“Shut the gates!” King Callum shouts once again as he sprints through the ancient castle. Alerting the guards of the imposing doom Callum repeats the order at the top of his lungs, his deep voice echoing in the enormous throne room. Exasperated by the lack of movement from the guards King Callum draws upon his mighty elven made firebrand sword and in one swift movement he cuts the head of the nearest guard clean off. The other guards don’t even blink, “What’s wrong with all of you? Your castle is in danger and you must protect it!”
           Callum stands with defeat in his eyes as he looks about the grand room, high arched ceilings, and doom etched into the dark stonewalls. One circular skylight illuminates the entirety of the dramatic demand of attention towards the center of the room. Candlelit chandeliers are used at night to make anything in the room visible.
From behind the King a disgusting squelching noise draws his attention to the floor. His stomach churns as the head of the decapitated guard moves into sight. Rolling so the dead eyed guard can see his king he opens his cracked lips to whisper, “Your destiny is the fate of the Norn.” The head then squelches away under the table near where his body lays already badly decomposed.
Fear and panic overwhelm Callum with his confusion he tips the scale of balance and everything around him crumbles. Suddenly the other guards snap to attention, stiff and unblinking they stand to await orders. Sword still raised, Callum turns toward the two humongous Quebracho wood doors stained with an almost black mahogany. It takes five burly men to open them on an average day, Callum watches, as they swing open on their own accord.
The soft sound of carefully placed steps reaches the 357th King of Argo’s ears heightened by the powers of his ancestors before him since the beginning of time. The power that has been harvested over the unbroken years of the Lynch domain since the beginning of time pumps through his veins, pounding in his ears, drowning out the sound of the unseen intruder.
That doesn’t stop the rancid stench of sulfur and rotting flesh from reaching his scrunched nose. Frozen in place Callum does his best with his mind to rebel against the feelings overpowering his tired body. Revulsion fills his guts and churns his stomach as through the doors an ominous figure strides into the room. Callum tries to speak but feels his tongue tie into literal knots and turn to sand.
“Oh don’t bother milord, it will only make this more difficult than it already is.” The deep velvety masculine voice says from beneath his black as night hood. His words set the hairs on the back of Callum’s neck on end and bile up into his throat, choking him.  “Oh and don’t be so stiff, is this how you treat all of your guests?” the figure in all black hooded robes asks the disgruntled king as though he was a fly, a mere pest meant to be flung away. The tone of the intruder’s voice infuriates the late king of Argo.
“Such a pity that silly human puppets do not realize that they are part of a larger show to which they have no control” The figure says in a hushed whisper in the king’s ear, the malicious sneer obvious in his tone. The intruder nods to the white-eyed guard who is closest to Callum. Recognizing the guard as his most trusted acquaintance, Gaspar the White. Gaspar moves against his own will and nods back to the intruder, using his own bewitched limbs to strangle himself. His eyes bulging out of his skull, shaking uncontrollably as his body fights for oxygen.
“Stop it!” Callum shouts, suddenly finding his voice. He glares at the cloaked intruder who chuckles softly. Turning to face Callum who feels fear take hold of him, the only things beneath the hood are two dead, glowing, blue-white eyes shrouded by darkness.
“This man killed you Callum, I know you don’t remember it but I do. This man murdered you. This is why you can’t move. He poisoned your wine before dinner, a plot formed between him and the rebel group known as the Free Folk.” The hooded figure says and a dead blue mouth, as though drowned, appears as he speaks.
“No, that’s not true. I can’t be dead, I don’t have an heir to my throne and my daughter… she… she can’t rule an entire country. She is not strong enough to.” Callum says, his voice full of dejection and sourness.
“Well who’s salty fault is that?” the intruder asks the dead king in a saucy manner, “You were supposed to be a better father to the one daughter you had, not off getting laid trying to have a bastard to claim as your own.” Crossing his arms across his chest and folding his bony hands. “Now you want me to stop the restoration of the balance to the realm as this demon who upset it, thinking he could escape before I claimed his soul and could come back to wreak havoc on your daughter. I am a kind person, I do not though, believe in slaughtering children and destroying everything they have before them.”
Callum doesn’t speak, but rather falling to his knees out of misery and shame, burying his head in his hands out of shame. After a few moments he lifts his decomposing face to look at the cloaked reaper. “There has to be something I can do, she does not deserve the aftermath of my mistakes.”
The reaper who now has removed his hood and taken out his scythe, turning to the suffocating man who cowers in fear, “You are dead to everyone in Hell and in Heaven. You don’t deserve to live nor do you deserve to return to Hell. You are to be my snack, I will feast upon your soul so you can never be reincarnated” He says deathly low and proceeds to take the man’s soul. Tipping Gaspar’s head back and pressing his lips gently to the man’s lips as though kissing but he slowly inhales and pulls back. A blue wisp like string is connecting their bodies. The drowned reaper seems to gain color as he feeds off of the demon’s chi, his energy, whilst the demon grows older and seems to crumble into pieces before turning to dust with an agonized scream.
Callum is unphased by the grotesque scene before him; the reaper who now looks fully healthy and alive wipes his mouth. Silenced by his sadness the king follows the reaper easily, he takes the king down to the crypt below the castle. The torches automatically ignite as they move by; the castle is eerily quiet, too quiet for the king to have died.
Once the reaper brings the king to the crypt he turns to face him. “You’re going to eat my soul?” the king asks timidly, stripped of all his dominance and power in death he quakes of fear and loneliness. The reaper shakes his head, his eyes now wholesome and blue as deep as the sea south of the kingdom.
“No I am not going to eat your soul, you have a wife waiting loyally for you up in heaven. I am going to send someone to watch over your daughter though.” The reaper tells the king who nods solemnly. “Now, as you are the last of your male line and all of the power in these crypts are from your male ancestors it is of no use to your daughter and must be destroyed.” The reaper then waves his hands and murmurs a complicated incantation to set the place ablaze.
“Now what?” Callum asks the reaper whose blue eyes glimmer from the powerful orange and gold flames now devouring the ancient souls and releasing the power harvested from the beginning of time.
“Now you choose your fate.” The reaper says softly motioning to the odd looking table that is surrounded by flames, licking at the wood and yet the expensive wood does not burn. Upon the table sits two objects, to the left is a single angel’s wing feather, pure white and soft to the touch. To the right is a heavy stone coal still glowing with the heat of the flame.
“What happens after that?” the king asks the reaper who is nowhere to be seen. In face every trace of the reaper ever being there is gone except for the scorch marks left upon the walls and floor. Callum takes a tired breath and extends a hand to touch the feather. In a sudden blinding light he is gone. Leaving only one word whispered on the wind heard by no one.
“Magna”