Young Writers Society

a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar! I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep this in consideration! Thanks <3

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[Ember]

“Artemesa!” Cassius suddenly cried and took off without any further warning.

“Cassius!” she called after him, but he was already disappearing into the stairwell and the shroud of night. In the distance, fire crackled.

She shook Alanna, still struggling. There were shouts coming from behind them, the direction they’d come. “Pika, we need to go. We need to find Cassius.” And, for good measure, she shook her again.

There were tears glistening on Alanna’s cheeks, but she finally stopped fighting. To be safe, she clasped her hand tightly around Alanna’s wrist, as firm as she could. Rowan stayed behind them, ushering them forward. They cast another spell, but her ears were ringing too much to decipher what he had said. She knew little of the language of magic anyway. She saw a flash of lights and colours, and that was it.

When they got downstairs, everything was washed in a harsh blue glow. Fire licked at the edges of the walls, catching banners and painting and the rugs in its hungry, devouring path. People were shouting, faraway.

“The basement,” Rowan said. They took the lead now, in a hurry to escape the ravenous flames. The heat was intense, and the glittering smoke was suffocating.

Something in her felt alive, and she had a brief and utterly foolish notion to run right into the fire.

As they wheeled around a corner, they ran right into another of the grey-clad figures. Rowan fell backwards, as did the figure, but the latter recovered faster. They reached for a flask attached to their hip. Rowan twisted forwards, towards the figure, and grabbed the edge of the rug they stood upon.

She saw what they were going for and leapt forward onto her knees to help. She braced for the impact of her knees against the rough hardwood, but it didn’t come. The figure was twisting the cap off the flask.

“Now!” Rowan shouted, and they both yanked back the rug. The figure stumbled backwards, dropping the flask. They stepped once too far back, and a fluttering piece of their clothing caught aflame.

She reached for Rowan as they did to her, and they pulled each other up. She turned back to Alanna, watching with eyes as wide as moons, and held out her hand.

Alanna took it, and they were off again.

They made it to the storage closet in barely enough time. Flames were licking up the doorframe. Rowan hesitated.

She let go of Alanna and sprinted forward, right underneath the greedy blue fire. She heard Alanna cry out, but she made it to the other side unscathed.

As the other two rushed in behind her, she was already positioning herself on the ladder leading down to the dungeons.

“Ori! Shut the door when you come down!” she shouted, before beginning the descent down.

Once she was on the ground, she waited to help Alanna, and then ran for the barracks room where they had smuggled Artemesa.

The dungeons had yet to be touched by the flames, so aside from Cassius’ obvious panic influencing the tension in the air, Artemesa looked unaffected. She was nuzzling into Cassius’ shoulder, who was crouched in front of her. He stood as she entered, his face stained with ash that sparkled. The dragonling continued to rub her snout against his hip, whether to comfort him or herself though was unclear.

Rowan and Alanna spilled in behind her. Rowan’s hair was frizzy and almost completely loose from their braided bun. Alanna looked shocked, tears cleaning a track down her grubby cheeks.

She rushed to Cassius and threw her arms around him, pulling him tight against her. “You stupid, stupid boy,” she said. “You couldn’t have been caught or hurt.”

“I had to get to Artemesa,” he said. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, but he shuddered against her and his breath caught. “They’re after us. Something about power we have, and a plot. Do you think we’ll be safe down here?”

“They were planning to grab us quietly, during the night. No fuss, no noise. If they planned well, they’ll probably know where we could hide.” Rowan’s face was set, grim and determined. “We have to get out of here until it’s safe.”

A clatter came from above, and through the opened doorway, the sound of the trapdoor slamming against stone.

Artemesa growled and snapped her jaws together. Cassius touched the top of her head. “Out the sewer,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She approached Alanna and gently, but firmly, grabbed her shoulders. “C’mon,” she said to the shell-shocked girl. Alanna complied, but whether it was the motion, or she had actually heard Ember was unknown.

Rowan shut the door and whispered something to the door handle. A click, and then they turned towards the other, eyes glossed over and the wave of blue rippling through their hair.

They hurried down the stairs and to the sewers. Artemesa was nearly too big this time, having grown quite considerably in such a short time, but with the urgency of the situation and perhaps some luck, she squeezed through the entrance to the sewers.

It was as pungent and repulsive as last time, but the tang of smoke and the echoes of the roaring fire were overwhelming her senses. She kept her grip on Alanna firm, making sure she didn’t stumble or try to escape.

They made it to the grate without issue, and Rowan paused. They watched Cassius open swing open the rusted hatch without trouble and chewed their lip.

Once they were all out into the cool night, almost clear as a crystal save for the chaos inside the Citadel, they stopped. “I’m going to try something dangerous. Everyone stand back.” Stepping forward, they placed their hand just inside the grate, onto the smooth granite before them. “Pulverem hoc eas subter ad minuere.”

The tunnel began to shake, cracks running along the stone and streaking back into the direction they had come. Rowan stumbled back, and then nodded towards the woods. As the stone holding the sewers together began to crumble, they turned and ran into the trees.

“The village!” she said as they ran. “Lady Sylvania will shelter us!”

“Don’t think they’ll check the village next?” Cassius pointed out. “The adults are scared of the forest. Let’s head north around the village and wait until they’ve left!”

“I agree with Cassius,” Rowan said, breath thin and quick. “Get them off our trail first, and they’ll we’ll worry about what comes next!”

They ran until Cassius was wheezing and Rowan was visibly straining not to do the same. They had made their way up a ridge that she wasn’t sure had been there last time she had been here. Then again, she wasn’t sure where they were at all anyway.

Adrenaline sung in her veins, coursing like magma for the heat of it. Her lungs burned from the run, and from the acrid smoke she had inhaled, and she coughed. Alanna collapsed onto the ground as they stopped, flat on her back, and stared at the sky, looking shattered.

The pain where she had landed on her knees began to flare up, and she grit her teeth. Cassius had his hand on his boot, sitting on the ground, and the other on Artemesa’s neck.

“It’s raining,” Alanna said softly.

They all turned towards the Citadel. As if backlit against the severe darkness, the rain was lit up in sharp contrast. Her heart stuttered as she held out her palm, and a drop landed in the centre of her palm. It shrivelled.

It was not rain, though. It was ash.

The Citadel was alight. In the lower windows, the glow of the sapphire magefire crept towards the glass.

But the upper floor fire wasn’t blue, it was resplendent and golden. It was creeping out windows, climbing up the walls as if they were made of nothing but dried wood.

And then, with a horrible noise, the tower closest to the living quarters crumpled over, and crashed to the dry riverbed below. The bell that it screamed as it hit the earth, and it echoed over the land like a final cry.

A lump rose in her throat and soon, her vision was too blurry to see more than the smears of orange and blue as the Citadel burned. Ash dappled the sky now, even brighter than the stars, and smoke billowed up as if from great pyres.

“There’s plenty of ways to escape,” Rowan said behind them, the only one still standing. “We’ll make sure everyone’s fine, when we return.”

“Yeah,” she said, and then covered her mouth to cover the whimper that left it.

word count:

1,452

pulverem hoc eas subter ad minuere = (roughly) reduce this tunnel to rubble