It was cause for celebration—we’d all lived with the fear that our little town would be overrun with the barbaric soldiers of the West, and now suddenly, everything was back to normal again.
Which meant that my reprieve was over.
While the war had been raging and the young men of Vilusia had been drafted into the army, the guild masters were content to let women take up more power in the guilds. They needed someone to do all the work, of course.
But once the war had come to an end and it was clear that the men would start to return, it meant that the women, too, had to go back to the places they had occupied before the war—under the thumbs of the men in their lives.
And I, as an unmarried young woman, had no place in the healers’ guild. It would’ve been different if my father were stillhere, if he could sign for me—but well, that’s why I was working so hard to make it easier for him to return.
He’d left two summers ago, before the King had declared war on Drakazov. He’d left me some money for living expenses, and I had managed to supplement it by bartering and trading my healing services for supplies or money. Father had promised to write and send for me once he’d found work and settled down somewhere new, and I’d been waiting to hear from him. But it didn’t mean I was doing nothing in the meanwhile.
I was making plans of my own. If I could get a permanent spot in the healer’s guild,Icould send for my father instead.
After all, if it was at all possible for Father to return to Vilusia, surely, he would prefer to return home? The only thing stopping us from living together was the fact that there was no job here that paid Father enough to keep us both.
When he returned and saw how much more useful I was, how much I could help contribute to our income, surely, he’d stay back.
And we’d finally be a family again.
And what if the Guildmaster refuses to give you a place in the guild?
I pushed the thought away. I would do my best, but of course, I was not so foolish as to pin all my hopes on Master Fera. I knew what he was like, after all.
No, if I wasn’t allowed to join the guild, I was going to leave Vilusia.
I swallowed hard at the thought. It had been a secret dream of mine, one that I had scarcely hoped would ever come true.
A life away from Vilusia, somewhere where I could befree. For the first time in my life, the dream felt like it was in mygrasp. With the war ended, the borders were open again, even if they were heavily guarded. Father and I could go anywhere,beanything.
Maybe I could even live openly as a witch.
As long as I remained in my homeland, if I ever performed my magic openly, I would be drafted into the army, sent off to fight the King’s wars. There was no other option for mages and witches in Telluria.
Which was why my father and I had decided to hide my magic, ever since it had manifested when I was twelve.
If I was exposed, I would be carted off to the capital and I would never see my father again. And heneededme. Who else would look after him, if not me?
Normally, that meant I would’ve avoided the tower like my life depended on it—which it did—but now, I couldn’t afford to ignore my one chance at making my family whole again.
When old Mother Narr had mentioned that the tower was looking vacant, and that her son had told her that it was many weeks since he’d seen candlelight in the tower, I knew I had to take the chance. If the mage had truly left in a hurry when the ceasefire had been announced, I had to learn what I could from the tower.
I did what I could in secret, of course, stretching my magic and using it to brew healing potions and make them magically potent, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to learnmore. I had heard of mages and witches making money from their magic in other countries.
It had been years since I’d seen a travelling magician. Once, they had been a common sight, before the current King had ascended the throne of Telluria and commandeered all magic for his wars.
But I remembered what they’d told me. And I’d heard it again and again, from the merchants who travelled across the continent. Life was different in the Four Kingdoms. There, magic users were valued, but not indentured to their kings. They were free.
If Father and I could escape from Vilusia, could I be free, too?
The future unfurled before me, bright with possibilities.
Of course, I wouldpreferto stay in Vilusia, in my hometown. I could work with the guild, and my father would return and we could stay in Vilusia, in the home my parents had shared until my mother’s death, where I could still the echoes of her love for me.
But all my plans depended on the guild master here agreeing to let me join the healers’ guild. And the guild was resistant.
It infuriated me, how little these men cared for my skills. I could not heal openly with my magic, so I was left to brew tonics and make herbal pain remedies. And I wasstellarat my work, it came to me naturally, my magic guiding me intuitively.
But the old men on the guild thought that bloodletting and binding bones was what made them healers, as if my work was lowly and unworthy of admiration or regard. All I was doing was brewing tonics, they said, as if they were nothing more than a soup or a stew.
