Prologue

“The balance”, Flint whispered to himself as his breath fogged up in front of his face. He often wondered what it meant. He had been brought up his whole life to respect ‘the balance’. To know that everything he –and everyone else in this world – does is already written. Is all fated. And that our own destiny, is not up to us at all. The balance means that whatever we have done, were doing, and may do in our future, is all part of a bigger picture, or ‘The Great Design’ as the Tres Magna calls it.

  Flint squinted into the distance as he levitated amongst the clouds, rain splashing off the protective barrier he formed around himself.  Just as expected, they came. They came in the thousands, millions maybe, blacking out the entire horizon and skies with their wretched machines. Their numbers seem to evenly match the army that is below Flint, the army of Galdur. Flint sniffed the air. He could feel it getting polluted by the minute.

“Horrible, disgusting creatures, are they not?”, Aqua said as she drew up beside Flint, drenched to the skin. Flint was unperturbed. Aqua had always preferred getting all wet rather than waste her energy on a barrier.

“Aqua, something doesn’t feel right”, said Flint paying no heed to what Aqua was saying, “Why do we fight these people? Is it for wealth? For power? Or just because Tres Magna told us to? Either way, something doesn’t add up, I can feel it.”

Aqua let out a giggle and floated around Flint childishly, mimicking a ballerina, “So that was what was on your mind? I was beginning to worry for you, floating up here all on your own! Why are you thinking so much? We have always followed Tres Magna’s order without a hitch. Why start now?”

Flint glared at Aqua, “That’s what bothers me so much. I just don’t feel that it’s right to fight when we do not know what we are fighting for. I know that we have been taught to heed Tres Magna’s every order, but don’t we have the right to know as well?”

Aqua looked at Flint as though he just said something completely absurd, “Flint, I think you are..”

Flint never heard the end of that sentence. While they were talking, the opposing army had gotten that much closer. Before they had time to notice, two bolts of lightning streaked down from the sky. One deflected off Flint’s barrier, but the other struck Aqua square in the back.

Flint blinked from the glare of the lightning bolts, and Aqua was gone, falling straight to the ground, unconscious. “Aqua!!” shouted Flint as he went after Aqua as fast as he possibly could.

He knew one thing for sure. Those lightning bolts were not natural. They were the work of magic so potent he could still feel it lingering in the air. That just meant one thing. Malmur’s army had magicians.