Young Writers Society

Fyn slammed into the ground and immediately felt a terrible pressure on all sides of him. Struggling to draw breath, he instinctively collapsed into his human form. All at once, the pressure ceased, and he fully materialized on a cold dirt floor, gasping and heaving.

Fyn pushed himself to his hands and knees and looked around. He instantly understood why he had felt that horrible pressure; he was in a low, dark cellar of a room barely large enough to hold a couple humans, let alone a drake. The only light in the room was a sputtering candle on the wall and a few chinks of light coming through a trapdoor in the ceiling. The room itself had nothing more than a haphazard pile of blankets in the corner and some traveling gear.

To his relief, Cassia was lying beside him, eyes wide and breathing hard, but apparently unharmed. The strange girl who called herself a Courier was already standing a few feet away, looking down at them with an expression Fyn couldn’t read. He got to his feet and held a warding hand in front of him, helping Cassia up with the other. Were those tears in her eyes?

“Who are you?” Fyn demanded of the girl.

“My name’s Sasha.” The girl leaned against the wall and crossed one leg over the other, letting a small pebble of the same color as the stone behind her fall from her hand to the ground. “And I think I just proved that I’m a Courier. You were looking for one?”

“How did you know that?” Fyn challenged. He made sure not take her eyes off her. Something about her was off-putting, unsettling.

She scoffed. “You walked into every bar this side of the river and asked for one. You weren’t exactly subtle. I was watching you after the second one. Curious to see what you’d do.”

Fyn didn’t know what to make of her aggressive stance, or the way she was casually twirling a dagger between her fingers. She couldn’t be much older than him or Cassia, and she was just a human. But she was also a mage, and therefore dangerous. He’d have to stay on his guard.

Cassia spoke up. She was still disguised as a peasant girl, though her dress had gotten knocked askew and part of it was sticking out of the illusion

“Why?” she said simply.

“I’m between jobs,” Sasha said. “My line of business has been slow. I wanted to pick something up.”

“And what’s your line of business?” Fyn asked. He hadn’t forgotten any of the strange events that had just happened, but Sasha seemed to want to keep talking, so Fyn thought it would be best to appease her. Whatever was nagging at the back of his brain about her still hadn’t resolved itself.

“Well,” Sasha sighed, “I thought I had made that clear. But since you want me to spell it out…”

She dropped another pebble and appeared three feet to the right of where she had been standing. “I transport. I convey. I deliver. Put simply, I take people, or things, and I teleport them anywhere you like. No questions asked, no border patrols to get through, just you, me, a bit of money, and, of course, an appropriate focus item.”

“We’re not looking for transport,” Fyn said. “Well, not yet.”

“We’re looking for information,” Cassia filled in. She reached into a pouch at her waist and took out the grass clippings they had found in Haven. “We need to know where this focus item was linked to.”

Sasha’s face fell just slightly, but she took the grass clippings and examined them closely, uncovering and lighting a hand lamp and holding them up to the light. Then she put them down and held out her hand, expectant.

Fyn scrambled to fish out a coin from his belt. “Um… how much…?”

Sasha laughed, a sharp laugh that cut through Fyn. “None. I'm messing with you. You really don’t know how these things work, do you? You pay me once we’ve made an agreement. I’m sure you’ll want to go to this place, follow whoever you’re tracking, am I wrong?”

Fyn’s desire to talk to interrogate Cassia about what had happened in the alleyway fought against his desire to be polite to a Courier mage they were trapped in a room with, particularly a mage who already seemed to know too much about what they were doing.

“Yes,” he finally said.

Sasha grinned. “A useful start to this relationship! Then I’ll tell you: the grass was clipped from the outskirts of the desert on the borders of Aisen. It’s got a fairly broad range, but if you give me time, I should be able to narrow it down to within… oh, ten miles. Powerful breed, this stuff. It’s more of a cactus than a grass. Takes years to grow. Perfect for magic.”

Fyn hadn’t heard anything beyond the location. “Aisen?” he repeated, incredulous.

“That’s completely across the Basin,” Cassia stated. “There’s no way they could teleport that far.”

Sasha smiled again. “I told you. Powerful.”

“But it’s so dangerous…” Cassia said quietly, almost to herself.

Sasha shrugged. “Not beyond an experienced Courier’s skill.”

Fyn cut to the point. “Are you saying you can take us there?”

“Of course, if you’ve got a fresh focus item for me.”

Fyn gritted his teeth. Of course they didn’t. If they did, they would just be asking someone to teleport them there.

Sasha looked from Fyn’s face to Cassia’s. “Ah. That is a problem. Well, I’m sure I could rustle something up, given a few days, and quite the fee of course. I have a few contacts. Or we could do it in two hops — there’s some lovely teleportations hubs in Larisen, and then a hop to Aisen should get you close enough—”

Fyn’s patience had expired. “Sure, whatever. But we,” he gestured to himself and Cassia, “need to talk first. I want to know what just happened in the alley before we decide to let you help us. Cassia, who were those… people?”

Cassia just glanced at Sasha warily. Sasha shrugged her shoulders emphatically, got up, and ascended the ladder, opening the trapdoor. Daylight flooded into the room, and then she closed it with a thud and left them in private, though Fyn was sure she hadn’t left. This seemed to be her private hidey-hole, and she’d want to stick around to secure their business anyway.

The moment Sasha was gone, Cassia leaned back against the wall and slid down to a sitting position, hiding her face in her knees.

Fyn sat down next to Cassia, resting his wrists on his knees. “Well,” he said awkwardly. “If you want to talk about it…”

“Not really,” Cassia said.

“It’s kind of important, Cass,” he said. “I’ve gotta know if we’re going to get jumped again…”

He trailed off as she started and gave him half a glance.

“Cassia,” Fyn amended hastily. He’d only said it as a joke anyway.

“No, it’s…” Cassia sighed. Her voice was muffled by her knees.

There was a long silence before her next words, which were loud and clear. “He lied to me. He specifically and deliberately lied to me.”

Now Fyn was really lost. The main not-drake had definitely looked and sounded female. “Who’s ‘he?’”

Cassia’s illusion faded. It melted away, revealing her silver skin and pale dress. Her wings were wrapped tightly around her arms and legs, so she looked like a bundle of white feathers.

“My dad,” she admitted.

---

Cassia kept talking, though she couldn't meet Fyn's eyes yet. “Those weren’t drakes. They were angels. We can see through each other’s illusions. And it was my dad who sent them.”

She raised her head at last to look at Fyn. He was watching her so intently, the ruff around his ears was flaring. She didn’t know why she was telling him all this, but the words kept coming as her shock began to fade.

“He’s the Archpriest. We have a Council that rules Mithrinden, and he’s the head. I’m the Grand Mage, so I’m on the Council. He told us the Treatise was taken…”

She went on, telling Fyn about her father’s poor health and how she and her sister and the others had plotted for her to take Micah’s place. How their plan had worked.

At this point, Fyn stood up abruptly and paced the room, his back to Cassia. He glanced at her and then quickly looked away, not meeting her eyes.

“What is it?” Cassia asked.

Fyn shook his head. “You directly defied your Archpriest’s orders. Those angels should have killed you on the spot!”

A spike of fear mixed with shame shot through Cassia. “Do you really think that?”

Fyn looked at the floor. “It’s what any drake would have done.”

But he looked at her again, and Cassia saw that his eyes were wide and anxious, not hard and cold.

After a long silence, Fyn sat down heavily next to her. “So you’re on the run.”

It was like he’d bumped an open wound. Cassia gasped a little as the enormity of what just happened washed over her again.

“I’m not supposed to be. Not anymore. I talked to him….” She explained about her scrying bowl and the linked water. “It was just last night. He… promised.”

Cassia couldn’t recall a time her father had ever not kept a promise, mostly because he did not make promises unless he knew he could keep them. Even when he made speeches to the citizens of Mithrinden, he didn’t fill them with empty promises.

“Well, it was only last night. He probably just didn’t have time to call them off. They were acting on old orders.”

Cassia shook her head. “They weren’t. My dad should have sent them a quill message right after he stopped talking to me.”

And more than that, she had pleaded with Elinda, the leader of the search party and one of Cassia’s own bodyguards. She’d told them she had a deal with Micah, begged them not to take her. Elinda had paused for a moment, and said she had not heard anything of the sort, and that Micah had sent her a message just that morning, telling them make for Timberglut with haste. Cassia had begged Elinda to reconsider, but… instead Cassia had been forced to flee.

“He tipped them off. That lead angel said. He told them where to find us, because he could track me using the scry bowl. Gods, I might I even mentioned where we were going.”

Her vision was going all blurry now. “He lied to me. He never does that.”

Fyn shifted uncomfortably. “Well, he knew he couldn’t trust you. You know, because of—”

“Not helpful, Fyn!” Cassia barked. She put her head in her hands again. There had to be some explanation. Some reason he really didn’t want her out here looking for the Treatise. Though why he’d pretended to make a deal… she had no idea. It wasn’t like he would have needed to to figure out where she was. She had opened that vulnerability the moment Tilana had put the bowl in their father’s hands.

Tilana. Cassia hugged her knees tighter. The worst part about it was, she couldn’t even talk to Tilana now. Micah had almost certainly confiscated Tilana’s scrying water, and trying wasn’t worth the risk of being found. Quill messages should be safe, but she only had ten left. She would have to conserve them.

A gentle hand touched Cassia’s wing near her shoulder, startling her. She turned her head to the side and peeked at Fyn.

“I don’t get it, Cass,” Fyn said, hesitant. “You defied your Archpriest. You basically defied your goddess. And now you’re upset that he’s sending people after you? I’m not even sure I shouldn’t have just given you to them.”

“I didn’t defy Mithrinde!” Cassia said, feeling sick a a reminder of the fear that had kept her up for so many nights. “My dad never said she told him to do this. And besides, she wants us to choose for ourselves how to do what’s right.”

She wiped her eyes angrily. “Mithrinde isn’t cruel. She doesn’t try to control every aspect of our lives. Not like Selach.”

“He doesn’t,” Fyn began, but without any real certainty. Cassia thought she saw a wisp of smoke curl from Fyn’s nostrils, as if a fire had built and then puffed out just as quickly.

“Your way sounds…” he started.

“Different?” Cassia suggested.

There was a pause. Fyn’s hand fell away from her shoulder.

“Nice,” Fyn said very quietly. Then, “Are you going to keep looking for the Treatise?”

“I have to. If I bring it back safe, he’ll realize I was right and it was fine for me to go.”

“Good,” Fyn said. Cassia raised an eyebrow at that, and he added quickly, “It’s just been useful, you know. Having you. I could do it alone, but… it’s been helpful.”

A laugh bubbled out of Cassia’s throat. “I guess saving your life would count as ‘helpful,’” she teased.

Fyn huffed at that.

They sat there for several minutes, faces thrown into stark shadows by the partially-hooded lantern.

“I’m sorry your dad lied to you,” Fyn finally said. “It seems like he usually watches your back. Like a hunting mate.”

“Yeah,” Cassia said. It wasn’t hard to guess that a hunting mate was probably the closest anyone ever came in Selach’s Order to trusting someone else. “I guess.”

Fyn looked up at the chink of light coming from the ceiling. “We should probably decide if we believe what that girl is selling. Are we really going to let her teleport us to Selach knows where?”