~Meriel~

They rode hard. Meriel hadn't dressed for riding, and her legs were sore from the saddle before they'd even left the Village's streets; she clung for her life to the reins of the grey gelding Telis had given her to ride, wincing every time her saddlebag buffeted against her in the wind. That same wind had found the one button on her cloak that had been left unfastened in her haste. It curled in around the fabric and folded it away from her, exposing the lighter fabric of her dress. Were it not for the shift she was wearing under that, the chill would have cut right through her.

Once they were ahorse, Telis didn't say a word beyond vague noises to gee up the horses. She was an accomplished rider, as comfortable on a horse as Helicent, and didn't slow even when she led her horse off the road and it stumbled for a step in the mud. Meriel followed at a slow pace. One false step from her gelding, and she had no doubt she'd be ending up with a face full of mud. Her head was too much a whirl to properly focus. Images of her father and the sidhe conjured by Telis' redstone necklace came into her mind interchangeably; whenever she felt it was safe to do so, Meriel screwed her eyes shut for a few seconds to drown out the images.

They didn't linger too long on the trodden path. Telis led them east off the road, cutting along the edge of a narrow stream that marked the boundaries of two farmsteads; away from the shelter afforded by the Village, the wind cut harder. Meriel's hair blew about wildly, seemingly drawn by some magical compulsion to her face.

Soon, the Village was a distant memory. They were beyond the farms, cresting the ridge of a hill where a copse of tall heathers grew. South, Meriel could see the winding valley where the River Jaren cut its path, its waters rushing fast past them. A few jutting structures of slate were dotted across hill and valley. One or two could almost have been the foundations of houses. They were all given over to nature. Despite herself, she slowed. She'd never been allowed to go to the Jaren. Never been allowed to wander. She found the view more beautiful than anything she'd seen before. Telis, realising that she was no longer following, slowed her own mount, and trotted back to her.

"Once there was a city here," said Telis, with a heavy voice. "Now all but lost to memory, of course."

Meriel found it hard to imagine a great city ever being here. The slates were too disparate—at most a village's worth. A city would leave a trace, surely? Whatever was once here, now it was home only to the mice and the rabbits. That thought made Meriel slightly sad.

Telis coughed. "Come on. We have a great distance yet to cover." She kicked in her heels and rode on, cutting north again now, towards the woods. Meriel took one last look at the flowing river and the ghost of a city, and followed.

The trees came upon them suddenly. She'd thought it was dark in the pale moonlight, but under the cover of the forest it was darker still. There was no path to speak of. Both riders slowed up considerably. Meriel could remember Haymon Tor, cordwainer's apprentice, who had died not three years earlier. He'd broken his neck when his horse, which he was racing through the selfsame woods, had tripped over a knotted root and thrown him to the ground. She didn't feel like breaking her own neck.

She didn't speak until, some way into the woods, Telis drew reins on her horse. They'd come upon a clearing where the ground sank into a pit, border rocks thick with moss; smatterings of stone brickwork poked through layers of dead undergrowth. Someone long ago had built here. Had they known the people who lived in the city of slate? She wondered if it was the sidhe Helicent had talked about. Theirs was definitely a tangible presence in the woods, just as Helicent had said. Meriel hadn't seen anything—save for Telis and the horses—but there was something hanging heavy in the air. Watching eyes. The curling of the hairs at the nape of her neck.

"We'll rest here," said Telis, tethering the horses to a thick tree trunk, apparently unconcerned by any sidhe glare. "It's a long ride to Camistane, and there are few places to shelter along the way."

"Camistane?" Meriel had heard merchants talking about the place, when they chanced to pass through the Village. Some of the men went there twice a year to sell excess goods, and buy the few things they could not produce themselves. The lord of Camistane was a powerful man who owned great swathes of land—the Village included, according to some of the people who'd come to the Village. His household guard alone had more men than lived in the Village. "I've never been to a city before."

This elicited a chuckle from Telis. "Sometimes I forget how isolated you are," she said. "Child, Camistane is far from being a city. It's larger than the Village, but it's only a town really. You'll see far larger places before our journey's done. Sit. We've had a long ride already, and there's a long way still to go. You need to eat, and then you need to sleep."

Giving her horse a final stroke, Meriel found a spot in the undergrowth. Telis had already made preparations for a fire. It wouldn't light, though; it hadn't been long since rain had soaked through this place, and the kindling she'd gathered was damp. That didn't seem to bother Telis, though. Meriel watched as the woman knelt before the mass of kindling, a smooth black stone in her hand—she'd pulled it from a pocket in her dress—and ran her fingers over the stone. Like she was caressing it. Meriel had seen young couples in love touching one another in such a way in the tavern, but she'd never seen anyone light a fire. Just as she was about to say something, though, a flash of yellow light came from the stone—or from Telis' hand, Meriel couldn't tell. It lasted just a fraction of a second, fast as a lightning flash, and suddenly the kindling had taken light. Telis blew on the flames to fan them for a short while. When they were crackling nicely, she rose, and sat with her back against a cracked old foundation stone.

Meriel gaped, wide-eyed. "That was magic."

Telis nodded.

"You're a Magus?"

"Yes, child," said Telis, patiently. "I'd have thought the unpleasantness with your father would have given that away already, though, if not the rumours about town."

Meriel couldn't help but stare. People talked about Magi with a mix of awe and contempt, and somehow she'd always expected them to be somehow different from ordinary people. That Telis Heddorel—a woman who'd not have looked out of place with the weavers or the cobblers' assistants—could be a Magus, and not be found out for nearly twenty years, was incredible. When Meriel looked at her now, it felt like she was seeing a woman twice the size. Even the dimples on Telis' chin seemed to hold some strange authority now.

"But I always thought... you had to have the spark to become a Magus, that's what the stories say. And the spark changes your face. Idden Baltly says you can tell a Magus from their face. Nothing can hide it. He says it's the evil inside them, and the more magic they do, the less they can keep the magic inside them. Eventually, if they use magic for long enough, their whole body turns black as charcoal, and they become demons."

Telis chuckled. "Do I look evil, child?"

Meriel shook her head.

"And have you ever known Idden Baltly to be anywhere close to the truth?"

"No," said Meriel, feeling a fool for her excited blathering. "Sorry, Fera Heddorel, I wasn't thinking."

Telis poked at the fire with a long stick she'd taken from the ground. It crackled into the night. As the smoke billowed, Telis turned her back to the flame, and knelt on the ground beside Meriel. "I like your necklace, child," she said suddenly, a smile on her face. Meriel's hand shot to the pendant around her neck. She'd forgotten she still had it on.

"I'm sorry," Meriel sputtered, frantic. "Cad said you'd gone away, so I went looking for you, and I found it..."

"It's pretty, isn't it?" There was no trace of judgement in Telis' eyes.

Meriel nodded. "I shouldn't have taken it." She made to unhook the clasp and give it back.

Telis, though, shook her head. "It isn't mine," she said softly.

"Then who's is it?"

"Child, anybody can become a Magus," said Telis, rising to her feet, the red-stone necklace apparently forgotten. "Provided they're disciplined enough. Yes, or they have a trainer patient enough to put up with them." She seemed to be addressing that last sentence not to Meriel but to some unseen other. When Meriel looked, though, there was nobody else around.

"If the spark's not a real thing," she said, leaning forward excitedly, "can you teach me?"

"It doesn't work like that," Telis told her.

Meriel frowned. "You just said anybody can become a Magus."

"And they can. I can even put you through some of the lessons, on comportment and fortitude and such like—but to actually touch the sidereal magic, you must belong to a Chain."

Meriel looked blankly. "A chain?" Fer Huradon had a chain somewhere in his shop, according to Cad. Forging all the metal links had taken him the better part of a year, and there'd never been a violent criminal in the Village who needed to be bound, but he kept it just in case. Meriel had never seen it. Nor could she understand what it had to do with magic.

"Well, of all the things, I certainly never expected to find that you'd never heard of the Chain."

"Sorry," said Meriel, quietly.

"You've no need to be sorry, child," said Telis. "I've been keeping an eye on you all these years. I should have explained things sooner. Still, we've got all night." Opening her saddlebag, which she'd taken from the horse, Telis pulled out two heels of floury bread. Inside the bag, Meriel noticed, was the heavy tome she'd taken from Telis' house. Odd that Telis had found time to pack it despite the hurry to leave. How had she even known Meriel had the book? Telis gave one heel of bread to Meriel, and kept the other for herself. "Eat this."

Meriel took a grateful bite. She hadn't realised she was hungry until the bread touched her mouth; as soon as it did, she found herself wondering if a small heel of bread would be enough to stop her stomach from grumbling. It was all gone in seconds.

Telis hooked a finger around the gold chain on her neck, pulling it from her dress to reveal a pendant on the end. Carved into an oval of gold was the form of a bird, the lines lacquered in blue. "A hummingbird," Telis explained. "The Hummingbird, in fact. That's the Chain I belong to. Magic is a gift from the stars, child, and they gave it long ago. I don't know how long the Chains have held the world's magic, nor how many there were to begin with, but no new Chains can be made. Whatever secret we learned from the stars, it's long since been forgotten. There's less magic in the world than there used to be, less than there has been for thousands of years. Every year it gets less still. Eventually, all of the Chains will be lost, and the magic will be gone. I dread to think what will happen to the world when that day comes."

"But how does a Chain work?" Meriel took another hungry bite of her bread.

"The magic is passed on from person to person," said Telis. "When a Magus finds a suitable apprentice, a new link is forged on the Chain, forged at the heart of the Octal Tower itself—that forge has been lit for a thousand years at least, and there are men and women who devote their entire lives to the sole task of keeping it lit. The link opens you to the stars, and to their gift. You share the strengths of those who came before you in the Chain, and the weaknesses too. I told you I was of the Hummingbird. Women of the Hummingbird are particularly adept at pyromancy, but we cannot travel at great speeds like some. On the other hand, Telsa Cannaldan of the Chain of the Kingfisher can travel across entire nations in a day, yet she cannot produce fire at all except for by conventional means. There are many skills, and we are all good at different ones. In that, the Magi are very much like everybody else."

"And only women can learn?" That was what people in the Village said.

Telis shook her head. "Like I said, child, anybody can learn. There are more women among us than men, it's true, but there's no reason a man couldn't be taught."

"You said 'women of the Hummingbird', though," Meriel pointed out. "What about men of the Hummingbird?"

"As I'm aware, there haven't ever been any," said Telis. "A man can bind himself to a woman, and a woman can bind herself to a man, but it's done very rarely. When you link to a Chain, you open yourself fully to that Chain. Everybody who came before you is a part of you, from that day until the end of time. Few women want to share a soul with a man, no matter their fondness for men. That, in fact, is the reason for the disparity. Once, long ago, the Octal Tower went to war—and at the time, it was men and men alone who fought on the battlefield. Old days, thankfully long since passed, but the scars they left have not healed. A great many of the Chains were severed in that war."

"Severed?"

"Brought to an end." Telis sighed. "There are limits to a Chain. Every Magus can be linked once, and every Magus can link once. But if someone at the end of the Chain is killed, having never linked to another, the Chain cannot continue. Hundreds have been lost over the years. Perhaps thousands."

"How many are there now?"

"Too few. Too few by far. These Chains are what holds the world aloft, over the darkling abyss of the Planes below. Do you know what happens when something is hoisted by chains into the air, and those chains all cut? It crashes down. Already the world has begun to slide towards darkness. If it's allowed to fall completely, everything we know might come to an end." Telis had a pained expression on her face when she spoke, but she forced a smile instead. "And that's where you come in."

"Me?" Meriel swallowed the bread in her mouth—too quickly, as it turned out; she coughed madly as it went down, her eyes watering and her face red. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Why, everything." Telis seemed surprised that she didn't already know. "You are the Daughter of Prophecy. The one who will save the world. The prophecies are not vague. 'From the corrupted alloys of the old, new chains will be forged.' That's taken directly from the original foretelling. Meriel, don't you see? Old as they are, once the Chains were forged fresh. If we're to prevent the world from falling to darkness, that must happen again, and it must be the Daughter of Prophecy to do it."

Meriel shook her head. "I'm not the Daughter of Prophecy. I'm just... a girl from a small village, with nothing going for her."

"No, Meriel. Tell me, do you remember your mother?"

"I was very young indeed when she died," said Meriel. "Too young to remember anything."

"Your mother isn't dead," Telis told her. "When you were born, I took you somewhere you would be safe, somewhere I could watch over you until you were ready. What colour are your eyes, Meriel?"

"Blue," she said, wondering what her eyes had to do with anything. But: "Helicent once told me she'd never seen an eye as orange as mine." That had been a long time ago. The memory was buried deep. The truth was, she didn't know what colour her eyes were. She'd never seen them—she had only the words of others to go by. "How can my eyes be blue and brown at the same time?"

Telis reached into her saddlebag again. This time, she took out something covered in a sheet of cotton. When she unwound the cotton, it revealed a piece of polished glass set into a paddle of bone-ceramic. The glass reflected things back at her. A mirror. "You have one eye of blue and one of orange," said Telis, handing the mirror to Meriel. She held it up to her eyes, seeing them for the first time—they were different colours; she'd never noticed that on anybody else. Her left eye was as blue as the summer sky, but her right eye was like the fire of a torch. "People like you are called chimeras," Telis explained. "A very rare thing indeed. And in much of the world believed—wrongly, of course—to be the sign of someone with innate magic. Someone destined to go insane and ravage the world with their magic. Only in a village as isolated as this could I be sure that nobody would hate you for your eyes. Kill you for your eyes, or report you to an authority who would. The circumstances of your birth were already auspicious enough that I'd made plans in advance, and travelled to be at your mother's side throughout her labour. When we saw that you were a chimera... well, that was the confirmation. I took you with me, brought you north to the Village, and your mother spread the story that you were stillborn."

"My mother's still alive..." Meriel was fixated on the mirror, on her eyes. Eyes that would bring her death in some parts of the world. "I'd like to go to her." Her father had always told her that her mother was dead. Why had he lied? She could see him still, eyes wide and unseeing, the blade of a sword through his chest. He'd never be able to explain himself. She saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes, and dabbed at them with a finger.

"Later, maybe," said Telis, "but the danger has not passed. An adult chimera will be killed just as easily as a child. You must be trained, first."

"Trained?"

"In magic, child." Telis shook her head. "Did I not tell you where we were going?"

"Camistane," said Meriel. "You didn't say where we were going after that."

"To the Octal Tower, child. To the forge. I told you that each Magus can link once, and be linked once. I have never linked. I'm the end of my Chain—the last Hummingbird. Meriel, do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Meriel shook her head.

Telis smiled a kindly smile. "You're not just the Daughter of Prophecy, Meriel. I want you to be my link, in the Chain of the Hummingbird."

To learn magic? She was going to be a Magus? For a moment, Meriel couldn't get the words out. When she did, they came as a croak. "I'd like that," she said, hoarsely. "I'd like that very much indeed."