The Witch of Thornvale: The complete first act
The Witch of Thornvale is a literary portal fantasy featuring two distinct characters. It allegorizes Ludwig von Mises’ Six Lessons.
If you missed the first six chapters of my serial portal fantasy, The Witch of Thornvale, you can catch them all below. Then, catch Act II, where Drake Ridgeback and Eirwynn Starweaver continue their misadventure.
If you’re a fan of the Six Lessons from Ludwig on Mises, this tale will begin to look very, very familiar on Lesson One.
Eirwyn Starweaver is a witch on the run from the king’s huntsmen.
Drake Ridgeback is a disillusioned hockey writer living in a world where violent protestors on both sides of the political spectrum clash.
When Drake takes refuge in a mysterious magical shop to escape the unrest, he falls through an enchanted mirror and into another world, crossing paths with Eirwyn.
The huntsmen gain ground and believe Drake is helping Eirwyn stay one step ahead of them, labeling him a criminal.
If caught, Drake will be killed, and the huntsmen will force Eirwyn into the king’s military ranks, her power exploited to serve his imperial interests.
While on the run, they encounter a thriving village that respects property rights and free markets. The villagers offer solace in exchange that Drake and Eirwyn contribute, but it’s only a matter of time before the huntsmen discover their whereabouts. This time with reinforcements.
And they’re willing to kill anyone who stands in their way.
Chapter 1: Streets of Steel and Fire
Drake Ridgeback lifted his media badge like it was a middle finger encased in plastic. The jittery security guy wearing a rent-a-cop vest that barely fit nodded him through the barricade with the kind of apathy that said, You’re not important, but you’re not a threat.
Pittsburgh’s winter gnawed at Drake’s neck as the arena doors hissed shut behind him. Drake adjusted the strap of his soaked laptop bag and zipped up the Penguins pullover he wore for show. Black and gold across his chest convinced everyone he was on their side.
Beneath it rested his real loyalty: a faded Sabres tee. Blue and gold, worn thin from too many seasons of heartbreak. No playoffs in over a decade, but it was real. That’s what mattered.
The crowded hallway buzzed under fluorescent lighting and excited voices. Drake wove through the fans, head down just enough to avoid small talk, but high enough to project a don’t mess with me vibe.
Two familiar reporters passed, one a podcast puppet, the other from a site that used to print his work before they drank the diversity Kool-Aid. Both looked right through Drake. Perfect.
His phone buzzed and the burner account he used with Spotify popped up. Notifications from the podcast. One he’d turn into his real job. Anonymous, sharp-tongued, and so unfiltered that it’d send the establishment mob into a frenzy.
Six months in and already more traction than six years of credentialed sports writing fluff that kept the masses pacified. But hey, every band of self-righteous moral supremacists needed someone to keep an eye on them. Drake smirked as he let himself into the booth just as the National Anthem ended.
The game slogged into the first period. Neutral zone dumps, blocked shots, and background noise for bored minds who looked more interested in falling asleep than watching two dysfunctional teams.
Drake typed half a sentence, deleted it, then acted like he was enjoying the game. The Sabres were losing the intimidation battle and couldn’t keep the puck in the offensive zone any longer than a few seconds.
Drake let his mind wander to the riots, pulled out his phone, and clicked over to Rumble, where drone feeds from Fifth Avenue lit up his video recommendations. Protesters packed the sidewalks, marching in the arena’s direction, chanting the same slogans they probably heard others yelling when CNN aired the Chicago riot. Cold never froze outrage in any major American metropolis.
Drake thanked fate when the horn signaled the intermission and he slipped out of the building before half of those in attendance bustled for the concessions.
Cold air slapped him as he pushed through the east doors. Part of him wished he grabbed his jacket, but it wasn’t like that intermission would last longer than twenty minutes. Anything beat the arena’s artificial oxygen. If security gave him hell, he’d have them grab his laptop and he’d catch the game from a restaurant.
Plus, he needed to get a look at those riots so he could claim he saw at least a few minutes of them live on his podcast.
Two crowds faced off a block from the south entrance. One side waved rainbow flags and looked like something out of a winter-themed drag show. The other wore flannel jackets, with some carrying Gadsden flags. Both sides carried megaphones and barked slogans into the void like war cries.
“Equity Now!”
“Stop Grooming Our Kids!”
“Decolonize Math!”
“Bring Back Common Sense!”
Drake shook his head. “All this because the State thinks it owns your kids’ brains.”
Down the street, riot cops lined up with their visors down, batons and shields ready, waiting for the one idiot to strike.
It came fast. A firecracker, then a bottle. And before Drake knew it, fists flew.
The line collapsed like drywall under pressure. Someone screamed, and a girl went down in the slush. Elbows flew, flags tore, boots stomped, and pepper spray hissed into the crowd and the air turned sharp with chemical panic.
Drake backed away, filming at a low angle. He kept his mouth shut, letting the footage speak. He’d commentate on it when he ventured into his studio.
He ducked into an alley as the tear gas rolled. Sirens rose as a trash bin crashed into a patrol car, shattering glass. Drones buzzed above, their red lights blinking and recording every second of the mayhem.
Drake ran deeper into this deserted alley, his shoes slipping on wet concrete, lungs burning.
Then, nothing.
It was like the alley forgot the rest of the world existed.
Drake slowed and put his phone in flashlight mode.
The beam caught something odd. A narrow building of weathered brick wedged between two others. It had an ancient wooden door with fogged glass windows flanking it. Symbols carved into the building’s frame.
Steady, unnatural light pulsed behind the door’s cracks.
Drake found his hand clasping around the knob. He pushed it open further and it responded with a groan, as if no one opened it in years.
Inside, the noise from the streets faded. When he let the door close, it grew so quiet that nobody in here would’ve known a full-scale riot erupted.
Shelves lined the walls, filled with locked tomes, storm-glass globes, and wax-sealed boxes. Drake’s eyes darted around the shop, looking for a clerk, a counter, or even one of those old-school cash registers. The place looked like it’d been around long enough to have one.
Then he saw it.
A towering floor-to-ceiling mirror framed in runes that shimmered the way objects do when one looks past a burning grill.
He stepped closer, and the air thickened. His reflection twisted and flickered, shimmering in the same way as the runes.
A forest and starlit sky emerged in the mirror, then light, a blast of blue, and a strange, fluorescent hum.
Drake raised his hand before he realized what he was doing and it brushed a single rune—Dagaz, the rune of breakthrough.
Then everything went white.
Chapter 2: The Witch in Blue
Drake came to, his face pressed against cold stone.
His cheek stuck to it, slick with moisture. The air pressed down, thick and damp, heavy with an earthly scent. He sucked in a breath and gagged, tasting metal. Blood. A film of sweat stuck to his back, soaked through his Sabres shirt and into his Penguins pullover.
A single drop of water dripped somewhere in the dark. To Drake, it echoed like a gunshot.
He rolled onto his back, gritting his teeth as his elbow scraped something jagged. His body protested with every movement. Throbbing at his side told him his hips bruised. Searing pain at his knees stated he’d rubbed them raw. The ground beneath him was uneven, carved by time.
Another drop. Then another.
He blinked, but his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the pitch black. The kind of dark that swallowed up shapes. He didn’t know what it felt like to fall into a black hole, but the void in this place gave him an idea.
He sat up, teeth clenched. Muscles stiff, a deep ache pulsed behind his eyes like a migraine rolling in.
“Where the hell—?” His voice cracked halfway out, swallowed before it reached the cave walls.
He rubbed his eyes, wiped the wet grit off his face, then looked up.
Light of some sort glimmered overhead. A faint pulse, blue and steady, throbbed.
He squinted.
A vein of crystal arched across the stone ceiling. It looked like a frozen lightning bolt, glowing just enough to paint the floor in dull cobalt. The glow shifted with every flicker of water that slid across it.
Drake pulled himself to his feet. The soles of his trainers scraped grit across rock as his legs wobbled. His breath fogged in the cold, though this type of cold was more manageable than the streets of Pittsburgh.
He turned in a slow circle. The walls, if he had to describe them, looked grown. Smooth in some places, jagged in others, like nature hadn’t decided what this place was supposed to be. Crystals jutted out at odd angles from the corners. Some glimmered, others dead and gray. Knife-like stalactites hung above.
He strained his ears, desperate to hear at least one familiar sound. But only that slow drip came, and a shuffle of gravel somewhere deeper in the dark.
Drake ran a hand through his curls, soaked with sweat and cave damp. His fingers trembled.
That mirror took him somewhere, just like that wardrobe in Chronicles of Narnia took those kids into another world. The thing swallowed Drake whole and spit him out into a place with no exit signs, rioters, traffic, or anything of the modern world. No signs of anything human period.
Whatever this place was, it sure as hell wasn’t Pittsburgh.
Then something made Drake’s breath hitch.
There it was. A sound.
Not dripping water this time. Something deliberate. A scuff. The whisper of movement against stone.
He crouched, every muscle tensing.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t rushing him, but it knew he was here. It wasn’t in a hurry, if Drake’s ears read it right. But that made it worse. Like it saw him as prey.
His hand dropped to his pocket for his phone. Nothing but a blank screen stared back. Of course, it wouldn’t have survived that fall through the mirror.
Drake shoved it back in and scanned the floor. He picked up a rock about the size of a baseball, jagged on one end. Not a weapon or even a prison shank, but it felt better than a dead phone.
Drake tightened his grip around it and he backed up, pressing his shoulder blades to the nearest wall. The cold seeped into his spine, even as perspiration still coated it.
More movement met his ears, and it drew nearer. Soft feet skimming gravel. Almost graceful, methodic even.
His throat went dry as a silhouette stepped into view.
At first, he couldn’t tell if it was human. The body was slight, short, and cloaked in deep blue that shimmered with each flicker of dim crystal light. The figure moved like smoke, almost drifting.
Then he saw the feet. Bare, pale, and smooth, toes curled slightly against the cold stone, like they belonged here.
And the hands—
They glowed. Pale blue light spiraled across the figure’s palms, coiling like mist, then flaring brighter at the fingertips. And the glow? It hummed. A vibration in the air made the hairs on Drake’s arms rise.
That had to be where the crystal light came from.
Drake pulled his lips in and held his breath, not knowing if they’d be an ally or an enemy.
The figure raised both hands, slow and steady, until they looked ready to strike.
Drake froze. The rock still clenched in his fist.
Then a voice, sharp and female, cut through the darkness. “Drop it.”
The rock hit the ground before Drake even realized he’d let go.
Her fingers flexed, and the light in her palms pulsed, casting her face into full view.
Young. Maybe eighteen. Blue eyes glowing brighter than the crystals. Skin pale like the cave had never let the sun near her. Dark brown hair hung damp over her shoulders in straight sheets. No makeup, but her sharp features gave her a natural kind of charm. And she looked like she could rip the cave in half if she wanted to, given her fierce gaze.
Chest tightening, Drake raised both hands. “I’m not here to fight.”
She locked her eyes on him. “Don’t lie to me. No one comes here by accident.” Her voice was a dangerous kind of calm, and icy to the core.
“I didn’t come here. I was thrown.”
“You’re a liar.” The energy in her hands flared hotter.
“I came through a mirror. It lit up. Pulled me in. Next thing I knew, I’m face-down on cave rock. That’s all I’ve got.”
Her gaze narrowed and she stepped closer.
The glow from her hands washed over his face, casting shadows under his cheekbones, glinting off the sweat on his skin.
Light spiraled faster across her palms, bright enough now that Drake had to squint. The hum in the air deepened, and took on a pressure that crawled inside his ears and clamped around his skull.
She took another step toward him. Her cloak, tied behind her so that her defined calves and thighs showed, dragged against the stone with the whisper of silk across glass.
The glow pulsed harder and her jaw tightened as she studied him. “You’re a Huntsman.”
“What?”
“You work for the regime. You came to conscript me.”
“Cons—what are you talking about?”
Her glower intensified, and her left hand flared with sudden intensity. Blue light arced from her palm, lighting up the cave walls in a flash of electric fire.
“Okay! Hey! No—” He took a step sideways, hands raised. “I’m not with anybody. I swear.”
“You wear their colors.” Her eyes flicked back to his pullover, still damp and clinging to his arm as the Sabres shirt under it was beyond drenched.
“Penguins?” He glanced down, then back up. “It’s a hockey team.”
“A what?”
His mouth opened. Then shut.
This was pointless.
He took a cautious step forward. “Look, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what kind of war you think I’m part of, but I’m not a soldier. I’m just trying to figure out where the hell I—”
Her hand snapped upward, and a beam of energy cracked the air like a whip.
It sliced past his head, close enough that the heat scorched his cheek and the pressure made his ears ring. The stone wall behind him exploded in a blast of steam and sparks. The glow stuck to the rock for a moment, molten red fading to a smoking black scar.
Drake wheeled around and took off. His feet pounded off the cave floor, causing his chest to burn as his heart hammered in his throat.
Chapter 3: The Chase
Stone whipped past in flashes of cobalt and shadow as Drake sprinted down the narrow tunnel, lungs burning, sweat mixing with cave dust in his eyes. His shoes slipped on slick patches of moss and runoff. Every footfall echoed like a gunshot in the tight corridor.
A burst of blue light surged behind him and hot air chased it. He ducked under a low ceiling beam, and scraped his shoulder, but he quickened his pace despite the searing pain. Another tunnel split left and he took it, praying it would throw her off.
The air grew stale, tighter. The walls closed in, and the passage grew more narrow as wet rock brushed his arms. He turned another corner and caught himself against the stone just before slamming into it full-speed. His chest heaved, heart pounding against the inside of his ribs like it wanted out.
Then came her light footsteps. Fast. Too fast. Her bare feet skimmed across gravel like wind over glass.
He pushed off the wall and ran again. Legs burning and vision blurring, Drake knew it wouldn’t be long until he collapsed from exhaustion. He hadn’t eaten or drank in hours, and this entire ordeal already sucked a lot out of him. The tunnel sloped downward, and his momentum carried him faster than he wanted.
Crystals embedded in the walls flashed as he passed. Brief sparks of blue, tiny flares that pulsed then faded. Each glow painted shadows across the tunnel in fast staccato bursts.
Drake glanced over his shoulder.
The girl gained ground, a perpetual glare etched on her face. Her cloak whipped behind her, palms alive with coiling strands of light. The air bent to her will as she approached. Every movement clean, sharp, and controlled.
Drake would be surprised if she hadn’t chased anyone down like this before. Doomsday scenario after doomsday scenario filled his mind as he hit a patch of wet stone and slipped. His knee smashed the rock and pain shot up his thigh, hands scraped raw as he caught himself. He slid across a shallow shelf and came to rest against a jagged column of crystal.
He gritted his teeth, rolled onto his back, and pulled his legs under him.
She stepped into view.
One hand raised, the glow seared the cave walls in pulses. Her chest rose and fell with steady breaths. No sweat. Not a single sign she’d just sprinted through a labyrinth.
The light from her palms reflected off the moisture on the stone, dancing across the walls.
She stopped a few paces away, one arm locked, fingers spread. The energy spiraled tighter, ready to fire.
As the light bathed his face, Drake raised both hands, knees still throbbing from the fall.
“Okay,” he said, panting. “You win.”
Drake stayed crouched, arms raised, fingers shaking from more than adrenaline.
The blue glow poured over him like stage light. Every twitch in her palm coiled energy tighter. A wrong move, and he’d be steam on the cave wall.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, voice steady but raw. “I don’t know where the hell I am. I’m not here to fight.”
His breath fogged as he spoke. The cave pressed in around them, silent and waiting.
She stepped closer. The crystals along the walls pulsed brighter in her presence. She moved like someone trained to kill but conditioned to wait.
Her gaze dropped.
She took in the soaked Penguins shirt clinging to his chest, the shorts smeared with dirt and blood, the athletic shoes scuffed from the sprint. Her eyes flicked back up and rested on his face before flickering to his hands that he still raised in surrender.
Still crouched over, Drake knew he looked like human prey. Wounded and lost.
The light in her hands flickered, and lost some of its edge.
She paced with measured steps in front of him, her cloak trailing like a shadow stitched to her heels. The blue glow faded from a flare to a pulse, soft and steady, casting her features in low light. Her mouth pressed into a tight line and her brow held tension, but it wasn’t aggression.
“If you were one of the others, you would have fought back. Or at least tried to have lured me into a trap.”
“I’m not one of the others.” Drake lowered his arms an inch. Sweat dripped down the side of his temple. “I’m not even from this world.”
She tilted her head and the glow faded even more. Her hands slowly lowered.
One breath. Then another.
“Even if you’re not one of them,” she said, “how do I know you’re not going to tell them where you last saw me?”
Drake stared at her. “What do you want? A passport?”
The corner of her mouth twitched—half amusement, half warning. “What’s a passport?”
Drake twisted his lips and shook his head.
“Start talking,” she said. “Or I’ll start conjuring again.”
The fading glow extinguished from her palms, but she kept her fingers flexed. Shadows returned to her face, sharper now without the wash of energy to soften them.
She stepped back once. Just enough space for Drake to breathe, but not enough to relax.
She kept her eyes fixed on him. “Well?”
“Haven’t I said enough? I already mentioned hockey and passports. Here, c-can I reach into my pocket?”
She aimed an open palm at his chest. “Go. But if you do anything stupid, you’re going to be in a lot of pain.”
Drake pulled out his phone and handed it to her. “Does anybody from here have one of these?”
She studied the phone and a ran a hand over the blank screen. “What is it?”
“It’s called a phone. You use it for just about anything. Talking to people. Texting them. Going on the internet. Has anybody ever once mentioned that here?”
She bit her bottom lip then shoved the phone back into his hand. “I don’t know what kind of witchcraft you’re talking about, but nobody, neither the Huntsmen nor his soldiers, carry one of those.”
“So you believe me?”
“For now. I’m Eirwyn Starweaver.”
She said it like the name held weight in this world.
Drake straightened, and wiped the grit and lingering blood off his palms onto his shirt. “Drake Ridgeback.”
She echoed it softly. “Drake.” Then again, slower, tasting it. “Strange name.”
He shrugged. “Stranger place.”
She again studied his posture, the dried blood at his temple, and the dirt clinging to his clothes.
Then she turned, cloak flaring as she pivoted. “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”
“If I’m lying, I deserve it.”
She paused and threw him a half-glance. One laced with suspicion. “Follow me.”
Eirwyn moved into the darkness ahead without looking back. The crystals lit as she passed, flickering alive one by one.
Drake drew a breath, thanked the universe that she was at least keeping him alive for the moment, then followed.
The cave swallowed their footsteps, and the light of the surface world—whatever world this was—waited somewhere ahead.
Chapter 4: Into the Whispering Woods
The tunnel curved upward, slow and steady. Each step took them farther from the breathless dark of the cavern and closer to something lighter.
Drake followed. Every crystal along the wall faded as Eirwyn passed, like stars blinking out at dawn. The pulse of magic dulled behind them, swallowed by stone and distance.
The air stirred, carrying something sharp and green-smelling. Pine, or maybe moss? Wet bark? A current of earth and leaf rot cut through the stale cave air, and hit the back of Drake’s throat.
Ahead, daylight seeped through a split in the rock. Not full sun. Bluer. Cooler. The kind of light that doesn’t warm but reveals.
Eirwyn’s pace grew so brisk, she looked like she was gliding. Like her legs were built to escape gravity.
The exit narrowed into a jagged mouth of stone and root. Tree limbs twisted through the gap from the outside. Drake had to duck, shoulder brushing the wall as they slipped through.
Trees with massive trunks thick as city pillars stretched up into a foggy sky. Their branches dripped with moss and thin leaves that curled at the edges. A low mist drifted around their feet, soft and silver, swirling in patterns he couldn’t explain. Every breath of wind sent ripples through it.
The forest hummed with a trill of insects. A single, low guttural birdcall cut across the canopy. Something responded in the distance.
Drake squinted upward. Shafts of blue light stabbed through breaks in the leaves, spotlighting patches of green-black moss, bent ferns, and soft ground.
His sneakers sank half an inch into the loam.
Eirwyn stepped to the edge of the clearing, cloak sweeping around her bare legs, eyes scanning the trees.
She scurried ahead, silent over the moss, and stopped beside an ancient, twisted tree with bark dark as ash and veins of pale green light webbed through its base. She pressed her palm against the trunk, shifting her fingertips across the grooves.
Wind creaked through the limbs high above, pulling strands of mist into swirling ribbons. The branches gave a low rustle. Eirwyn moved to the ground, crouched low, and laid her other hand flat across the earth.
The glow in her palm reignited, dull but steady, sinking into the moss.
As she closed her eyes, Drake stayed back, one sneaker still half-buried in the soft ground. His breath misted in the air. A knot twisted below his ribs as he watched her.
She stood. “No nearby Huntsmen. Or conscripts. Another group we need to watch out for.”
Her voice came low, almost bored. Like she hadn’t just scanned the entire damn forest with her bare hands.
Drake cocked his head, squinting. “Conscripts?”
She looked over her shoulder, barely turning. “Press-ganged witches. Owned by the Crown.”
He stepped forward, shoes sinking again into the damp loam. “Owned?”
She turned on her heel and strode away.
Drake caught up, sneakers squelching through the moss. “Conscripts? You mean like… a draft?”
Eirwyn snorted and gave him a sideways look, one brow raised. “You really don’t know anything.”
“I already told you I’m not from here.” He brushed a branch away from his face. “And in my world, a conscript is some poor bastard who gets a letter and a uniform.”
“No letter here. Just torches. Sometimes a blade to the throat if you argue.”
The path narrowed and roots coiled across it. Eirwyn stepped around them without looking while Drake stumbled, caught himself, and pushed forward.
“They come mostly at night. When the families are too tired to run. Huntsmen or conscripts first. Then the casters.”
“Casters?”
“War mages marked by the Crown. They don’t speak unless ordered. Don’t think unless they’re told to. Once you’re taken, they carve the runes into you. Once it’s done, you’re part of Malcor’s army forever.”
“Wait, you’re saying he brands people?”
She paused near a crooked stump, hand on her hip, fingers twitching like she was reliving the memory in muscle alone. “People, witches, elementals—anyone who can conjure without incantations.”
Her voice was flat, like she’d told the story too many times and stopped caring who believed it.
“Children are easiest. They don’t fight back as hard. A lot don’t know what they are until it’s too late. Some of them glow by accident during harvest season and vanish before sundown.
“Families that resist are marked too. If not for conscription, then for obstruction. And if they hide someone… the hunters just burn the house.”
Drake pushed past a low branch and caught up beside her. His voice rasped. “So what—people just let this happen?”
“They didn’t at first. But Malcor knows how to twist fear. If you want to keep your land, food, and rations, you look the other way.”
Her cloak brushed his arm as she scurried ahead of him again. The forest swallowed her steps.
Drake fell back in line, heartbeat drumming against his ribs.
The light bleeding through the trees dimmed as the woods thickened, and the sound of birds gave way to wind whispering through a thousand crooked limbs.
Drake stepped over a root thick as his thigh and ducked beneath a canopy of twisted branches. Pine needles brushed his shoulders and mist curled at his ankles. Thin but restless, like it didn’t want to let go.
“So, you’ve got magic, but you need to sell your soul to use it unless you escape?”
Eirwyn shot him a glance. Her brow twitched. “That surprises you?”
“It’s insane.”
“You come from a place where your rulers don’t ration power?”
Drake barked a laugh. “Oh, they ration alright. But not like this. We don’t have a Ministry of Spell Permits or whatever the hell you’re talking about.”
Eirwyn stopped at a clearing. A pocket of bare ground between the trees where the moss thinned and a few broken stumps poked through. Her hand slid beneath her cloak.
She pulled out a stone the size of a coin, flat and smooth, etched with runes that shimmered in the shadowed light.
Drake took a step closer.
Faded symbols crisscrossed its surface with circular patterns and sharp angles almost fractal in design. The stone pulsed, then dulled.
“Once upon a time, witches could freely summon fire with this.”
The way she held it between two fingers, out and steady, it felt more like a warning than a display.
“Now?” She turned it in her hand. “Illegal unless you’re part of Malcor’s forces.”
Drake let out a low whistle. “You’ve got bureaucrats for bonfires.”
“You joke, but that laughter can get you killed.”
Drake’s smile faded.
She tucked the stone away. “They claim it’s about safety and protecting the fragile. But it’s not. It’s about control.” She stepped past him, mist parting in coils around her legs.
“Everything is taxed. Food grown with rune-imbued soil. Healing spells from licensed witches serving under Malcor. Even the rain clouds. If you want one of Malcor’s elementals to summon them and water your crops, you better have your records in order.”
Drake looked around, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. The fog, the runes, the silence. Every leaf in this place whispered surveillance. “And if you don’t?”
“Then the harvest rots, the sick die, and the earth stays dry.”
Drake stared at the ground, fists clenching. “This place makes my world look amateur.”
Branches drooped overhead, draped in hanging moss that swayed with each breath of wind. Drake pushed one aside, its damp leaves brushing his temple.
He stepped over a cluster of fungus, ducked beneath a crooked limb, then glanced at Eirwyn. Her bare feet barely shifted the moss.
A raven cried in the canopy above. Its call was broken, like it choked on the last word of a warning.
Eirwyn stepped over a fallen log, cloak catching on a broken twig before she tugged it loose.
“It’s always the same story,” he said. “Different world, same tyrants. Worse tyrants.”
Eirwyn pushed a thick curtain of vines aside and stepped onto a narrow deer trail, this one barely wide enough for her cloak. The light through the trees shifted. It was duller, more silver than blue. Above them, the forest pressed inward.
Drake hurried to catch up, sidestepping roots that twisted through the path. “You talk like you’re one of the last.”
Eirwyn slowed, her shoulders rising with a quiet breath. “Witches used to live in full villages. Whole provinces kept warm in winter because of them. They healed, taught, and kept the storms away.”
Her hand grazed a branch overhead. The bark peeled at her touch, releasing a faint crackle of residual energy. Its glow shimmered along her fingertips before fading. “Then Malcor rose, and the provinces emptied.”
Drake glanced up at a cluster of black birds shifting restlessly on a branch.
“Now?” Eirwyn stepped over a sunken tree root, her feet landing without a sound. “Half-bloods vanish from villages before their parents even learn the truth. Doesn’t matter if their magic is strong or if they’ve never conjured a single spell.”
She paused at the base of a hill where the trail cut between two massive stone outcroppings. “They’re guilty by blood and breath. One rumor’s enough.”
Drake’s hands clasped around the dead phone in his pocket. The only anchor to his world.
Eirwyn crouched and passed through a thicket of thorny shrubs, arms close to her sides. Her hand reached for the ground again, touching the base of a stone flecked with moss. The faint hum of magic tingled the air. “That’s why I don’t sleep in the same place twice.” She stood and continued up the incline.
Drake watched her move, one careful step after another. He couldn’t tell where her caution ended and her instinct began. Whatever life she had before this, it burned out long ago.
He picked up his pace. The trees thinned slightly ahead. Then a twig snapped. One too close for comfort.
Eirwyn froze mid-step, arm shooting out to bar his path.
Chapter 5: Drake’s Tale
Eirwyn’s body coiled tight, her eyes fixed in the sound’s direction.
The spark bloomed in her palm. It was small before threading up her fingers in pulsing lines of pale blue. The glow lit the damp air around her, dancing across the slick bark and stirring the mist at her feet into swirls.
Branches brushed each other high above, and the echo rolled down like something bigger moved between them.
Eirwyn pointed to a fallen log ahead, then dropped low. Her cloak pooled around her legs as she crouched. Drake followed, his eyes darting all over the terrain.
The log felt damp beneath his fingers and the bark peeled away in patches. Beneath it, insects shifted inside the hollow. He grabbed a rock slick with mud, his fingers tightening around it like he had back in the cave.
Eirwyn’s breath slowed. Her body remained stone-still, eyes narrow slits under the blue flicker. The light cast thin shadows across her cheekbones. She pressed her other hand to the edge of the log, listening with every inch of skin.
Another crunch, closer this time.
Drake leaned forward enough to see a stretch of trail through the undergrowth. He adjusted his grip on the rock. It felt too light to matter, and too real to drop. The tension in his legs begged to break into motion, but Eirwyn stayed crouched, watching.
The blue glow in her palms dimmed to a whisper of light as she relaxed her fingers, but she had yet to move.
Something shifted in the air, and Drake caught the vibe these woods were watching.
A low rustle stirred the brush ahead. Branches flexed, and a patch of leaves shifted just beyond a bend in the trail, maybe twenty yards out.
Eirwyn raised a hand. Energy glimmered from her palm and across her knuckles in a thin web of blue.
Something padded through the undergrowth. It was slow, moving without urgency. Dry leaves crackled, a bush trembled, and a black shape slinked through the mist.
It had four legs, a sloped back, and a thick tail.
Drake tightened his grip on the rock, and his breath hitched as the creature stepped into view.
It was a long-bodied animal, maybe the size of a large dog, covered in dark, matted fur. Two curved tusks jutted from its lower jaw, and its wide eyes locked onto Drake for half a breath.
Then it snorted, twitched its ear, and bounded off into the deeper woods, vanishing into the mist.
Drake released the rock.
Eirwyn eased herself upward, her palm dimming as the charge faded. She stepped back against a thick tree trunk and leaned her full weight into the bark.
One breath rattled out of her, then another.
Drake rose from behind the log, brushing dirt and residual blood off his knee, his eyes still fixed on the place the creature disappeared. “You good?”
Eirwyn pressed a hand to her ribs and curled her fingers against them. “Too close to the ridge last night. No sleep.” Her voice edged with grit.
One more second of silence passed between them, thick with everything that hadn’t been said since the cave.
They started walking again, the sound of sneakers and bare feet pressing deeper into the forest.
Mist thinned as the trees opened just enough to let shafts of pale light cut through the canopy. The trail wound between clusters of ferns and stones carved with time and moss. A bird shrieked in the distance, and then the forest pulled the sound back into silence.
Eirwyn pulled ahead, her steps precise, cloak skimming the downed leaves like drifting smoke.
Drake kept a half-step behind, watching the way her shoulder blades moved with each breath, as if her whole body mapped the terrain in real time.
She glanced back. “What’s your world like?”
His eyes scanned the crooked trees around them. “Loud and fast. Everyone stares at glowing screens all day. They sit in metal boxes for hours, working in jobs they hate. Then they post about it, like complaining makes it better even if it never does.”
Eirwyn stared and gestured for him to keep talking.
“We have cities full of lights, even at night. You look up and barely see the stars because the city’s so blinding. And you never get a minute of peace because there’s too much noise.”
She fidgeted with the front of her cloak, brow low over her eyes. “Sounds like a kingdom that drowned itself.”
Drake kicked a loose root from the path, and stepped around it. “Pretty much. Stadiums packed with fans screaming over a game that doesn’t even matter.” He flicked the Penguins logo on his shirt. “And the rest of the world burns around them. But don’t worry, we’ve got podcasts about fixing it, even if they fix nothing.”
Eirwyn tilted her head, one corner of her mouth curling into a puzzled scowl. “What’s a podcast?”
“Think of it as people having a conversation, but there’s an audience listening to them.”
“Sounds boring. You have magic?”
“Technology. We use it like magic. Phones, satellites, cars, and smart devices. You can talk to someone across the world in seconds and even see them, but most people use it to argue with strangers. No one does anything and nothing gets better.”
Eirwyn’s pace slowed enough to walk beside him now as her voice dropped lower. “Words without courage are hollow.”
“Plenty of that back home.”
They moved forward through the trees, side by side now, the rhythm of their footsteps matched, the forest folding in around them like it finally believed, for now, that they weren’t enemies.
Chapter 6: A Village Without Light
The trees broke without warning.
One second, they walked beneath a ceiling of branches tight enough to block the sky. The next? Dull silver light spilled in, dragging mist into long sheets across open ground. Eirwyn stepped through the tree line like the land belonged to her. Drake followed with one hand brushing the damp bark of the last pine, jaw tight.
Beyond the trees, the land dropped into three levels of terraced farmland. Yellowing weeds choked the top ridge, curling over rows of raised earth. The second terrace slumped inward, where stone walls cracked down the center. A broken plow blade jutted from the dirt.
On the lowest level, past a crooked line of moss-covered fence posts, sat the village.
Drake’s sneakers slid through grass run wild, soft and damp from runoff leaking through shattered irrigation trenches. He stepped over a toppled barrel, the wood swollen and split, with black mold eating through its center. The path ahead forked. Brambles overran one trail. Half-buried stones worn smooth from generations of use lined the other.
They followed the stones.
Smoke curled in the distance. Not the thick black of fire, but the faint thread of a forge barely breathing. Rooflines hunched against the pale sky, wood sagged under the weight of rusted patchwork tin, and sheets of slate or what looked like flattened cooking pots nailed down in place repaired others.
Drake’s eyes followed the spine of the main road. Chimneys smoked, but doors stayed shut. Shutters angled half-open, more for watching than for light.
“This place used to trade everything,” Eirwyn said, stepping around a deep rut filled with stagnant rainwater. “Now they trade their time.”
Drake scanned the edges of the village square. Every shop front bore the same red crest painted above the lintel: a gear inside a triangle, bordered by three sharp runes. Each mark was burned into the wood. Even the awnings carried the symbol.
His eyes stopped on an old inn. The sign still swung from a rusted hook, but the letters had been scraped down to bare wood. Just below, stamped in black:
OFFICIAL LODGING – GUILD VERIFIED.
He pushed out a breath through clenched teeth. “This place looks gutted.”
“They left the walls standing,” Eirwyn said, stepping onto the flagstones ahead. “Walls don’t ask questions.”
They reached the center of the square. A dry fountain with a cracked basin and its stone edges dark with rot and lichen stood in the middle. A robed, headless figure with both arms raised like it was still praying for rain stood atop the fountain.
Around the edges, doors cracked open two fingers wide. Faces peeked through; a child’s eye blinked, then vanished. The metal tap of a blacksmith’s hammer echoed somewhere out of sight.
Drake stopped next to a tangle of broken cart wheels and straw bales turned black from rain.
His voice dropped. “This was somebody’s future.”
Eirwyn’s lips went thin and she looked away.
A breeze stirred the square again, carrying the scent of rust, ash, and something sour beneath it that used to be food.
Drake stared down a narrow side street that curved between rows of rundown homes. Every brick, every cracked window, and every boarded threshold spoke louder than words.
A civilization still standing, but only by force.
He looked toward Eirwyn. She stood with her back straight, arms folded. She kept her eyes glued to the far side of the square.
Drake glanced back at the burned-out houses, and the blank guild crests stamped above every shop. “Let me guess. This is what happens when you ask permission to live.”
Eirwyn’s mouth twitched. She started walking again, down the center of the village.
Another hammer strike cracked the silence like a warning shot.
Drake turned toward the sharp, rhythmic sound of metal on metal. Not the full-bodied clang of a private forge, but something thinner. Each strike followed the last with some kind of regularity.
They followed the noise toward a squat brick building tucked into the village’s north corner. Its chimney belched gray smoke that curled into the fog-thinned sky. The structure looked every bit as patched together as the rest of the village. Its base was stone, with warped wood above. The roof was covered with a sheet of hammered copper green from time and rain.
Two men with their shirts soaked through and arms covered in soot and black dust worked outside. One man with a back hunched over from repetition worked the bellows. The other with a face streaked with ash and a hammer in his hand stood over the anvil. The tool came down in steady intervals, each strike flattening a glowing iron strip until it bent into shape.
Behind them, a banner sagged from a horizontal post with that same insignia as the one on the other buildings. The edges of the fabric frayed in the wind, but the recently-repainted symbol held strong. Fresh, even if everything beneath it began to rot.
Eirwyn stopped beside a rusted cistern overrun with moss and broken pipe valves. Her chin lifted toward the hammering. “Guild quotas. Failure means punishment.”
Drake leaned on the cistern rim, scanning the space beyond. More workers moved behind narrow shopfronts. One at a loom, weaving cloth dyed in the same muted gray. Another scraped leather on a stretching frame.
Drake watched the man at the anvil. The metal glowed hot, but his eyes stayed dull, like he hadn’t seen anything but iron for years. “How do they choose who does what?”
“They assign your caste. Mainly from your family history. Then the quota follows. They measure your worth in kilograms per hour. The more precise your output, the more likely you’ll get your ration. Miss quota three times and you’re conscripted. That’s how it works.”
Drake shifted his stance and his sneaker scraped the stone. “How do you live like that?”
“You don’t.” Eirwyn kept her eyes on the blacksmith. The man dropped his hammer and reached for a ladle. Steam hissed as he poured water over the iron. He winced from the splash, his fingers red from past burns.
Another hammer strike followed, just as clean as the last. Behind it, the sound of the loom ticked in counterpoint. The whole square pulsed like a living factory.
Drake pushed away from the cistern. His hand trailed across the stone, warm from trapped forge heat. “They’ve got a whole village of people creating things. And no one owns a damn thing they make.”
Eirwyn stepped back into the street. “Malcor calls it efficiency.”
Drake followed her through the square. The air reeked of smoke and boiled dye.
He muttered, “Sounds like slavery dressed in paperwork.”
A wooden spoon clattered to the stone and Drake’s head snapped toward the sound.
An old woman stood frozen at a threshold, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other hovering in midair where the spoon slipped from her grip. Her eyes locked on Eirwyn before she stepped back inside and pulled the door closed with a slow creak, shutting out the street.
More doors hung ajar just wide enough to spy through. Faces peeked from gaps in curtains, windows, and angled shutters. Wrinkled foreheads and downcast eyes. Every pair of worn boots stayed inside lines drawn by fear.
The street opened slightly where two rows of homes collapsed inward—one from rot, the other from fire. Past them, a narrow alley bled into a garden choked with weeds and twisted iron trellises. A single potted plant stood on a windowsill nearby, its flowers drooped under the weight of ash.
A child stood just outside a laundry line, tugging at a woman’s sleeve. The boy’s finger pointed at Eirwyn. His eyes were too round for suspicion, watching the barefoot girl with flawless skin and the flowing blue cloak. The woman snatched the boy’s hand, spun him behind her skirt, and shuffled off across the lane, eyes locked on the ground as her pace quickened.
Eirwyn’s steps glided through the stillness. Her presence warped the air as though this village knew her kind.
Drake’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They look like they want to speak.”
“They’ve learned better.” Eirwyn walked through a patch of cracked flagstone where wild herbs tried to grow. “Words cost more than coin here.”
A man sat under a canopy of splintered beams across the street. His clothes were patched too many times to tell the original fabric. An unlit pipe sat between his fingers. He stared at the ground while his shadow stretched long behind him.
Eirwyn turned down a side path where moss crept over abandoned carts. Its wheels fused into the mud, and long since surrendered to stillness.
Drake slowed where the stone path fractured beneath a stairwell. Ivy spilled across the steps, thick with moss and sharp leaves that curled toward the sunless sky. A wide building hunched behind it, slouched under the weight of neglect. Wood planks warped in their frames. One shutter hung by a single hinge, creaking with every shift in the wind.
At the top of the steps, above a set of rusted double doors, a wooden placard in shining red letters clung to the wall.
MARKET HALL — CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE MALCOR TRADE AUTHORITY
Drake stepped closer. He reached out, brushed away a clump of tangled vine, then dragged his fingers across the carved wood.
Something etched beneath the sign caught his eye. It looked burned into the panel by hand.
TRADE WITHOUT TRIBUTE IS TREASON
The words curled along the wood’s natural split like they’d tried to stay hidden.
Drake ran his thumb along the last word. “Treason. What the hell kind of market needs tribute to exist?”
Eirwyn’s voice cut across the overgrowth. “One ruled by fear of prosperity.” She stepped over a crumbling boundary stone, cloak brushing ivy with each movement. Her eyes locked onto the old hall. “They traded everything you could think of here. No records, taxes, or permits.”
Drake looked back at the door.
A gleaming, well-maintained bolt rested across it.
“Malcor sent a seer,” Eirwyn said. “Declared the market subversive. Guild reps sealed the doors. Anyone caught trading after that lost their ration card.”
Drake’s hand dropped from the sign and his throat dried. “No permits. So they crushed it.”
“Not crushed. Reclaimed.”
The word hung between them, heavier than the door behind the vines as they ventured down the steps and back onto the path.
Two hunch-backed old men with their hands folded over knotting walking sticks sat in the shade beside a crumbling archway, their worn-out voices barely rising over the rustling wind. The bench beneath them sagged in the middle, its stone legs split with hairline fractures.
The second man tapped his stick twice against the bench. The sound echoed off the wall behind them.
Drake slowed his pace, his sneakers brushing loose gravel across the path. Every step pulled his gaze toward the men’s faces.
The one on the left looked up. His watery eyes framed by deep creases met Drake’s for a second. He turned toward Eirwyn next, squinting into the path behind them.
Recognition stiffened his shoulders.
The second man glanced too. His fingers clenched around the head of his walking stick, lips pulled tight as he drew a breath through his nose.
Their gazes dropped back to the stone under their worn shoes. The wind slipped through again, carrying the scent of ash, leather, and forge smoke.
Drake looked ahead as Eirwyn moved past them and their sticks tapped once more.
Ahead, wheels groaned over uneven stone.
Drake turned as a cart rolled into view. It was wide and iron-rimmed, stacked high with raw timber, iron ore, and tightly-bound sacks of grain. A pair of uniformed boys marched alongside, shoulders squared under leather armor branded with the red rune of the state guild. They kept their eyes forward; hands resting on sheathed batons. One scanned the rooftops, and the other kept pace with the cart.
The load clattered with each bump in the road, with horses’ hooves and the weight of forced harvest piercing the silence.
Around the square, heads bowed as if by instinct. A woman pulling laundry from a line dropped the cloth and vanished behind her door as a man by the smithy stepped back into shadow, his hammer still in mid-swing while the cart passed.
Drake’s jaw clenched as his fingers curled around the edge of his pocket.
Eirwyn turned off the path, her bare feet sliding through a rutted break in the stone. “Let’s get out of here before those boys recognize me. I’ve already drawn enough stares. We’ll take the back trail.”
Drake nodded and followed.
At the edge of the village, he glanced long enough to catch the outline of the square again.
