Chapter 1 #2
She’d been the first person in Abberwyn to look at me without fear after my mother died.
When the other Academy students whispered and kept their distance, Maren had appeared one afternoon with tea and cinnamon buns, settling beside me in the courtyard like my reputation for dangerous magic meant nothing.
“You’re allowed to take up space, love,” she’d said. “Even the kind that scares people.”
Now she glanced toward the door, her usual warmth dimming.
The café‘s atmosphere had shifted while I’d been focused on the dragon. Conversations that should have resumed stayed hushed. A middle-aged woman near the counter watched me over the rim of her cup. When I met her gaze, she looked away fast enough to slosh tea onto her saucer.
“Magic like that isn’t natural.” The voice came from somewhere behind me, pitched loud enough to carry. “Snuffing out spells like candle flames... what else could she snuff out?”
My fingers tightened on the cup.
“Creatures have been odd all tenday.” A different voice, quieter but no less pointed. “Garden drakes snapping at owners. Something’s wrong with the ley-lines, I swear it.”
“I’m glad Lady Kelda returned to town. She arrived just in time to make things right.” The third speaker sounded almost thoughtful. “She’s been visiting the manor daily, they say. That lord who never sees anyone, he lets her in.”
I set down my cup carefully, very carefully, before the tremor in my hands could send it crashing to the floor.
Maren’s jaw tightened. She shifted closer, creating a buffer between me and the room’s growing unease with nothing but her solid presence.
“Ignore them,” she said.
But we both knew I couldn’t.
“Lady Kelda.” Maren leant close, her voice dropping beneath the swell of gossip. “You know what she specialises in, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
“Veil Magic.” Maren’s tone carried disapproval.
She did have strong opinions about things that walked the edge of acceptable practice.
“Illusions and memory work. They say she’s some kind of specialist, but that sort of magic has a way of leaving fingerprints,” she nodded.
“You don’t always notice them at first. But records don’t quite line up.
People remember things out of order. Little gaps start to form.
And it can’t make something real,” she added. “It can only make you forget what was.”
Veil Magic occupied an uncomfortable space in Lumenvale society.
Not forbidden, exactly, but viewed with the kind of wary respect people gave to things that could unravel reality if wielded carelessly.
Most practitioners focused on the domestic arts: Brewworking to create healing teas and calming draughts, Hearthcraft to enchant homes with warmth and comfort, Creaturae Arts to maintain the bonds between humans and dragons. Magic that nurtured. Magic that built.
“The Morvain family are renowned Hearthcrafters,” someone said from a nearby table.
The merchant woman who’d watched me earlier had found her voice again.
“Lady Kelda’s mother designed the enchantments for half the noble estates in the valley.
Self-warming hearths, windows that never let in rain, lamps that sense your mood and adjust the light.
..” She gestured vaguely, as if Lysa should already know all this. “Lady Kelda inherited the gift.”
The manor these people were talking about was the Stormgarde family mansion, but everyone’d been calling it the Crumbling Manor since I was a little kid.
It perched on the cliffs above Abberwyn, its grey towers visible from the lower town when the mist cleared.
Once it had been beautiful, people said.
A sanctuary for difficult creatures, the kind other handlers gave up on.
The Stormgarde family had made their reputation there, taming the untamable.
Well, something had obviously gone wrong.
Maren’s hand found my elbow. “Come on. Let’s get you properly fed before you fall over.”
I let Maren steer me toward the corner booth. She disappeared into the back and returned with a plate of honey cakes and another cup of tea, this one milder, fragrant with chamomile and something citrus. This was my third tea now, and my hands were still shaking.
“Eat,” she said, settling across from me with her own cup. “You’ve gone pale.”
I bit into a cake. The honey burst across my tongue, sweet enough to chase away the lingering metallic taste my magic had left behind.
“So.” Maren propped her chin on her hand, her dark eyes glinting with mischief. “When are you going to stop rescuing creatures and start rescuing yourself?”
I choked. “What?”
“You heard me.” She gestured at me with her teaspoon. “Twenty-three years old, brilliant, shaped like a bloody goddess, and you spend every waking moment elbow-deep in dragon sick.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “I’m not—“
“You are.” Maren’s grin widened. “Briony agrees with me, by the way. We’ve discussed it extensively.”
“You and my sister have been discussing me?”
“Someone has to.” She leant forward. “When was the last time you let yourself want something? And I don’t mean wanting to heal the next impossible case. I mean wanting. The kind that makes you feel wicked.”
My face blazed. I shoved another bite of honey cake into my mouth to avoid answering.
“That’s what I thought.” Maren’s expression softened, though the teasing glint remained. “Love, you’re allowed to have desires that have nothing to do with saving things. You’re allowed to be selfish. Greedy, even.”
I thought about the novels hidden under my mattress. The ones with covers depicting shirtless warriors and women in strategically torn gowns. The scenes that made my breath catch, that left me restless and aching.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted quietly.
“Then it’s time you learnt.” Maren reached across the table, squeezing my stained fingers. “The universe isn’t going to hand you permission, Lysa. You have to take it.”
Something in her tone made my pulse quicken.
“What if I don’t deserve it?”
“Rubbish.” Maren sat back, utterly certain. “You deserve everything. Passion, pleasure, someone who looks at you like you’re the only star in the sky.” Her smile turned wicked. “Someone who makes you forget your own name.”
I focused on my honey cake with probably more attention than it deserved, using each slow bite as an excuse not to meet Maren’s knowing gaze. The sweet-sticky glaze suddenly required thorough examination.
Relaxing, as it turned out, wasn’t happening. I reached for my cloak, still damp from the walk over, when the door slammed open hard enough to rattle the teapots on their shelves.
The man who stumbled inside tracked mud and rain across Maren’s floors. His chest heaved with each breath, water streaming from his hair and plastering his shirt to his skin. I recognised him vaguely, one of the cliffside farmers who brought eggs to the market square on Sundays.
“Is the creature-healer here?” His eyes swept the café. “The one from the infirmary?”
All conversation died.
“My garden drake.” He dragged a hand across his face, smearing rain and something that might have been tears. “She’s gone mad. She snapped at me, at my daughter, she’s never done that. Never. Something’s wrong with her.”
The exhaustion that had settled into my bones deepened, spreading through my muscles.
I’d already worked twelve hours today. My hands still ached from the wyrmling this morning, and my gift had left the familiar hollow beneath my ribs, the emptiness that always followed when I pushed too hard.
Quieting required precision; when my hands failed, the magic tore through them instead.
I was already nodding. “Let me get my kit.”
Maren caught my wrist before I could move. “Lysa, you’re dead on your feet.”
“I’m fine.” I pulled free gently, already scanning the room for my satchel. There, beneath the table where I’d left it, its leather worn soft from years of use.
“You’re not.” Maren’s voice dropped low enough that only I could hear. “You keep giving pieces of yourself away, love. What happens when there’s nothing left?”
I slung the strap over my shoulder, the familiar weight settling against my hip. “Then I’ll find more pieces.”
The rain had intensified while I’d been inside, fat drops that struck the cobblestones hard enough to bounce.
I pulled my cloak tight, but the fabric was already soaked through from earlier.
Water found its way beneath the collar, trickling down my spine and between my shoulder blades.
I arched slightly, trying to shift the wet fabric away from my skin, and caught the farmer staring.
He looked away fast, colour rising in his rain-pale cheeks.
We walked quickly, our boots splashing through puddles that reflected the floating lanterns overhead. The enchanted lights bobbed gently on their invisible tethers, casting warm golden pools.
“How long has she been like this?” I asked, watching my breath mist in the cold air.
“Started this morning.” The farmer’s voice shook. “First she wouldn’t eat. Then she bit my hand when I tried to check on her.” He held up his palm, showing angry red marks. “I’ve had Clover since she was a hatchling. Five years. She’s never—“
“It’s not her fault,” I said quickly. “Something’s affecting the creatures. We’ve had three cases this tenday alone.”
We turned onto Bridge Street, following the Silver River as it wound through the lower town. The rain made everything shimmer, shop windows reflecting lamplight, the river rushing dark and swift beneath the stone arches, even the moss growing between cobblestones seemed to glow faintly green.
“My neighbour’s familiar went strange yesterday,” the farmer said. “Wouldn’t leave his perch. Just sat there, trembling.” He hesitated. “People are saying it’s the ley-lines. That something’s wrong up at the manor, and it’s spreading.”
The manor. Always the manor. I pushed wet hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. My fingers came away stained purple from the tincture I’d mixed this afternoon.
“The Stormgardes used to manage the ley-line convergence,” the farmer continued, his words coming faster now. “When Lord Fenrik’s parents were alive, the magic flowed clean. But now...”
Now the estate crumbled on its cliff, and its lord never emerged.
We passed The Silver Bell tavern, warmth and music spilling from its open door. I caught a glimpse of packed tables, people laughing over mugs of hot cider, a fiddler tuning her instrument by the fire. The scent of roasted meat made my stomach clench.
I stopped walking. Was my head actually spinning from fatigue?
No, the cobblestones were trembling. It was a subtle quake, but the sensation travelled up through my boots.
Every floating lantern in the street flickered once, then it passed.
The lanterns steadied and the cobblestones stilled.
Rain continued to fall in steady, relentless sheets.
The farmer hadn’t noticed. He’d already walked several paces ahead, still talking about his drake’s symptoms.