Chapter 2: Seranni
When I woke, it was long past dawn.
The light of a late winter morning pushed its way through the thin linen curtains of my bedroom, brushing the walls with muted gold. It should have felt comforting, the promise of a new day, but I awoke to a weight pressing against my chest, a familiar heaviness that had nothing to do with sleep.
I sat up, the blanket pooling around my waist as I rubbed my face with both hands. My hair tumbled loose from its braid, the dark curls tangling in a way that promised a morning battle with my comb.
The room smelled faintly of lavender and cedarwood, the last traces of a sachet I had tucked beneath my pillow months ago. The single bed was small, but cozy. A simple woven throw hung over the back of the chair beside my writing desk, and a stack of folded skirts and blouses sat neatly atop the small chest by the wall. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.
It was home.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my bare feet brushing against the cool wooden floor. The chill jolted me awake more effectively than any splash of water ever could. The pale light revealed the rough-hewn simplicity of the space—wooden beams crossed overhead, their edges softened by age. The scent of snow hung in the air, creeping in through gaps in the window frame.
Today was a day that could change everything. Or it could change nothing.
If I hurried, I could make it to the guild meeting on time.
The healer’s guild.
The words carried a weight that I hadn’t expected when I was younger. The guild wasn’t just a place where medicine waspracticed—it was power. Respect. Stability. The right to be part of something larger than myself.
And they wouldn’t let me in.
The guild master had agreed to meet me today, giving me a chance to plead my case, to make him understand why I should be allowed to join. I couldn’t let this chance go to waste.
Even if my eyes felt gritty and my brain felt like it was struggling through molasses. My body cried out for more sleep, but there was no time. After thinking about it for weeks, I’d finally gathered up the courage to go visit the mage’s tower last night, and now my body was paying the price for missing out on my sleep.
I cursed under my breath as I rolled out of bed and ruthlessly dragged my hair into a knot. I still had my morning chores to handle before I could go out.
I stumbled through my morning ablutions. A cup of tea would help me wake up, I hoped. I dressed quickly, pulling on a clean blouse of soft linen and a woolen skirt the color of spring moss. My fingers paused over my mother’s shawl, a well-worn piece of indigo fabric embroidered with tiny golden stars. I draped it around my shoulders with care, tucking the ends neatly at my waist.
When I caught my reflection in the mirror above the washbasin, I almost laughed. No amount of shawls or careful braids could make me look like anything other than what I was—young, determined, and poor.
But there was something else in my eyes this morning. Hope, fragile but stubborn.
The fire in the kitchen had gone out overnight, so I crouched by the hearth, striking flint and kindling until warmth flickered to life. The kettle found its place on the iron hook above the flames,and I busied myself with slicing a small wedge of cheese and the last of the bread I’d baked two days ago.
The bread was dry and the cheese crumbly, but I ate quickly, my mind already racing ahead to the meeting with Master Fera, the guildmaster. My hands worked mechanically, spreading butter onto the bread, brushing crumbs from the table, and pouring tea into a clay mug that was older than I was.
The tea’s warmth spread through me, a comfort against the cold, but it wasn’t enough to ease the knot of worry in my stomach.
My stomach rebelled as I bolted down my food, sipping at my hot tea, my thoughts going back to last night and the man I had met at the mage’s tower.
He’d said he wasn’t a mage, but who was he? When he’d started to chase me, I’d been terrified, expecting to feel a spell strike me in the back at any moment. Then when he’d caught me, his dark mien, hidden under his shadowy cloak hadn’t served to reassure me in any manner. His eyes had been so dark that they’d been nearly black under the moonlight, just like his hair, which had been long and shaggy, hanging over his forehead and obscuring much of his features. Even then, I’d been able to see that he was scruffy, with the shadow of a beard on his chin and the tunic under his cloak that had seen better days.
But for all that, he’d been handsome. His eyes had gleamed with intelligence, and his mouth had the look of a man who smiled often and freely.
He intrigued me, this man who was not a mage.
Would I learn who he was when I saw him again tonight?
And how was he connected to the mage? The man was famous, even if no one in town had ever actuallyseenhim.
One day last year, we all heard that a tower had been built in the woods near the mountains, and it was off limits to everyone in Vilusia because one of the King’s mages would be living there.
He’d moved in last summer, at the height of the war with the Drakazov kingdom. He’d occasionally sent his men into Vilusia for supplies, what little could be found in our little town—food, paper, and ink—and then he’d holed himself up in the tower all through fall and winter, this year and the last, without coming out again.
Old Georg, who had retired from the army, liked to say that the mage was obviously working on some secret magical weapon for the war, and we’d all find out when it was time for it be revealed it to the King, but no one had really believed the old man. Before it could be proved one way or another, though, the ceasefire came, and then the armistice had followed. And before we knew it, the war with Drakazov was over as suddenly as it had started.
