Young Writers Society

The portions of the Haverin Forest in the mountain foothills were in a strange gray area between Mithrinden and Selachen. Technically, there was a firm border, but the lack of roads through the forest and the uneasy peace between the two Orders meant that most everyone, drakes and angels, kept to the edges of the trees.

And so, it seemed, some outcast humans had taken the forest for themselves.

Cassia and Fyn had followed Iona’s family for four days, skirting the rocky foothills along the mountain range, the vegetation thickening as they drew nearer to the forest. Following them hadn’t been easy — she and Fyn had almost missed their tracks leaving the main road on the second day, and once or twice the hard, stony ground had left not much more than a scrying and a fair amount of guesswork to guide their way. But after that, Fyn and Cassia quickened their pace and caught up to the small party, and had trailed them at a much closer distance ever since, and Cassia had only had to talk Fyn out of accosting them on the road twice.

Watching them had been… Cassia didn’t know what to think. She remembered the first time she and Fyn had finally rounded a bend and seen them walking in the distance. In her hurry to hide, she hadn’t gotten much more than impressions — five figures, two rather small, clutching a few bundles and draped in baggy clothing that left them little more than that made than a gray smear on the horizon. Since then, Cassia had seen up close the holes in their clothing and the shoes so worn they were nearly useless.

She had also seen the hope in their eyes, and heard them talk of Haven with wonder in their voice. The two littlest, a boy and a girl, asked when they would see “Mother” a half-dozen times a day. The oldest, a quiet girl maybe ten years old, hardly spoke. The two adults, the father and a woman who Cassia guessed was their guide, often held discussions too quiet for Cassia to hear, though not for lack of trying.

Now, Fyn and Cassia were crouching atop a ridge that looked down into what could only be the humans’ Haven.

It was beautiful. The small settlement lay nestled in gorge, with forested cliffs ringing it on three sides. A waterfall spilled over the cliff and splashed into a stream that ran at the edge of the clearing. All told, the settlement had about a dozen small dwellings, some log cabins, others wattle and daub. Each had a neat little garden patch, and there was even a small mill by the stream with its waterwheel spinning freely. Cassia could see at least a dozen people at a glance, men, women, and children, working in the gardens or on the houses, or playing in the grass. All of them were human.

“They really have found a haven,” Cassia said quietly.

Fyn just gave a little huff. Cassia had realized by now that he did that whenever something was making him uncomfortable. He muttered something about “runaways and traitors” under his breath that Cassia was glad she didn’t quite catch.

Looking down at Haven again, she saw that Iona’s family had just emerged into the clearing. Their guide was waving her arm and shouting something.

“Come on,” Cassia whispered to Fyn, and started to creep down the slope. “I want to be able to hear what they’re saying.”

“Oh, yeah.” Fyn started down the slope. Almost immediately, he skidded on a loose rock and crashed into a whole patch of bushes. Leaves flew everywhere, and flocks of birds took flight, chirping in indignation.

Cassia slapped a hand to her forehead. “How about in human form, so we can actually get close enough without letting the whole forest know we’re here?”

“We should charge in right now,” Fyn said, ignoring her. “I could handle them all, easily. We’ll search the settlement after.

Looking at those teeth and enormous claws, Cassia didn’t doubt that he could. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. “No. Now come, or don’t, but if you do, come quietly.”

And she turned and continued down the slope until she was positioned behind a tree much closer to the tree-line and could hear the excited clamor rising as a crowd of people came pouring out of their homes to greet the new arrivals.

She heard a twig snap and glanced back to see that Fyn had joined her, in human form and looking slightly sheepish, though he avoided her gaze. It was something.

“How are there so many of them?” Fyn he whispered. “Selachen can’t have let that many escape over the years.”

“Shut up,” Cassia hissed. “I’m trying to listen.”

The cheers and clamor had suddenly hushed, and now the crowd was parting to admit a new figure, a middle-aged woman with long, graying hair.

Cassia leaned forward, studying the woman intently. This had to be Iona; Cassia recognized her not only from the description given in her file but by the way she carried herself as a leader. She was tall and wore her hair braided and twisted into a neat bun. Something struck Cassia as just a little off, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

Iona walked right up her husband and children, who were clinging to their fathers’ legs, without saying a word. She lifted a hand and caressed her husbands face, and for just a moment, they looked at each other so intently that Cassia almost looked away, feeling as if she was intruding on some deeply private moment. Then Iona’s stony demeanor shattered into a shout of joy, and her husband threw his arms around her, and then everyone was shouting and cheering again.

“We’re wasting time,” Fyn said beside her, antsy again. “I bet the Treatise is in one of those houses. I bet it’s not even guarded. We could just go in there and take it and no one could stop us.”

“She’s a mage,” Cassia whispered. “And who knows how many others here are too?”

Now that she looked closer, she could see two or three other figures who had familiar pouches hanging from their belt. Human mages, whose only form of magic consisted of drawing the magic out of other objects, would carry a handful of ordinary items with deep reservoirs of magic at all times, replacing them as they used them. Depending on what was in that pouch, a mage could be very dangerous indeed. Cassia only knew a few tricks of human magic, like the divination spell she had tried back in Mithrinden, and the simple messaging spell she used to send Tilana reports when she couldn’t or didn’t want to scry. More than likely, Iona and the other human mages would know far more, and more importantly, they would have been collecting components for years.

Fyn was still looking like he wanted to charge in right now. Cassia shifted to block his path, in case he decided to do something stupid. “Have you ever even fought one mage?”

“Yeah,” Fyn said defensively. “We won, easily.”

Cassia just raised an eyebrow at that. Not that she thought he was lying, just that if it really had been all that easy, he would already be down there fighting, and nothing she could have done or said would have stopped him.

“We need to do this carefully,” Cassia decided. “We should find a place to make camp. We might be here for a few days.”

Fyn was already ignoring her again, looking down the slope at the humans. “They’re doing something again.”

Cassia looked. The crowd had moved, following Iona down to a clear patch of land by the stream. Three mages joined her, marking out a large protection circle as the eager crowd whispered and pointed. Iona was setting out bowls of incense and other magical foci. Cassia couldn’t tell exactly what the ritual was to be, but from the size of the protection circle, it was a big one.

Iona beckoned one of the mages, and he handed a large satchel over to her. She opened it, reached inside, and pulled out the Treatise.

Every inch of Cassia’s body went rigid. It was right there. Beside her, Fyn was growling under his breath, which sounded strange coming from his rather thin human form instead of his massive drake form.

But before either of them could think of doing anything, the other mages completed the protection circle, and a sheen of light rippled over them like the surface of a bubble, then vanished. A flurry of whispers ran through the crowd and died away immediately as Iona stood on a stump and raised the Treatise over her head. In her hands, it looked astonishingly fragile, like little more than a glass ball with swirling smoke inside.

“My fellow Seekers! Seekers of freedom, of truth, of the power we have been so long denied, our time has come! Since I arrived in your midst, I have worked tirelessly to tease apart the secrets of this artifact that binds us all. The truth is, its magic is fading even as I speak to you. The bastards of the gods, the false High Priests and Priestesses, use their own perverted magic to renew our chains every year. But this year, they cannot! This year, we will be free!”

A great cheer rose from the crowd at this. Iona lowered the Treatise and stepped off the stump, placing the Treatise atop it.

“But why should we wait for its last drops of magic to sputter out, if we can end this damned contract here and now? Many of you fear that hiding the Treatise here while we wait for it to die will cause only the discovery and destruction of our beautiful Haven. This is why I have spent my days here under the shelter of your roof out of sight, hardly seeing or speaking to anyone: to devise a way to destroy this curse instead of waiting. With my family at last beside me, I invite you all to watch the first of what may prove to be many experiments — but may yet be the last. If our attempt does not succeed, know that we will try again, and again, until we see you free and our gods returned. And if it does… then today we begin a new world.”

She placed her hands on the Treatise as if blessing it and was joined by six other mages. Their eyes closed, and Cassia could see their mouths moving but couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Fyn grabbed her by the arm. “I’ve had enough. I’m going down there. If the Treatise breaks, I’m — we’re done for! They’re breaking the Treatise!”

“Wait!” Cassia held on to him and leaned forward, straining to hear what the mages were chanting. They couldn’t possibly know…

The moment stretched on, Iona and the other mages arching backwards, their mouths open to the sky, whole bodies shaking in their silent effort.

The Treatise soft glow flared brighter and brighter. Fyn wrenched his arm out of Cassia’s and ran down the slope, shoulders and legs bulging as he started changing forms, just as the pieces clicked into place.

“It won’t work!” Cassia shouted after Fyn, abandoning all pretense of secrecy. The glow from the Treatise was growing brighter, so bright she had to throw up an arm and squint. “They don’t know what —”

An earsplitting crack rang through the forest, and the light from the Treatise winked out.

Fear shot through Cassia’s heart. She scrambled forward, dropping her arm, imagining the Treatise somehow shattered on the stump, though she had been sure —

It still sat there, whole and unharmed, glowing softly again as it always did.

“—they’re doing,” Cassia finished with an exhale of relief. Micah had taught her about the Treatise and how it was created, including its weaknesses. One weakness that he had not been able to get around while designing the Treatise was that every Archpriest had a chance to, instead of renewing, withdraw their power from the Treatise during the Renewal ritual. And if even one Archpriest withdrew their power, the whole Treatise would collapse. Instead, by general agreement, Micah had built in a protection: if any Archpriest withdrew their power during the Renewal, the Treatise would break, but the backsurge of power would surely kill that Archpriest. The only way to dissolve the Treatise without death was for all seven Archpriests to agree.

From the foci and gestures Iona and the other mages had made, Cassia had guessed they were trying to imitate the Renewal ritual. They clearly knew that there had to be seven people, one for each Archpriest and their corresponding deity, and that all seven had to agree to break it. But you couldn’t just have anyone initiate the Renewal. There were words you had to say, key words that Micah had taught her and Tilana privately just the year before. Not to mention, you had to actually be godformed to access the corresponding power.

The explosion had been entirely contained by the circle of protection. It had sent the mages flying backwards, and several of them looked like they had been knocked out cold, but Iona was already getting to her feet and confidently addressing the shocked and cowering crowd.

Cassia didn’t really listen to what the woman was saying. She crept down the slope after Fyn, who had reverted to his human form and was on his knees, hands over his eyes and cringing in pain. He must have been staring at the Treatise the moment it flared. Of course, he was also right in an open patch of ground. Anyone could look up and see him.

“Come on,” she muttered, throwing her cloak half around him to disguise his unmistakably red, scaled skin. “Let’s get out of here and regroup. They aren’t going to manage to break the Treatise anytime soon.”

Slowly, he crawled with her back up the slope, dropping his hands from his eyes and blinking rapidly as he tried to focus on her face. “How do you know that? They almost did it just now!”

She gave him an edited version of what she knew about the Treatise’s construction, omitting mention of the key words but telling him how it had been obvious the experiment wouldn’t work. “Trust me, my dad is Mithrinde’s Archpriest. My twin sister is going to succeed him. He taught us how it works”

She was gratified to see that Fyn looked taken aback at that and didn’t challenge what she’d said. “How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Probably longer than the time it will take for the Treatise to break on its own,” Cassia said. “Probably.”

“We’ll need to scout more. Figure out a plan, and attack tonight,” Fyn declared.

“Maybe not tonight,” Cassia said. She looked back at the clearing, at the children playing happily in the stream and the adults gathered around Iona, looking at her half in awe. In and out, she decided. I’ll just snatch the Treatise and go. No one will ever have to know these people are here.

If Fyn doesn’t mess it all up somehow.

That night, in her message by quill to her sister, Cassia only wrote two words. “We’re close.”