The Witch of Thornvale: Chapter 17: The Village that Chose
The Witch of Thornvale is a literary portal fantasy featuring two distinct characters. It allegorizes Ludwig von Mises’ Six Lessons.
If you’re just joining the misadventure and you missed Acts 1, II, and Chapter 16, catch them below:
They may take you a while, but they’re worth the read so you can understand how Drake Ridgeback and Eirwyn Starweaver ended up as borderline outcasts in Cinderglen. Once you’re caught up, read Chapter 17 below.
The Witch of Thornvale: Chapter 17
The second Drake stepped outside with Eirwyn, Cinderglen noticed.
Not all at once. This wasn’t one of those fake dramatic moments where an entire crowd turns in perfect unison like they practiced it behind the tavern. It happened in pieces. A woman carrying folded cloth stopped near the well. The blacksmith’s apprentice looked up from the quartz circle and nudged his master. A few children who’d crept too close to the glowing lines froze like someone caught them stealing apples.
Cinderglen still breathed. Hammers rang, lantern chains swayed, and water trickled through the narrow channel beside the inn. But the village’s usual rhythm bent around Drake and Eirwyn as they stood in the doorway.
Two days ago, some of these people wanted them gone.
Today, they stared like Drake was supposed to know what came next.
Eirwyn’s hand slipped into his. Her palm felt warmer than it had the day before, but her fingers still trembled before she steadied them.
“You were right,” Drake murmured.
“About what?”
“They want to hear from us.”
Eirwyn looked out at the square, where the rebuilt quartz system pulsed in the morning light. Six outer crystals surrounded a central one, blue-white threads running between them across the damp stone.
“I said they wanted to hear from you.”
“Don’t start.”
A faint smile crossed her face. “I’m too tired to start. I’ll continue later.”
That helped more than it should’ve.
The innkeeper stepped past them and raised one hand. “They’re awake and standing. And they have something to say.”
Drake shot her a look. “That’s your introduction?”
“You wanted a bell and a song?”
“No.”
“Then talk.”
He walked down the short steps into the square with Eirwyn beside him. The villagers parted enough to let them reach the edge of the quartz circle. Drake stopped before the nearest glowing line. It hummed under his shoes, faint but alive.
The blacksmith stood near the central beacon, arms crossed, soot still on one cheek. He looked like a man who agreed to listen only because storming away would make him look childish.
Drake drew a breath. “Not even two days ago, this village almost broke.”
A few people shifted, and the blacksmith’s jaw tightened.
“It almost broke because Malcor’s people found the one thing that could destroy it faster than magic.” He looked across the square. “Fear.”
The word settled over the stones.
“They didn’t have to kill you or burn anyone’s house. They just needed you suspicious, divided, and desperate enough to destroy what you built before they had to.”
A woman near the tannery lowered her eyes. The tanner rubbed the back of his neck. Someone near the back whispered something.
The blacksmith spoke. “What we built brought them here.”
“No,” Eirwyn said.
The square turned to her.
She looked pale in the sunlight, but not weak. Her lighter blue cloak fell above her knees in front, the fabric clean now, fastened at her shoulders and moving with the breeze. Her bare feet rested against stone and patches of soil where moss grew through the cracks.
“The vector brought them here. Malcor’s castors were hunting me before Drake and I ever entered Cinderglen. They needed someone who knew the roads. Someone who knew which villages were hidden. Someone who could sell locations the same way he sold thread, salt, and knives.”
A murmur cut through the crowd.
“He ate at my table once,” someone said.
“He slept in my shed when he had nowhere else to go and didn’t want to pay for a room.”
The blacksmith’s face darkened. “If he comes back—”
“He won’t walk through the square,” Drake said.
The blacksmith glared. “You know that?”
“I know cowards don’t walk into places where everybody wants to beat them flat.”
A few villagers laughed.
Eirwyn stepped closer to the outer beacon. The crystal brightened, just enough for the nearest blue line to sharpen. “Malcor is coming either way. Whether you use this system, keep trading with peddlers, or if you hide, obey, apologize, or beg.”
She swallowed, and Drake saw her hand twitch toward her side, where the brand still waited beneath her cloak. “My parents obeyed every order they were given until Malcor’s men came for me. It didn’t save them.”
The square went still.
“I ran because I had no other choice. But running only works while the people chasing you haven’t learned the roads.”
Drake let that silence breathe, then he pointed at the rebuilt circle. “This is why he’ll come. It works without him, and he won’t like it.”
People understood danger, soldiers, castors, and fire. But this? A system that didn’t need Malcor’s seal, tax men, patrols, or permission? Tyrants didn’t tolerate that for long.
The innkeeper’s son stood near the doorway with one of his chalk tablets clutched against his chest. He watched the crystals like he wanted to write down what they meant before the adults ruined it with arguing.
A woman near the well spoke up. “Then what do we do? Keep using it until soldiers come?”
“No,” Drake said. “You keep using it and prepare for soldiers.”
Fear crossed her face. Good. False comfort was how people died with a smile on their face.
“The circle helps,” Drake continued. “It can warn you, move energy, make trade more seamless, and maybe even disrupt castor magic if Eirwyn can teach it how. But it won’t swing a hammer, hide your kids, or block a blade. And it sure as hell won’t save people who wait until the next attack to decide who does what.”
The blacksmith unfolded his arms. “So what’re you saying?”
“You need roles, routes, signals, and drills.”
The word tasted strange in this world, but the meaning landed well enough.
“Blacksmiths can reinforce the beacon posts, and hunters can watch the roads. The inn already keeps food and shelter records. Tanners and weavers already make packs, straps, slings, anything that lets supplies move fast. Kids don’t fight, but older ones can carry messages if the paths are safe. Elders keep records and patterns. Every family knows where to go if trouble comes from the north road, the creek path, or the old shrine.”
The tanner frowned. “That sounds like an army.”
“No. An army waits for orders. This is a village deciding not to be stupid twice.”
That earned a few rough chuckles, and even the blacksmith’s mouth twitched.
“You guys already built it and this beacon improved it. You only need to utilize it. But you have to make that choice.”
Eirwyn crouched beside the nearest beacon, careful and slow. Drake moved like he might catch her, but she held up one hand without looking back.
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that right before not being fine.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.”
A few villagers smiled.
Good. Let them. If they saw Eirwyn as a person instead of a walking disaster with pretty hair, terrifying magic, and a near-indestructible witch with one massive weakness, maybe they’d remember why she was worth defending.
Eirwyn hovered her hand near the quartz, and the crystal pulsed. “It still has a weakness.”
The blacksmith stepped closer despite himself. “What weakness?”
“The center.” She pointed to the largest crystal. “The six outer beacons feed into it. That makes the circle stronger, but it also makes it fragile. If Malcor’s next castors understand what happened here, they won’t attack the outside first. They’ll target the middle.”
Drake stared at the central crystal and stifled a laugh, grasping the broken phone in his front pocket. Of course. Same damn problem. Different world. Centralized anything always gave the enemy a bullseye.
“So we don’t make the middle the only thing holding it together,” he said.
Eirwyn looked up.
The blacksmith narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means every crystal needs enough of the pattern to keep working if another one breaks.”
Blank stares.
Drake tried again. “Right now, this is like one person keeping every trade record in the village. If that person dies, lies, runs, or gets bribed, everyone’s blind.”
The innkeeper’s son perked up. “But we don’t do that.”
Drake pointed at him. “Exactly.”
The boy blinked, aware that the square turned toward him.
He cleared his throat. “The inn has one tally. The blacksmith keeps his own. So does the tanner and the grain sellers. If one tablet gets ruined, the others still show what happened.”
“Spread-out records,” Drake said.
The boy nodded. “Yes. That.”
“Same idea for the crystals.”
Eirwyn’s eyes sharpened. “Each beacon would carry part of the pattern. Not only the central one. They would speak to each other instead of through one point.”
Several people looked shocked, and Drake bit back a grin.
The blacksmith tapped the base of the post. “Stone sockets. Iron collars. Clay between the wood and metal. Not touching the quartz. Just bracing it.”
Eirwyn nodded. “And shallow channels between each beacon. Just deep enough to guide the energy close to the earth if the air grows unstable.”
“That’s a lot of work,” someone muttered.
The blacksmith stood. “So work.”
The innkeeper stepped forward. “Who decides who does what?”
There it was. The question behind every system that started free and risked rotting into something else.
Drake looked over the villagers. “Nobody decides for everyone.”
The elder near the well lifted one brow. “Then nothing gets done.”
“Wrong. Things get done when people have a reason to do them.” Drake gestured toward the circle. “Everyone who benefits from this helps maintain it. Labor, food, materials, patrols, records, repairs. Whatever fits.”
“A tax,” the elder said.
“No.” Drake’s voice hardened. “A contribution with an incentive attached. Voluntary. You start forcing people, and this becomes Malcor with nicer candles.”
That landed. Even the elder had no quick answer.
“If someone takes and gives nothing?” the tanner said.
“Then people stop trading with him through the circle. Produce more than you consume. That’s my advice.”
The tanner blinked. “That simple?”
“Simple doesn’t mean painless.”
The innkeeper smiled faintly.
The blacksmith huffed, then nodded.
Eirwyn rose too fast and swayed.
Drake caught her elbow. “Easy.”
“I’m all right.”
“You know, for someone who almost died two days ago, you’re doing a terrible job acting fragile.”
She glanced at him. “Would that make you feel better?”
“No.”
“Then stop asking.”
The right corner of his mouth curved upward.
Then her expression changed. Her fingers went to her side.
Drake’s humor vanished. “Brand?”
The whole square seemed to tighten around them.
Eirwyn shut her eyes. Her breathing slowed. One hand pressed over the mark beneath the cloak. “It’s not burning.”
“That’s supposed to be reassuring?”
“No.” Her eyes opened, fixed toward the north road. “Something touched the edge of it.”
The blacksmith reached for the hammer at his belt. “Castors?”
“Either them, or someone carrying their magic.”
“The vector,” someone whispered.
The word passed through Cinderglen like a cold draft. Before anyone could answer, a bell clanged from the north edge of the village.
Once.
Twice.
A third time, crooked and hard.
The crowd turned.
A young hunter stumbled into the square, mud up to his knees, blood streaked across one cheek. His bow hung loose over his shoulder.
“You?” the blacksmith barked.
The hunter bent over, hands on his thighs, gulping air.
Drake stepped toward him. “What happened?”
He looked first at Eirwyn, then at Drake. “Tracks.”
“Where?” the blacksmith said.
“North ridge. Near the burned shrine.”
Eirwyn’s face went pale in a way that had nothing to do with her recent wounds.
The hunter straightened and held out a strip of dark cloth. It was torn, stiff with black residue, and marked with a faint thread of dead magic. “Boots. A lot of them. Wagon ruts too. Fresh.”
The blacksmith took the cloth, but his eyes stayed on Eirwyn. “Same as the castors?”
“Yes.”
A low panic stirred through the square. Mothers pulled children closer. Men looked toward houses, tools, roads, and trees. The old arguments tried to wake up again. Drake could see it. Blame, fear, run, hide, demand someone else fix it. The usual he saw far too much of in his own world.
Then the central quartz crystal pulsed, and the six outer beacons answered.
Blue-white threads flashed across the stones, cleaner than before.
The innkeeper’s son stared at his tablet. “It knows.”
“No,” Eirwyn said softly. “It remembers.”
The blacksmith looked at Drake. So did the tanner, the innkeeper, the elders, and the hunter. The people who hated the circle and rebuilt it anyway before sunset.
Drake looked across Cinderglen. He nodded toward the glowing beacons. “You wanted to know when we start practicing?”
The villagers caught the hint.
>>>> Catch Chapter 18 right here as the threat builds
