King Sephen bore down on the piece of parchment before him. It was a letter that topped a pile of many letters that bore the varying insignia of villages, cities, and neighboring nation states that required his attention. However, this letter had arrived late, clutched in the palm of an out of breath young man, who looked as if he had just seen a ghost the moment the king opened the heavy creaking door to his study. He waved the boy away with a small gesture, clearly forgetting his kingly matters of daytime business. Candles lit the room with a soft orange glow that threw deep shadows across his heavy brow. They threw even heavier borders across his face than it normally wore. He wasn’t a large man, but King Sephen’s shoulders sloped as if he had carried cities on his back. As habit, he carelessly ripped the wax seal and unfurled the fresh letter with the insignia of Galan’s Envisume, Guild of Casters, with what seemed like a divination. 

Sephen wasn’t one for superstition. While he did respect the Envisume for their service to his kingdom, his father before that, grandmother before that, and so forth, he didn’t quite understand their use in a modern society. They educated and refined young Casters for his military, but from what he understood, this consisted of history, education, and scholarly verbiage that he had no patience for. Somehow their tricks and tales still held a firm grasp on Galan’s consciousness. Sephen saw what was in his country’s future and it was something more materialist. Never in his time as king— his life, more like —he ever witnessed an officiated divination accompanied by signatures of the Shades written in neat, swirling script.

When our tides have fallen away, a new evil will rise from the sand. In the tower of the King, a new power will emerge, cold-eyed and power-hungry. The mountain’s soles will birthed its twin in thunderous summer song. Count seven from ten years’ time: two voracious souls carve open the earth for the heart of Galan. The people will witness two Somni spin the earth and kill the king.

They were never the kind for brevity. Sephen clear eyes darkened at the last three words, a small chill running down his right arm. His fingers moved to stroke his face hair as if to comfort an unpleasant thought. Warmth emanating from the crackling hearth from across the study called seductively, Sephen’s legs moved him from the stiff chair at his desk to standing before the fire. Above the hearth were gilded and shining trinkets. A gilded silver horse with a winding key in its back, a jeweled box with a false bottom, as well as many other valuables he collected over his reign as king.

 Then, like shaking off dust from his hair, his composure returned. A triumphant smirk crawled across his lips and Sephen folded the parchment. His fingers traced the crease in the material, like cracked earth, breathing quietly. He ripped the parchment, tossing pieces into the fire like coins into a fountain. Each piece burned blue, perhaps the last remnants of a spell wearing off the ink. He would not be swayed by delusion. The King turned back to his study, carefully taking in the details of his crafted space.

From an old wardrobes, King Sephen withdrew a coat, lined with furs and armored shoulders. He made his way to the doorway of his study, where two guards waited.

“I must see my sister.”

Wind caressed the grass of Mountain Kersiva, whistling between the blades a soft song. The clouds rushed overhead, weaving between each peak. An eagle soared overhead, perhaps eyeing a wandering mouse scurrying across the uneven grooves of Kersiva’s feet. An alluring scent of cooking meat and wood snaked its way high into the crisp mountain air. A loud crack from below gave the eagle pause and it eyed a settlement below, a small town awakening with the late morning sun.

A young woman lifted a shining axe, bringing it down on another log with a second clap. Her practiced hands lined up another log before slicing it in two in a single movement. Long, wild black hair were tied back in a high bun at the top of her head, some curled locked falling around her sheening face. Even for a young woman, she wore leggings and a tunic like most men, including a paur of suspenders holding up her leggings. She triumphantly stepped back to admire the pile of halves she produced, before stacking them in a hand-woven basket on the ground.

She walked around back to the front of her home, not fit for housing more than three, with the basket slung around her back. The roof was grown over in vines, she ducked past a few hanging thorny plants that bore chartreuse flowers. Every house in Kersiva’s Sole was painted brightly against the mountainside’s green grass. Her home was no different, an orange door to compliment the fly-catchers that dressed shingles above her head. As she ducked her head inside of the small home, she carefully placed the basket of logs on a table at the center of the room.

“Fia, I have the wood that you asked for,” the young woman said to an older woman rolling dough at the far end of the room near a flickering oven.

The older woman, known in the village as Fia Caia, looked over the basket with an amused smile. “Zuri, I only asked for a log, not seven.” She chuckled, taking two halves in her hand and throwing them into the hearth.

“Sorry, I got a bit carried away,” the girl replied, a smile crossing her face. “I was watching an eagle flying about. Then, I wondered if Casters in the capital city can turn into eagle—or any animal. Do you think they can?”

Caia kneaded the dough with her heavy knotted fingers. “With magic, they can do anything. Casters fly, change…they can kill, too. Perhaps you should be more careful of who you idolize.”

Zuri rolled her eyes, staring off through the kitchen window with a soft ‘hmph’. The breeze pushed through a small crack of the open window and brushed a curl across her forehead. Although she had turned seventeen in the fall, Zuri’s mind, somehow still, was a spring of dreams and stories of the Capital of Galan.

It was so large and lively that they could see its towers from Kersiva’s hillside, and only holidays they could see the light of bonfires turn the sky gold. Many nights as a child her Fia and Fio would sit beside her on the grass to gaze at the shining light from the King’s Tower. Even this morning, as she restlessly drummed her fingers on the old uneven glass of the kitchen window, she wondered what the Capital’s busy roads sounded like.

“Zuri.”

She started when her Fia grasped her shoulder tightly. In Fia’s other hand was a small basket, filled to the brim with golden-brown kurpa that were still steaming. “I need you to take this to Lady Hersha. It is her daughter’s engagement shower today and she requested these with some of our honey. Please make sure they get to her quickly.”

“Right.” Zuri sighed, taking the basket and closing a woven lid over the buttery aroma of the kurpa.  She wrapped the lid closed tightly with a cloth, hurrying out the house.

Lady Hersha was a woman who had married into a wealthy family from the Capital. Lady Hersha and her husband built their home near the closest peak to Kersiva’s Sole. By the standards of the rest of the village it was a modern, out of place mansion that marred the sweet countenance of the mountainside. Zuri, however, was fascinated. Spiraling fences, large black doors with gilded gold doorknobs, and even a fountain decorated the house. From the front, Zuri could spy a large wooden clock that stood a head taller than even her. Some days, she could hear its deep bell ring on the hour. Lady Hersha even had a private lane built to accompany visiting carriages that wrapped around her land and looped back to the main road. While Zuri was captivated by the various tools, trinkets, and fashions that were frequently delivered to Lady Hersha’s home, she always had the distinct feeling that Lady Hersha did not like her very well. She was a beautiful woman with swirling green eyes that seemed to stiffen whenever Zuri appeared, which changed marred her otherwise beautiful face.

Perhaps it was that Zuri didn’t quite take after her Fia’s part of the family. Fia Caia, though she still retained her homeland accent was small and pale in comparison to Zuri’s tall and umber complexion. Zuri spoke Gelen near perfectly, but was sometimes still treated as…not.

Kersiva’s Sole was a small enough village that Zuri was well acquainted with each house and their families. The Fervos lived in a small rosy house a ways away from her own. They were an older couple whose children left the Sole for the Capital. Periodically, a carriage of men brings gifts and food to their doorstep and flowery perfumes with powerful scents. Almost all the Josin’s children left for the Capital, except for their youngest son, who stays locked in his home day and night.

Zuri’s eyes traveled from one house to another, each seeming smaller and smaller as she made her way up the road. Each was covered in their vines and weeds, like stones never moving from their place. Each accompanying face was too familiar and her reflex to smile at each and every neighbor felt like another pin to keep her in place.

As she rounded the slope leading to her destination, clouds began to pass overhead. Zuri looked up, seeing that steel gray clouds had traveled down from Kersiva’s peaks into the valley. They hung low, stretching the village’s shadows about like waves as they moved overhead. She pulled her tunic closer as a breeze blew in from the aerie.

Zuri approached the house as if it was a lion, drawn in by its flamboyance and also fearful of what it held inside. It was cobbled on the outside, each window decorated with molded iron into different shapes and arches. Warm amber light could be seen through the glass—it was clear that the house bustling with activity with figures passing across the light. Foliage around the mansion had been decorated with white paper shapes and blown glass stars. She carefully opened the iron wrought fence that sprouted like pointed teeth. As she crossed the courtyard, she was greeted by a huffy handmaiden whose hands were filled with sheening pale blue fabric. A dress, perhaps?

“Good afternoon, I’m looking for the Lady. She asked for my Fia’s kurpa.” She ventured, noticing that the handmaiden looked more flustered with every passing second. The maiden wasn’t someone that Zuri immediately recognized, and the girl realized she must be from the Capital.

The woman’s eyes looked Zuri up and down critically. “You’re what?”

“My…Fia’s kurpa,” Zuri said again. “For the engagement shower. I have them here.” She gestured to the basket.

“Ah,” the maiden replied, clearly understanding what had been said to her. However, she didn’t move to take the basket from Zuri’s outstretched hand.

“Jesea!” a voice called from behind Zuri. “I’ll take those to mother, don’t worry about it!”

Zuri turned to see a familiar head of orange hair bounding towards her. In a flurry of green dress fabric and billowing skirts, a pale girl rushed between the two. Great, the young woman thought to herself, Just what I needed. Ferine was Lady Hersha’s second oldest daughter and was a loudmouth gossiper that Zuri rarely wanted anything to do with. Her bright green eyes were just as clever as her mother’s, though she did less to hide what was going on in her racing mind. It was not long ago that no matter where Zuri went Ferine was right behind with ears so large and all-encompassing that she could hear crickets chattering three miles away.

The girls used to be childhood friends, spending most of their days exploring Kersiva’s downs with the other Hersha children. However when the girls were fourteen, Zuri had her eye on a particularly pretty boy, Wren Olmon, who seemed to reciprocate her interested. Until, that is, a rumor that postulated that Zuri and her family brushed her teeth with cow shit.

“Zurinifa! Oh, goodness, it has been such a chaotic morning, I apologize, Jesea is one of our helpers from father’s office in the Capital. She’s still getting used to the mountain air!” Ferine, giddy and gallant, shooed the handmaiden away inside before turning to Zuri.

“And those are your Miss Caia’s kurpa, are they? Mother will be delighted to show them off to her guests.” Ferine, while loud and irritating, was still about a head shorter than Zuri. She made a reach for the kurpa, but Zuri moved the basket to rest on her crown.

 “Right.” the taller girl kept the basket out of Ferine’s reach. “How am I even sure it was Lady Hersha that asked for these? We haven’t been paid yet.”

Red seemed to flush around Ferine’s cheeks as she giggled behind a hand. “She did. I just thought I could intercept before it was delivered.”

To get me in trouble, no doubt, Zuri thought.

Ferine smiled coyly and gestured to the front door. “I’ll…get mother’s coin purse.”

Zuri rolled her eyes as she followed Ferine up the cobbled steps of the house and into the large doorway. The hinges moved silently as is they had been carefully oiled and the smell of sweet fruit filled her nose as they stepped inside. Zuri was greeted with a storm of sound: dishware clinking, hurried voices of maids, and pacing footsteps.

She realized, suddenly, that she had never been inside before. Suddenly, she felt self-conscious of her dirty boots and sweat-stained tunic. The front room paneled white and blue accompanied by what seemed to be floral designs that lined the walls and floor panels. A decorative rug ran from the door to the front of a large stairway five people wide. She noticed a coat rack on her right and on her left was the peculiar grandfather clock that had winked at her from the front window all of these years. Now that she was up close, she noticed it had been fashioned out of dark black wood, with gold detail around the chasse with a glass panel that revealed the clock’s inner workings. She noticed, above the clock, there was a face carved into the wood. Something about the carving’s hallowed eyes made Zuri uncomfortable.

“Where is Lilea?” a voice shouted from the landing above. Zuri recognized the tone filled with frantic distaste.

A woman rushed down the flight of stairs, the sound of her heels ringing in the front room. At first glance, one would see a beautiful woman in the billowing waves of a rose gown, gracefully and swiftly traveling downstairs. After knowing Lady Hersha for so long, Zuri could tell she was in a panicky and biting mood. Their eyes met.

“Ferine, it is not a time to bring uninvited guests into the house. You’ll dirty up the rug.” Lady Hersha clucked as she crossed the threshold into the front room.  “What is that smell?”

“I told her mother, but she insisted!” Ferine snuck a knowing grin at Zuri.

That rat, Zuri thought. “You didn’t order our kurpa, Lady Hersha? My Fia Caia made them on request.”

Lady Hersha seemed taken aback, “Normally I don’t mind your…foreign food, but today is not the day. I’m sorry.”