Actually, it hadn’t. At least, not as such. But I didn’t know that yet.

“Michael!” I yelled, wild-eyed and disheveled. “Michael! Wake up!” I shook him by the shoulders and he began to wake.

As soon as he was awake enough to take stock of his surroundings, he began to move very quickly. He grabbed his sword from under his bed and jumped to his feet.

“The empire is attacking!? How close are they?”

“No, no, nothing like that. We’re safe for now.”

He blinked, then flopped back down on his bed. “Oh… Jesus, Jenna. You scared the shit outta me.”

“Yeah, sorry ’bout that. I’ll buy you some new pants later. This is important.”

He sat up and cocked an eyebrow.

“I can do magic!”

“Bullshit. Nobody’s been able to do magic for 100 years.”

“Come on, I’ll show you!” He stood up, but just as he’d gotten to his feet, I said “Actually…”

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the symbols from the page. They came intto my mind preturnaturally easily and clearly. WOOSH! The spell went off, knocking Michael back into his bed for the third time since I had so rudely barged in.

“Woah.” said Michael in what neither of us were able to appreciate as a perfect Keanu Reeves impersonation. “I wanna try.”

I handed him the spellbook. “Gust of wind, page 32. All I did was concentrate on the symbols.”

He opened the book, found the page, stared at the symbols and… nothing happened. “It’s not working” he said.

“Here, lemme try.” I took back the book, and as soon as I layed eyes on the page, WOOSH! Michael’s personal belongings were thrown into even further disarray than after the first time. “Uh… I dunno. Try a different spell?”

–

Michael tried every single spell in the book, to no avail. I tried one other spell, Fireball, but after that inadvertently destroyed his wardrobe he wouldn’t let me look at the spellbook anymore in his room.

“We’ve got to tell the king.”, said Michael.

“The king’ll be asleep right now… come to mention it, I’m incredibly tired myself. I never got to bed with all the guards clomping about.”

“Very well. We’ll seek an audience first thing in the morning. Try not to destroy anything else before then.”

“Mm… sorry ’bout that. See you in the morning.” I walked back to my room and fell asleep the moment I touched my bed.

CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK

A guard outside my quarters. There was had been a lot more military presence in the castle since Guardia had fallen. The Empire wouldn’t have attacked us while they stood. We were a small kingdom, not worth anyone’s time. There were no roads that lead here from empire lands that did not pass through Guardian territory. With Guardia’s defeat, however, we were simply the next plot of land on empire borders and we were ripe for the picking. That said, I have no idea how a guard in the middle of the basement of the castle would be able to do anything to fend off invasion. But that wasn’t my problem. My problem was that I couldn’t stay asleep with all the noise they were making.

Silence. Perhaps the guard had left. Perhaps it had occurred to them to go patrol somewhere there was actually a point in guarding. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.

CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK

Damn. Well, if I couldn’t sleep, I may as well do something entertaining. I decided to go to the library. It was the only thing that would be available this time of night.

When I got there the room was empty. Well, except for the books. The usual librarian must’ve been pressganged to help build the walls that were going up outside the castle. He had been a construction foreman before retiring to the easy life of sitting in a chair and watching people read the books. That’s alright. I liked the privacy.

By some fortune, I found myself browsing through the old spellbooks that were archived there. Magic had once been very prevalent in the world. People traveled across the sky in enchanted carriages. One man with a pile of rocks and some free time could build a castle with naught but his mind. Commoners conjured their own food when they were hungry. Until, (slowly, very slowly) magic began to fade. Carriages flew slowly, and landed before their destination. Enchanted rocks tumbled along the ground instead of whizzing into the sky to form magnificent spires. Conjured food became bitter and unfilling. Eventually, magic vanished altogether. The few people who still used carriages fell to their deaths. The many people who lived in magically constructed buildings were crushed as rocks piled on top of each other without mortar realized they had no incentive to continue to support heavy ceilings. Massive famines killed most of those who survived as what little agriculture had been developed was abruptly called upon to feed the entire populace of the now much hungrier world.

But that was a long time ago. Before I was born. Before my parents were born.

Still, the old spellbooks had an allure to them. They smelled of dust and a kind of paper nobody even knew how to make anymore. I pulled one off the shelf at random.

Most of the book was written in old Alternian, which I could mostly read. The spells themselves however were written in arcane symbols the likes of which I had never seen before. I stopped to look at the symbols for a spell that the description told me would cause “a blast of wind”. They were mesmerizing…

CRASH! In front of me, a bookshelf fell over.

“Shit!” What just happened? I ducked behind another bookshelf to hide. … After the rubble had settled there was silence. It couldn’t have been empire soldiers. There was no one else in here. Had *I* done that? No, it was impossible. The shelf must’ve just been off balance before and taken a while to fall. I decided to clean up the mess and go back to bed.

But… No, I couldn’t not check. I grabbed the spellbook and another book and took them out into the hall. I stood the other book on its edge and sat a few paces back. I opened the spellbook and concentrated on the same runes from before.

WOOSH! The other book tumbled down the hall. One of the torches that lined the walls went out. I didn’t bother to relight it. I didn’t even bother to pick up the mundane book I’d knocked over. I just ran upstairs as fast as my legs would carry me.

Magic had returned to the world.