Chapter 1
Chapter One
Aela’s narrowed turquoise eyes trailed the old man as he hobbled away from her stall.
Instead of trading his blade for the rhodonite palm stone on her table, which would have eased the pain in his joints considerably, the old man pursed his lips, muttering something about Aela being a witch.
He limped toward the next stand along the market road, kicking up dust in his wake.
Concealed beneath her dust scarf, Aela’s lips quirked in an almost smile at the muttered insult.
She was used to being something no one understood and had learned long ago to give up hope of belonging.
She could have used another knife though.
The old man stopped at the next stall and flourished his knife from threadbare rags that hung off his thin frame with a nimbleness that belied his haggard appearance.
The blade exchanged hands with the vendor in a flash of steel beneath the dual suns that burned overhead.
Aela clicked her tongue behind her teeth and busied herself with rearranging the tonics, crystals, and powders on her table.
It had been nearly a decade since the last time she had been chased out of the Surya market.
The dust scarf wrapped around her head and face provided anonymity and protection against the harsh elements of the desert planet.
Aela reached into her hood, pushing her notable ashy-gray hair deeper into the cowl, lest any former client who had an unfavorable outcome using one of her crystals recognize her at the market.
There were always a few who thought they could force stones to do as they wished.
As if anyone could control nature.
There was no disguising her eyes, though. The turquoise of her irises paired with her ashy gray tresses was a rarity among the inhabitants of Prente’s darker-featured inhabitants.
The modest market village was nestled at the base of the eastern side of The Spine, the massive mountain range that bisected the planet of Prente.
Over the next few days, the town would host a market, and various townspeople and others from neighboring villages would assemble to play vendor.
The only feature Aela had that allowed her to walk among the Prentans mostly unassaulted was the tan coloring of her skin and the smattering of freckles along her cheekbones and nose.
She would always be an outsider, an enigma.
That suited her just fine. Relying on others was a luxury she didn’t deserve.
Patrons came and went, stirring puffs of dirt that eddied in the already sandy and arid air.
Across the dusty main road, a rotund man mopped at the sweat on his face to no avail.
While his stand sparked the initial curiosity of many passersby, any client worth their salt would seek her crystal wares instead.
Local legend claimed the precious resources buried deep within the perilous desert of Prente had once been used to fuel larger cities than any that remained.
Yet the knowledge of how to harness the power of crystals was lost in the sand.
Aela never told them how close they were to the truth.
In Surya and other outskirt towns, the gems were used in a far more primitive way.
A simpering girl pining after a married man would give silk scarves and leather boots for rose quartz that promised love within the pink-hued stone.
Successful men who sought more wealth would find security in wearing a green aventurine bracelet tucked under their sleeve.
A mother would pay handsomely in tailor-fit clothing for sardonyx, which would protect her children and home while she was away.
Aela kept her more volatile wares carefully wrapped beneath the table, waiting for the right clientele to inquire. She bent down to make sure the combustible vials were well padded before straightening to survey the market throng.
Amid the increasingly crowded market trail, a woman herded her children to the middle of the road, their eyes wide, darting to either side of the street. Crinkles formed atop her cheeks as Aela watched the boy’s expressions at the various offerings.
Seeing the boys with their mother had Aela abandoning the discretion she wore like a second skin. With a quick whistle, she caught the younger child’s attention and beckoned him forward.
The boy pulled at his mother’s skirt and darted toward Aela’s stand.
Aela pulled down the scarf from her face and regarded the child’s large brown eyes.
“Would you like a crystal?” Aela whispered conspiratorially.
The boy’s brown eyes grew even larger as he nodded.
His mother, to her credit, banded her arms around his chest, attempting to pull him away from her booth.
“I mean him no harm,” Aela reassured, her gaze softening as she looked at the mother.
Aela plucked a small, rough cluster of citrine from her table and held it out for the boy. He looked up at his mother, but she didn’t break her stare from Aela. She kept hold of her son and nodded curtly. The boy reached for the crystal, but Aela lifted it out of his grasp.
“This will help your creativity,” Aela said, adding a tinge of mysticism to her voice while she slowly turned the citrine over to catch the light filtering into her shade tent.
The boy’s eyes brightened, taking on a honey hue as he beheld the glittering deep-orange and amber stone. Aela glanced at his mother, whose features had eased into a small smile that graced her sun-tanned face, lined with delicate age.
Aela placed the citrine cluster in the boy’s outstretched hand and continued, “Treat it properly, and it will serve you well.”
The older boy on the mother’s other side eyed his brother’s crystal. Aela put her hands on her hips and shifted her focus to him.
“And you...”
His eyes darted to her, his mouth falling open slightly. She selected another small specimen from the table.
“This will help keep you balanced,” she said, as she extended the murky white quartz to him.
“You probably need it with this one, hmm?” Aela gestured to his younger brother, who was mesmerized with his new treasure.
The older boy nodded absentmindedly while he turned the quartz cluster over in his hand, tracing the geometric angles with a finger.
Aela laughed softly to herself and pulled up her dust scarf to conceal the lower half of her face once more.
At their mother’s prodding, the boys stammered their thanks and blessings of Leonta, the Goddess of Leo.
Without a backward glance, their mother ushered them back near the center of the path.
It was rare for Aela to have such a pleasant experience in Surya. As her eyes trailed the family walking away, she couldn’t help but remember visiting an underwater market with her mother when she was of a similar age.
Aela swam at her mother’s side, their native magic enabling them to breathe beneath the waves.
The submerged market was aglow with murky light, highlighting little coral and rock alcoves brimming with specialty goods found nowhere else in the realm.
Earlier that day, Aela had spilled her mother’s hair oil, and instead of receiving a reprimand, her mother had leveled Aela with a look and said, “You know what this means. You get to be the one to negotiate the price for its replacement.”
When they had breached the surface after their successful visit to the submerged market, Aela and her mother marveled at the trove they had come up with, hair oil being among them. They then spent the better part of the afternoon there on the sand, enjoying the surf and sun.
Aela blinked away the sudden sting behind her eyes. She didn’t regret giving the crystals to the boys, despite their value and what she could have traded them for. The Fates knew everyone could use all the help they could get on Prente.
Aela herself used crystals for what she could, even though her kind shouldn’t need the aid.
She had no desire to attract companionship with rose quartz, but as for its other use—to send a call out into all the realms for love to find her…
well. In the century she had been marooned on the desert planet, none of her loved ones had come for her.
Intention was critical when handling crystals.
There was no telling with absolute certainty that things would turn out as desired; nature always had the last word.
Though for all of nature’s mysteries and the lifetime requirement it would take to unravel all its secrets, Aela was a self-made expert on the stones.
She had nothing but time to study them after discovering there was truly no way off the desert planet.
Not long into her isolation on Prente, she had learned it was better to stay busy rather than surrender to the helplessness she felt during the early years of her exile.
The crystals she mined gave her a purpose after what Fate had dealt her.
With her extensive knowledge of the crystals, the old man wasn’t wrong when he called her a witch.
No one had distilled crystals into their most potent forms and experimented like she could, as if she had an innate ability to unearth the secrets buried within.
“What do you have to offer today?”
Aela nearly leapt out of her skin as brawny arms and calloused hands from their time in the crystal mines wrapped around her waist. She jabbed an elbow back, which emitted an oof from Jaelin behind her.
“What in the twelve hells are you doing here?” Aela demanded.
“I live here, remember?”
“I haven’t seen you in five years.”
“Eight.”
Aela put distance between her and her former lover to rearrange the tonics and the crystal bracelets she had beaded by hand on her table.
“So, where have you been?” Aela asked.
Jaelin tsked under his breath. “Jealousy isn’t a good color for you, Aela. If I remember correctly, it was you who insisted on keeping things casual between us.”