Magic's Burden

I ran as fast as I could in an attempt to escape the death that would follow after capture. I could almost feel the fire engulfing me and I urged myself to run faster. Dread crept through my entire body when I heard the cries of the villages growing nearer, chanting for my demise. There was no escaping. I was drained, my magic almost extinguished… No way out. No lie I could spin. No tall tale I could tell. Magic or mundane, wicked or wholesome, I was going to burn at the stake. I was once told “Magic is evil only if the wielder is evil, like a knife it's a neutral weapon.” But I couldn’t make them see that. The fact that their minds were too clouded with primitive fear would be my end. Never-ending hate flared within me. I was no doubt going to the grave, my only wish was I could take the one who turned me in with me.
Suddenly I realised the wall in front of me, I had run myself into a dead end. My pursuers yelled with glee as they closed on their prey. Fear swarmed in my body and when I saw the faces of the villages waiting eagerly for violence… I screamed, I screamed and I screamed.
Pure light blinded me, engulfed me. For one moment I was truly and utterly at peace as my entire life flashed before my eyes. I realised how lucky I was to live this far, this was a minor burning, a small-town trial, so unlike the mass executions happening up north. I thought about the last woman burned 100 years ago. Mortal of course-like so many others. She begged for mercy but nothing was going to stop the raging fire.
My vision once again filled with brightness and when it fell the accusers in front of me had burned to a crisp. I started to cry not at the murder but at the smoke that wafted through the air. I had summoned fire, the forbidden witch art. It was the fire that burned our ancestors, the fire that matched the flames of hell. Only the truly desperate would resort to the element that could drive the user to the brink of insanity.
Would I be one of the strong ones, the ones with willpower that could survive the burning curse? If I did the fire would become a part of my existence, it would give me hope, energy, light, and warmth. If not the fire would burn my mind to a crisp after driving me insane. A few centuries ago when I was younger- I used to want to test my powers, show my strength, and kill the murders of my people, but now… A rest sounds good and my head lay on the ground.
Now that I’m in the after-life I look back and wonder what would have happened if I didn’t ignore the feeling that my brain was slowly and swiftly being destroyed.

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