps I will recover from my wounds and try aga…

She stopped her thoughts as one of her disciples started to cringe in agony. Something was hurting him. He fell to the grass grimacing.

Soon another disciple began the same symptoms,

and then another,

and another.

Their queen watched in horror as a liquid, clear in colour and odorless, came out of their mouths and began to spread along the ground where they once stood, seemingly with strength. A poison? No. It wouldn’t have worked so long after and on all of them at the same time.

Suddenly, the liquid began to rise among them, to the feet, their ankles, their chest and finally over their entire body. She saw each man slowly disappearing under the pool of liquid, their blood mixing into it and everything becoming pure and transparent. As it did for each man, the pools of liquid became bigger. Soon a large pool of the liquid spread to her, but curiously, it did not make contact with her. It spread parallel to her and began to spread as far as the eye could see.

She realized what was happening as she now lay on the ‘bank’ of a newly formed ‘lake’. Their bodies were acting like a catalyst for the liquid, and then devouring them one by one to make even more surface area and depth for it. This was the Lord’s way of torturing her for the rest of her days. She would forever be in his domain, and on her personal island surrounded by the likes of this ‘man-eating’ swampland.

It would be here, that his precious ‘Kali’ would be Queen in her own right. Destined to rule over the putrid and cursed in the regions of the forbidden forest.