Chapter 1 #2
She stayed submerged to the neck until her skin wrinkled. Steam curled around her ankles as she stepped out of the tub, her hair hanging to the small of her back. Drying off, she pulled on a fresh dress and braided her brown hair with quick, practiced fingers.
As the last strand was tucked into place, she let her fingers drift across the oak dresser, tracing the grain.
Evening light spilled through the leaded windows, a luxury she hadn’t grown used to yet.
Plants along the windowsill drank it in, their leaves reaching skyward.
Tapestries of mountains and trees hung along the walls, grounding her in the places she’d always felt safest. Her bed, freshly made with crisp linens, beckoned her to disturb its neatness. The room was peaceful. Serene.
It was a lie.
She laid back on her bed when her mother, Ivy, called, “Dinner!”
Gisela entered the dining room. The calm, familiar rhythm of the house only made her skin crawl.
Her father, Orion, moved with his usual composure, laying out slices of meat with a steady hand.
The servants hovered quietly, their presence almost invisible, like her parents preferred.
Doing the small things kept the Valors grounded in who they were, even under the weight of a new title.
“Another Mystic was found today,” Orion said, remarking on it like it was the weather. “Her family . . . unless they can prove ignorance, will be sent to the King’s prison.”
“Has that ever worked? Do we know what happened to the last family?” Noah said, earning a glare from their father.
Gisela dropped a piece of bread onto her plate harder than she intended.
“You’re quiet today, Gisela,” Ivy said.
“I don’t have much to say after watching a woman die by sword.”
Her mother’s gaze sharpened. “Gisela, your sister is at the table. Spare her the details.”
“Why hide the truth from her? She’ll be out there one day too.”
“There’s nothing for us to worry about. We have no Mystic lineage,” Orion said, calmly cutting his meat.
“How do you know?” Vivi asked.
She was years away from the violent reality of inspections.
In school, they learned about the Six gods of Mystralos and the villages tied to them: Frosthaven, Sunhold, Rockridge, Thunderpeak, Aquamere, and Windspire.
Yet the Mystics themselves went unmentioned, save for the incident in Thunderpeak—the family the kingdom pointed to whenever fear was needed.
Names carried power.
The true names of the gods themselves had been long erased. Time and fear suppressed them—the world itself refused to remember.
“No Mystic in our bloodline. Not that I’ve ever known,” Orion explained.
Ivy gave Vivi’s hand a soft squeeze. “The gift is only passed through bloodlines.”
“Far from a gift,” Orion muttered.
Ivy gave a stiff nod as he went on.
“We do the inspections every six months to find the small marks. Mystics receive one anywhere between the ages of eighteen to twenty-one. When they’re discovered, they . . . well, they’re dealt with. It’s harsh, Vivi, but we can’t risk their powers threatening Mystralos.”
Gisela shifted in her seat, tension coiling in her shoulders. “Isn’t it a little hypocritical, though, Father? Killing Mystics blessed by the gods while we keep using the Life Stones they gifted us?”
“Gisela,” Ivy warned. Her hand gripped the arm of her chair.
“How do you think the King sleeps at night?” Gisela pushed. “Knowing he kills innocents?” The words slipped through her mouth so fast; they burned her tongue.
“Like a baby,” Noah mumbled.
Orion’s scrutiny pinned her to the chair. But curiosity slipped through.
“What you speak of is treason, and you will not ask such a thing again,” Ivy scolded, more gently than her words allowed.
“The King doesn’t forgive questions like that. Think of your sister, your brother . . . our family,” Orion added.
“I’m not hungry,” Gisela said as she pushed her chair away from the table.
Wood screeched across the floor. She let the door slam behind her as she left the dining room.
Her pulse raced. Confronting her father at dinner was uncharted territory.
Orion didn’t relish violence. The inspection left a shadow across his shoulders, even though he tried to hide it.
Perhaps he was torn, trying to reconcile the man he’d always been with the man his new position demanded he become.
When the sounds of dinner faded into the evening quiet, footsteps approached her door. Noah knocked and pushed it open. “Can I come in?”
Gisela nodded.
“What was that all about?”
She sat up in her bed, leaning against the headboard. “I don’t know. Today rattled me.”
“I get it,” he said, voice low. “But speaking like that in front of the new Village Lord . . . reckless.”
She sighed. “I know. But right before Imbuing Day? The Six gave us the Stones to keep our land alive. And we just kill their own and call it justice.”
Noah sat beside her. “Between you and me, I don’t disagree with you. But this is the way of things.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I want you to be safe.”
She pressed her lips into a tight line and leaned against him.
“Father’s doing what he has to,” Noah added. “Cillian let everything fall apart. Little salt from Sunhold, no stone from Rockridge, not enough fish from Aquamere. It’s a mess. He’ll fix it all.”
She stood and paced in front of her bed. If anyone could assess Frosthaven and actually fix it, it was Orion Valor.
“There has to be another way,” she said. “Fear isn’t meant to be answered with cruelty.”
Noah stared at her. “We’ve seen executions before, Gisela. Since we were kids. But this . . . this is different. You’re different. What changed?”
Nothing had changed.
She had always hated it—every inspection, every death—but what was normal had to be endured. She’d buried the anger and the horror for years. Today, though, the shame of that endurance threatened to claw its way up.
She froze mid-step. “Nothing.”
Gisela waited until the last candle in the hallway surrendered to darkness. The inspection had come sooner than it should have. She wouldn’t trust the guards’ timing again.
Her daytime foraging trips to the Snowdrift Forest for the family herbalist shop were routine, but this time, in the protection of the night, she needed materials of her own.
She was running low; this trip couldn’t wait.
Wearing a black cloak, she grabbed her satchel and slipped out the front door.
She navigated the dark alleyways and weaved through the shadows, keeping her senses heightened.
From the corner of an abandoned building, she spotted a group of drunken men stumbling out of a pub.
The ale in Frosthaven was weak. They must have been drinking for hours.
Gisela waited for the men to clear the alley and hurried into the field that led to the forest’s edge. A chill ran down her spine and she spun. She scanned the darkness.
There was no one there.
The Snowdrift Forest changed after dark.
What was a sanctuary in the daylight now felt like a gauntlet she had to navigate.
She kept her steps light. Shadows twisted between the trunks, and every rustle of leaves made her pulse jump.
Someone could be watching. If they were, it would be the end of her.
She needed ingredients that came from the same ancient tree, solitary and hidden deep within the forest. Gisela discovered it years ago, and since then, it had been hers—as much a part of her as the secrets she kept.
Bark, root, aether leaf, silver sap, dreamberries. Together, they formed a pliant putty.
She learned how to make it not long ago as an unknown rebellion against the world that sought to control. She’d called it The Guardian Tree long before she’d fully understood why. And now, it stood as her only ally in this twisted kingdom.
In the heart of the forest, where the moonlight barely touched the earth, the tree was unmistakable.
Its height stretched far beyond the eye’s reach.
Long vines draped down from its limbs, swaying in the cool breeze of the night.
Clusters of violet dreamberries decorated the branches.
The iridescent leaves never fell, even in the harshest of winters.
Gisela approached the tree trunk carefully. She dug the root from the soil, broke off a piece of bark, and coaxed the silver sap out. The sap glistened like liquid stars, each drop precious as she caught it in a small jar.
She scaled the tree, gripping the rough bark, and plucked a handful of dreamberries.
Their violet hue glowed faintly in the dark and pulsed with energy between her fingers.
She descended the tree with precision, jumping when she was close enough to the ground.
The forest floor crunched beneath her shoes.
Another chill ran down her spine as she studied the forest. Movement in the bush to her left. She tensed—
A rabbit.
She exhaled, relief escaping her throat. But the tightness in her chest remained.
The putty shimmered with an impossible translucence as she ground the ingredients in her mortar. She rubbed a small amount behind her ear, freshening a coat she never let fade, and stored the rest safely in a new jar.
Gisela returned to her room, closing the door with a soft click. She pressed her back to it, letting the solid weight of the oak hold the rest of the world at bay.
The jar of hylja, her small miracle of concealment, was safely hidden beneath her bed. She changed into a silk nightgown meant for nobility. Comfort brushed her skin, but the weight of every coin it cost sank in her gut.
At her mirror, she brushed her hair aside to check the area behind her ear.
She smiled. It was as if nothing had ever been there.
No amount of water or scrubbing could wear it down.
It simply faded over time. She could only pray to the Six that the tree remained there, because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t take long for the village to discover her secret.
Three months ago, on her twentieth birthday, she had become a Mystic.