Young Writers Society

The sun was setting on the day after they had arrived in the valley where the human runaways made their camp, and Fyn was bored out of his mind. He and Cassia had chosen a spot next to the waterfall near the cliff’s edge, where they could look down over the whole camp. The foliage was thick enough even at the edge of the cliff that they could ensure they weren’t spotted while watching.

The problem was, Fyn hated all this sneaking about. It meant a lot more time in his human form than he liked, and a lot more sitting around.

Like now. Cassia was off scouting or something, investigating the house they thought the Treatise was in, and Fyn was supposed to be watching for people approaching the house. She’d set up some sort of magical contraption involving a lantern and a candle — if he held up the mirror to the candle, a matching one in her pocket would glow and tell her to get out of there.

And he was watching, but he’d been watching for what had to be hours. What was taking her so long? Why did she have to go and leave him to watch, anyway?

He growled. This was all wrong. Why hadn’t he already charged in there spraying fire and fury? Runaways found outside of Selachen forfeited their lives, and Fyn was certain all these particular humans were Selachen runaways. By standing orders, he should have killed them all already.

He scraped a finger in the dirt. But they have mages.

The thought thundered through him, first the clarity, and then the anger. So that was it. That was his cowardice. He had failed once at hunting a mage already. Now he didn’t dare engage another.

He felt a stabbing pain in his chest as his mote of Selach flared. Fyn winced and bit his tongue at the reprimand. It faded, but the burning anger inside him only grew. He wasn’t a coward. He would not let himself be a coward. He’d go down there right now and fight Iona for the Treatise. He’d show his strength or die trying, and damn what Cassia had to say about it.

Fyn had leapt to his feet, ready to move, when a figure by the stream in the clearing below caught his eye.

She was tiny from here, not much more than a curled speck sleeping on a sun-warmed rock across the river, but drakes had good eyesight, and Fyn recognized her immediately. It was Iona’s youngest daughter, her hair just as black and her skin just as pale as her mother’s.

Fyn smiled in relief, bearing his slightly pointed teeth. This was something he knew how to do. This was exactly why humans having families made them weak.

He overturned Cassia’s largest sack, bedding and clothing spilling out onto the ground. He found one of her extra quills and ink and scrawled a short note. Then he started down the slope with the note and the sack, heading toward the camp and leaving Cassia’s mirror and candle contraption behind.

---

Cassia crouched in the doorway to the bedroom of Iona’s tiny, scarcely-furnished house, feeling like she was the last person in the world who should be trying to sneak around like this. Well, except maybe for Fyn.

She slipped the small mirror that was connected to Fyn’s into her pocket, worried it would slip from her sweaty hands. She was listening so intently for any sound of movement that she could hardly pay attention to the house itself. She was almost certain that the Treatise had to be in this house, but Iona could return any minute.

She had already been through the main room, which was separated from this room by a hanging blanket. She hadn’t found much other than the warm ashes in a fireplace and a few letters on the table which bore Iona’s signature and a strange, branching V-like symbol with seven prongs, including one right through the point of the V. She had seen it on a few cloaks and painted on the sides of some of the houses. It seemed to be symbol of this movement calling themselves the Seekers.

Cassia moved into the room, darting into cover behind a large crate near the door. She crouched on the floor and leaned down to look under the three rough, lumpy beds. She saw nothing other than a satchel too small to hold the Treatise. After glancing at the door, she opened the crate too, but there was nothing there either other than some clothes.

Cassia sighed. She hadn’t really expected the Treatise to be out in the open, but she had hoped. Time to do a closer inspection for secret doors or other things hidden by trickery.

She got out the mirror again, noted that it still wasn’t glowing, and tapped one hand against the other, channeling a bit of magic through her mote of Mithrinde. Her palm lit up, and with a moment’s concentration Cassia narrowed the beam to a single tiny dot. Then she started angling the dot of light all around the room, using the mirror to angle it without standing up from where she was hiding behind the crate of clothing. If there was an illusion here, she’d know it when…

The light vanished on a patch of the wall just above the headboard of the far bed.

Cassia smiled despite herself. It worked! She wasn’t entirely sure what magic Iona had, but there were some things you could use to create illusions, like mirrors and prisms, though Cassia rarely used them because she could weave her own illusions from moonlight. It seemed that her illusions worked similarly to Cassia’s; they could only replicate the static image they had been created with.

Cassia hurried over and climbed onto the bed, kneeling on the lumpy mattress and angling the light to pick out the exact spot where it vanished. Then she closed her eyes and felt along the wall.

Sure enough, a seam. And, though when she opened her eyes it looked like she was touching air, a lock.

Cassia sat back on her heels, equally elated and frustrated. This had to be where Iona kept the Treatise, but she had no idea how to pick a lock, especially not one that she couldn’t even see.

Just as she let go of the lock and extinguished her palm light, Cassia heard voices and footsteps on wood behind her.

---

A quarter of an hour later, Fyn was lurking behind a tree, ten feet from Iona’s napping daughter. The air hung hot and sticky, and just looking at the running water made Fyn’s throat ache with longing. He readjusted his grip on Cassia’s sack and glanced around the clearing, checking for the third time that the coast was clear. He kept looking because he could hardly believe that the rebels were leaving their leaders’ daughter unprotected, and because one person had been passing in sight every time he had looked.

So close… Fyn urged as the human, a stooped little old woman who probably should have died years ago, inched closer and closer to one of the houses. At last, she knocked on the door and entered.

There was no one in eyesight of the little cove by the river where Fyn’s target slept. Knowing he had only seconds, Fyn slipped out of the bushes and hurried to the girl’s side.

He paused, looking down at her flushed cheeks and pursed lips and slightly sticky breathing. She couldn’t be more than five or six years old, and watching her sleep was like watching a trickle of lava harden into rock: strangely… calming. More than that, there was something about her face….

An old image of another sleeping human child flashed through Fyn’s mind, but he shook the memory away and stared down at the large sack in his hand.

He heard a thud and glanced up, fear shooting through his heart, but no humans called or shouted or came running. He was still unknown, for now.

Fyn leaned over the girl, and, ignoring the sack, picked her up gently in his arms. Her head lolled against his and he supported it awkwardly with one hand. Her eyelids fluttered and she gave a deep sigh, but she didn’t wake.

Fyn dropped the folded note onto the rock where she had been sleeping and, hardly daring a glance back, vanished into the trees with Iona’s daughter in his arms.

---

Cassia was never really sure how she scrambled off the bed and hid behind the single sack underneath before the dirty blanket was pulled aside and two pairs of feet entered the room. She huddled there, every feather of her wings standing on end, sure she was breathing too loudly and that any second one of them would bend down to look under the beds.

“—be patient,” Iona was saying. Cassia recognized her sturdy-toed boots. She bent over the crate started rummaging through.

“Everyone here is in danger until the Treatise is gone, Mother” a second, taut female voice said. This one sounded younger than Iona. She was wearing worn moccasins made of some kind of hide. “Don’t they know how to—”

“Their sight is limited,” Iona snapped. She straightened up with a cloak that she draped over her arm. “We will find a way, even if we have to go to the Hinterlands and dig up old history. I know I am putting the Haven at risk. But I need its resources and its mages to conduct the experiments.”

Cassia frowned at the word ‘Mother.’ The girl sounded older than any of the children she had followed here. Did Iona have another child?

The younger girl’s voice was sullen. “I thought you shouldn’t need those anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Iona said. “This is a large and delicate undertaking. While they have bestowed a gift upon me, they cannot give to another in their present… condition.”

She walked over right beside where Cassia was hiding. Above her, Cassia heard the sound of metal scraping against metal, and the unmistakable click of a lock. A radiant glow filled the room as light spilled from what had to be the Treatise.

Cassia’s heart skipped a beat. It was right there. She wondered if she could be fast enough to jump up, take it from Iona’s hands, sprint through the main room, and launch herself into the sky before Iona could follow.

But in that moment of wondering, her chance passed. After a pause, Iona moved away from the bed, tucking the Treatise into a bag she slung over her shoulder.

“I just think we should keep it somewhere else,” the younger voice began, but it receded as she and Iona exited the room as quickly as they came.

Cassia heard footsteps echo on the wooden floor, then fade entirely. She remained perfectly still for another two long minutes, straining for any sound of Iona and her daughter returning.

Nothing.

Cassia blew out the air from her cheeks. “It’s okay, that could have been worse,” she told herself. But there was no point in staying any longer; she knew where the Treatise was kept, and knew that it wasn’t here now. Maybe if she could get Fyn to help, and if Iona and the girl were walking it from place to place alone…

She crawled out from under the bed, smoothed down some of her pinion feathers, and took a careful peek around the edges of the blanket standing in as a door.

No one there, unless they were pressing themselves flat on either side of the wall to ambush her as she came out.

Cassia traced a crescent moon on her palm for luck, then took a step back and ran into the main room. Barely checking the area surrounding the house for enemies, Cassia sprinted across the muddy clearing and only took flight once she was sure she’d vanished among the woods.

---

Fyn stumbled back into camp, holding Iona’s child awkwardly against one shoulder. It had been a long, careful climb, with him not daring to wake the girl. She had stirred once, and he had almost panicked and put the bag over her head, but she had only stretched out her little hands, put them around his neck, and rested her head against his shoulder. Now she was sleeping soundly again.

He knelt by Cassia’s bedroll and tried to put the little girl down, but she gave a soft wine of protest and held tight to his neck, eyes still closed. Fyn sank back on his heels. Her warmth was almost soothing against his, her breathing low and calming. He’d never held a human child, or any child, this close before.

Fyn didn’t know what would happen if she woke before Iona arrived with the Treatise as he had spelled out in his note. He supposed if she tried to run, he’d just shed his human form and grab her with a claw.

But she was so quiet now. The sun had just sunk beneath the horizon, and a cool breeze broke against the back of Fyn’s head. The girl shivered just a little, and Fyn pulled her closer unconsciously. He eased himself into a cross-legged position and settled back against the stone, closing his eyes and simply breathing.

He felt strangely calm. It must have been because he was so close to having the Treatise in his grasp. Once he had that, he would be a hero. Once he brought it back, he would have proved himself as Selach’s most loyal servant. He could never be called worthless or a weakling again.

He sat there as the last of the sunlight faded, trying to ignore how rapidly his arm was going numb. At last, the girl loosened her grip, and Fyn was able to lower her gently onto Cassia’s bedroll.

Then he stood, transformed back into his drake form, and set to watching the woods. Whether he heard wings or footsteps first, he didn’t much care. He didn’t need Cassia to do this. He had gotten the key, and before moonrise, he would have the Treatise.