Seshka—she could not even remember her surname, if she’d ever had one—sat on a rooftop, face muffled thickly enough that the clouds of her frozen breath would melt before puffing into the air. Nothing would give her away to passers-by. She was a ghost, after all. A thing. A creature without a soul. Clicking sounded to her right—rhythmic enough to carry a pattern, but not so much others would notice.
Clickclickclick, pause, click, pause, pause, clickclick. Her path was clear.
She inhaled, stilled herself, and dropped almost silently onto the street beneath where she had perched for the last hour, ignoring the freezing Dominion spring night.
Seshka darted forward, placing her feet so they made no noise against the damp cobblestones. She gazed around until she found what she was looking for—a small door hidden behind a stack of disused cargo crates. Perfect.
She picked the lock, a simple mechanism fortified with leymagic that she easily bypassed with her own power. The rattle of tumblers moving in their casings seemed far too loud in the frozen silence. Seshka looked around her, but sensed no movement or alarm.
She edged through the door, then closed it behind her as quietly as she could manage. Again, she listened, casting her senses into the squalid shack around her. The room stunk of mildew and rot, but the faintest hint of something else caught her attention—aethertrue. A strong substance used in all binding spells, with a telltale whiff of storm-lightning. It was faint, likely several days old, but proved what she needed to know—
That witch Felsin had been here. Felsin, the one who had done such abominable things. Who had betrayed her people, and all of Ahra.
Thankfully, things were changing. Seshka had huddled with a group of young children in a warehouse close to Felsin’s lab when footsteps sounded in the hallway and the impossible locks that had held them in prison disengaged without ceremony.
“I’m one of you,” the beautiful woman with shining gold hair had said, before handing her a letter and making her promise to leave the Dominion for good. “And I was hurt like you, by my father’s hand. You must do exactly as I say. There will be help for you later. I’ll get you away from Felsin and this awful place. Read this and act on this very night. No hesitation. Understand?”
Seshka had only nodded before the woman—Lenore was her name—had rushed away.
How had she known such things? How had she found Seshka?
There was little to tell about the letter’s contents. They were nothing and everything.
Dear children of Felsin and General Acton’s cruelty—I have deduced that your adoptions from the orphanage are, sadly, not to your benefit. I tracked you down before I had to leave the country to let you know you must flee to the Canrish Waystone using this charged portal focus (it is military-grade, frightfully rare, and stolen, so do NOT get caught) and seek the Temple of Eskala in Reshk. I promise I will see that Felsin and Acton face punishment for their crimes. Maps and a list of further instructions are within. Saint Eskala guide your steps, and the Source protect you.
Be careful.
She didn’t understand any of this, but she knew this was her best chance to survive. Every fiber of her being told her this was the way. A way to fix what they broke within her. A way to live. All she had to do was take the papers her mysterious benefactor provided and go to the places she’d listed at the appointed times.
Seshka moved through the stale, moldering darkness to the room stated in her letter and found what she’d been looking for—an innocent-looking pasteboard box, its worn label advertising the best leymagically-treated washing powder money could buy. And inside…
A heavy chunk of truesteel practically radiating magic—the portal focus. Instructions on how to use it. A leather purse stuffed full of Canrish gold. A canteen and packets of concentrated, military-grade rations.
Everything she needed.
Seshka stared at the bounty before her and, shaking herself back to the moment, squirreled the lot into the satchel hidden beneath her robe. She let herself back out of the crumbling building, securing the lock. Only when she was safe outside the city walls, following a carefully marked path through sewers and construction tracks to her destination, did she breathe a sigh of relief.
“It’s time to move on. Happy Melt Moon to us, yes?” Seshka looked around her, gazing into the faces of children too young for this misery—broken, tired. Old beyond their years.
She squared her shoulders and almost smiled. Maybe there was still a thing called hope.
Lizzie Sinclaire 