《Wood and Iron》


 Prologue

    For a thousand years, the Undying Empress ruled the Jeklein Empire. It was said her magical powers were unmatched and that she was truly immortal-nothing could kill her. Once upon a time, she was a kind Empress but millennia on the throne had made her cold and cruel. Dissent was crushed whenever it stirred and the Jeklein borders continued to expand slowly under her patient, methodical guidance. The Empire eventually encompassed most of the continent until it reached the western kingdoms. The Kingdoms fought and feuded incessantly and yet as soon as an outside force threatened them they banded together without hesitation or complaint. Each had its strengths; Narell had its wyvern riders, Carlilis had its spies and agents, Vouran had its strange terrain which they turned against any invaders and finally, Raliec had the Obsidian Guard. They were the greatest order of martial magic casters on the continent, they recruited those of the greatest magical power from the populace into this prestigious group and trained them with ancient secrets.


    These powerful kingdoms had spent centuries testing their magics in battle against each other and when the Empress sent her forces the kingdoms drove them back time and time again. The Empress would surely crush them if she ever came in person but it was a great distance from her throne to where the western kingdoms marshalled their forces. There was too much that demanded her attention. More wars in other distant parts of her vast empire that she needed to pay attention to. She had worked hard to ensure her empire needed her on its throne and in doing so had ensured great loyalty. Thus she was tied to her throne because of the needs of her empire and its need of her guiding hand.


    But the Undying Empress was patient, she could wait and plan for a hundred years. So she did. She schemed and planned. She sent spies and assassins and told them to spend their lives infiltrating the kingdoms and that she would call on them to complete their missions in time. Decades would pass before the Empress was satisfied with the number of her agents that had infiltrated deep into the four kingdoms and where they had placed themselves. She gave her signal and her agents acted and so began our darkest day, the day of the purge.


    She did not try to usurp control of any of the kings or their bureaucracy instead, her agents all on the same day attempted to assassinate and destroy everything and anything that gave them strength. The Obsidian Guard were slain by treachery at a ball thrown in their honour. Knives descended into the sleeping forms of everyone magically powerful enough to be deemed a threat. The wyverns were poisoned as their riders were murdered. Kings died, their heirs slaughtered. It was a night of blood and panic. As people who had been reliable stalwart allies for decades turned on their friends and neighbours. With nearly a hundred years of planning and three decades of infiltration and preparation, it was a masterstroke. Mistrust and suspicion spread to every corner of the western kingdoms. And only days later the news arrived to the kingdoms that the Jeklein were marching west in great numbers, they had come to claim the crippled kingdoms.


    But soon they were rumours of a strange individual moving rapidly east towards the invaders. In all the tales it was said she wore a porcelain mask and on her clothes, she bore the insignia of the Obsidian Guard. The purge had missed one. At every town, city and village she visited any remaining agents that had lingered or escaped were found dead by the end of her first night there and by morning she¡¯d be off again heading east. She carried the rage of the people of Raliec with her as well as the fury of everyone slain by treachery in the night of the purge. She held no conversation and moved swiftly and inexorably east. Always east. Stories raced ahead of her, they called her the ¡®Obsidian Witch¡¯, talked about her in hushed hopeful tones.


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    Meanwhile, a force had rallied despite the confusion caused by the kingdoms near collapse. The king of Narell had survived the night of broken trust, though his son had paid a heavy price to save him, and without his Wyverns, he was mostly toothless. But still, he marshalled his forces and moved to help defend Vouran and its maze of twisting valleys. He called anyone who had suffered from the purge to his side and they came in great number. But they were angry citizens who showed up and few soldiers. The Empire held great portions of the world in its sway. They could field vast armies of trained and disciplined troops. The forces King Jour had assembled were vastly outnumbered and outmatched by the advancing Jeklein but they held hope that if they could link up with the Obsidian Witch that they could somehow win. But they underestimated the breadth of her rage, everyone did. She strode past Jour¡¯s forces paying them no mind, she strode straight for the advancing Jeklein army.


    She stood alone against them and found the collected might of the Jeklein Empire wanting. She kept walking, heading further east, leaving behind her a vast field of corpses. What manner of spell she had cast or the details of the struggle were lost completely. No warrior, general or messenger had escaped her wrath. Yet still, she walked east, she wiped out the border forts as she crossed into Jeklein lands. She made no effort to hide or evade detection, she brazenly and openly marched swiftly through Jeklein territory slaughtering everything and everyone that tried to stop her. A task force of the greatest mages in the empire was assembled and nearly completely wiped out the moment she laid eyes on them. The greatest and most talented of the Empire fell before they even had time to cast a single spell. They sent dragons after her and she reached out with her magic and tore them from the sky and tossed their giant broken bodies aside like a kid discarding a ragdoll. It was then the Undying Empress began to realise the nature of what she had angered and for the first time in a millennium, she trembled in fear on her mighty throne. The path east the Obsidian Witch was taking, from which she had never deviated, lead directly to the capital, it lead directly to the Empress.


    Carried by her rage the Obsidian Witch reached the Jeklein capital. Every scheme and every attempt to slow her down had failed utterly. The Undying Empress had gathered her strongest assets and forces to her. But there was fear in them for the Jeklein had come to know the Obsidian Witch by her actions. She had instilled in them a new almost primal fear. When the battle started and the Undying Empress who had previously been believed to be the most powerful magic user ever to live clashed with the Obsidian Witch the world shook. Windows cracked and shattered back in the western kingdoms half the world away. Magic beyond imaging was cast again and again. When it was done the Obsidian Witch crawled from the ruins of what had only hours before been a great city. Wounded she made her way west. Nothing of the Undying Empress was found, she was gone. In a panic, the remnants of the Empire¡¯s leadership shut its borders and cut all communications.


    But as time goes on and it becomes clearer that the Obsidian Witch won and the Empress is gone more and more stories emerge from their borders of a nation on the verge of collapse. But the Western Kingdoms are no different. We have lost so much magical knowledge and talent. Crowns have been left without heirs. The age of grand magic has ended, it has ended with the greatest magical duel in history, but it has ended nonetheless. We are entering an age of empty thrones, an age of regents. Yet I find myself asking where has the Obsidian Witch gone? What has become of her?


    -Lord Fredrick Latchkey on the beginning of the age of regents.

 Chapter 1

    Elise tapped her quill impatiently against the rim of her ink well as she waited for her customer to finally say something of substance. It was a small, cramped and slightly dingy shop and Elise loved every inch of it, even when she did not love the customers. There was a counter that cut the room in half. On one side there were racks of decorated sticks waiting for her to turn them into a wand or a staff if someone picked them out. Most were rather bland and plain in appearance. This wasn''t one of the more expensive establishments and everything tended towards utility and practicality over pageantry. A small table and two chairs took up most of the floor space on the customer side. On the other side were cluttered workbenches and cubby holes for papers and focus diagrams. The workbenches bore the weight of countless arrays of confusing tools and in-progress projects. At the very back was a narrow set of stairs leading up into her room above. Elise sat at the counter of her shop with parchment quill and ink to record what kind of focus her customer wanted, all the while she resisted the urge to reach across the counter and strangle him.


    "I want a staff. A powerful one," her customer blathered "The kind that the obsidian witch used against the dread empress,"


    He was a little well dressed for where he was and seemed to have a sense of entitlement to match. The twisting arcane mark that everyone was born with and that marked how magically powerful they were, only proceeded a short distance down from his right eye where it was always placed. His ''line'' showed he was pretty average in terms of magical potency. However, it seemed he had some rather bad ideas about what wands and staffs were.


    With a pained sigh, she set down her quill. "It was the undying empress, not the dread empress, please get that right. Also, that''s not how magical focuses work. It''s not powerful, the user is. There is no baked-in magic, without mana to draw the spell then a wand or staff is just a stick. The mana comes from you. They''re just tools. Ideally, each focus should suit its user. A focus that doesn''t suit you is one you''ll damage by attempting to cast with it. A staff won''t suit your needs any better than a wand would. In fact, putting full channels on a staff would make it much harder for you to use,"


    Elise was short and wore a workers apron that was covered in dozens of useful pockets. Beneath her apron was a simple tunic and a set of worn trousers. Her short black hair was untidy and unkempt. Several fingers were missing from her hands, one on her left hand, two on her right. The fingers that remained had been badly scarred by burns. The scars continued down her hands and her arms growing less severe as the distance from her fingertips increased. Her rolled-up sleeves displayed the severity of the scars unashamed. Her face hadn''t been spared being similarly marred. Two gruesome burn scars covered a significant portion of her face, each one centred around one of her eyes as the epicentre. And each one more severe the closer it got to her eye. Her line was a tiny insignificant nub, the smallest line of anyone she had ever seen, it was barely visible beneath her right eye. A sign to many that she was weak, feeble and worthless. Dealing with those mistaken attitudes tended to be frustrating. Though almost every aspect of dealing with her current customer was frustrating.


    "No. It has to be a staff don''t you understand! A wand''s not as powerful!"


    "That''s not how this works. There needs to be space between channels or the spell threads moving through the different channels can interfere with each other. Which is why people with longer lines need focuses with more material since their spell thread is wider and needs more space. Just because all the powerful folk use longer and bigger focuses doesn''t mean a bigger focus will help you be more powerful. In fact, using an unnecessarily big focus will slow your casting speed right down. Which if I recall was your main complaint with your current focus when we first started this consultation. If you are absolutely and insanely set on a staff I can channel only the end of the staff and leave the rest as deadwood. It''ll function as a wand but look like it''s a proper staff,"


    "You''re not listening to me! You''re not selling me some junk wand that looks like a staff. I want a proper staff! Look I''ve come all the way down to this crappy slum shop because someone said you made good staves. You should be glad someone like me even came down here!"


    Well, that was it. She''d was done. Her patience had run out. She had far better things to be doing. In fact, she had a solid backlog of orders she''d much rather be working on. In slow deliberate motions, Elise recapped the ink well to stop its contents from evaporating and began tiding away the papers. There was no way she was making him something now. She had far better things to be doing than bothering with this moron.


    "Hey what are you doing!" he snapped.


    "Paper and ink are expensive and I am not going to waste any more of it on you,"


    He slammed his hands on the counter, rattling the displays.


    "Hey!" he snarled "You short lined shit! Don''t you know how things work! I asked for something you give it to me and then maybe just maybe treat the person who could flatten you in a magic fight with a little more respect!"


    "Are you threatening me? Because if you are that is hilarious! I''ve had a good look at the staff you brought with you and if you want to use it to cast a spell at me then I''ll make myself some tea, maybe run some errands and be back long before you''re finished casting. This isn''t the staff''s fault of course, when you got it it was a perfectly good staff. But due to misuse by you, its channels have all been damaged. Because its a staff its spooling reservoir is far bigger than you can easily fill and that needs to be filled every time you cast a spell. So it takes you forever to cast anything. It''s necessary to have a big spooling reservoir when casting big powerful spells but let''s not kid ourselves here; you''re not that powerful. You''ve even managed to do severe damage to the gates despite how simplistic the internal net of channels is!"


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    "I will not-"


    "I do not know how you managed that. Gates are those intersections in the channels shaped so spell thread can only pass down one channel at a time - which allows users multiple options when using their focus, rather than having their channels set up in one pattern for one very narrow type of spell. Just in case you somehow didn''t know what gates are, which looking at the state of your staff looks surprisingly likely. Since the gates in the staff were built for more powerful spell thread yours was able to slip through and down channels it wasn''t meant to. What I can''t understand is how you couldn''t feel that happening. How could you feel something like that in your spell thread and then decide ''whelp nothing wrong here let''s keep cast''in mah spells''. Because of that the gates are burnt out and are now completely useless. With the gates gone there''s next to no control over what paths your spell thread goes down meaning you have little influence over what patterns your spell thread forms and thus very little control of what spell effect gets expressed by that pattern. That whole chunk of wood is a miscast waiting to happen. You''re here making threats like you''re a danger to anyone but yourself while I''m wondering how the hell you haven''t yet turned your focus into an explosion of splinters. If you wish to make threats bring a rock next time, it''d be far more intimidating a prospect than you wielding magic."


    ". . ."


    He sat there in silence glaring at her for a few moments.


    "I''m waiting. Are you going to start casting your spell yet?" Elise mockingly asked, "Or are you going to leave?"


    He stared at her fuming and furious.


    "Screw you, you jumped up slum scum. I was told you could help me out and instead you give me nothing but disrespect and insults. Well forget it, I will find someone who isn''t worthless,"


    "Ah yes, my fellow focus makers do like sending people they don''t like to deal with my way. I assume it was one of them that sent you down here in the first place. You see the thing about us focus makers you have to consider is that we need to keep up our reputation as capable focus makers and none of us are going to put our maker''s mark on a staff you are going to abuse and break in under a week. So I wish you luck but I suspect you''ll be directed back to this shop again by other shops that don''t want to serve you,"


    Still angry, still clearly furious, the customer picked up his things and headed for the door. He paused at the threshold, too egotistical perhaps to let Elise have the last word even if he didn''t have anything meaningful to say.


    "Remember my name," he hissed through gritted teeth before storming out into the street.


    Elise sighed softly to herself. Well, it seems she had made yet another enemy and like some many of her enemies before him he was inconsequential. Many people who had shorter than normal lines showed deference to those with more magic than them. Elise, on the other hand, had found most people of mediocre power to be full of bluster, hot air, bluffs and threats that never materialised. In general, they weren''t confident of their abilities but often felt they could push around those weaker than them by virtue of being loud enough. It usually only took someone more confident than them to call them out before they were backing down.


    After being confined to her stool at the counter for an unreasonably long time trying to explain things to that last customer she felt stiff. She stretched and that simple act had her muscles and old wounds screaming their painful protests. Rummaging around under the counter she pulled out her flask of alcohol, her pouch of stoneleaf, her pipe and an unwieldy device with a reservoir of oil that was used for ignition. Most other folks would use their magic for a source of ignition, but Elise didn''t have much supply of that and wouldn''t waste what little magic she had on such trivialities. Instead, she had had to get inventive. She turned the wheel of the mechanism on her ignition device and sparks were showered on to an oil-soaked wick. But it wouldn''t ignite. Even after several shakes and a little ''percussive maintenance'' it still refused to light. It looked like she wouldn''t be smoking any stoneleaf.


    She had three main vices, stoneleaf for the pain, alcohol for the memories and focus crafting for the mind. Oh, how blissful her work could be, the joy of finishing difficult puzzles, the satisfaction of completing something perfect and the relief it offered to be able to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. But there were limits to how much she could do, her work required magic and there was only so much magic she could use safely. To her, it was a precious resource.


    She hopped down from her stool and limped to her workbench. Magic was such a precious resource for her and she wanted to spend all of it making things. Taking up her tools she set to work.

 Chapter 2

    Spell thread was a strange thing. Invisible and undetectable to most, it was the power behind magic, it was magic itself. The thicker the thread the more power it held, but it could be stretched and that power stretched out with it. It formed within a person and they could reach out with it. As long as it remained connected to the caster the caster would have control over it. If spell thread came into contact with other spell thread the weaker spell thread would break at the point of contact. However, spell thread was a slippery thing, it was energy, power and movement. It would not stay still unless forced to. This made using it to draw patterns which would cast a spell tricky as the caster would need to fight with the spell thread''s need to move and shift to draw the pattern. Some people had such control and mastery over their spell thread that they could cast simple spells without assistance. Control depended on a variety of factors, shorter width spell thread was easier to control, compressed or stretched spell thread was much harder to control. Practise and discipline could also play major roles in it as control could be learnt But most people needed some help to keep their spell thread in line. So they used focuses, objects with channels in them to contain the spell thread and force it into the right pattern.


    The first focuses were simple things; they used channels but no gates, nor did they have any spooling reservoir to protect the caster from mana hungry spells. There was no versatility, each could only be used to cast a single type of spell with no deviation. You simply passed your spell thread down the single path offered and the focus would guide it into the shape of the same spell each time. Times changed and the old focus types were supplanted by more advanced forms, though there will always be some call for the straightforwardness and simplicity of the first focuses. Newer focuses used gates. Once gates were invented focuses changed as focus makers began to make focuses that could be used to cast more than one spell. Designing the channel layout of this more flexible type of focus is difficult. There is a massive array of potential spells and regardless of how well planned the internal layout of a focus is it cannot support all of them. Additionally, each gate slows the casting speed down a little. Complex layouts need more space, slowing casting speed down but increasing the number of spells the focus can be used with. The challenge is to maximise the number of spells, that the caster wants, that can be cast with the focus while minimising size and gate numbers. All this while tailoring it all to the user''s spell thread width.


    It was an art and a difficult art at that. Had it been easy Elise wouldn''t have gained such satisfaction from it. She couldn''t help smiling as she used her the tiny sliver that was her spell thread to ''burn'' channels into the wand she was making. Spell thread couldn''t move objects and some objects resisted spell thread entering them. But when you forced spell thread into an object, in this case, a wooden stick that would become a wand, it caused a change in the structure of the material. This was known as ''burning'' and should not to be confused with anything involving fire. Spell thread could flow much easier through material that had been ''burnt'' than material that hadn''t. By burning paths through the wand you formed channels that would hold the spell thread. By shaping those channels correctly you could form gates. Burning channels into something was a slow but surprisingly mana efficient process. It wasn''t a full spell, it was simply forcing your spell thread through an object that rejected it. Even the most simple and basic spells use up more power than that.


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    Her fingers worked on the exterior of the stick as her spell thread burrowed deep burning channels and expanding them for us by someone with wider thread than her. It required precise control of her spell thread and all of her attention and so she lost herself in a blissful world of channels, gates and wood. Hours slipped by without her noticing their passing. Until at last her meagre reserves of power were almost depleted by even this power-efficient task. But she had managed to complete it.


    She felt it, she felt it any time she completed something, that surge of pride, that sense of overcoming obstacles, of doing something beyond most people, of changing one very small part of the world into something else and the knowledge that she can still do better. Even after all this time, she can still do better. That thought brought a grin to her face.


    It had been so long since her six-year-old self had discovered the craft. Even then she knew she fit the profession perfectly, she was made for it. She was a child born in the slums surrounded by people who looked at her with pitying eyes. Too much depended on how powerful you were. Magic was everything and she was the weakest child any of them had ever seen. When they had looked at her, they looked at a child they did not think could ever survive on her own. Yet this child without a future had outlived them all.


    Her moment of elation at another successful build of a wand was soon chased away by bitter memories of the past. Regrets, words that had been left unsaid, emotions that had been bottled up and left to ferment, all of it bubbled up. It had been lurking waiting for a moment of vulnerability as it always did. But she the medicine for this. Pulling the bottle of spirits from under the counter, she hobbled over to the table on the customer side of the shop, slumped down into one of the chairs and took a long slow swig from the bottle.


    "To the future," she toasted to the empty table and the silent shop. She looked down into the bottle. The liquid sloshing about inside it was the only thing moving. Everything else was still. Everything else was...empty. The bustle outside seemed a world away. In a flight of fancy, she pictured her long-dead friends sitting across from her.


    "Well, I did it. I got what I wanted in the end. Everything I said I needed to have to be happy. Well, I got it," she told them, they did not respond.


    She took another long, slow, swig from the bottle.


    "I''m not going to ask when this stops. I already know the answer to that and it''s not one I like,"


    Another swig.


    "The people here believe in an afterlife. I do not. You know me. Always the contrarian, always the outsider, always the one with strange ideas," she chuckled to herself "I guess I don''t change much. But I couldn''t help wonder if this whole thing would be easier if I did believe in an afterlife? But no, no that''d make things harder actually wouldn''t it?"


    Another slow swig and the bottle was empty


    The shop remained still and silent. The cluttered workbenches sat unmoving and unattended. They sat there waiting. Waiting for her. Her fingers tapped the lip of the newly empty bottle thoughtfully.


    "I suppose I should do something productive. I have spent enough time moping,"


    She eyed the fresh wand on the workbench. It was still too soon to start another wand, she needed time to for her expended spell thread to replenish. But she could wrap up a wand and deliver to the client, something which needed no magic.


    She limped over to her workstation and the spectres of everyone she had lost followed her. They never left.

 Chapter 3

    It was late-afternoon when Elise stepped outside her shop onto the streets of Windhaven. Windhaven was the capital city of Raliec and had all the troublesome bustle and busyness that accompanied being a capital. Even as it grew into evening people still hurried about the place, determined and focused. This was ''the lows'' though, a district of the city located at the bottom of the hill that the city occupied and enjoyed the distinct privilege of having all the filth from the gutters of the higher districts flow down into it. It was not a pleasant place to be. It was also one of the most populated places in the city as the streams of people moving about attested to.


    There wasn''t much magic being used. There was some people were using it to move heavy loads and clean buildings but the population of the lows as a whole tended to have short lines and couldn''t summon much magic. Most saved their magic to earn a living. Here and there in the crowd, there were people with burn scars around their eyes and their fingers. None were as extreme as the set that Elise carried though.


    She was well used to moving through crowds and was not shy about getting people to move out of her way via a jab from her elbow. She made her way quickly through the streets, not that she had very far to go in the first place. The southern gate was at most two blocks from her shop. Past the southern gate, the city officially stopped. The main road into the city was clear but aside from that the outside of the southern gate was crowded with a maze of tents, makeshift shelters, shacks and shallow burrows. The law stated that no building would be built on lands surrounding the city without proper authorisation from the city''s lord. But the poor and desperate found a loophole; the law excluded temporary structures. So this maze was constantly rearranging, shifting and growing as the inhabitants tore down where they lived and set it up again somewhere else. It seemed like every week it expanded and every day it changed. She knew there were the occasional struggles and feuds over the best spots to build, the driest places, the places with easier access to potable water. It was nothing new to her. These were Windhaven''s slums and she''d spent some time here when she first came to Windhaven. Living in a ragged tent was not as bad as it could be. There were worse ways to live.


    The line was rather starkly revealing in what it told the world about a person''s magical potency and how much they could store but not everything was so obvious. A small number of people were what were called ''readers''. Everyone could feel their own spell thread as if it was part of them but readers could sense the spell thread of others. It wasn''t exactly rare but nor was it common but there was no external evidence of the ability, there was no way to know if someone was a reader or not. About one in twenty people were readers. However, they did tend to get drawn to a few professions where their talents would uniquely shine such as healers or focus craftsmen. It was a potent ability if used right. Elise was using it to navigate the confusing haphazard layout of the slums.


    Coming to a small freshly built shack she knocked gently on its walls. A curtain had been hung over the doorway in place of an actual door. A man stuck his head out past the curtain and on seeing Elise he grinned. He wore simple and cheap clothes. He was also rather cleaner than you''d expect a slum dweller to be.


    "Well, that was fast. I wasn''t expecting to see you for a while," he said while gesturing for her to come in. "And I was expecting to have to go pick it up. I didn''t think you''d deliver it,"


    "I was able to get through a few more orders than I was I expecting to and I got to yours a little earlier than scheduled and since I was free I thought I''d drop it over," she replied.


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    The inside of the shack was comprised of two very small rooms. One was a bedroom with two beds and no space to stand and the other was a cramped kitchen with no place to sit. Aside from some shelves in the kitchen, there was no furniture for storage, there simply wasn''t room instead things were put in bags and tied to the ceiling. There was a young boy sitting on one of the beds, aged about ten. His line was noticeably longer than his father''s. It was longer than the line of most people out in the slums. Elise could read the layout of the wand he held from the door of the shack.


    It was in terrible condition. Making a custom focus took time and effort from a skilled craftsman, which it meant it took money - usually, it took a fairly hefty chunk of money. The poor resorted to second-hand wands, hand me downs, cheap wands made by apprentices for practice and on occasion stolen wands to get by. Using a focus ill-suited to the width of your spell thread would damage the focus. If the thread was too small the gates could fail and get burnt out. If it was too wide, well the spell thread would need to be forced down the channels it couldn''t fit down causing unintended ''burning'' It would burn unevenly causing cavities to form in the channels, which would catch the spell thread causing it to snag on the cavity. Which in turn would further ''burn'' the cavity wider possibly till it breached another channel ruining the wand. This was exactly what had happened with the child''s wand.


    His father called him over.


    "This is Elise, you remember her don''t you? I think she has something for you"


    The kid merely nodded shyly in response. Pulling out a short sturdy stick from one of her many pockets she presented the child with a new wand. It was new, varnished, sturdy and well suited to him. His eyes lit upon seeing it. He had it in his hands in a blink and was soon casting lifting spells on the bed he had been sitting on moments before. He had a manic grin on his face as the big piece of furniture rose into the air.


    "It''s got channels for kinetic effects, like lifting spells and kinetic shield spells, heat effects, light effects, all the usual household stuff and some stone shaping," Elise explained.


    "That''s a lot of stuff you were able to squeeze into it. Sounds like it can do lots more than mine can,"


    "Not really, it''s a basic wand with basic effects, I could potentially have put far more things into the wand but having more spell types can make it more complicated to use. It''s a problem that can be mitigated with good wand design but never completely overcome. The more choices offered the more gates there are and the more the user needs to understand to use it. For a wand for a child, it was better to keep it simple,"


    "Well thanks, I was worried I''d never get him something he could use and he''d have to join his old man doing odd jobs to make ends meet. Now that he can actually properly cast some spells, he''ll have better prospects than I ever did that''s for sure,"


    He pulled out an iron box, the way the contents rattled told Elise just what was inside even before he handed it to her. When she checked its contents, however, her brow furrowed.


    "This is more than we negotiated,"


    He looked at her with prideful eyes.


    "I know how much something like that wand is worth. It''s far more than you asked for and is still nowhere close to what is in that box. I pay my dues, always,"


    That same stubbornness, she''d seen it many times before in many different people. If she didn''t take this box here, he''d come by her shop later and leave it on the counter or hand it to her again and insist that she take it.


    "This is all your savings," It wasn''t a question.


    She''d known too many people like him before for it to be a question. His eyes turned back to his son as the kid tested his new wand and all the possibilities it opened up for him. He responded with only two words and a smile;


    "Worth it,"

 Chapter 4

    The afternoon had quietly become the evening as Elise departed and headed back to her shop, box in hand. To tell the truth, it hadn''t been an act of charity on her part. It''d been selfishness. People using an ill-suited focus irked her. It was just wrong. She imagined it to be the same sensation a tailor might get if they saw a bunch of people in ill-fitting clothes. But she was a reader and could feel how terrible each and every wand and staff she encountered truly was. She could feel the shoddy channels or the damage due to misuse. It was like an itch in the back of her mind that refused to relent. At times it got difficult to ignore. There was also the fact that running out of orders for new focuses was a situation that she would not tolerate. She''d let herself exhaust her supplies of stoneleaf or alcohol but running out of orders was not something she would let happen. If she was running low she''d go out and find some of the worst offenders whose ill-fitting wands had bothered her most and offer them way below market rate to make them a focus. For Elise money wasn''t the aim of making focuses it was a byproduct. She worked hard to ensure she always had a solid backlog of orders to work through.


    The southern gates loomed ahead of her and just as she was about to pass through them she was stopped.


    "What business do you have in the slums?" a gruff town guard demand as Elise tried to head back into the city proper.


    "Just delivering something to a client,"


    "There''s no real clients out there for any legitimate business, so how about you tell me what you were really selling,"


    Three other guards smoothly sidled up behind her as the first guard was levying his accusations. It did not take a genius to see where this was going.


    "You know full well I sell focuses and you know damn well there''s nothing wrong with selling them in the slums or anywhere else for that matter," Elise spat back bitterly.


    "Ease off with the attitude or you''ll regret it. You look to me like someone selling stolen focuses. The punishments for that are pretty nasty. We can arrest you for that if you''d like. Now we''re going to search you and if you make things difficult for us we can make things very difficult for you. And if you happen to have anything on you that shouldn''t, well that''s when things get fun,"


    Her every instinct screamed for action, urging her to violence. The smug look in their eyes only served to fuel her anger. That look in their eyes, the way they moved and talked it all spoke of a belief of being untouchable. That was a belief that Elise so wished to forcibly debase them of. But attacking guardsmen wouldn''t end well. Beating these uniformed robbers would only lead to escalation and fighting more guardsmen until things had escalated to the point that going back to the shop and continuing making things was no longer an option.


    Through gritted teeth she hissed "Fine,"This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    They lead her to a small room next to the city gate and started rifling through her pockets and patting her down. It was common to have a holster for your wand at your waist and Elise was no different except that it didn''t contain a wand. The guard who pulled out the wand length iron rod from her holster gave her a confused look before setting it aside. Iron was peculiar in that spell thread couldn''t penetrate it. You could cast spells at it and they''d have an effect but nothing you did could force spell thread into it. You could not burn channels into iron. Aside from the iron rod, they pulled out an assortment of different tools from her many pockets, they retrieved two rings from her fingers both spectacularly plain in appearance one was wood and the other was iron. But the object that drew their attention the most was the metal box, they leered greedily at its contents.


    "We''ll be confiscating this," they informed her.


    "Fine, I expected nothing less. If that''s all can I get my stuff and go?"


    "One last thing; do you really have no focus with you?"


    She was tempted to ask if they wanted to know because they were disappointed they couldn''t steal it too but she held her tongue.


    "I don''t cast much magic. I''d never use one if I brought one with me so what would be the point?"


    The guards studied her for a minute before finally allowing her to leave. She gathered her things including the focus the guards hadn''t identified as a focus and slipped out into the city.


    She was in a foul mood. She didn''t need the money but she''d honestly rather see it melted down and pissed down the gutters than for it to go to those guys. Not that reporting them would do anything. Folks in the Lows generally didn''t hold much in the way of political sway and the people in a position to do something about the behaviour of the guards typically couldn''t care less. Thus the guards got to roam free and do as they liked. They were generally the worst criminals in the city. In a way, it was lucky she wasn''t pretty. She limped her way towards her shop hoping someone, anyone would get in her way so she''d have an excuse to vent her frustrations on them.


    As always loose threads of wild magic filled the air. They were the leftovers of spells half completed, spells dispelled, miscasts and spells cast with more thread than needed. Severed spell thread drifting through the air. It was an odd kind of magical pollution that only built up in places where spells were regularly cast. These loose threads would hit physical objects with all the force of a gentle summer breeze and since they could not enter the objects they would deflect away or brush past. Readers could feel them. They could use these collisions to get a sense of the objects around them. They could peer into a world of chaotic yet gentle motion of drifting threads that here and there would touch the real world. Elise closed her eyes as she walked and navigated by reading alone. She found it calming.


    Animals and people had what was known as an internal weave. It was essentially a network of persistent stronger than normal spell thread inside them. Spell thread that came into contact with someone''s internal weave would be severed, always. But readers could sense the internal weaves of others as well. The people of the Lows flowed about, busy with their lives and Elise could feel their movements. She could sense the rats in the basements and the birds in the air and all the fluttering wild magic in-between waiting to intangle itself in some unwary caster''s spell pattern. She could feel the three men attack the young girl in a nearby alley. She stopped. Her eyes opened and narrowed. She had asked for someone to vent her frustrations on hadn''t she?


    "You''ll do," she whispered as she turned and limped down an alley towards the altercation.

 Chapter 5

    The girl had to have been twelve years old, maybe less. One of the three large thugs threw her to ground. Her clothes while not finely decorated were of an obviously higher quality than the fraying, patched clothes of her attackers.


    "I''d just like to confirm that I''m not somehow misunderstanding the situation and that I am indeed justified in beating the ever living shit out of you?" Elise spoke with a casual air and a dangerous grin as she hobbled into the alley.


    The thugs were a motley lot, one was weedy and sickly thin with a line length typical in the lows, another was a massive broad-shouldered man missing his left hand with a touch more magic and the last had grey eyes, marking him as a refugee from Vouran, and he had a considerably shorter line than normal. The Vouran''s line was, of course, nowhere near as short as Elise''s. They looked over Elise as she approached.


    "Don''t mind us, this one here is from higher on the hill and she thought it a good idea to wander around the lows alone without sharing anything with the people she was gawking at. Me and the boys thought that was rude. Kinda like you''re being rude now by being a nosy busybody,"


    Elise sighed softly.


    "Really? We have more than enough uniformed robbers and thieves we don''t need ununiformed ones. But you have my thanks, I''ve had a stressful day and I was hoping you''d help me unwind a little. It''s been a while since I had a good excuse to let loose. So come, let us dance a moment,"


    The thugs burst out laughing.


    The thin weedy one smiled a malevolent smile "You? You?! You think you can take-"


    Elise closed the distance between them in seconds and brought her iron rod down hard across his face before he could even finish his sentence. The impact stunned him and splashed blood and teeth across the alley but Elise was already moving on to the second thug, the Vouran, who was reacting slowly. He had only begun to attempt to cast something when Elise''s iron rod slammed into the hand holding his wand. There was a wet, crack as his fingers broke. He screamed in agony. His poorly maintained crappy wand clattered to the ground and was trampled by Elise as she launched herself at the final thug. The large man had bad thread control and a poor wand. He''d had the most time to cast something but it hadn''t been enough, Elise was just too fast. With her rod in hand and a manic grin on her face she was on him before he could complete the spell pattern of the spell he was trying to cast. She hit him in the throat first to stun him a little and followed up by turning his weight and size against him and performing a throw. Her old wounds were bright searing beacons of agony as she sent the massive man to the ground but there was a sweetness to this pain, a familiarity. This agony was an old and comfortable friend.


    The thin thug having recovered from the daze her rod left him in held up his hands in surrender as the Vouran thug, his face grimacing in pain fled from the alleyway. Just like that, the fight was over mere heartbeats after it began. The massive thug dragged himself up from the ground, eyed Elise warily and then retreated with his companions, his head hung low. Elise felt unsatisfied. The few fleeting drops of adrenaline she had gained was far from enough to sate her. The fight had been too quick and they had given up too easily.


    The young girl was staring at her. The child''s line was shorter than any Elise had ever seen besides her own, her clothes were of a fine make but weren''t overly decorated and she had a few marks on her face that were rapidly developing into bruises.


    Elise had driven off the muggers but she didn''t feel much inclination to get involved further. Though she supposed she couldn''t just leave the kid lying in a back alley.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Hey, are you lost? You''re from the merchant quarter up near the plaza, right? You''re dressed like you are. I can direct you that way if you''d like,"


    The kid didn''t respond and instead just kept staring at Elise from the ground.


    "Well, then I have things to be doing and unless you-"


    "How did you do it?" the child''s voice was a whisper, her question sounded like a quiet, desperate plea. "You''re useless like me. Weren''t you scared? How did you do it? How did you beat them?"


    Elise squatted down next to her.


    "The same way I beat a lot of people. By virtue of my opponents not having the faintest clue what they''re doing. Take that fight for instance if; spells are slow, which is why the big guy should have been in the front buying time for his buddies to cast instead of the back. But because he was a little more powerful than them he was in the back concentrating on his spell rather than defending himself. Which made him an easy target. Since neither of the other two were in any way skilled melee fighters and were trying to cast spells themselves they couldn''t buy him enough time. They lost the fight almost instantly because they focused solely on magical power and nothing else. There''s a reason soldiers are issued swords and not just focuses. So often all people see or think about is magic when in reality things are always much more complicated. Magic does not solve everything. Look I''m really not good at this whole sage advice shtick despite...well never mind. The point I''m clumsily trying to say is your not useless, I''ve never met someone useless yet," Elise extended a hand to help her up "So clear those thoughts from your head and go on home,"


    The kid looked at Elise''s hand nervously for a few moments as if it were some kind of disguised snake waiting to drop its pretence and bite her.


    "I... can''t go home,"


    It was Elise''s turn to stare at the girl.


    "What? Why not? You a runway?"


    She shook her head and looked down, her eyes finding a spot on the ground to look at to avoid meeting Elise''s gaze.


    "Kicked out...because I''m useless," she croaked out.


    Elise''s eyes narrowed. Her next words were spoken softly and slowly.


    "Because you''re short lined?"


    It was like the bursting of a dam, words and tears spilt forth from her. The tears ran down her face and dripped to the ground one by one.


    "Yes. I can''t do anything. Every apprenticeship I tried for has turned me down. I can''t get a job. I can''t get a trade. I''ll never get a husband. My parents told me I had till I was thirteen to prove, to show them that I''m not a burden and I couldn''t do that either. The only thing I can do is fail. I failed them. I can''t do anything right. I can''t do anything at all. I can''t even move through the city without failing at that too and getting mugged. I-"


    Elise interrupted her by grabbing her and hauling her to her feet.


    "If we''re having a conversation this deep then it''s time you got off the damn ground. Now look I''m a card-carrying callous asshole so I''m not typically good in these kinds of situations. I don''t know what it is you want from me and I''m not sure I could even give it to you if I knew but just...make a plan. Make a plan and stick to it. I don''t know. I really don''t know. What is it that you want?"


    "What I want? I want what you have. I wish I could have the confidence to march into an alley and challenge three guys to a fight. You have an apron and tools, you have a trade, you have an income. You''re not a burden like me, you''re not a failure like me. Tell me how. Please?"


    "I can''t teach confidence, happiness or hope. Words cannot fill those holes but-"


    It felt wrong to extend the offer she was about to. Something about the thought of it bothered her in ways that were initially hard to identify. But she was able to put a word to the emotions that welled up in her when she thought of it; fear. She was afraid of having someone truly get to know her. Always she was afraid always she was hesitating when it really mattered. How often in her own childhood had she begged in her heart that someone else would extend a kind hand? That they would just once believe that was capable of more? What was a little irrational fear next to that? Her hesitation faded away.


    "-I can teach you a trade. How would you like to be an apprentice for my shop? It is ''Wood and Iron'' a small focus shop around the corner. I can show you how to burn channels, make some focuses and enchant some wood,"


    The girl''s tears flowed faster, staining her already mud-spattered clothes.


    "You don''t even know my name,"


    "Well let''s fix that, shall we? I am Elise what''s your name?"


    "Willow, Willow Font,"


    Elise offered her hand to Willow for the second time and smiled.


    "Hey there Willow you coming?"


    Unlike the first time, Willow reached out and took it.

 Interlude: A final entry

    28 August 1202 AU - My home


    This will be the last entry I make into this journal. It feels strange to write that. The certainty of it is surreal. I had expected fear, anger and despair or a deep well of bitter nostalgia instead I find peaceful acceptance of my fate. Though I am not without regret.


    I have dismissed my staff and guards and sent my wife and son far away and now I sit alone in a great mansion once teeming with servants and retainers. It''s strange how much of the noise they make you tune out, I''m only realising how loud and alive they made this place now that they are gone. The unnatural silence makes this safe familiar place seem alien and eerie. So I sit in my now eerie study waiting. I have my finest bottle of wine and two glasses waiting on my desk here with me, waiting for my executioner. Hopefully, she will deign to speak with me before the end. That way I can beg her to spare my family.


    My son calls me a coward for not fighting. I could see it in his eyes how much he wanted to stand with me and fight back this monster that threatened his father. He is still young. He''s still at an age where he thinks any obstacle can be overcome with faith and enough effort. He thinks winning is a matter of having enough skill and determination. Time and experience will strip him of such notions but in truth deep down it''s a lesson I hope he never learns. Still, I worry that my sending him away at this final hour will be interpreted as a lack of confidence in his skills and worth. Nothing could be further from the truth but I cannot risk antagonising my killer lest she decide my head is not enough and that the lives of my family will cover the debts owed. I hope one day he understands.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    I held to my oaths, I did everything my sworn liege asked of me even when I knew it was a mistake. I tried to warn them, my allies, my superiors and my contemporaries. But they would not listen. The failure is in part mine I wasn''t able to convey just what she was, what she was and is capable of. But in retrospect perhaps they never could conceive of what it is she represents. They are men of war and a lot of time is spent shaping the minds of such people into uniform and obedient shapes and she is something from a different paradigm altogether. They expect to defeat her with conventional tools, strategies and ideas when everything about her is utterly unconventional. Lord Glortis has personally boasted that he will take her down and committed fifty mage knights to the mission. Lord Glortis will not outlive me by long. She will kill him and slaughter all his knights. The hunters, assassins and armies sent to kill her will not even slow her down. Nothing they do will work, they have no concept of what she is capable of. We only ever had one chance to kill her and we failed. We only ever had one chance because she only ever had one weakness; she trusted us. It''s a weakness she''ll never have again.


    To my darling wife and my mighty son I love you both dearly and I am sorry for everything.


    -Tor''Galthy House Weaverwood

 Chapter 6

    Lord Cadacus sat on his uncomfortable chair and wished deeply to be anywhere else. The throne room was a beautiful place furnished with the grandest artworks and masterly crafted goods, how quickly he had come to despise it. The empty throne loomed behind him, as hard to ignore as ever. He could be home with his lute in front of a warm fire with a drop of spiced wine but instead, he was here listening to supplicants pleas for assistance. Almost without exception, he had to tell them no. The position of regent had been deliberately crippled in its authority. Any rules or measures he enacted could be stopped dead if enough titled lords protested and those that did make it through would only last as long as he did. If someone took the throne or another regent took his place every ruling he made would be instantly rendered void. These were the rules of the position. Everything he did was meant to be temporary and that was only if it didn''t offend too many lords. This was especially troublesome since most of the lords were a touchy lot that reacted poorly to anything that came close to affecting them. Thus instead of spending his time at home, he spent his time answering earnest pleas for aid with explanations that he could not do anything. There was a subtle pain in trying to explain to people how ineffectual you were. But by constant repetition that pain stopped being subtle and became torturous. He would rather be anywhere else, even in the nightmarish Broken North, anywhere but in this chair sitting next to the throne.


    When it came to his turn the next petitioner stepped up and bowed to the vacant throne as was tradition before turning to address Cadacus. It was Lord Bulocos, one of many claimants to the throne. He wasn''t a complete fool but he wasn''t anywhere close to as smart as he believed himself to be. Every word he spoke had a condescending tone to it, clearly indicating how much he looked down on the ''less intelligent'' people around him. He was draped in finery, jewellery and excessive displays of wealth. Yet of the claimants, he was Cadacus''s favourite. He tended to be predictable and easily manipulated which made him one of the few claimants Cadacus could actually use. It was a difficult task to stop Relaic sliding into civil war and Cadacus had few tools and scant real authority available to him. Bulocos was one of the wealthier lords still in Relaic and he made a great check on the influence of the other claimants. All it took was a little encouragement and he''d race to butt heads with the other lords.


    "My lord regent, I have a proposal in regards to the problem of the growing slums outside our gates. As you know the ongoing ''problems'' in Vouran are flooding us with refugees many of whom are magically impotent with short lines and limited understanding of the arcane. The capable stayed in Vouran and we get the helpless rejects fleeing the violence. This is causing the slums to explode in size. It''s a breeding ground for disaffection and disease. But even worse since line length is hereditary by allowing these rejects in we weaken the future citizens of Relaic! We''ve lost too many of our most powerful to Jeklein treachery. We were once a nation famed for our powerful magic users but we''ve been robbed of that honour and that power. We''ll never rise to those heights again if we let weakness fester now. I have a number of troops under my house''s employ. Simply say the word and we shall help clean these slums from the city and force these rejects out of Raliec. What say you, lord regent?"


    Cadacus couldn''t help but scowl. Bulocos''s opinions on the lower classes and people with short lines were well known. Cadacus himself didn''t hold the slum dwellers in high regard. But he had to understand how terrible the consequences of what he was suggesting was, didn''t he? Looking into the plump lord''s eyes Cadacus saw only eagerness. He truly believed in everything he was saying and somehow thought what he was suggesting was a good idea. Cadacus was going to have to burn one of the few remaining bridges left to him to keep the peace. How long till there was no one left who didn''t think of him merely as an obstacle to the throne.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Lord Bulocos, I can not sanction your proposition. The answer is no. Do not send your men into the slums,"


    The lords couldn''t protest him not doing something. The veto was one of the few effective things he could actually do. But using it shut down lords activities made him few friends. Bulocos''s expression darkened and his fists clenched.


    "There is the new festival to be held soon and a visit from the Narellian prince. You can''t seriously think to-"


    "Do not send your men into the slums," Cadacus repeated, his tone sharp.


    Bulocos gritted his teeth but realised arguing would get him nowhere.


    "You''re a failure of a caretaker," he hissed "You''re going to let Relaic weaken and fall,"


    Cadacus watched with a heavy heart as Bulocos stormed out. A card had been removed from his already weak hand. Bulocos would not listen to him after this, he would not be as easy to manipulate, he held onto his grudges. Had some else grabbed his strings or had he decided to take this course of action on his own? For Cadacus it felt like he was a punching bag being pummeled by every minor lord and lady in Relaic. He was the target of every scheme by everyone with a single mote of ambition and had to face them with his hands tied behind his back. He asked his assistant to dismiss the other petitioners as he sank into melancholy. He couldn''t stop it, the slide into chaos that had broken Vouran was going to happen in Relaic and he didn''t have the tools to stop it. Though looking at it, it hadn''t been thanks to his efforts that Relaic had stayed peaceful these five years following the Undying Empress''s defeat. It was the spectre of the Obsidian Witch that had kept the claimants in line. The fear of her wrath had kept them from trying anything destructive. But as time dragged on with no sign of her that fear was melting away and the claimants to the throne edged closer to resolving their disagreements with spells and violence. From there, things would progress much the same as they had in Vouran. There were too many claimants and the most legitimate among would have been laughed out of the palace had they voiced their claim before the Jeklein assassins had struck. The ties that bound them to the royal line were thin and little more than empty excuses for their ambitions. None of them had pulled ahead in support either and they all squabbled with and hated each other. With all the real viable heirs dead and countless powerful mages slain the Jeklein assassins had done their work well. Relaic had been dealt a blow that could well destroy it, even with the fall of the empress.


    Cadacus could do nothing. He truly was a failure as a caretaker of the Relaic nation. He could do nothing but sit and watch as its violent demise grew closer. He had the best seat to view it all happen which was why he hated it. He hated sitting there, he hated his impotence, he hated the gorgeous tapestries adorning the throne room depicting the glorious past of Relaic, a past he could never do justice. He needed the Obsidian Witch. At the very least he needed to know what had happened to her. She had become a folk hero and saviour to the populace and far outstripped many of the most potent historical Relaician magic users in magical power. Whoever earned her loyalty would be unassailable. Her support would practically guarantee someone the throne while ensuring that the other claimants would accept the result, they''d have to. She could stabilise Relaic.


    But that was assuming she was still alive.

 Chapter 7

    Elise opened the door to her cramped little shop with dramatic gusto and a loud "Ta'' da!". She knew her small corner of the world here was unimpressive but she was proud of it none the less. She expected Willow to be unmoved by the dim cluttered room before her but when she looked back the timid Willow''s eyes were full of wonder. As they entered she barely put one foot outside Elise''s shadow but her head turned back and forth as she studied every curious object in view. It felt wrong for Elise to invite someone in like this, to allow them to become a resident of her little shelter from the rest of the world. However, the idea of leaving the child to fend for herself rankled Elise more than she''d like to admit.


    Willow had shoulder-length black hair, frightened green eyes and an innocent unblemished face that stood in stark contrast to Elise''s extensive scars. She didn''t look like she belonged in the room where she now stood. Elise cleared her throat.


    "This is the shop floor. Customers come in here sit down with me and argue their cases for being given worse focuses. Behind the counter is all the workbenches where the channels for the wands and staves are actually burnt. Upstairs is the bedroom, kitchen and winter storage. If you''re staying here that''s where you''ll sleep. Though I have no spare bed at the moment, I''ll need to arrange something for you. At the bottom of the stair is a hatch that leads to the basement. You''re not to go into the basement without me. I have a bunch of stuff down there that can be dangerous if you don''t know what it is. That''s about it. It''s not a big place really."


    She gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table in the customer area.


    "Anyway take a seat I do believe it''s question time,"


    Willow dutifully took the indicted seat and Elise sat across from her.


    Willow''s voice came out in a mumbled whisper as she fidgeted nervously "I don''t know what I can tell you. There''s not much to me. I-"


    "I think you''ve misunderstood. I''m a complete stranger who has offered you an apprenticeship and taken you into my home. Don''t you have questions for me? I''d have thousands if I was in your position. What is it that you want to know about me?"


    The child opened her mouth to speak but shut it again without saying a word. Slowly and hesitantly she shook her head.


    "Nothing? You really have no questions? You were pretty talkative before. If you''re worried about saying something that''ll upset me don''t worry I won''t get offended,"


    The words came out slowly "Why, why did you let them get away? Why didn''t you give them to the guards? They were bad people,"


    "Ah that, your first moment of culture shock. Things might be a little different down here in the lows compared to the area near the plaza. The guard activities get a lot less daylight for one. Getting caught by them without coin to bribe your way out of it can lead you to jail and they love to invent reasons to arrest you. Some of the stories I''ve heard emerge from their cells are horrifying and worse I''ve no reason to doubt them. Seems they have a lot of self-righteous sadists on the payroll who feel the legally ascribed punishments are insufficient. To put it simply no one in the lows wants to involve the guards in anything, and calling the guards on someone else is kinda taboo down here. There''s very little you can do to merit the kind of punishment the guards often dish out,"This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    It slowly dawned on Elise as she watched Willow''s face whiten and her grip on the chair''s armrests tighten that perhaps telling the frightened child that had just been through an unpleasant experience that many of the people she expected to protect her were torturing those they captured might not have been the best idea. The conversation, as much as it could be called one, lapsed into an awkward silence. A full minute passed without a word.


    "I''m sorry, I guess I''m not a very comforting person. I''ve really never needed to be,"


    "It''s alright, it''s fine," Willow replied quietly.


    "Alright then do you have any other questions about me? Hopefully, ones I''ll be able to give cheerier answers to?"


    "Do you think I can do it? Be a focus maker I mean. I know nothing about it,"


    "Excellent, I won''t have to unteach you any bad habits then. And a thinner line means more control, more precision and that''s way more important than power when it comes to this kind of work. That thing that you think makes you a failure makes you an asset in this little shop of mine. Figuring out channel layouts might give you some trouble but it''s also the most enjoyable part of the job. I frequently draw out channel layouts just for fun,"


    Once Elise started talking about focuses and channelling it was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly she was full of childlike enthusiasm.


    "Oh hold on, wait a second, I have an idea!"


    Elise hopped up from the table, grabbed a bundle of blank paper, a quill and a small bottle of ink before dumping them on the table and started to draw. Elise did not consider herself skilled at dealing with social situations but she was skilled at focus crafting and at times like this perhaps one skill would do for the other. Besides giving your new apprentice a focus you made for them seemed like the kind of thing that would be a tradition. If it wasn''t a tradition it ought to be. Something to help her learn and maybe give her a bit of confidence. A wand would be too long, best go for something smaller. There was no rule against having other wooden objects be focuses. A ring would be best. Compact, always available, often underestimated, perfect size. What spells? Normally she''d ask the client but she suspected Willow would undersell herself and ask only for the most basic of spells. Illusion. Illusion spells were considered very advanced magic but the magic consumed by producing light was small. The difficulty lay in control. You either had preset illusions burned into your focus or you custom designed the illusion on the fly, innate casting almost the entire spell. Naturally, something with so many variables would require a complicated and interconnected spell pattern to achieve even simple results. Trying to innately cast all that taxed the concentrations of even the greatest masters. But there were workarounds, burning in a reference library of realistic textures and let the caster reference the textures with the innately cast portions of the spell pattern could help let the caster make convincing illusions easier as they''d just have to define the shapes. Illusions would help her learn control and help build confidence. It would require practice from her but so would everything else worth doing.


    With glee, Elise began drafting the channel layout barely aware of how transfixed Willow was as she watched this process. Everything else faded into the background except the quill, the paper and the problems stopping this ring from being capable of everything Elise wanted it to be. As always the joy of beating those problems and inventing ways around them was blissful.


    Elise was woken from her trance like drafting work by an impatent knock on the door.


    "Every damn time," she growled.

 Chapter 8

    The man who was revealed when the door opened was well-groomed and just a tad plump. This was at odds with his smaller than average line. Short lines often condemned people to poor income jobs and poverty-stricken lives. He surveyed Elise with mild displeasure, but his gaze softened when he saw Willow sitting at the table with an incomplete channel layout diagram.


    "My apologies Elise I didn''t realise you were with a client,"


    Elise watched the newcomer carefully.


    "Do I know you?" she asked, a little dismissively. She just wanted whoever this was to leave and let her get back to designing Willow''s focus.


    "I''m Declan, from the guild. You know me! This is hardly the first time we''ve spoken!" he snapped.


    "Still nothing, now if you''ll excuse me I was-"


    "You threw a chair at me last guild meeting," he growled.


    Ah now that was a memory she had no trouble recalling, she''d had some disagreements with the other guild members and things had gotten ''fun''.


    "Oh right! You''re the guy who knows how to dodge. I do remember you! If you''re here expecting me to apologise for all that then you''re wasting your time,"


    "Oh, I am well aware that trying to get you to apologise for anything is pointless. No, we all know you never apologise. I''m here to deliver a request. The examination for promotion from apprentices to journeymen will be taking place soon and since the examiner is selected from guild recognised masters in the city you get to be this year''s examiner. It''s not mandatory of course but you have spat in a lot of people''s soup down there. Taking on some appropriate guild duties might help unruffle some feathers. I mean by all the gods Elise you were selling your focuses way below everyone else''s prices to random people in the slums. That devalued everyone else''s work a lot. As a member of the guild you can''t do that. We''re still-"


    "I don''t care how valued the other focus crafters work is, I never have. They will sell their work and I will sell mine," Elise glared at the man "Do you know what bothers me? It is seeing potential wasted. People who could achieve great things that are prevented by forces outside their control. Great materials being made into poor tools. Excellent wood being used to make terrible wands. That is what I care about. I don''t care about the profit margins of the other focus crafters that is their business, not mine. It was the guild that came to me and begged me to join, not the other way around. However, if it will make things flow smoother; sure I''ll preside over your test."


    "You know what fine, I''m not going to argue. Since you''re willing to do the testing there''s no point in me taking this discussion down a path that''ll lead to flying furniture, again,"If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Elise leaned in closer to whisper to him "Now... I have a related question. So ehhm... how does the whole apprenticeship thing... work exactly? I was self-taught so I never was one. I knew vaguely that they do work for you in exchange for education but that''s it. I''ll need to know for this examination thing right?"


    "The exam itself is pretty simple they''ll just bring you their ''sticks'' and you''ll get to ask them questions about the way they made them and their design decisions. Also, why are you whispering the only one else-"


    As Declan spoke his eyes flicked over to Willow who was still sitting at the table ever-patient, "She''s not a client, is she? Did. . . did you take on an apprentice without any idea of what that means? You did, didn''t you? By all the gods Elise, do you ever think through your actions? No don''t answer I already know,"


    "Do you have a problem with me taking an apprentice then?" Elise responded with defiance in her voice.


    "Without you knowing all the rules and responsibilities involved? Yes. If you knew what you were doing then no. In fact, given your earlier speech about being bothered by wasted potential, I''d be tempted to try and poach her from you. There is much about you I dislike but I must admit you know your focus crafting. If you say someone has good potential as a focus crafter then I''ll trust you on that. Look... the basics are you have to provide them food, lodging and pay them at least three copper a day. I''ll send you a copy of the guild rules since I am entirely convinced you''ve never even touched a copy. It has a whole section on apprentices and the like,"


    He stepped toward Willow.


    "Now as for you, you should know if she gives you any problems you can take it up with the guild. The guild doesn''t look kindly on any member who mistreats their apprentices. If Elise is ever cruel or violent to you we can help you out,"


    Willow looked up at him with innocent eyes. Her words were timid, quiet, sincere and utterly certain. What she said awoke a deep fear in Elise. It terrified her more than perhaps anything else she might have said.


    "Don''t worry, I trust her,"


    The girl had known her less than an afternoon and already she seemed comfortable to give out trust so easily. Elise could feel the weight of it bare down on her. She couldn''t imagine herself living up to that trust. The last time anyone trusted her she had fled and left them to their fate. She had failed them. And now she was being trusted again, so honestly and earnestly, by someone she had just met. She wanted to distract herself, to get back to work.


    "That''s enough Devlin," she said "You''ve delivered your message and been very helpful pointing me in the direction of materials that''ll answer my questions. But it is time for you to get the hell out of my shop,"


    "MY NAME IS DECLAN! By all the gods I get YOUR FUCKING NAME RIGHT! It''s Declan, Declan, Declan! I swear if I come back here and you don''t remember me or are calling me Devlin I am going to paint my name all over the front of the shop. Not that you''d ever figure out who did it if I did!"


    Like so many customers, clients and visitors before him Declan exited the shop unhappy and yelling incoherently about names. It really was rather odd how frequently that happened. People often put so much importance on their names, but in Elise''s eyes, they were usually unimportant. Perhaps that was why so many left unhappy.


    But she had other things to work on at the moment. She sat back down across from Willow.


    "Now before I get back to finishing this channel diagram, I think I should explain why I''m doing it and start teaching you some things,"

 Chapter 9

    Willow waited patiently for Elise to deal with Declan. She couldn''t bring herself to do anything that would draw attention to her. Being noticed terrified her regardless of circumstances. It wasn''t something she could explain, even to herself. But she knew she couldn''t remain that way but she didn''t know how to change. She watched as Elise spoke with the man from the guild, her movements stiff yet confident, her tone confrontational. Willow couldn''t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. By all rights, Elise should have been more of a failure than her, she was weaker. Yet Elise''s eyes had no room for fear or doubt. Elise owned her own shop full of tools. Elise could fight and win. Willow couldn''t even imagine herself being capable of that. She couldn''t help but feel jealousy and a little spark of hope.


    Declan took a step towards her and her heart filled with nameless dread. People''s attention scared her. It rarely brought good things.


    "Now as for you, you should know if she gives you any problems you can take it up with the guild. The guild doesn''t look kindly on any member who mistreats their apprentices. If Elise is ever cruel or violent to you we can help you out,"


    The words he spoke were nonsense. She was a failure that Elise had taken on as an apprentice. If Elise wanted to be cruel to her or kick her out there would be nothing unusual about that. She was a failure who deserved what she got. But Elise had yet to be anything but kind and much as Willow''s fears tried to place ill-intent as the motivator behind everyone''s actions Elise was simply too direct. It had very quickly become clear that if she meant Willow harm she wouldn''t be shy about inflicting it. She was not the sort to hide behind subtly. Willow knew Elise wasn''t out to get her, even if she couldn''t understand why. Knowing for sure that someone wasn''t going to turn on you was a novel experience for Willow.


    "Don''t worry, I trust her,"


    The words came easier and with more conviction than expected. It was a strange, unfamiliar, feeling but she did trust this stranger who had let her into her life and given her this opportunity when she had so little to offer in return. Both Elise and Declan seemed surprised by her response. That was fair after all her response had surprised her a little too.


    Declan was shoed out the door by Elise complaining about her inability to remember his name as he went. Now that they were on their own again Elise sat back down and offered Willow a small smile.


    "Now before I get back to finishing this channel diagram, I think I should explain why I''m doing it and start teaching you some things,"


    Willow''s heart filled with curiosity and nervousness. She didn''t want to fail again like she always did. The consequences of showing Elise how much of a failure she was could be severe. She might even get kicked out again. But there was eagerness as well. She wanted to learn. She needed to learn. So she sat forward with rapt attention on every word Elise spoke and every movement she made.


    "It''s for you, I''m making a focus for you. Your current wand isn''t well suited to you. Though I can tell you haven''t used it much. So I''m making you a new focus. It should be a bit easier for you use. Certainly, it''ll be much faster. I dread to think what kind of slow cast speed is possible for you with that thing you carry around with you. Now as for why? Well, mostly it''s cause I felt like it. Now it''ll be loaded up to the gills illusion spells. I''m-,"


    "Illusion spells!" Willow croaked "You''re giving me an illusion focus?! I can''t cast illusion spells! Those are advanced magic. I have trouble with even basic spells!"


    Willow quietened down suddenly as she realised she''d raised her voice. She went quiet and gathered herself up almost trying to make herself appear smaller as she waited for the consequences of her outburst. But when she looked over at Elise there was no anger on the woman''s face only an amused smile.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "Take out that wand of yours," Elise instructed.


    Willow did as she was told. Her nervous fingers gripped the worn wood of her old wand and with a shaking hand she held it up.


    "Now can you cast a light spell, preferably one that results in a floating ball light?"


    Willow focused, her spell thread moved from inside her where it was formed into the channels of her wand. She wound her spell thread around the spooling reservoir. When a spell pattern is completed they begin consuming spell thread and how much they consume depends on the power needs of the spell and how much power is in the spell thread. But while consuming spell thread it pulls on the spell thread as it drags the connected spell thread into the pattern. Having spell thread forcibly pulled out of her by her own spell was a painful experience that Willow never wanted to repeat and was exactly the kind of thing spooling reservoirs guarded against. Those who chose to cast magic innately, without a wand or focus, had to estimate how much magic the spell would use and reel out enough slack in their spell thread to accommodate it. Few were any good at it as far as she knew. Around and around she wound her spell thread inside the reservoir. It had to be done properly or the spell thread would get tangled and that could jam the wand and lead to a miscast. The spooling reservoir on her wand was very small but she was being careful. Once the reservoir was full then came the gates. Each gate was a decision and a wrong decision would mean starting over. You needed to understand your wand and the spell you were casting to send your spell thread down the right gates. Slowly she navigated the maze-like interior of her old but rarely used wand with her spell thread. Willow''s spell thread exited the wand halfway up its length.


    Spell patterns couldn''t be completely set or there would be nothing about them you could change. This posed a problem if you didn''t want to cast your spell exactly the same way each time, some spells needed variables. The spell pattern was designed so the variables and everything else that would need to be changed every cast would be outside the wand. Meaning that the caster would need to complete the spell pattern by drawing the portion of the pattern with their spell thread without the support of the focus. Willow''s spell thread slipped around and refused to stay still as drew the variables for the spell pattern in the air next to the wand. Her spell thread reentered the wand sloppily and in an almost panicked rush she raced to finish the spell. She was barely holding the spell thread she had used to draw the variables in place and any second now it''d slip too far and the spell would be ruined.


    A tiny white dot appeared at the end of the wand as she completed the spell. Its position was inconsistent and it jerked around in response to the shifting spell thread in the variable section of the pattern, moving almost of its own accord. That was a sign of her incompetence, of her lack of control. It had taken her just over thirty seconds to cast a simple light and the end result was an embarrassment. It was a fa-


    "Very good!" announced Elise with a grin.


    Her eyes looked the same as when she had been drawing the channel diagram, full of life and enthusiasm. Willow didn''t know what to make of it. It was like she had been presented with something broken and couldn''t wait to get to fixing it.


    "Can you make it blue?" Elise asked with genuine curiosity "It''s alright if you can''t but can you?"


    With considerable effort, Willow forced the variable section of the spell pattern into a different shape and the ball became blue. It was only for a moment though as due to lack of control it shifted back to white and then became red before Willow abandoned the spell and let it dispell. She was tired and her pool of spell thread was shallow to begin with and she had just completely lost control.


    "I''m sorry I-"


    "Oh don''t apologise that was perfect. Instead, tell me what it was like casting your first illusion spell?"


    "I? What?"


    "Most illusion magic is just coloured light. Breakdown all complex magic and eventually you''ll get simple magics putting on airs. Yes, that little blue ball counts as an illusion. You can get better at that, you can exert more control. Both of us know you can. Right now it seems like you''re almost afraid to try. That you''re worried something bad will happen if you try and assert yourself even over your own spell thread. Practice and the blue ball won''t jitter or colour change and then maybe you can use the coloured light to draw us some simple pictures. Become proper illusionist. Of course, being a proper focus crafter is harder but I''ll teach you as we go along,"


    "Do you think I can?" Willow asked, her voice wavering as she spoke, tears blurring her vision. "I always fail, what makes you think I can do this?"

 Interlude: A Vouran Welcome

    Vouran was a place like few others. To some, it was a land of madness where logic and reason remained firmly outside its borders. But to Lideri it was home. The spring wind whispered gentle lies as it blew softly across the landscape. The words the wind spoke were directed at everyone and no one. In winter it would howl biting truths at any who tried to endure it. Foreigners found the speaking winds odd, they found everything in Vouran odd. To those unused to it Vouran was a mind screw but to the natives, it was predictable and comforting. Rolling hills and green fields stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.


    Lideri''s band assembled around him. Twenty good men all mounted on horseback. They had once been the personal guard of a powerful Vouran noble but that was before everything had collapsed. Their lord had fallen like so many others like him. Lideri had been loyal to the last but everything he had been loyal to had burnt to ash and even those that had taken so much from him had in turn been consumed by the flames of Vouran''s civil war. Could it even be called a war any more? Where once stood noble lords commanding respect there were now stood petty warlords demanding fear. There were no travelling merchants any more only brigands and bandits. Bandits like Lideri and his men had become and it had turned out they were quite good at it.


    Corsali, Lideri''s second in command, raised his wand with his arm straight. Light around his arm and wand distorted as his spell bent and amplified light from the distant horizon. Peering down the length of his arm at the image that had formed Corsali frowned.


    "They''re Jeklein alright, a lot of em'' too. About six hundred people total, followers included. Looks like they recently crossed into our fair home,"


    It seemed the information Lideri had heard about Jeklein moving into Vouran was accurate. That was worrying. Vouran was in no state to resist a serious invasion even with its terrain advantages.


    "An army?" Lideri asked unable to keep the worry from his voice.


    "That''s the strange thing they''ve got a bunch of different uniforms, way too many camp followers, or maybe they''re militia, they aren''t moving as units and they have nearly no supply train that I can see. This is the most disorganised I''ve ever seen the Jeklein. They''re supposed to exemplars of discipline but I''m not seeing it here. If this is a scouting force, they''re doing it wrong. If it''s an invasion they are too few and undersupplied to pose a threat even counting the ununiformed members as militia which they might not be. Frankly boss, I have no clue what this is,"


    Lideri checked his timepiece. It was a palm-sized piece of wood with a moving dial on it, magic kept it moving at a steady rate. In other nations such things were a luxury, in Vouran they were a necessity. Because in Vouran the terrain moved. It could swap itself with other ground elsewhere in Vouran, changing beneath your feet. But this wasn''t random. Far from it. It was predictable and happened at set intervals. Keeping precise track of the time was a great way to avoid unpleasant surprises for instance soon these green hills would be replaced with a forest. Perfect he could work with this.


    "Alright lads! Our neighbours from the Jeklein empire have come for a visit. Now they''ve been visiting us for generations each time they were welcomed by Vouran soldiers and some of our friends from the other kingdoms. Now we''re not soldiers any more but they, being the good neighbours they are, have brought us gifts in the form of supplies, goods and weaponry. I say we go and welcome them and get our gifts. We''re twenty and they''re six hundred so we''ll have quite a bit of welcoming to do but in a few hours this will be a forest and they are ignorant foreigners who won''t be expecting that. We get them into the right place at the right time it''s all over for them. We''re not attacking an enemy, we''re not raiding helpless villagers, we''re herding cattle. Still, if things go bad we break north, meet up at the nearest piece of stable terrain. Corsali you''re calling shots and picking off anyone who seems like they''re trouble. Drakli, Frorith, Gar, Julic you''re on defence, counterspells and shields, don''t bother with anything that is going to miss us. Trannis you''re the loud scary thing that makes them run the way we want them. I want big noisy spells. Anything that''ll get their feet moving. Ludfir and Covour you''re reserve, hold back until someone needs a hand then swoop in and be big damn heroes. The rest of you we take out their outriders and corral them into one big group. There will be a lot of spells and magic coming our way so be careful. Mind your horses and be mindful of your friend''s spells. It''ll be a few hours before we reach them but by the time we do it''ll almost be time for the terrain shift. We won''t have long but that means we won''t have to go twenty v six hundred very long either. Now let''s go give them a Vouran welcome!"The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The small band cheered loudly. Trannis unlimbered his staff with an eager grin that wouldn''t look out of place on a jackal. His staff was worn and beaten from heavy use but well tested and reliable. He was the most magically powerful of the group and the only one that needed a staff. But the rest were just as battle-hardened and just as dangerous. The fires of war had burned away all these men had loved so instead they had grown to love the fire.


    The Jeklein had spotted them as they approached, just as intended. It was easier to shield tight groups than dispersed crowds so they quickly gathered up into one big group. The outer members began casting shields spells. Since when two different spell threads touch the weaker spell thread breaks the shields couldn''t overlap leaving gaps. The Jeklein outriders were five men on horses and six men using kinetic magic to propel themselves forward in bounding leaps. Lideri''s band spread out and sped up as they closed the distance. They couldn''t match the enemy in raw power, there was too many of them so instead, they split up to divide their fire. They were at full gallop when the first spells were completed. Corsali was first. He was always first, he had a quick casting time and typically a long range. A beam of concentrated light shot from his wand striking the lead Jeklein outrider in the face, leaving a mess of melted flesh. The enemy hit back with a rock accelerated to near supersonic speeds. It shot past Lideri''s head and slammed into the ground behind him leaving a crater. Gar put a loose bundle of spell thread in front of a force bolt spell that was cast at Trannis. Gar''s spell thread cut the spell thread of the Jeklein spell to pieces rendering it harmless. The spells started flying in earnest as the two groups closed the distance between them. Spells were intercepted left and right, fizzling and fading as Lideri''s defenders did their jobs well. One of the bounding spell casters charged Lideri a spell forming in his wand, but Lideri''s cast was quicker. Without slowing from full gallop he took out one of the man''s legs with a tight beam of heat and trampled over him as he fell.


    They were still fighting the outriders when the main group came into range. A withering hail of weak long-range spells spilt forth from behind their shields. The magic rained inaccurately down around them as Corsali tried to snipe anyone who seemed accurate or powerful over there. But the Jeklein were no fools they were rearranging their shields to protect such people. Suddenly an iron bolt the length of a javelin shot out from the enemy group flying faster than the speed of sound. With a sonic boom, it sped past Frorith and buried itself deep into the ground, narrowly missing him.


    "They''ve got bolt casters!" he screamed as more supersonic iron bolts erupted from the enemy formation.


    "Don''t stop moving! Stay at distance and circle around them! We need these outriders dead yesterday! Trannis we need them moving south now!" Lideri yelled competing to be heard against the thunderous roar of the iron bolts hitting the ground around him. He struggled to retain control of his horse as it almost panicked.


    Trannis was already casting, his staff held high as he rode his horse through the barrage of spells and projectiles. When he was finished a massive fireball formed at its tip. It was all volume and size but no real power. Still, it was massive. All at once the enemy''s spells focused on him. Trannis'' friends worked hard intercepting anything that would hit him. He cast it. It flew straight and true hitting the shields on the north side of their formation bursting into a giant, terrifying conflagration. They began falling back to the south. They must have believed that they had time. Magical battles were endurance fights and a twenty men versus six hundred fight would favour the six hundred even against powerful spellcasters. All the needed to do was buy time till the smaller group expended their spell thread. Backing off to the south would buy them more time and was the logical move. But this group was being far more panicky than Lideri had predicted. Still, they were moving south. Killing the last Jeklein outrider with a well-placed spell to the chest, Lideri signalled to his man to push the north side of the enemy. It was time to herd this cattle to the slaughter. Further and further south they moved as Lideri''s men hit them with spells and Trannis cast massive impressive but ineffective spells.


    His men and his horses exhausted, he ordered to break off their attacks and head north. He could almost feel the relief from the Jeklein as his men pulled away. Then it happened. One moment the world around them was grassy hills. Then the next it was mountains and forests. There was no intervening period. It was just one thing and then suddenly it was another. The forest was filled with twisted gnarled trees, devoid of leaves. Lideri and his little band were outside the forest. The Jeklein were not. The branches of the trees began moving and from the forest''s dark depths the Jeklein began screaming. People eating trees, one of Vouran''s many little quirks. Once night fell they''d fall still and nothing could stir them till morning and Lideri and his band could help themselves to all the goods left behind.


    Trannis rode his horse just outside of the range of the tree''s branches and he bellowed into the dark forest loud enough so even the screaming Jeklein could hear him "WELCOME TO VOURAN!"

 Chapter 10

    The tearful, self-doubting, girl asked why Elise thought she could do the difficult things Elise was asking of her and Elise struggled to find an easy answer. Illusion was easy, divination was easy, focus crafting was easy. All the things people said were too difficult or too challenging just weren''t. Not when you actually sat down and really tried them. She didn''t know how to get Willow to see how simple those things were in practice.


    "Well your spell thread is very small, but that makes it easier to control. Shorter spell thread means more control and more speed in casting. Complex but low power spells suit people like us. If you can or can''t do well with illusion magic has nothing to do with your line length it''s all to do with how much effort you put in. I think you can put in the effort, besides that statement about failing at everything is objectively false. Didn''t you just successfully cast the spell I had asked you to? Please, don''t declare failure before you''ve even begun,"


    Willow stared down at her shoes but nodded solemnly. Not for the first time, Elise found herself wondering what the child''s life was like before she found her in the alley. But Elise didn''t feel like she could ask. There was no chance it hadn''t been difficult and Elise was not the best at dealing with difficult emotions.


    "Alright then I''m going to finish drafting this focus, you should practice casting that spell. If you get good enough to write a word in the air with it I''d be thrilled. But if you can''t do worry about it, it''s just something to aim towards,"


    The rest of the day passed swiftly though in truth there had not been much day left. Elise worked on the focus for Willow lost in the rapturous joy such work brought her. But it wasn''t enough for her to miss Willow''s attempts to cast light spells. Elise was a reader and could feel her apprentice''s spell thread as the child struggled with it. After the first few attempts, her control improved considerably as she relaxed and the nervousness of failure left her. In time the small shop was illuminated by a steady blue light as the evening sun set.


    Willow had mostly mastered the basics of the light spell. There was no more spell jitter from poor control, there was no more uncertainty on her face when she started casting. The child beamed brighter than the light she had made. It was such a small thing, such a tiny and simple spell but sometimes the small things were the only things to truly matter. Elise had nearly finished the small focus she''d been making. It was a small and complex thing. Was it too complex? Where did the belief that Willow could handle it come from? Won''t it have been better to make something simpler so Willow could build up her confidence? Did she really believe it''d be so easy to teach her how to use it? Or had she been perhaps so blinded by her desire to make something skilful and impressive that she''d ignored what the child had actually needed? Didn''t she do that with most of her customers? Little wonder then that she had such a bad reputation. She hadn''t even arranged a place for the girl to sleep and night had already fallen. What the hell was she even doing?This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    "You''ve made some excellent progress there Willow. See you didn''t fail. Now it''s about time we set you somewhere to sleep. There should be some rope and blankets in the basement,"


    Willow looked adorably pleased with the little bit of praise Elise had given her. She practically hopped up from where she sat to follow Elise down the hatch into the basement. Metal tools sat ordered on workbenches accompanied by half-finished projects. Machines and inventions that hadn''t worked out filled the space with only a small few that worked as she had envisioned. Elise kept expecting Willow to speak up and ask what all these strange objects were. But she stayed silent and stayed behind Elise. She did, however, keep her light going which saved Elise the trouble of trying to get her firestarter to light a candle. Its concept was sound but maybe a redesign was needed. The basement contained many of Elise''s attempts to make tools and objects that could fulfil the purposes of spells without expending spell thread. So much was reliant on spells and she didn''t have the spell thread to spare for most of it thus she''d worked hard at finding non-magical replacements. She hadn''t been overly successful. She also kept some raw materials like rope and fabric close at hand. She knew exactly where they were and wasted no time gathering them up.


    Willow in the meantime had caught sight of a particular little box shoved unceremoniously to the very back and was looking at it quite intently. Everything down here was treated well and maintained well, despite the clutter, except for that little box. It had been treated with a level of disregard that seemed intentional. That was because it was intentional. If Elise didn''t suspect the accursed thing would end up quickly found she''d have dumped it in the river long ago. No, no, no that was a lie she told herself. That wasn''t why she kept it. She kept it for the same reason people pick at scabs and old wounds. She kept it because letting it go would be the same as forgiving herself.


    "Miss Elise?"


    Elise dreaded the question that was coming.


    "Uhgh getting called Miss is weird. Just Elise is fine. No need for miss and especial no need to call me lady Elise. I''m Elise you''re Willow. More than that I feel is too much. So what is it you want to know Willow?"


    She didn''t want to answer, she didn''t want to tell her about the contents of that box or answer all the questions its contents would raise. It did not contain happy memories after all.


    "Why are you so nice to me?"


    The question threw Elise. It was not the one she was expecting and she had never viewed herself as very nice. She took a second to collect herself and hide her surprise and her relief.


    "Does there need to be a reason? That''d be the obvious answer, wouldn''t it? That being nice doesn''t need a reason. It doesn''t, but that doesn''t stop reasons from showing up anyway. There are reasons. You remind me of me when I was younger. Of that time when I, when I was most alone. You''ll find I''m pretty sentimental about the past. I always have been. Anyway come on there''s not much room upstairs for another bed but I can rig up a hammock for you, at least till we figure out something better,"


    Willow nodded quietly as they left the basement. Elise glancing back towards the little box as the door closed and they headed up the stairs. Now that there was someone else here she needed to get rid of it. It was only a matter of time until it was opened. Something would happen, the child would get curious at some point as is natural for kids. How would Willow react to it? Would her trust go away? Elise badly needed it gone. But she couldn''t bring herself to get rid of it. She couldn''t let it go.

 Chapter 11

    The meeting room was grand and illustrious. The architects had outdone themselves adding decoration to its very structure. Images had been etched into the walls and carved carefully into the room''s supports and then beautifully painted to create a vibrant, visual space. Artistically shaped wooden chandeliers floated in place shining with magically created light. Each enchanted and each filled with spell thread by the servants before people had started arriving.


    Usol entered the room and sat at the table in its centre. Compared to the decoration of the room the table and the chairs around it were plain and unremarkable. Usol wasn''t the only one here. The Prince''s steward Devin Gore, a pedant of a man with thinning hair white and utter devotion to doing things the proper way, had already taken a seat. Next to him sat the loyal Captain Holt, pointedly refusing to acknowledge Devin''s existence. The captain was a career military man. He was a tall broad-shouldered man in armour and from the marks on his face, it was clear he''d seen combat more than once. Devin and Holt didn''t particularly get along and had very different views on the best ways of doing things and often didn''t hesitate to try and impose those views on each other. Devin was supposed to manage the servants and the fiances and Holt was supposed to manage the guards and security.


    Devin frequently insulted Holt calling him a brash thoughtless brute and in typical Devin fashion, he did this by writing notes in fantastically neat and precise handwriting and sending them to everyone involved. Their squabbles could get vicious at points but Devin considered taking things too far ''indecent'' and had lines he''d never even contemplate crossing. Similarly, Holt saw himself as a man of honour and would never resort to anything underhanded or violent. This all resulted in their feud having a set of unspoken rules they both adhered to.


    The three of them weren''t alone. In each corner of the room stood a palace guard clad in iron with their staff or wand at the ready. Vigilant against intrusion or attack. Against the back wall there stood a line of well-dressed servants with short to moderate length lines. One would naturally think they were there to attend the people coming to this meeting but in reality, this briefing was as much for them as it was for the people taking their seats at the table. They served as agents and spies. They''d mingle with the servants of anyone the prince would visit and learn all manner things. They were eyes and ears that could slip away unnoticed when the Prince couldn''t. Sometimes they could even act as knives in the dark that pruned away problems before they could blossom. They were dedicated, well trained and surprisingly dangerous. No one coming to this meeting thought them simple servants. But they would act the role so thoroughly and professionally that it was easy to forget that for them it was just a mask and beneath that mask they were killers.


    Lord Keel was next to enter. He was an older man, his skin had been toughened by spending so much time exposed to the sun and the wind. He had been a wyvern rider before the Jeklein treachery had wiped out Narell''s wyverns. Wyverns lived for fifty years and to be able to ride one you''d need to care for and train it since it hatched. It would take ten years before it could carry a person while flying. They were not just tools of war they were hand raised lifelong companions to their riders. The Jeklein had murdered Lord Keel''s trusted friend and they had taken the sky from him. Even now several years later he wore simple, yet tough clothes unbefitting a lord with a wyvern rider''s scarf and goggles hanging around his neck. His gaze burned with an intensity that made him difficult to look in the eye. Lord Keel had not forgiven the Jeklein and Usol doubted that he ever could.


    Lady Felmir shuffled in after him. The Narellian court had many stunningly beautiful ladies but Lady Felmir wasn''t one of them. She was rather plain in comparison, even in the gorgeous dress she wore. Shoulder length brown hair, unremarkable features. Yet she had captured the Prince''s eye when the many far more attractive ladies of the court were rebuffed. This was something that had made her many enemies among her peers. Perhaps this was why she seemed as timid as she did. Regardless of how timid she seemed Usol couldn''t think of her as such. He knew better. She was cunning and ruthless and had quickly built a business empire in Narell from the finances of what many had considered a ruined noble house. Few now spoke ill of the power and influence her house now wielded. That was why she had drawn the Prince''s attention. Lady Felmir got results. Usol had seen her negotiate, had seen all that timidness vanish as she extracted the very best terms from people who thought they could intimidate her.


    Last but certainly not least the Prince entered the room. He was an impressive individual no matter how you viewed him. Soft handsome features, neat, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Dressed in the finest of fabrics, with a cloak descending from his shoulders. He was exactly what the words handsome prince summoned to mind, except for his arms. They were strange assemblies of wood and iron that made strange whirring and clicking noises when they moved. They were painted in black and trimmed with gold with the Prince''s heraldry inlaid into the back of each hand again in gold. They were a striking vision.


    Everyone knew the story; on the night of broken trust when Jeklein assassins had come for him and his father he had lost both his arms saving his father''s life. Healing could only do so much. The arms would need to be regenerated in one go for it work and no one had that much power, no left at any rate. His father had offered generous rewards to anyone who could restore his son''s arms. A parade of quacks and fools had lined up only to fail to deliver what they promised. All except for one.


    Dequillis was a mystery. She showed up wrapped in dirty rags, asked for materials and a workshop. The desperate king promised them to her but warned of punishment should she waste the materials and fail as all others had before her. She disappeared into the provided workshop taking all her meals there. Until two months later she emerged with the enchanted arms that the Prince now wore.


    The arms mystified every enchanter, focus smith and craftsman who examined them. The channel layout made no sense. The channels themselves passed through moveable joints and most impossibly of all through the iron components. Even children knew spell thread couldn''t penetrate iron. Channels in Iron were impossible. Yet in defiance of all logic here it was.


    But that wasn''t were the confusion had ended. The arms were magically efficient beyond all reason, the same power used to light a candle could keep the arms moving for several hours. The Prince was powerful, the speed he reformed his spell thread utterly dwarfed how much these devices consumed. So he had kept connected spell thread in the channels permanently. People could feel when spell thread connected to them was moved. The arms it seemed used this fact to provide sensory feedback to the user. Even more bizarre the Prince''s spell thread in the arms had begun to solidify according to readers who witnessed it. It was becoming like his internal weave. If you saw a person''s internal weave as their soul like many did this had startling implications.


    Dequillis left almost as soon the arms were delivered. Saying she left might be simplifying things a bit, it would be more accurate to say she vanished. She vanished from the palace, with three heavy strongboxes of coins, without a single palace guard or servant noticing. This is what had made Dequillis such an excellent source of story and rumour. Was she a wandering grandmaster enchanter hiding from any repeat of the night of the broken trust by staying on the move and dressed in rags? Or was she the Obsidian witch quietly helping repair the broken son of the man who had tried to stand with her against the Jeklein in the Western Kingdom''s darkest hour? Was she an illusion projected by a gold-hungry dragon expanding its horde, not through pillaging and violence but skilful craftsmanship and forgotten secrets? Was she stolen away by dangerous elements that saw how useful she could be and sought to force her to make them powerful weapons? The rumours and stories were endless and imaginative.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Those stories affected the population, they added meaning to the devices the Prince now wore. The Prince''s arms became symbols, symbols of regrowth and repair, of the damaged becoming strong and of Narellian resilience.


    Everyone sitting at the table stood and bowed to him as he entered. He gestured for them to sit. All his mannerisms were precise, every movement he made was a deliberate choice. Usol knew the Prince had three versions of himself. One was the smiling Prince who greeted the public, a diplomat and a social butterfly representing himself well in any noble gathering. Another was the cold and precise version that had entered the room, this was the one that bore the weight of responsibility of his position, the one that could not afford a mistake. The last version was Usol''s friend, he laughed and told dirty jokes, he was blunt and direct and made bad decisions freely. They had gotten into so much trouble when they were younger. But ever since the Prince had lost his arms Usol had seen less and less of that version of him.


    "The Kingdom of Raliec has chosen to hold a festival to celebrate the fall of the Jeklein empress. They have invited me and my father to attend. My father cannot, his duties hold him here. But I have announced I intend to go. I ask that you accompany me as my entourage. Captain Holt, we will be in a foreign land so I will be trusting you and select a few of your best men to protect us during this visit,"


    "Understood, your highness,"


    "Officially we will be there as a sign of Narell''s companionship with Raliec and show our support for their recovery. But the way I view things Narell comes first and as the prince I have a duty to it. Narell is by far the most prosperous of the western kingdoms currently. Despite the blows we''ve taken we are doing well economically. However, our military is crippled, it will take several decades to rebuild it and to breed and train new wyverns. We have no significant military force. If Raliec collapses the same way Vouran has we will have no way to stop that violence spreading across the border into our prosperous lands. Raliec is an important trading partner. So for the sake of Narell, Raliec must be made stable. This means for once our unofficial and official purposes are essentially the same,"


    The Prince looked around the room, with his arms behind his back.


    "We are currently limited by our lack of intel in Raliec. Devin, Usol I ask you to fix that. We need to know about the claimants. How close are they to civil war? What are their positions, strengths, vulnerabilities and who are their allies and supporters? What kind of man is the regent and what ishis intentions? We will need to know everything we can if we are to pull our neighbour back from the brink. It will be a challenging task but I''m sure you''ll find great relief by asking my servants for refreshments should the task ever tire you out. Lord Keel, Lady Felmir I would be honoured if you were to accompany me to the many balls we are sure to be invited to. I will be hounded where ever I go by people seeking Narell''s backing for their bid for the throne. My movements will be watched closely. Everyone I speak to will be scrutinized. I will need your help to talk to people and learn what you can from these events. That and to keep me sane during them. If we can pick the right claimant and place them on the throne Raliec may stabilise. Picking the wrong one, or possibly any of them might cause it to spiral into a civil war we will most likely get dragged into. We need information before we can act,"


    This was pretty much what Usol expected. He was good at divination magic, so his role here would be clear. But without enough information to work with, divination magic was a waste of time. Divination didn''t show you the future or the truth. It showed concepts and how much people thought about those concepts. What those concepts were was difficult to figure out. They weren''t exactly labelled. They were strange abstract things, misshapen and ever-changing. They defied description to those who did not practice divination magic themselves. It took deduction and a whole lot of guesswork to figure out even a handful. But by tracking down the concept of someone''s identity and finding out what concepts they linked to could tell you a lot about a person. Divination did not provide answers handed out by generous gods, they were answers wrestled out from mankind''s collective unconscious. It was terrible for finding the truth of the world but it excelled at telling you what everyone really thought about a person. It was a useful tool on a political battlefield.


    "Now a secondary objective aside from this will be to locate Dequillis and the Obsidian Witch. Locating the Obsidian Witch could well bring stability to Raliec but people have been searching for her for a few years now so I doubt we''ll find any leads that they missed. Dequillis, on the other hand, is someone we''re more likely to find and is someone we cannot allow to be recruited by anyone else. Efforts at locating her in Narell have failed but we haven''t been able to search in Raliec. Since her other options are Carlilis, a place where they''ll have agents monitoring everyone who enters and leaves, Vouran, the Jeklein Empire or the broken north. I am fairly confident she is somewhere in Raliec and that she is using a different name. I will be leaving in three days and it will be a two-week journey. I would appreciate it if you helped me with this. I may well be sticking my head into a hornet''s nest and your presence would make this much easier. If you have any questions or objections I''d like to hear them,"


    Lord Keel was the first to respond. His raspy voice was a souvenir from decades of trying to yell over howling winds. "Your highness, you already know we are going with you. I have sworn oaths to your family and to Narell itself. You know I will fulfil those oaths. But I do have a question or two. How do we know Dequillis will be using a fake name?"


    It was Usol who answered. He''d spent so much time failing to magically divine answers about Dequillis and he only came away with more questions but this was one of the few pieces of information he had gained from his efforts "Because Dequillis isn''t her original name. I''ve tried to find out what her original name was or anything we didn''t already know but all I can tell you is that she can change how she views her own identity and name like most people change hats. I can''t find the name she changed to or the name she changed from. It was a clean break each time, she didn''t once think of any former name and she had divested herself of the Dequillis identity before constructing a new one. Even after a year, I haven''t a single thing she thought about while she was Dequillis I can use. So I can''t find her other identities. Frankly, that is some terrifying mental discipline. Perhaps even more disturbingly it appears she didn''t even think about anyone she interacted with except the Prince and the King. This may indicate she does not see people as...people. This is all the more reason to find her. It looks like she is highly intelligent, likely understands divination enough to take deliberate measures to counter it and may think nothing of killing any in her path,"


    "I think that adds credence to the rumour about her and the Obsidian Witch being the same person if you think about it," quietly remarked Lady Felmir "It would take someone with that kind of mind to do what the Witch was able to do,"


    "If that''s the case is it truly a good idea to find this person?" inquired Devin.


    The Prince leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. The movements were so natural you could be forgiven for thinking they were his real hands.


    "I do not know," he admitted, his voice cold "But find her we will. Because we must. Because she doesn''t stop existing just because we don''t know where she is. She doesn''t stop being dangerous because she is out of sight. And more than that we need her. We will find the Obsidian Witch for Raliec and Dequillis for Narell. If Raliec falls to chaos all the western kingdoms will follow. They need someone to rally behind and the Witch is perfect. She represents their old strength taken to the extreme and victory against their enemy. As for Dequillis and Narell-"


    He took a rock from his pocket and with one mechanical hand crushed it into dust.


    "-for us she represents a path back to being a military power,"

 Chapter 12

    Willow woke to dawn''s first light. Outside the sounds of a city already in motion could be heard. The clattering wheels on cobblestones and the yelling of men moving heavy goods. They were not noises she was used to waking up to. But the sounds of the city could not compare in oddity to the sound of Elise snoring. It sounded more like she was gargling rocks than anything akin to breathing.


    When Elise had described the upstairs she hadn''t conveyed just how cramped and small it was. There were about two meters of floor space total not taken up by furniture and that was the kitchen and bedroom combined. Nothing separated the bedroom and kitchen, they were basically the same room. Piles of books, pots, pans and other objects took up a lot of space. Now that a hammock had been rigged up the room felt even smaller. One large window supplied the room''s light. Still closed and shuttered, light leaked from it in pretty beams shining through the dust.


    Grogilliy and unsure Willow slipped down from the hammock, managing to do so without getting tangled in it somehow. She had not slept well. Being suspended a distance above the ground by ropes did not make her relax nor did Elise''s snoring. She was stiff and sore and tired. Quickly she got dressed doing her best not to disturb Elise. Though it seemed she needn''t worry, Elise was a deep sleeper apparently. The way she had switched off and went to sleep immediately should have been a hint. Willow could never do that even if she wanted to. For her, nights had been a gift, a peaceful time alone. She had been reluctant to spend such time asleep. She''d stayed awake and imagined living lives other than her own. It formed a habit quickly and she found it hard to get to sleep as a result now even when she wished to. It was a kind of self-inflicted insomnia. In that early morning light, she wished she had managed to get more sleep last night.


    Yesterday seemed so strange and so surreal looking back. If she was not in another''s home she would doubt that it had even happened. An apprenticeship, she had an apprenticeship! It was one given out of pity she knew but she couldn''t think of any other way she could feasibly get one. There was no other way, not for her. She couldn''t afford to lose this chance. Elise was a strange one but Willow didn''t dare question any of the things she did. Rocking the boat could lead to her being kicked out on the street again. It was best to keep her head down and stay quiet about everything.


    Elise''s sleeping form turned over, unwilling to wake for the morning light. The nightdress she wore was a grey sheet that someone had sewn into the shape of a long sack and then crudely cut holes for the arms and head into it. Her feet protruded from under the covers and were as scared and burnt as her hands. Several toes were missing. Elise''s wounds were distinct. Even without knowing much about her Willow knew vaguely what had caused them. It was possible to keep casting after you ran out of stored spell thread, but it would use your internal weave instead. A person''s internal weave was similar to spell thread in many respects and could act as spell thread if needed. But it recovered slowly and it was what held a person together. There were consequences to using it up.


    Willow had used it just once and the indescribable pain had forced her to stop. It had been like she was being burnt from the inside out and it had only been the tiniest quantity. She could never understand how people could endure it long enough to get permanent scars. Burns around the eyes, fingers and toes were the first external signs of damage from using your internal weave but by that point internally you would already be beginning to disintegrate. Skilled healers could reverse some of the damage but there were limits to what a healer could fix. The patient''s remaining internal weave got in the way of healing and healing required a lot of magic to work. The more damage the more magic needed. They''d never be completely healed.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    But that was for normal people with small scarred rings around their eyes. If Elise''s scars were as bad as they looked she shouldn''t be alive. Those weren''t the kind of wounds you recovered from.


    Willow put those thoughts aside. Instead, she wondered what she should do. She wouldn''t be able to get back to sleep and this was an unfamiliar environment for her. What was expected of her here? She didn''t want to wake Elise but she also didn''t know where anything was and didn''t feel right rummaging around in Elise''s things to make breakfast. She pulled out her wand and started casting the light spell she had yesterday. A dimmer version would be better and shouldn''t wake-


    Elise sprang out of her bed before the spell pattern was even complete. Seemingly from nowhere, a knife had appeared in her hand.


    "Who are you?!" she demanded her eyes affixed on Willow. "What are you doing here?!"


    "Y-you hired me as an apprentice," Willow stammered, terrified as she backed away, her wand falling from her fingers.


    "That does not sound like something I would do," Elise hissed sceptically but with less obvious hostility.


    Even so, she advanced a few steps towards the panicking Willow.


    "The hammock, you put up the hammock for me. You''re making a ring for me. An illusion ring. I''m-I''m your apprentice,"


    In a flash all of Elise''s hostility and the knife she was holding vanished. Willow hadn''t seen where it had went, Elise had simply waved her hands and it was gone.


    "Right, right, the ring. Of course. Shit. I''m so sorry. I remember now. Ahhrgh shit! I''m sorry it just takes some time some mornings to figure things out. I am so sorry,"


    Willow stayed still and she stayed silent. All she needed to do was keep her head down, don''t question.


    "Are you alright? Are you okay? I didn''t mean to do that,"


    Willow nodded and quietly whispered "It''s fine,"


    Elise''s eyebrows rose.


    "Really? I don''t think it''s fine. If you woke up disorientated and pulled a weapon on me it sure as hell wouldn''t be something I''d just brush off. Even confused I shouldn''t have acted that way. Tell me, what can I do to apologise? And don''t tell me some nonsense about it being fine. I just scared the shit out of you. I''m terrible with people and even I can see how scared you still are,"


    "I wasn''t scared about you stabbing me. I was scared you were going to kick me out,"


    It was a quiet admission, barely audible against the background noises of the waking city. Elise stood there her brows furrowed, visibly struggling to find the best way to respond.


    "Willow, I''m not going to kick you out. I said I''d take you in as an apprentice and I''ll stick to that. Sometimes when I wake up it''s hard to tell which of my memories happened yesterday and which happened decades ago. That''s all that was. You''re still my apprentice, I was just confused. I didn''t recognise you,"


    Willow didn''t want to say anything, her every habit and instinct yelled at her to bow her head and let this moment pass. But she couldn''t help it, she needed to know.


    "Will you be confused again tomorrow?" she asked, her voice quavering.


    "Possibly. But I doubt I will be as aggressive. You really startled me this morning. I thought an assassin had come for me for a moment there. There''s nothing that ruins the start of your day quite like getting murdered before you can even wake up,"


    With a yawn, Elise sat down on the end of her bed and stretched. Willow watched as the scarred woman relaxed and slowly Willow began to relax as well. Part of her wanted to ask about the assassin comment or the memory issues but she couldn''t bring herself to risk it. That seemed like dangerous ground and she couldn''t risk getting kicked out. Willow didn''t know what would happen to her if she was kicked out again. Her limited experience in the lows suggested that it wouldn''t be pleasant. But whatever happened she couldn''t go back home. She wouldn''t go back home


    "Dead gods Willow what hour of the morning do you get up at? It''s barely past first light. You know what nevermind, it''s been a difficult morning already. Breakfast?"


    "Yes, please,"


    Would future mornings be like this she wondered? Would she be waking up to a yelling, confused Elise every dawn? She hoped not but even so it was preferable to home.

 Chapter 13

    The two of them ate breakfast sitting at the shop counter. There wasn''t anywhere to sit upstairs so they had brought their food down to the shop. It was a simple meal of oatmeal porridge sprinkled with a few in-season berries. As they ate in silence Elise noticed just how ravenously hungry she was. She had forgotten to eat anything the day before she realised. Too wrapped up in what she was doing to pay any attention to herself. It had been alright to neglect such things when she was alone. Was it really alright for her to take in an apprentice? She could barely even look after herself. The fresh memories of this morning lept back into the forefront of her mind. Her grip on her spoon tightened. She couldn''t help but be angry at herself for that whole incident. The sight of a terrified Willow telling her she was scared of being kicked out again wouldn''t leave Elise.


    When the food was finished Elise set about clearing one of the workbenches of all the objects that had accumulated on it.


    "This''ll be your work station," Elise announced as she laid out a bunch of spare tools on the newly cleared workbench.


    Most of the tools were woodworking tools made to sand down, shape and engrave the wood. There was an entire assortment of weirdly shaped knives meant to carve the sticks and branches into pleasing wand-like shapes. Elise talked Willow through every one of them giving her a little demonstration for each as she went. She reached the varnish and paintbrushes.


    "Now I should have given you wood paints as well but I haven''t got any. I just varnish my work and don''t generally give them any decoration. Personally, I appreciate things that are utilitarian as do many of the customers you might find in the lows. But I don''t expect you to abide by my aesthetic tastes. So I''ll need to get you paints. Oh, now that I think about I''ll need to get you an apron. Wait I forgot to ask; are you a Reader? It''d make things easier if you are,"


    Willow shook her head. Her eyes never leaving the desk and the tools laid out across it as she did so.


    "No worries, I''ll have to pick a testing box up as well then. Now, for the time being, I want you to get a stick, remove its bark, try to make it nice to hold (remove any bits that make gripping it awkward), do anything you want to make it look nicer and then put a finish on it. Everything you need is on this desk already and there are a bunch of sticks in the box under the table. If you make one that''s good I''ll call it a win,"


    Willow didn''t look up from the table.


    "What-what if I fail. What if I can''t"


    "Dead gods Willow is there anything in that head of yours but worries about failure? If you screw it up get another stick. You can try this for years if you want. But somehow I doubt it''ll take you years to figure out how to strip the bark from a branch, sand down the knobbly bits and dip it in varnish."


    Elise''s disfigured hands took hold of Willow by the shoulders and gently turned her around so she could look her in the eyes.


    "Willow stop worrying. If you think you are one minor mistake or misstep away from severe consequences you are mistaken. You don''t need to be walking on eggshells here. Do you know why I make wands? It''s not because of a hunger for coin, I can tell you that. I do it because I enjoy it. My shop is my playground, Willow. There are places that are high pressure with instant consequences for screw-ups. But those places are not here. I do not seek perfection in my work to please my customers I do it to please me. My customers can go screw themselves,"


    Elise reached down into the box below the table and pulled out a stick. It wasn''t a particularly good stick for wand making. It was too thin and pointy near the top which meant less material to burn channels into. But it would do. She held it out for Willow to take it.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    "I do not ask for perfection from you. I ask that you have fun with it. I ask that you make something you enjoy making. It was impulsive of me to invite you here I know. But you reminded me of myself and I thought I could share the enjoyment I found in focus crafting with you. I thought it might help you. Stop worrying Willow because none of this is about success or failure. It never was. And I tell you what; you make something that looks like a wand, I''ll show you how to burn channels into that sucker! Which is where the real fun begins. But if you don''t then don''t worry,"


    Willow plucked the stick from Elise with newfound eagerness. She stared at it, turning it over in her hands as she did so before gripping it tightly in her hands.


    "I''m sorry," she whispered "I didn''t mean...I''ve always been trying not to fail. I guess I was failing by trying not to fail,"


    She carefully placed the stick in the centre of her new workspace.


    "I can do anything I want with this right?"


    "Make whatever you want. Play around, familiarise yourself with the tools, experiment. Go nuts!"


    With a rare and subtle smile, Willow started working on the stick. Elise watched her long enough to see that she was using the tools the way she had shown her. She would rather not have Willow split her tumb open. It was clear that wouldn''t be an issue. Her actions became more and more confident as she worked. She adapted fast, Elise could see. Far faster than the young girl herself probably realised.


    It was a shame such a person had such twisted beliefs about themselves. But Elise knew where her complex about being a failure came from. She had had to deal with much the same treatment in her own life. Not outright hated, disdain or disgust just the clear belief that you could never amount to anything embed in the words and actions of almost everyone around you. All they saw was the short line and that was it. Limited magic meant no future. The worst was when it was from people who cared about her talking in concerned voices about how she could survive if anything happened to them. When that happened especially when she was young it got under her skin and into her head. When everyone around you seemed to be genuinely convinced of something it rarely took a long time for it to convince you.


    Elise turned away from watching Willow fumble and then adapt. She had promised the girl a focus ring, hadn''t she? Even if it was a tad overblown and a bit too complicated it was almost done. No point in not finishing it. She picked it up to continue her work only to be immediately interrupted by a loud obnoxious knocking on the door. Elise took a deep irritated breath before marching over and flinging the door open.


    A twelve-year-old boy stood there wearing an apron over his clothes, smelling of wood shavings with a book clutching in his grasp.


    "You''re lucky I''m up I wouldn''t normally even be awake at this hour. So what it is it?"


    In response, the young lad produced an excited string of words and noises that could loosely be defined as speech.


    "Ohoh my master sent me to give you a book but only if you could guess his name he didn''t say why but he said you''d forgotten his name and to make sure you remember it maybe that was why anyway I ran all the way down here from the plaza why is your shop in the lows you can afford a better shop can''t you also wow those are some scars what happened do people normally mention them or are they all polite about them how''d you get them oh oh did you hear the news?"


    "You do know you can breath when talking right? Take a breath, start again only slower with a pause or two in between sentences,"


    "Okay, okay, okay, my master sent me to give you a rule book for some reason but specifically told me only to give it to you if you guess his name correctly?"


    Elise looked the boy up and down, his line was on the shorter side of medium length. From his attire and the objects poking out of the pockets of his apron, it was pretty clear this kid was an apprentice to some focus crafter.


    "Devlin?" Elise guessed.


    "Declan" Willow''s meek voice quietly corrected.


    With a mischievous grin, the boy at the door pushed the book of guild rules into Elise''s hands.


    "Does Declan often have his apprentices up and about this early in the morning?"


    "Oh no no no, but I was there in his workshop telling him the news and he told me to run some errands for him. He told me to run a lot of errands. Oh, wait yes have you heard the news!"


    Elise sighed a dispirited sigh.


    "No I haven''t but I suspect I''m about to,"


    The boy practically lit up. The prospect of sharing his gossip made him visibly giddy.


    "The Obsidian Witch has come out hiding! With the festival coming up to celebrate her victory I might get to see her! I can''t wait to see what she looks like! What is the person who killed the Undying Empress like!"


    Elise''s face contorted into one of incredulous disbelief.


    "I''m sorry, could you repeat that?"

 Chapter 14

    Lord Regent Cadacus''s office was a small under decorated room. The morning light shone in through the window, wonderful and bright. Outside it looked to be a beautiful cloudless day. Inside, by contrast, it was dusty and airless. Shelves of ageing books occupied the limited wall space. His desk creaked beneath the weight of unread reports and unsolicited correspondence that were stacked high upon it. The room''s worn carpet grew slowly more frayed as he paced restlessly about. Sitting down felt too much like inactivity yet his pacing did little to alleviate his worries. Corbin stood by the door gaunt-faced and professional as always. He was Cadacus''s steward and assistant. He was a professional and said nothing he merely watched his master stress and waited for a moment in which he could be useful.


    The news had found Cadacus early in the morning and now he felt like a hapless hiker staring down an oncoming landslide. Several people had been paid to spread the rumours by one of the many claimants. They''d been able to get the name of the person who hired them. It appeared that Lord Galithir was the one behind it.


    He owned many business ventures all of which were failing until very recently when they all received a mysterious injection of coin. Cadacus had little doubt as to where that coin had come from. This kind of thing was typical of the neighbouring Kingdom of Carlilis. It seemed they had started to meddle. He wasn''t fooled. The other lords wouldn''t be fooled either. But you didn''t sprinkle people across a city spreading tall tales to convince the lords. That wasn''t who the effort was aimed at. And from what Cadacus had heard the rumours had been effective. Scarily effective. Every bar was filled with chatter about it. Every passing conversation on the street mentioned it. There was no one in the city who was not talking about it. The populace truly believed the Obsidian Witch had returned.


    "I should have known! I thought the reason the lords were so eager to get the festival running was as a show to the Obsidian Witch. They were racing to outspend each other on it. I thought they arrogantly believed that the Witch''s allegiance could be won by displays of wealth and empty flattery. I should have known at least some of them were smarter than that. The festival provides the perfect excuse for her to ''come back''. I should have known!"


    Once again Raliec was pushed closer to disaster and Cadacus was stuck watching helplessly. Always he was watching from the sidelines as the people around him discarded logic and reason for avarice and the faint hope of more power. Corbin was unmoving and unexpressive as he watched his lord pace.


    "One can hope, Lord Regent, that this scheme of theirs will reveal the real Obsidian Witch and if it does all our problems may be solved,"


    "Only if it does," Cadacus snapped "And if it doesn''t Corbin. If she doesn''t show then we are screwed. This nation is held together by the illusion that the Witch might intervene but this whole scheme takes a gods damned hammer to that Illusion!"


    Cadacus was yelling now, veins popping in his forehead as his bottled anger and frustration were unleashed towards the unflinching steward.


    "One can hope? We need more than hope Corbin! The worst thing is I''m almost certain it won''t reveal her. Divination shows us she''s never considered herself as the Obsidian Witch. There''s two possibilities there; one she''s never heard the name, which means she either dead or has never returned to the Western kingdoms. Or two, she hates it and doesn''t want to be associated with it. This is the person who marched past KIng Jour and his forces without even stopping to say hi. I have a hard time picturing her as someone who''s going to make an appearance to contest a title she may not even want! But I tell you what is going to happen. Lord Galithir is going to unveil some imposter that has spent a long time preparing to play the role at the upcoming celebrations and she''s going to support his bid for the throne. The other claimants will know she''s an imposter. But they will need to do something or let Galithir and his imposter have the throne. From there, things will escalate. It''ll be the tipping point. The point of no return. After which there will be no control, no containment. Just an entire nation embroiled in civil war!"Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Cadacus''s frustration boiled in his veins. It had been eating away at him every day he sat next to the throne in that overblown room. Now Cadacus let loose his frustrations on his assistant. But Corbin had not moved a muscle, cracked a smile or frowned once during Cadacus''s tirade. He had stood as still as a statue, not even a flicker of displeasure or annoyance had crossed his face.


    "What do you ask of me, my lord?"


    Cadacus took a moment to calm himself. Corbin, in his own way, was telling him he couldn''t fix anything Cadacus was talking about and to direct him to problems Corbin could actually solve. He had been an ever-loyal and stalwart ally. One of very few. And one of the very few people who did deserve any part of Cadacus''s rage.


    "I''m sorry, Corbin. I didn''t mean to snap,"


    "It is alright sir, you are understandably stressed. It is a difficult situation,"


    "Has there been any leads on finding her, the real her I mean?"


    "No new ones I''m afraid sir. All sightings of her after the battle originate from deep within the Empire. Since then the Empire has only grown more inaccessible to us. We do not even know the current state of their government and ruling powers. Repeated attempts at divination have failed to produce any useful information. We are still looking for the missing records from the Obsidian Guard''s stronghold. We have yet to find the culprits who stole the contents of their libraries. But the leading theory is that it was covertly taken and shipped to Jeklein lands as a means of stealing their strength and their secrets. Or perhaps they intended to use what was there as a means to combat the Witch. It would explain the thoroughness with which the membership files were removed. None the less I expect all answers are across the border in the Empire,"


    Finally, Cadacus ended his pacing and sat down at his desk and placed his head in his hands. The chair here was thankfully not as uncomfortable as the one that awaited him in the throne room. It creaked loudly as he sank into it. His fingers tapped against his temple as tried to figure out what he could do. How could he fix this?


    "Corbin, I need you to find me an Obsidian Witch,"


    "I''m sorry sir but as I''ve explained without effective agents in the Empire-"


    "Not the Obsidian Witch, an Obsidian Witch. An imposter of our own. If we can disprove the rumours before people start wondering why the real one isn''t showing up we may be able to keep the plates spinning. We need another imposter to throw some doubt on the rumour''s claims. By providing a second imposter we make having someone evaluate which is the real one necessary. As the regent, I''m officially a neutral party in the affairs of the lords and claimants. Which means we can position ourselves as the arbitrators of any claims about the Obsidian Witch. We are the only logical choice. From there we can turn the whole thing into a mud-slinging contest of such intensity and vitriol that no one will question why the hell the real one stayed away,"


    Cadacus leaned back into his chair. He wasn''t sure this was the best solution but it was the only one he had. It was at least an answer.


    "The lords won''t shut me down while doing it either. Either they will want to prevent their competition from gaining too much power and influence with the people or they will be supporting the imposter and will need to act like they are confident she will pass all tests and trails we come up with. Refusing would make them look like they didn''t believe their imposter was real. In order to get the populace on board, we need to get everything in place before the festival. They like grand gestures and they like their big symbols. If we can show that Galithir knowingly supported a person pretending to be the Obsidian Witch in front of a large crowd they''ll turn on him in an instant. We need to make it seem like there wasn''t a need for the real Witch to respond to this incident if we are to maintain things the way they are. We''ll have to come up with a way to clearly disprove both imposters before then so we can do it in during the festival,"


    Corbin was still a gaunt-faced statue. The man could act and pretend the best of them but he so rarely had a genuine expression on his face. All of his emotions could be seen in his eyes. Those eyes were thoughtful as he studied Cadacus.


    "What manner of test do you propose? Everything hinges on that Lord Regent. It must be convincing, conclusive and not something they can wriggle out of,"


    "Well, we have two weeks to come up with something,"

 Chapter 15

    As Declan''s apprentice left to spread his news elsewhere Elise stormed over to the counter. Once again she needed a drink. Helping herself to one of the bottles she had stashed there she poured herself a glass of sweet amber liquid. She downed the glass in a single motion.


    "Do you think she really has come back?" The timid Willow asked, looking up from her task.


    "Nothing is impossible. But I rather doubt it. It doesn''t take much for rumours about her to get started. All it takes is one drunk fool in a bar talking about how they''ve seen her and all of a sudden the entire damned town is talking about it,"


    The whole story brought back memories that Elise would rather not think of. It was easier to drown them in drink and block them by focusing on focuses than to endure remembering. Elise refilled her glass and briefly considered pouring one for Willow but quickly dismissed that as a terrible idea. It seemed rude to drink alone when someone else was there but Willow was a bit young for alcohol.


    "Yeah, this Obsidian Witch is coming out of hiding thing is going to change nothing. It''ll be forgotten soon, like all the other empty rumours before it. It''ll disappoint some people sure but they''ll recover in time to believe the next popular lie,"


    Finishing her second glass she threw her attention over to what Willow was working on. She''d stripped the bark and sanded down the stick and was now using the carving knives to cut an image into the stick. It was crude, the work of an amateur, but the image it depicted was clear and simple. It was a tree and not just any tree.


    "A willow tree huh?"


    Willow didn''t respond directly but she grinned shyly. Clearly pleased with herself. Elise found herself smiling back. She dragged over a stool and sat next to Willow. Then she fumbled around in the box under the desk for a few choice sticks.


    "Now since you''re not a reader and I haven''t got you a testing box yet I can''t ''show'' you how to burn channels. But I can describe it for you, draw some diagrams and explain where you''re going wrong. Before you mention anything about screwing it up; I''m self-taught. My first attempts were all terrible. If you get a working focus within your first hundred attempts you''re doing better than I did,"


    Talking about channels and focuses always filled Elise with a degree of excitement and this was no exception.


    "I''ll be starting you off with a gateless focus. Basically, it''ll be an enchantment. It''ll only have one possible spell effect. But the lack of gates means it won''t have to match the user''s spell thread so precisely and you can make the channels larger if you are prepared to accept more spell jitter in exchange for having more people be able to use it effectively. Now to burn a channel you just have to force your spell thread through the wood in the pattern you want to burn. This is harder than it sounds, your spell thread will try and deflect around impediments and the wood does not have a uniform density. You need to really force it to go into the wood. And the changing density means the effort you need to burn the channel changes as you go. Keeping your channels straight and in the shape they need to be can be challenging. Are you ready?"This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Willow nodded with far more enthusiasm than Elise had anticipated. For the next few hours, they sat there. Time blurred for Elise like it did when she was working on focuses herself as she talked Willow through the process and caught her mistakes. She directed the young girl as she formed spooling reservoirs and twisted the channels into useful spell patterns. By the end, Willow had several single-purpose focuses in front of her. Each had been channelled by her own thread. The wand marked with a willow tree produced a bright blue light at its tip but Willow''s beaming pride outshone it. She tried to hide her smile but she couldn''t stop herself from grinning as she held the piece of wood aloft and filled the shop with light.


    As much as Elise would have loved to stand there watching Willow admire her work it was well past time for the shop to open. With a reluctant heart, Elise flipped around the little card in the shop window so it read open. Thankfully her shop was never the busiest of places. The lows were not an ideal place to put a custom focus shop. Most of her competitors served a more high-end market. The majority were located near the plaza with a few sprinkled in the noble district near the top of the hill. Truthfully she could have easily set up her shop anywhere she wanted. She chose to operate in the lows. There were no expectations of behaviour in the lows. No pomp and ceremony and certainly no nobles. Though a few of the more wealthy clients that dared to come down acted with enough arrogance that you could understandably be confused. But most clients like that avoided the lows like the plague. Probably because there was the occasional report of plague from the lows.


    The odd customer that filtered in usually wanted a quick repair job. Most commonly some form of crack had severed a channel and a new channel needed to be burnt to route around the damage. It rarely took her long with each instance. But today the conversation with each was the same. Every damned one of them was talking about the Obsidian Witch. She dealt with each one with gritted teeth. The constant repetition of the subject grated on her. Every time someone mentioned it she was tempted to grab them by the collar and drag them from her shop and throw them into the street.


    As the day marched on the pile of wands in front of Willow grew. Elise hadn''t asked her to make more she had chosen to. Elise left her to it so she could handle her accursed customers. In between quick repair jobs and taking the specs for new orders, Elise worked on the backlog of work she had so carefully built up. Despite the constant blathering about the Witch Elise lost herself to a familiar rhythm of making focuses and dealing with customers.


    It was mid-afternoon when a pair of customers entered. They were the kind of well dressed, smug folks that Elise utterly despised dealing with. Her location in the lows wasn''t enough to keep all such people away, unfortunately. Their lines were pretty long and they exuded the sense that they thought themselves better than those around them. It only got worse when they saw Elise''s scars and tiny line. The couple looked at her with open disdain, never even attempting to hide their contempt behind niceties.


    "I was told this place was the best focus shop in the city," the man of the pair said his voice dripping with disbelief.


    "Maybe it''s-" the woman began speaking as she looked around the small shop. But she trailed off as soon as she took a good look at Willow.


    Willow was nearly out of sticks she had spent the day carving and channelling them till a nice stack of single-purpose focuses had gathered on her workbench. They had all had flaws. Cavities in the channels. Slightly sloppy carvings. But each one was different. Each one an experiment. Willow placed down the latest stick she was working on and turned to look at the new customers with terror-filled eyes.


    "Mom? Dad?"

 Chapter 16

    Elise was always angry. She buried it well, distracting herself with focuses and smoking and drinking it away. But it was always there, lurking and waiting for an outlet. There was so much anger in her. Anger at the world, anger at herself, anger at the past, anger at that which could not be changed. It was old and stale but so great in quantity. It seemed strange that the anger she was feeling now was new and fresh yet distant kin to the old rage ever trying to claw its way into her heart. That new anger blossomed as she saw Willow''s parents look at their child with disgust. Elise did what she always did when filled with wrath; she smiled. She smiled like a shark approaching a hapless fish.


    "What is she doing here?" Willow''s mother whispered to her husband.


    Willow hung her head. She was retreating from the events around her. Bowing her head and letting things just happen.


    "Actually, I would like to ask you that. What is she doing here? What was she doing wandering around the lows? It couldn''t have been that she was cast out by her parents could it? It couldn''t be. It must be a misunderstanding of some kind. Since no human parent would be that callous. So tell me do you have anything to say to Willow?"


    Willow''s father stepped up to the counter, marching across the shop like he owned the place. Like he owned her shop.


    "Do not talk about things you do not understand!" he warned, a sneering expression plastered on his face "It is none of your business who I allow to live in my home and eat my food! It is not my neighbour''s business and least of all it is the business of some shortlined destitute craftswoman living in the lows! I will not be talked down to by you!"


    Elise was still smiling.


    "Nothing to say to Willow? No apology for kicking her out? No words to soothe over the dirty looks you just gave her? You didn''t even address her and you waste your words insulting me instead?"


    "Please Elise, don''t...it''s...it''s alright," Willow''s shaking voice quietly begged.


    Her head was still down but tears could be seen collecting at the corners of her eyes.


    "There is nothing to say. I fed her, I clothed her and I sheltered her when she isn''t even my own child! I have done more than enough!"


    "Not this again, I''ve told you before that I''ve been nothing but faithful! She is yours. I have laid with no one else!" Willow''s mother protested, her voice becoming almost hysterical.


    The man spun around and yelled "Then why is her line so short! Why is she so magically weak? With our lineage that should be impossible!"


    "Willow, could you run upstairs and get me a book; The Three Trials of Trevillion''s Travels. It''ll be near the bottom of a pile somewhere. You''ll have to spend some time searching for it," Elise stressed that last sentence to ensure Willow understood what she was actually saying.


    Grateful for any excuse to be out there Willow bolted up the stairs immediately. Not that her parents noticed, they were busy shouting at each other.


    "You promised me we''d never have this argument again after she left!"


    "Well, I didn''t expect to run into her!"


    Elise had been hesitant to let loose her anger on Willow''s parents in front of their child. That one thought had been keeping her building rage in check.


    "Now that''s-" Elise began.


    "Stay out of this. I don''t much care to be judged by someone who doesn''t know their place,"


    Elise reached up and grabbed the man by the back of the head and rammed his face into the countertop. He retaliated with an uncoordinated swing at Elise. It wasn''t able to land before Elise, still gripping the back of his head, rained down punch after punch into his exposed face.


    "What are you doing!" screeched the man''s wife as she unlimbered a short staff she kept on her back. "Get the hell away from him!"Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Releasing her grip Elise watched as the wife''s husband tried to stand. But dazed from the blows his legs slipped out from under him. Blood flowed from his broken nose.


    The woman''s staff was surprisingly enough decent quality as focuses went. The channels had been burnt skillfully and the design was simple and elegant. They had gone for speed over versatility and only had a few spells to allow for faster casting, compensating for the main weakness of a staff.


    Elise could feel the woman''s spell thread winding its way through the staff. It was a kinetic impact spell from the looks of things. She could dodge or she could attempt to prevent the woman from finishing her spell. But Elise did neither. She was furious and wanted to make a point. So she let her cast.


    A strand of the enemy''s spell thread rushed froth from the end of the staff. Once it touched something physical the spell would discharge and all of the force would be delivered to that point. Elise used a single strand of thread, pulled not from her available spell thread but pulled from her internal weave. She was ripping out a tiny piece of her soul. Whisps of smoke emanated from her fingertips and from around her eyes, accompanied by the pungent odour of burning flesh. The targeting thread from the woman''s staff was cut up by the strand of Elise''s internal weave. Without a target, the spell fizzled and failed.


    When two spell threads collide the weaker spell thread would dispell. When spell thread collided with internal weave the spell thread would always be severed. Few people were cognizant of the fact that that remained true even if you ripped it out of yourself and were using bits of your internal weave to cast spells. That wasn''t unusual though, people tended to prefer getting stabbed to casting with their internal weave. Stab wounds were less painful and easier to heal. As far as Elise knew she was the only one crazy enough to try using it in a fight. It was useful but she would never tell Willow about this little trick, she didn''t want her apprentice picking up her bad habits.


    The pain was so familiar, the fear of it had gone long ago. Repetition had dulled her to it. Piece by little piece she destroyed herself again and again. Yet when she looked in the woman''s eyes and saw the confusion and fear now dwelling in them she felt like it was worth it. There was nothing quite like stopping someone who arrogantly thought themselves your superior in their tracks.


    "Are you going to listen to me now? Because if I have to do that again I''m going to nail your hand to the wall with a thrown knife,"


    Elise glanced down at the husband. He was still dazed and bleeding, slumped against the counter


    "Get up!"


    "Do you have any idea who we are or what we can do to you?" he mumbled as he climbed uneasily to his feet, blood soaking his face.


    "Why is that you think coming to the lows without bodyguards was a good idea. And you think you can afford to be disrespectful to the people around you? This is not how this place works. I guess you figure since you''ve got relatively long lines everyone will shrink back in fear. Neither of you has ever been in a real fight and it shows. Oh, boy does it show. Either learn to fight or learn to show some respect. Hell, there''s nothing wrong with doing both. But doing neither is asking for something bad to happen to you down here,"


    The two customers stood and stared at Elise, one stood considerably less steady than the other. Elise smiled back as she turned her full attention to the man.


    "By the way, I wonder how much does a person like you know about recessive genes and mutations? Not much I''d wager. There''s so much physical resemblance between you and your daughter. Yet just because she''s not all that powerful you refuse to accept that she''s your flesh and blood?"


    "With our linage-"


    "Linage, linage, linage. You repeat that word like if you say it enough times you''ll actually be related to somebody important or the tall tales your parents told you of your ancestry will come true. You are nothing and you have come from nothing. Just like everyone else,"


    Elise turned back to the woman who was still staring at Elise in shock, unable to process what had happened. That lack of adaptability would get her killed if she was ever attacked.


    "As for you. You were willing to cast aside your own child for a chance at marital happiness with this guy. This guy! Why? He''s not worth it. In fact, neither of you are worth it. Both of you disgust me. You know I have noticed Willow constantly obsesses about failure, she does it quite a lot. Now that I''ve met you I know why; you''ve done nothing but fail her. It''s all she''s ever witnessed,"


    The man spat at Elise. A mix of blood and saliva splattered against her face.


    "You think you can humiliate me and my wife and get away with it? I am going to destroy you for this you know. You care so much for that girl you claim is my daughter? Well, I am going to destroy you both. I will tear down this shop. I will touch everything you care about. I will come back with a focus superior to anything you could have crafted and use it to tear you apart!"


    Elise smiled her terrible smile. A focus better than anything she could craft? That would be quite the gift. But she knew better, it''d be a shoddy piece of firewood with channels so sloppy you could tell where the focus smith stopped burning channels to take breaks.


    "I look forward to it. Now get the hell out of my shop,"


    The pair didn''t wait, they retreated out the door. The faint sounds of their voices talking about finding nearby healers faded into the noise of the city around them. In the silence left in their absence, a gentle creaking could be heard from the top step of the stairs as the person standing on it shifted their weight. Blood stained the counter and a small pool had gathered on the floor in front of it. As the anger cooled Elise studied the scene left behind.


    "I should not have done that,"

 Chapter 17

    Elise fished around in the pockets of her apron. She was sure she had a cloth in there somewhere.


    "You can come down you know," she called softly to the person lingering at the top of the stairs.


    Willow descended into the shop, tears in her eyes and hands by her sides. Her footsteps were slow and hesitant. Willow was upset and only the most foolish could say they didn''t see it or see why. Finding the cloth she''d been seeking Elise wiped the spit and blood belonging to Willow''s father from her face. If it wasn''t okay to do what she did while Willow was in the room why had she thought it would be okay to do it when she wasn''t. It changed nothing besides giving Willow the opportunity to pretend it never happened. Thoughtlessly Elise had put Willow in a very difficult situation.


    "There were a dozen ways I could have handled that better,"


    Willow studied the floor. Her head held low. It was almost as if she thought Elise''s mistakes were somehow her fault. She stood there braced for blame.


    "Willow?"


    "Why did you do that?" her voice was a whisper so quiet that you had to strain yourself to hear it.


    "It is because I am not a good person Willow. I lost my temper. The way those people looked at me, the way they looked at you, it made me want to prove them wrong. It made me want to take their arrogance and rip it from them. It made me want to shove their faces into how wrong they were. Like I was disciplining a dog,"


    "They''re not arrogant. They''re my parents. You didn''t... I kept screwing up and they didn''t get rid of me. Not till recently, not till I was old enough. They tolerated me when I was useless. They were good to me. You didn''t have to hurt them,"


    "No, I didn''t and I shouldn''t have. I am no stranger to making enemies but that''s when I bear the consequences alone. It''s alright to offend when the only one who suffers for it is me. I didn''t spare a thought for the position I was putting you in. I''m sorry. I just couldn''t hold it in. I guess I am living proof that wisdom doesn''t come with age,"


    Willow still stood there, looking down, still waiting. Elise watched her waiting for a response or even just a gesture or movement.


    "Why are you acting like I''m about to scold you? None of this was your fault. You''re the most blameless person in this whole incident!"


    "It is my fault. It''s because I was here that-"


    "Bullshit. That could very well have happened just the same if I''d never met you. If your mere presence is causing other people problems and you''re doing nothing wrong then those are other people''s problems. Not your problems, not something you need to fix, change or even worry about. So stop acting like you''re the guilty party here. There''s no logic in the world where that makes any sense,"


    Finally, Willow looked up from staring at the ground.


    "If...if they come back are you going to attack them again?"Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    "I''ll try not to but I will defend myself if I have to. If I do end up defending myself though it will not be something caused by you. It''ll be between me and them,"


    With that, the conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. A little too much time would pass before either of them did anything. Wanting to lighten the mood and break the silence Elise fished around in her pockets once again, displacing tools and other objects in her search. This time instead of a cloth she pulled out the small ring she had been working on and handed it to Willow.


    "Here. I mentioned I was making you a focus before, didn''t I? I''ve finished it and I didn''t want to interrupt you when you were so focused on what you were doing. I...eh...may have overdone it a little. Its got almost exclusively illusion spell patterns in there. But there''s a lot of them. Some are for realistic textures some are for common shapes. You can mix and match them to an extent but I was only able to get so many in such a small object but having lots of overlap. Some of them use the same channels and can''t be used simultaneously. It''s a bit on the complicated side of things. If you have difficulty with it tell me and I''ll make you a simpler version," the moment Elise started talking about focuses all her tensions and worries began to ebb away from her, replaced by a childlike joy. It was like a switch had been flipped.


    Willow took the ring carefully. A touch of her old wariness had returned. Brought back, perhaps, by another glimpse at Elise''s more violent side. Despite it, she slipped on the ring. Her spell thread made its way through the narrow confines of the ring''s channels, through gates that were for once not too large for her. Light appeared above her finger. It was a faster cast than she''d managed casting the same spell with her old wand. All the wariness and tears left her face, supplanted by a growing sense of wonder.


    "It''s so much easier" she whispered "It''s so much easier to use,"


    "Well, your old wand had gates too big for your thread. So you were having to control your spell thread at the gates to stop it slipping down the wrong channel. Basically, if the gates aren''t sized right for you it''s not even worth having them and the gates in the old thing you had before are way off. It''s a common problem. The less common problems with your old wand include having way more gates than needed and shoddily burnt channels. You may have noticed your spell thread snag on obstructions left by the craftsman. That can have nasty effects, like causing your spell thread to hit itself, or deflecting your spell thread into the sides of the channel causing unintended burning and damage. The channels are far larger than you need which contributes a little to spell jitter. In fact, your old wand makes for a great case study in what not to do when making wands. With the ring, you''ll notice your spell thread has less physical distance to travel and won''t have any lazily burnt channels in it,"


    "Ha-has my wand been holding me back this entire time?"


    "Yup. Though to be fair there''s not exactly very many people around with lines quite as short as either of ours. So wands don''t tend to get made for outliers like us. I had to make do with a truly terrible wand until I first made my own. It''s great having a focus that fits you but having one that doesn''t can really hobble you,"


    Tears reappeared in the young girl''s eyes. This time they didn''t stay confined to the eyes and they flowed down her face in little rivers.


    "It wasn''t my fault. I kept failing and it wasn''t my fault. All this time it wasn''t my fault. I kept trying. I kept trying. All my spells were bad, they were messy and I kept failing and miscasting. It isn''t fair. It was never fair. I thought I couldn''t. It wasn''t my fault," Willow wailed.


    Of all the situations she''d faced none had stumped Elise as much as this weeping girl. She didn''t know what to do. Most problems she''d encountered could be viewed as a kind of puzzle. This wasn''t like that. Approaching this as a puzzle with a right answer was the completely wrong way of thinking about it. But she felt like she needed to do something. The more she looked at her crying apprentice the more she needed to do something. She embraced Willow in a hesitant and awkward hug. A moment passed before the crying girl returned the embrace.


    "It''s alright Willow, it''s alright,"

 Chapter 18

    Elise flipped round the sign in the window so it read closed. She wasn''t in the mood to be dealing with any more customers. She normally tolerated their inflated sense of importance and misunderstandings of her craft but she had reached her limit for the day. She pushed up her sleeves and with a bucket of water and a washcloth began scrubbing away any signs of the earlier altercation. Elise suspected that that kind of work was meant to be the work of apprentices but asking Willow to do it would have been rather tactless. Willow sat at the foot of the stairs and watched Elise work. Her face was still stained from her tears.


    A tense quiet filled the shop. Neither Willow or Elise was sure of what to say. So Elise cleaned and Willow sat. Elise liked puzzles and almost everything could be broken down into a puzzle. Wand construction was something that followed clear rules and often had an optimal outcome. The same was true with any kind of design or engineering. Even violence was a solvable puzzle. How best to damage the opposition while minimising damage to one''s self was a question to which logic could provide the answer. How to deal with Willow and her problems wasn''t a puzzle. Elise knew that there was no right answer. But she hadn''t expected to so often find herself unable to provide any answer.


    She was still scared she realised. The thought of Willow getting to know more about her worried her. If the young girl got to know Elise better would she hate her or would she be scared of her? Being feared and resented was something she was well used to. But for the first time in a very long time, the thought of someone fearing her bothered her. Elise shivered as she involuntarily recalled how she woke up that morning. She wasn''t exactly doing well in not making Willow fear her.


    The contents of the bucket grew murkier as Elise worked. It had been a little too long since she gave this place a good clean. After a while, Elise had cleaned the blood up and had scrubbed enough dirt from the floor that the clean patch left behind no longer looked out of place. Declaring herself done she dumped the washcloth into the bucket and went to sit beside Willow. Willow hadn''t moved much as Elise had worked. It was unsurprising, the girl had a lot to process.


    For once it was Willow who spoke first.


    "I wish I''d met you sooner," she whispered "If I had met you years ago then I''d be...I''ve wasted so much effort. I could have come down here years ago,"


    "Well, I have two things to say to that. First; You didn''t waste your effort. You just learned how to apply it. You only waste effort when you give up on something halfway through. Secondly, I''ve been here for less than a year. The window of time you could have met me before you did is pretty small. Even then how could you possibly have known to come here? Don''t get hung up on what might have been. I do that enough for both of us,"Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Where were you before? Before you came here?"


    "I was... travelling. I bounced between different towns and cities for a bit. Hawking my wares and services on the road. Making focuses in ditches by the road. You would not believe how much people mistrust travelling merchants. It makes sense I suppose, travelling merchants aren''t as reliant on customer trust. So some don''t care about building it up and see no issue with being untrustworthy, thieving bastards. I''m not the greatest at dealing with customers at the best of times. So I had some problems. But eventually, I got some commission work offered to me that paid pretty well and then I came here to Windhaven to settle down,"


    "Was it the same for you when you were younger? Were you like me?"


    Elise closed her eyes and breathed out slowly.


    "Yes and no. I was luckier than you. I was born a reader so I''ve always had a more intuitive understanding of magic. But despite that, I also came to the mistaken conclusion that I was useless and helpless. No one believed in me but that wasn''t because of malice. When I was growing up things were worse for short-liners than they are now if you can believe it," Elise gazed distantly at the empty wall opposite her. A subtle melancholy filled her, it was tied inseparably to those thoughts of the past.


    "Neither of my parents had much of a line. So they were never able to achieve much. Then I came along with a line far shorter than either of them. They were convinced I''d never survive on my own. I believed them of course. They were my parents. They skipped meals so I could eat. You should have seen them when they first saw I could make focuses. It made them so happy. But-"


    For a fleeting moment, she was back in her home town as old buried memories flooded in. The crisp cold winter air that was warmed a little by the mass of bodies crammed into the town square. The memories were so clear. Despite how long it had been, she could remember every detail. The faces in the jeering crowd, the platform and the people on it, all the things she wanted to forget. She could remember the faces of her parents, bloody, bruised and broken as they scanned the crowd looking for her. When they spotted her-


    "Elise?" a concerned Willow asked.


    Elise realising she had gone quiet shook herself. Willow peered at her with a worried expression on her face. What expression had she been wearing as she relived those memories?


    "Sorry, I''m fine. I was just thinking of some things in the past. Don''t mind me,"


    Willow looked like she wanted to ask something else but she said nothing.


    "How about we take a break? I''ve yet to pay you for your first day and you''re still wearing the same clothes you were yesterday. So how about we go shopping?"

 Interlude: Ash

    Blood was filling Denic''s lungs. His broken body was slumped against the tree he had been thrown at. The impact had shattered his spine and his ribcage. He could not feel anything below his waist, everything else was pain. Each ragged breath was a theft. Breathing was for the living and he was already dead. He was just waiting for his body to realise.


    Across the road, his cart burned. A bright light in the cloudy moonless night. The fire had spread to the fences and thicket by the roadside and had grown into a raging inferno. Dense smoke rose into the sky. He had built the cart himself. He had carved the wood and hammered it together. It had been long hard work. He hadn''t been able to afford an enchanted self-moving cart so he had built a horse-drawn one. He watched as it burned to ash. He''d lost his wand somewhere. If he still had it maybe he could try a few desperate last spells. But it was probably in the fire somewhere.


    He had no fight left in him, no strength to keep forcing air into his punctured lungs. He could feel his consciousness begin to fade away.


    Through the smoke, a large silver shape descended. It landed softly without making a noise. It was forty feet long. Its long slender, aerodynamic form did little to disguise the power its body held. It was a silver scaled dragon with curled horns on its head. It had landed in the midst of the raging inferno and had not acknowledged the fire in any way. From within the flames, it stared right at Denic.


    Being awed or frightened took effort and he had none left to spare. He closed his eyes and awaited his fate. Pain shot through him suddenly. It felt someone was running his organs over a cheese grater. He violently coughed up the blood in his lungs and took a gulp of air. He could feel his bones being moved forcefully back into place. He was being healed. But this was not the slow, cautious and gentle healing he had received the last time he had broken bones. It was rough, fast and inconsiderate. He screamed as his spine snapped back into place. All at once he could feel his ruined legs and shattered hip. Those broken bones began shifting too as he was put back together.


    He opened his eyes a looked back at the dragon that was still staring intently at him. He was about to ask it why but he hesitated and it spoke first. It did not open its mouth to speak. Instead, a series of tiny shockwaves passed through the smoke around its head. It was magically vibrating the air. It was making the noise directly through magic.


    "I have a few questions for you. It was a dragon that attacked you correct?" The voice it created with its magic was soft and gentle. It sounded like the voice of a kind woman. But the sound was entirely created by the dragon, every aspect was deliberate. Every intonation was a choice. Even so, there was a hurriedness to it. It wanted to make it clear that it had places to be.


    Denic locked eyes with the dragon that was still in the process of healing him. They were ancient creatures of fire and magic, the stories said. Some described them as power incarnate. But Denic had little left to lose. He raised his arm, still weak and feeble from his wounds, and pointed to the overturned cart.


    "My son was with me. Save my son first," he replied defiantly, never breaking eye contact with the dragon.


    The dragon''s eyes narrowed and flicked over to the burning cart. In the blink of an eye, the fire was out. Not a smouldering ember or spark remained. It simply decided the fire should be out and then it was immediately extinguished utterly. In the fire''s absence pitch darkness claimed everything and the night seemed so much colder without the fire''s heat. Yet the dragon''s eyes glowed a golden orange and light leaked through the gaps between its dagger-like teeth.


    "You ask the impossible. I cannot resurrect the dead. I am not the Jeklein Empress. I cannot conquer death," Its words were slower this time, the hurry had vanished.


    In truth, he''d known before he''d asked. It had been too long and the attack too violent. His son was hardy for his age but there were limits. A part of him didn''t want to admit it even though he knew. It felt like admitting it would make it true. He had kept pretending his son wasn''t in the cart as it burnt because accepting the alternative wasn''t something he had been ready for. Because knowing he was watching his child burn when he could nothing to stop it was too much. Denying it let him keep living in a world where his son wasn''t dead for just a little longer. But what the dragon had said gave him something to latch onto. The faintest spark of hope.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Are you saying the Empress could bring people back to life?"


    "If there was anyone who-" the dragon''s voice faded into a strange low pitch noise as it lost control of its spell for a moment. It leaned closer, its mouth and eyes the only things visible in the darkness. As it lowered its head nearer to Denic the shadows from its mouth cast long jagged shadows across the ground like some kind of caged lantern. "What do you mean ''could''?"


    "Don''t you know? She''s dead, killed by the Obsidian Witch,"


    The dragon stared at him, its emotions unreadable.


    "I do not believe that to be possible but that is something I will need to look into later. For now, my current task is a little more pressing. What attacked you? Where did he go?"


    "It hit us out of nowhere. It dropped down from above. I was able to get a spell off. My go-to defensive spell is a fire spell. I didn''t have much time to think. I didn''t realise I was fighting a dragon. In retaliation for my useless spell, it scooped me up and hurled me at this tree," he tapped the wood he was leaning against. "It was about a third your size, red coloured scales and fast as fuck. I don''t recall it breathing any fire. I would have expected a dragon to breathe fire,"


    The attack had been a confusing mess. He still wasn''t sure what had exactly happened. Slowly he put the events together and he did not like the conclusions he was reaching.


    "It didn''t breathe fire. The fire was ''cause of me,"


    Once again the dragon cast magic without a focus. In different circumstances, Denic would have marvelled at the dragon''s ability to wield its spell thread. It could form its doubtlessly wide and powerful thread into complicated spell patterns, quickly and often in parallel to other spells, without the aid of a focus. Any other time he would have been intimidated by the level of control it displayed over its magic.


    Light filled the area chasing away the darkness as small orbs of white appeared around the dragon. For the first time, Denic could see it in its entirety. A lot of the metallic silver scales along its left flank had been melted sometime in the past. The metal-like flesh had hardened into solid clumps. Parts of those clumps had fallen away revealing spots where newer pinkish-red scales were visible. The darkest few of those pink scales had acquired a touch of silver. Gently it examined the wreckage. It probed the ashes with a long claw.


    "If it helps your son appears to have died from a broken neck. It was likely pretty quick, painless and over before the fire really got going," It turned its attention back to Denic "This is in many ways my fault. Your son lies dead and it is my son that is responsible. He is still a child, he knows not what he does. He sees the world as a simple one where the strong can simply take what they want. If he wants meat he takes it. First, he was stealing cows from farmers'' herds, then later he smashed up a barn to get at the livestock inside. Just because he was hungry. No thought giving to the consequences of his actions. He is growing bolder and I fear his actions will lead to his death,"


    The last vestiges of pain faded as the dragon finished healing him. He still felt weak and stiff. He stretched his legs and leaning against the tree pulled himself unsteadily to his feet.


    "What are you going to do when you find him?"


    "I am his mother. I will protect him. Even from his own mistakes. I have been cleaning up after him. Usually, a bit of coin is enough to make amends for stolen cattle. But this time he has done something that gold cannot serve as adequate recompense for. Giving you a portion of my hoard will not fix this. I do not know what I can offer you instead,"


    "You said the Empress could bring him back,"


    "No, I said the only one who had a hope of bringing him back would be the Empress. Chasing that is a fool''s errand. Even if you''re wrong about her being dead I doubt she''ll be cooperative. She has always kept tight control of her secrets. She shared nothing with anyone, dragon or not. Not even me,"


    Denic his legs were still weak and threatened to crumble from beneath him. Yet still, he stood and glared into the eyes of an elder dragon.


    "You want me to let this go right? Then that''s my price. I want my son back,"


    The dragon studied him searching for the slightest sign of uncertainty but it found none.


    "If my son was killed I would never be able to forgive. I suppose it''s only fair that when I ask something I''d find impossible that I am asked for something impossible in return. Very well. I cannot promise you I will bring back your son. Instead, I will promise you I will do everything in my power to make this right. I will fix this. What is your name?"


    "Denic of Wortshed,"


    "I am Elswier Firstborn of the Silver Dragons. Once I have hunted down my wayward son we will go searching for secrets. We will go see this Obsidian Witch of yours and find out what they know,"

 Chapter 19

    Willow was nervous as she followed Elise out the door. Walking the lows held a certain fear for her. Willow wanted to cower from every glance she received and couldn''t help but imagine all the terrible things that could happen to her on these streets. Yet with Elise around her safety felt like an indisputable fact. Elise was not the type to back down. She moved with incredible confidence despite her limp. It was as if the streets belonged to her.


    The city around them was as vibrant as ever. Stalls and street merchants peddled their wares, occasionally you could see one getting shaken down by the guardsmen. Willow watched as a collection of twelve men with signs marched down the street. The signs bore slogans supporting one of the claimants to the throne. They looked like inhabitants of the lows but-


    "Something doesn''t feel right about those people," Willow quietly commented. "They don''t seem interested in what they''re doing,"


    Elise followed her gaze. "Yep. Their signs are all too similar. They were probably handed to them. Their shoes are too good and too clean. That''s often the mark of a soldier. They dressed them up as poor folk but missed the shoes. Then there''s the complete lack of interest as you noted. They''re probably being paid to wave those signs around,"


    Elise waited for them to pass before continuing down the street.


    "Why?" Willow asked as they walked. "What good does sending people with a few signs into the lows do?"


    "Well, the lows are notorious for being full of dissatisfied people. I think the goal was to convince the people who don''t like the status quo to join in. It would make it look like their paymaster had organic support among the people. But they are so damn insincere in their efforts it falls flat and everyone can see they are bought goons,"


    Willow stayed behind Elise as they walked. She didn''t want to get in the way. So she stayed back a step as they talked. Elise looked over at her, measuring the distance between them with a touch of sad disappointment in her eye. But still, the conversation flowed casually.


    "But why does having support with the people matter? The lords and merchants are the ones who have the power aren''t they?"


    "The ''powerful'' tell us again and again that we''re weak, powerless and without influence. Funny how they then turn around and try to convince the people around them that people like us are on their side," Elise gave Willow a meaningful glance. "Almost like none of those things are true,"


    Willow wasn''t powerful and she wasn''t influential. In most cases, she''d prefer to be completely unseen. To vanish. She was most comfortable when she was being ignored yet part of her still craved validation. To be acknowledged. The group of unenthusiastic demonstrators faded into the bustle of city streets as they marched away. They left little impact on the people they passed who largely ignored them.


    "There will be more demonstrations like that before the week is out I think and they''ll be just as effective,"


    Elise approached a shop with Willow a step behind her. The shop had the words ''Grunty''s and Grue''s Second Hand Store'' written over the door in fading white paint. Tables had been set out on the street next to the door and were covered in all kinds of brick'' a brack. Teacups, vases, pottery, flowers, pots, pans and all kinds of common miscellaneous items were piled unceremoniously on the tables. The bright colours of the decorated objects stood in stark contrast to the drab exterior of the store.


    "A few things before we go in; they don''t do many checks on where the goods they''re selling came from. A lot of it is legitimate stuff sold to them by people who needed to get rid of something or a few extra coins. But there''s some stuff that''ll be from some less scrupulous individuals. Avoid anything that seems too precious and is too cheap. It may have an owner searching for it. Oh and before I forget here''s your day''s pay from yesterday. Spend it however you like,"


    Elise pressed fifteen silver into Willow''s hand. It was five times what she had been expecting.


    She couldn''t help but protest "This is way too much. Can you afford this?"


    "It''s fine, I make plenty of money and I have fairly substantial savings. Truth be told I don''t spend much normally. It kind of builds up after a while,"


    Willow looked at the clean, shiny coins in her hand and then at her slightly scruffy apron-wearing master. In her mind a question had taken form. Like many of the questions she wanted the answers to she was scared to ask it. She was worried that if she did, something would change between her and Elise. She was scared of asking a question Elise didn''t want to answer. But Elise had been tolerant this far. She had forgiven all of her mistakes. With a deep breath, Willow asked her question.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Why are you still in the lows then? Can''t you move to a better area?"


    Elise responded with a shrug.


    "I just find things much simpler down in the lows. There''s much less blind arrogance and despite its reputation, I find many of its people to be nicer. Perhaps that''s just me. I hate pointless pomp and pageantry and the people here a lot more direct than in the upper districts. In a way the lows make me feel like I''ve come home. Now shall we spend some money?"


    Willow followed Elise into the shop. Elise''s shop was dimly lit due to a lack of windows and being crowded by the buildings around it. This shop was dim due to the tall stacks of random junk that blocked the light from outside. Narrow alleys and paths twisted their way through the clutter. Much of it was gaudy and colourful. There were clothes, there were sets of cutlery, there were implements for fireplaces, medical goods, children''s toys, musical instruments, writing implements, torn and battered books and all of it was piled to the ceiling. Through these tight passages between the stacks of clutter, they made their way until they came to a clear area near the back of the shop.


    A thin man with a pointed nose and a moderate length line sat behind the counter. A broken pair of glasses missing one of its lenses served him as a monocle as he examined some documents. Beside him was a rack filled to the brim with worn and weathered wands. Willow caught Elise casting a spiteful glance at it. The man hadn''t looked up from what he was reading so Elise sauntered up to the counter and cleared her throat. Only his eye moved, it lifted from whatever text he was reading to focus on Elise. Then it shifted focus to Willow drinking in every available detail. His gaze made her deeply uncomfortable.


    "What can I help you with today Elise?" his wheezing voice spoke with practised politeness and butlerish mannerisms. "And if I may? Can I ask who is accompanying you today?"


    "This is Willow, my apprentice. She''s the reason why I''m here. She''ll be picking some stuff out for herself but I''m looking for an apron for her, a sewing kit, a set of wood chisels, an old, thick curtain, a hairbrush and a washbasin that doesn''t have a hole in it,"


    For a moment his wheezing voice dropped all pretences at politeness. "Grunty get over here! Customers!" his hoarse voice yelled before switching back to his more calm and posh speech. "You have an apprentice? I never pictured you as the type. That is surprising. Tell me what prompted you to take her on?"


    "Fishing for info, really? I thought you''d be doing enough business of that sort today already. Besides, there can''t be much of a market for information about me,"


    The man who Willow was assuming was called Grue leaned back in his chair.


    "You''d be surprised. You are something of an anomaly and you have made a number of enemies. Some even willing to pay for details they think they can use against you,"


    A large rotund woman with a long pointed nose similar to Grue''s and a line of identical length emerged from the stacks of goods. She carried a shovel and looked every bit like an old child-eating hag from the fairytales. She was oddly energetic. It was like she couldn''t ever be still.


    "Oh customers, great!" She was overflowing with boundless enthusiasm and sincere friendliness, it infected every word she spoke. "How can I help?"


    The man behind the counter repeated the list of things Elise had just asked him for and in an instant she was bounding away. She slipped through the stacks and piles of second-hand goods with impressive agility. This was her forest and she was on the hunt for a bunch of the objects it contained.


    "Don''t be afraid to rummage around to see if you can find some clothes you like. If you can''t, don''t worry there are other shops," Elise said gesturing to some of the piles.


    With a simple nod, Willow started carefully sorting through the stacked clothes. Most of it was pretty clean, here and there there were patches of mismatched fabrics had been sewn on to cover holes. Some garments were bright and colourful but others had lost their colours with time, use and repeated washes. Willow had never been shopping before. Most of her clothes had been handed to her with the implication she should be thankful for getting anything. As she searched she listened to Grue and Elise talk.


    "I know you like to project the air that you''re some sort of devious info broker but I know you''re making less money from it than you''re getting from just running the shop,"


    "That is true, for the moment. Once I get some good clients and build myself a reputation I''ll be able to earn myself considerable income from it,"


    Gingerly Willow pulled a shirt from the middle of the pile, wary that the whole mess might fall on her. It was a little too big for her but it would do.


    "I suspect things won''t be that simple. You know being a good information broker means you know things that put you and the people around you in danger?"


    She freed more suitable clothes from the dense collection of second-hand junk. There was something she found satisfying about searching around and digging out something she liked. It was like she was hunting for treasure. The conversation between Elise and Grue continued around.


    "I shall be fine. Besides, I suspect I''ll be able to earn a pretty penny should I ever figure out your secrets ''Elise'' "


    Willow froze in place.


    "What does he mean?" she whispered.


    He turned his gaze back to Willow. "You don''t know, do you? Elise is an alias it is not her real name,"


    "You hired someone to do divination on me, didn''t you? That seems like a misallocation of your funds. But divination is a tricky thing with a lot of nuances to it,"


    Elise turned to look at Willow. Elise''s voice and eyes contained no doubt only absolute certainty. "Elise is my real name. It has not always been my real name but it is who I am right now. It is who I choose to be,"