I slammed the jewel down against the boulder. My knuckles throbbed but the stone was still intact. Too bad it hadn’t cracked open and spilt its secrets onto the grey rock. Aaron looked over at me from where he sat. He clenched a handful of grass clippings, torn out by the root, in his fist. The Jove River trickled by us. Miles downstream, along the Brita Boundaries, it expanded large enough for barge traffic. But here, it was just a thin brook; barely a creek. And quiet enough for me to think. Below us, the village center prepared itself for nightfall. Below us, the Captain sat at his desk and awaited our return. I dug my nails into the rich soil.
“Melody, really, we’ll figure something out,” he said. I waved my red knuckles in his direction and he frowned.
“There’s nothing to figure out,” I said. The Captain’s threat whispered through my mind and my heart clenched as I tried not to look down at headquarters. Tendrils of sun flickered over the grass. The last rays flashed across Aaron’s glasses. “It won’t work for me. I don’t know how to make it show us anything.”
This wasn’t a fair test at all. How was I supposed to be able to figure out this secret? What if it was just a regular rock? All I wanted was to bury my face in my hands and sob like a child. But I couldn’t let Aaron see me cry. He had always been the weaker one, the one I comforted. And now in crisis, I couldn’t let the roles change. Squinting into the distance, I ground my teeth.
“Melody…”
“What? Is there some other stupid advice you want to give me?” I snapped.
“No. It’s just…”
“We don’t have time for this. For anything. We’re just going to get kicked back onto the street. Is that what you want? For us to become performers? You know what happens to Order members who are dismissed. They don’t last very long out there.”
Resignation folded his shoulders. His eyes gazed at a point above my head, his mouth hard. “Just look.” He raised an arm and pointed behind me. I followed his gaze.
Crimson light lit the valley below us. At first, I thought it was just the glowing remains of day. But the beams moved and flicked. I shaded my eyes. Flames stretched up toward the sky, a threat to set the clouds on fire. I could see Headquarters, see the wooden beams through which smoke spiraled. The structure creaked, on the verge of collapse. Dark shapes moved around the perimeter. From beneath their cloaks, matches flew onto the enflamed pyre. Magic sizzled under my skin and pulsed readily at my fingertips.
“No!” I rose and scrambled forward.
“Melody!”
I ignored him. It was a half-mile descent to the village through the thinly grassed meadow. I could get there in minutes. An explosion shook the structure. Tremors traveled through the ground. My knees slammed into the hard dirt as I lost my balance. I had to get there. Had to save them. I pushed myself to standing when Aaron grabbed my wrists. His brows curved down into a frown.
I felt for the knife at my waistband. “We have to help. Teleport us.”
“Are you crazy? We could land in the center of a burning room and die. We can’t risk it,” Aaron said. I wanted to remind him of all that the Order had risked for us long ago. That we owed them our lives.
“But it’s our duty,” I cried. The acrid tang of smoke stung my nose. I blinked away haze as I glanced toward the flames.
“No,” he said. “Our duty is to protect the stone.” He pulled me onto the ground. Grass tickled my bare legs and I wanted to wrench myself away but he gripped me hard. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Whoever set the fire is probably looking for it.”
I needed to tell him that he was wrong, but as I looked back at the shadows around the flames, my blood cooled. My arms went limp but he did not release his hold.
“We have to get away from here,” he said. I nodded and he pulled me to stand.
“You can let go,” I said. He hesitated, still holding my wrists. I rolled my eyes. “I promise I won’t run.”
“Fine,” he said. We made our way back to the river and I slipped the stone into my pocket. Silky plumes of smoke funneled into the darkening heavens.
The lazy current of the water made it easy for us to cross the river. The cool liquid seeped into my leggings and glued the fabric to my skin. I grimaced as I followed Aaron out of the stream, my clothes heavy. Grass crunched beneath our feet as we hurried away from Brita. It would’ve been nice not to have to walk, but Aaron never went outside the Britan boundaries. Teleportation required familiarity of some form or other.
Not that we knew where we were going anyway. I’d never been outside the boundaries either, never been outside the outline of the country. When the night sky had completely blacked out the light of the sun, other than the eerie glow of the coals that were once our home, I curled my magic into two glowing orbs that balanced on my palms. The landscape before us rolled toward the horizons in hills of never-ending grass. Aaron barreled on ahead of me.
“Wow.”
“What?” He called back over his shoulder.
“Nothing. I just didn’t know you knew how to walk,” I replied. I could picture his eyes rolling back in his head, annoyed that he had me for a partner.
“Wait up.” I panted up the hill to where he stood. His black curls rustled in the wind, the muscles in his back tensed. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off. “Aaron, we should stop. Rest. I can hide us. At least for the night.”
He did not turn and I walked around to face him. In the orb’s blue glow, his eyes glistened. His body shook as he wiped a hand across his nose.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered. He shook his head, arms crossed.
“It wasn’t just your home,” he said.
“I know.” I moved toward him but he stepped back.
“It wasn’t,” he repeated. And I could see him for what he was beneath the magic: just a homeless, orphaned thirteen-year-old boy.
“I’m so sorry,” I said and I grabbed his shoulders. On the verge of tears, he folded into me, his body thin beneath my hands. I helped him sit down on the cold grass. In the night air, I wove a cube of protection around us. His eyes traced the pattern as my magic glowed and then disappeared, an ebb and flow of familiarity. I lost myself to the buzz, to the patterns. Stay strong, I reminded myself, biting my lip. Aaron’s sobs echoed in the space as he cried into my shirt just like he had when I first met him.
When the Order had found me, I had been seven years-old. I was playing in the street, dressed in rags. Sitting on my haunches, I watched as blue sparks trickled from my fingers and fell onto the concrete. Flowers bloomed where my magic touched the ground. People in Brita had acted less than kindly toward me when they had seen such displays of power. One day, after a nasty incident with a shopkeeper, the Captain approached me and told me to come with him. I’d been horrified, thought that he would take me back to the orphanage I’d escaped. But I was too small to fight him. He brought me to Headquarters, gave me a bed to sleep in, food to eat, a place to train. He taught me how to use my magic.
They found Aaron when he was five. I had been at the Order for a year when they brought him in. All the Order children younger than nine slept in the same room and he was assigned to be my bunkmate. He cried all through that first night. When I asked him what was wrong (right after I threatened him that I’d strangle him in his sleep if he didn’t shut up), he clung onto me and cried until the sun came up.
As we had learned, the Order was a group of Mages. They were born with magic to protect their fellow ignorant brothers and sisters from dark forces that hid in all corners of civilization. War was caused by darkness as was famine and disease. The Order fought those that sought to bring evil into the world. We had all sworn to protect and serve the human race until we were no longer needed. Like that was going to happen any time soon.
I held Aaron against me even though my stomach ached. The Order was gone. The people who had loved us, who had accepted us, who had taught us how to use the magic that had alienated us from other humans, were gone. Rocking him like a baby, I whispered words I didn’t believe into his ear until he fell asleep in my arms. Slowly, I shifted him onto the ground. He lay there, snoring.
“I’ll take first watch,” I whispered and stepped outside of the protective circle. The acrid smell of smoke drifted toward me as the wind blew through my thin clothes. My nose wrinkled at the stench. It would have been a beautiful night if the flames from headquarters did not still blaze and bathe Brita with a golden glow. I swallowed and swiped the tears from my cheeks with a quick hand.
Be strong, I whispered to myself. So I watched the fire settle down to embers and, as the sun rose, cool to ash. My nails pressed red crescents into my arm, but still, I watched. My home was truly gone.
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