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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Enoch glanced away towards the wall. There were figures in the distance, patrolling atop it, sentries ready for any threat to come to the Blessed Gates. "I can't bring you to Chromium, Ember."

She looked up at him, but he did not look back her. She scowled, as if by will she could make him. "Why not?"

"I can't. If you're so determined to go, find someone else."

She got to her feet. "No, you're not just going to say, 'I can't bring you' and then decide not to tell me. What's it that you're hiding? Why can't you bring me to Chromium?"

Enoch's mouth twisted into a snarl. "Dammit, Ember, I said I can't bring you. That's it. I was telling you a fact." He turned away and marched towards the barn.

"That's not it!" she cried and ran after him. "Why can't you bring me? If you don't want to just say so, leave then! None of the others need you and I certainly don't either! I can get to Chromium on my own, with Cassius and Ori and Alanna, and you can stay in this dreadful cold not being able to feel your fingers when winter comes."

Enoch waved his hand dismissively. "I'm sure you'll be just fine. With your fire, you can just burn everything that you see in your path and you'll forge an ashen path right to Chromium."

She halted, so quickly it hurt her knees to. She stared at the back of his head, sucking in an inhale so sharply it stung her throat. Her eyes prickled. The fire she'd summoned the last time, when the Grey Masks had ambushed them while they were with Enoch, danced in her mind. She could feel the intensity sometimes, and the magic, still calling to her in the most desperate of moments.

And the worst part of it was that, rather than tell her it was a normal side effect of magic, or tell her what in devils she was meant to do with it, Ori didn't even seem to know why she had this power or what she was supposed to do with it.

Enoch stopped just before he opened the barn door and turned back to look at her.

She swallowed, blinking so she didn't start crying. It was a foolish thing to cry about. Childish. She whirled away from him, and headed towards the street. She wanted to be away, wanted to get lost maybe. With Cassius focused on other things, or moaning about how hard Enoch's training was, she couldn't talk to him. Ori was mysterious and all-knowing or whatever and that was great, but they hadn't been helpful about this so far. Alanna was too young. Nobody knew any better than she did about what was happening.

And the fire was fine, it was, except in the moments she had lost control. It was crushing not to be able to keep herself in check like that.

She made it some distance from the barn and into the main thoroughfare when a hand clasped her shoulder. She jumped. In an instance, she had turned, and punched the closest mass to her.

It turned out to be Enoch's knee. He grunted and reached for it. "It's just me, fuck's sake."

"Don't sneak up on me," she snapped. "What're you following me for anyway? Don't you have lone wolfiness to attend to?"

He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the way of the main flow of activity. She didn't resist him, although had half a mind to bite him, for the sake of it.

Still holding her arm, he glanced around their space for several moments. There wasn't all that much to look at, he'd practically dragged them into the mouth of an alleyway between two stone-built, squat houses. There were walls to look at, and a barrel that was sealed but smelled faintly of something strong and gross.

She kicked his shin as he continued to not-say anything. "I said, what did you follow me for?"

He glowered down at her. "All right, no need to give me more bruises, you little ankle biter. Look, I... What I said, just before. That wasn't fair, and I'm sorry that I said it." He watched her for a moment, and his glower deepened. "I'm sorry all right, I am."

"Sound more genuine, would you?" She crossed her arms over her chest.

Enoch sighed, shut his eyes, then knelt in front of her. "Ember. I'm sorry I said that about you. That wasn't right."

She eyed him closely, then sniffled and glanced away. She wiped at her cheeks. "Whatever."

He looked down at the ground, inhaling deeply and exhaling it back out slowly. It wasn't quite cold enough to cloud in front of his face, but she imagined it, from the corner of her eyes, all the same. It was more fun than focusing on what they were talking about.

"I can't take you to Chromium because I was exiled."

She looked so quickly back at him that her neck ached. "What?"

He wasn't looking at her. "I was a knight, and I was exiled, and if I return there, I'll be arrested. Or maybe they would kill me right on the spot. And if you and the others were with me, I don't know what they'd do to you either."

The tense anger in her chest loosened, and she studied his face, weary and painfully vulnerable. She hadn't seen an adult look like that before. All the adults she knew never talked to her like this, never looked like this around her.

"Why?" she asked. Then, unable to help herself, "Did you steal children there too?"

For one moment, she thought he might snap at her. But he glanced up instead, and his mouth twitched for the briefest of moments. "No, I didn't steal children." He held her gaze for a moment, and then ducked his chin, almost sheepish. "As it turns out, I'm not all that good at it anyway." He stood back up.

She felt a chill seep through, into her skin and into her flesh. “But you made it sound so huge and beautiful. What could you have possibly done?”

“That’s a story for another day, perhaps.”

“You know practically everything about me,” she pointed out. “It seems only fair. Besides, since you’re not technically kidnapping me anymore, that’s grounds for you to be watching over me, and I think I should know the what kind of person is guardian-ing me.”

He squinted down at her. “That isn’t a word.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You’re not my languages professor. This isn’t class. I can say whatever I want, however I want to.”

He sighed. “You are an absolute terror and menace and pain, did you know that?”

Ember curled one corner of her mouth. “Of course.”

“The knight who trained me, my mentor. I killed him.” He glared down at her. “And that is a story for another day.”

She swallowed. Why would Enoch kill another knight? And moreover, his mentor? She looked up at him, looked at the scar on his lip and his dark hair covering his ears, hanging by his jaw. His dark, stony eyes. The grooves and furrows in his brow.

“Fine,” she said. “But that means you’ve got to put me on your shoulders and bring me back to the barn.”

He looked at her incredulously. “Aren’t you like, fourteen?”

“No,” she said. “But I will be, in a season.” She gestured for his back. “Fairs fair. You upset me. I could run off instead, and then you’d have to come find me.”

Enoch gave her a long-suffering look, and then crouched back down. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

She beamed.

word count:

1,299