Sepha’s boots pounded on the worn forest path. It was somewhere between cruel winter and frenzied spring, in that wet time just after snowfall and just before the great explosion of green. Soon, everything would be covered in a thick, sticky layer of yellow-green pollen, and the ground would be flooded from melted snow and perpetual rain. The River Guterahl would be swollen and roaring mad, and no one in the mountain town of Three Mills would have dry feet for weeks.
Sepha skidded on a patch of rot-slicked leaves, barely recovered her balance, and ran even faster. Her father’s glare flashed behind her eyes, but she shook her head, ridding herself of the image. She would not be late. She would not! Be late!
She had spent months studying blueprints, practicing alchemical exchanges, and rehearsing the speech her father Ludov had prepared for her. Now, the day had finally come.
The Magistrate, the ruler of all Tirenia, was visiting town for the express purpose of touring Father’s mill. The mill turned raw steel into parts for rifles, cannons, and armored tanks on crawler-tracked wheels. It would’ve closed years ago if not for Sepha’s hard work and unexpected knack for alchemy.
If Sepha’s demonstration didn’t go as planned, it may as well close today.
The Magistrate’s tour would culminate in Sepha’s alchemical demonstration, after which the Magistrate would have no choice but to grant them a new contract with Tirenia’s army. Or so Father had insisted. The contract would move the mill from just making parts, a pre-assembly factory, to a one-stop manufacturer of army supplies. It would halt Three Mills’ rapid decline and transform the town into a real, thriving community. And it all hinged on Sepha’s demonstration.
She’d stayed up late last night preparing for the demonstration, making sure everything was just so. This morning, exhausted from the previous night, she’d walked to the River Guterahl to clear her head.
And had fallen asleep.
Like an absolute idiot.
And now she had to run—and run—and run, if she was to get to the mill on time.
“Stupid!” she muttered angrily.
Stu-pid, stu-pid, her boots seemed to agree, slamming the word against the ground.
The common path unwound ahead of her, skirting the edge of the forest until it reached the ramshackle housing near Three Mills’ industrial district. Past the housing were the defunct flour and saw mills, and past those, at the farthest end of the mill-yard, was the steel mill. She was too far off. She wouldn’t make it.
Unless.
There was a second, much-frowned-upon path through the heart of the forest that would save her nearly a mile. Magicians used to lurk in the woods, but it had been quiet for years. Not a single attack. Anyway, she was more afraid of Father than anything that might be on that path. And fear had always spun her reckless.
When she came to the fork, she hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking the overgrown path to the right. She was so focused on the tasks ahead that she didn’t notice the heaviness of the air, the strange smell, or the unnatural hush that hung like a mist over the forest.
Get to the mill. Do the demonstration. Impress the Magistrate. Save the town.
And, added a small and hopeful voice inside, maybe, if you’re lucky, the Magistrate will make you a Court Alchemist.
Sepha swallowed and shook her head. That was nonsense. Unlike Sepha and every other alchemist she’d ever met, Court Alchemists were official. They’d gotten into the elite Institute of Alchemical Discipline—which Sepha had spectacularly failed to do—and had come out full, guilded alchemists. Which Sepha could never be, not with her—not with the way things were.
She focused instead on something useful, something real: the speech Father had written for her.
“Today,” she muttered in time with the beat of her boots on the ground, “I will show you how our mill takes common steel and transmutes it into tirenium.” The rectangular ingot in her pocket pressed against her leg as she dashed around a bend in the narrow path. “The strongest alloy in …”
A fallen tree lay across the path, and Sepha climbed over it. When her boots landed on the other side, she looked up.
And stopped dead.
Her mind went blank, her body went numb, and her heart beat hard against her chest.
Too late, the silence of the forest impressed itself upon her: a heavy blanket of nothing instead of the usual racket of birdsong and small rustlings and the wind scrubbing the leaves. And she could see why it was so.
Sepha stood on the edge of a wide ring of devastation: perfectly round, perfectly silent. Fallen trees, hundreds of them, lay on the ground in a riot of lines that pointed in every direction but up. There was a sacred horror about the place, like a battlefield after the fighting is done. Sepha was afraid to breathe, afraid that the slightest sound might disturb … whatever had done this.
Flinching at a loud crack behind her, Sepha turned and saw that the ring was still expanding. With a sound like a sigh, a pine tree shivered and shed all of its needles. A prolonged groan, and the tree crashed to the ground.
Sepha turned on her heel, slow and disbelieving, and stared at the fallen trees. This couldn’t be natural. Things like this didn’t just happen. There was no man or beast who could—who would—
Oh.
It wasn’t natural.
This, whatever it was, was magic. Now that it occurred to her, she could see magic in the too-perfect symmetry of the ring, in the speed with which it expanded, in the hush and the horror.
Magic.
Thunder rolled long and low across the sky in emphatic agreement.
Sepha’s first teacher had taught her about magicians and all the other evil magical creatures. The stories had been for practical education as much as for entertainment; children in Three Mills had to learn about magic so they could avoid dying by it. Magicians, although rare, were wicked and so powerful they were all but invincible. And the deep forests surrounding Three Mills were perfect for practicing their dark arts.
But if Teacher had ever warned them about this, Sepha couldn’t remember it.
Sepha’s palms went clammy, her gaze darting in every direction.
A magician. A magician had done this. And might still be lurking nearby.
Another tree cracked, groaned, and crashed to the ground. Sepha shrieked and leapt forward, covering her head with both arms as she scrambled out of range of the falling timber.
In the sudden stillness, Sepha heard a new sound. A sort of whisper, a sort of hum, coming from the middle of the field. Sepha’s head swung toward the source of the sound.
Everything went still.
There, at the very center of all this destruction, was a single living tree. Its trailing leaves were a vivid dark purple against the grayscale devastation, and it seemed at once triumphant and heartbroken. The only tree left where once there had been hundreds.
It was horrible.
It was lovely.
In fact, it was the loveliest thing Sepha had ever seen.
Sepha’s knee bumped against a fallen tree, and she clambered over it. She hadn’t realized she was walking toward the solitary tree, but now that she did know, she was glad. There was nothing more important than getting closer to that tree. Than stroking its vivid purple leaves and maybe sleeping beneath its canopy for a while. She was tired, quite tired.