Two
1722 Words
Sable
By sunrise, I was in a royal carriage with one trunk, a contract and a travelling companion who smiled too much.
Her name was Tavia Rusk. She introduced herself while climbing into the carriage as if she had been invited to a picnic instead of ordered to escort a suspected shadow witch across half the kingdom.
“Your seat,” she said, patting the cushion opposite her. “Try not to look so thrilled.”
“I’m saving it for the academy.”
“That’s considerate. They enjoy enthusiasm at Thornvale.”
She wore a red coat with gold stitching, a braid full of copper beads and boots too clean for a journey through Low Barrow. Tiny burns marked her fingers.
Fire witch, then. Not a careful one.
I climbed inside and shut the door. The carriage smelled of leather, smoke and something sweet that had been crushed beneath the seat. Tavia moved her knees aside to make room for my trunk.
It did not fit.
She looked at it. Then at me.
“Is that all you brought?”
“Do you need more?”
“No. I’m deciding whether to be impressed or concerned.”
“Concerned is usually the safer choice.”
She grinned. “Good. We’ll get along.”
“I doubt that.”
“Most people do at first.”
The carriage lurched forward before I could ask what that meant. Low Barrow slid past the window in pieces, all grey stone, black mine dust and doors closing as we went by. Nobody came out to say goodbye. That was probably for the best. Goodbyes made people sentimental, and sentiment was just grief wearing perfume.
The Venn house stood at the end of the road with its crooked roof and broken chimney. The royal seal had been nailed across the door. I had not looked at it while leaving.
I looked now.
The carriage turned, and the house disappeared behind a row of empty sheds.
Tavia watched me from the corner of her eye.
“You can ask,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You have been staring at me since I got in.”
“I was staring at the trunk.”
“My trunk is flattered.”
She laughed, then glanced at the sealed invitation beside my knee. The red words beneath the seal had vanished after I signed the contract. I checked three times before dawn.
Your mother is not dead.
Nothing remained now except the official ink.
Tavia’s gaze returned to it.
“You read the letter already,” I said.
“I can read.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation wearing a cheap coat.”
“Then you recognised it.”
“I recognise many things. Cheap coats. Bad moods. People who sit with their backs to doors.”
I glanced at the door behind me.
“Fine,” she said. “People who sit with their backs to doors and look like they’re considering whether a moving carriage can be escaped without breaking both ankles.”
“Could it?”
“Not without breaking the carriage first.”
“Useful information.”
She leaned back. “I was assigned to escort you.”
“So the letter said.”
“It also said you were to arrive at Thornvale without incident.”
That almost sounded like a joke.
The road climbed into the pine forests.
“The houses choose students,” she said. “Or pretend to. Sometimes the ribbons decide.”
“Mine is black.”
“It may not stay that way.”
There it was.
I folded my arms. “The letter says I have a scholarship.”
“The letter says you have an invitation.”
“Same thing with better handwriting.”
“Not at Thornvale.”
She reached for the invitation, but I placed my hand over it first.
Tavia looked at my fingers. “I only wanted to see the seal.”
“You have eyes.”
“I also have curiosity.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. Especially around you.”
The carriage hit a rut. Tavia’s shoulder struck the wall, and a small flame sprang from her fingertips. She snapped her hand closed before it grew.
I stared at the smoke curling from her glove.
“Careful,” I said.
“I’m always careful.”
“You nearly burned your sleeve.”
“The sleeve was clearly in the way.”
I looked out the window. “Does the academy know you are this bad at lying?”
The carriage went quiet.
“Who said I was lying?”
“Nobody had to.”
Something moved in the forest.
A dark smear slid between the trees, keeping pace with the carriage.
Tavia saw it a breath later. “Don’t touch the window.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You were.”
The thing struck the carriage.
The wheels left the road.
Tavia swore and threw both hands forward. Fire burst from her palms, bright enough to turn the carriage red. It slammed into the dark shape outside.
The shape screamed, then it grew.
The carriage tipped hard. My shoulder hit the wall. Tavia grabbed the leather strap above the window as the horses, or whatever was pulling us, shrieked in the front.
“That made it worse,” I said.
“I noticed.”
“What is it?”
“A spell.”
“That was not the reassuring answer.”
The dark shape wrapped around the carriage, smoke tangled with glass. Every time Tavia’s fire touched it, the spell twisted tighter.
“Stop burning it,” I said.
“I’m open to alternatives.”
The carriage tilted again. My trunk broke loose and the invitation slid beneath the seat.
The spell struck the window. For one instant, I saw a girl strapped to a stone table, her mouth open while a voice said, “Take the magic before it learns to fight back.”
The spell hit the glass again, and the girl vanished.
I reached for it.
Tavia caught my wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Something stupid.”
“That is not a plan.”
“It’s the closest thing I have.”
I pulled free and pressed my palm to the window.
The spell rushed into me.
Fear filled my chest so quickly that I forgot how to breathe. I felt the forest from above, the road below and the carriage trapped between them. I felt the spell’s panic, its confusion and the terrible pressure of a command forcing it to attack.
The command was not to kill us.
It was to bring the carriage back.
Back where, I had no idea.
I found the command buried in the spell and pulled at it.
The dark shape tore open.
Tavia screamed my name. Fire exploded across the carriage roof. The spell recoiled, then folded in on itself like a wounded animal.
I pushed it away from the carriage and sent it into the trees.
The road snapped back beneath us.
We crashed into the soft edge of the forest and stopped.
For several seconds, there was only smoke.
Then Tavia coughed. “Are we dead?”
“Not yet.”
“That sounds less comforting than you think.”
I tried to sit up. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the seat.
The fear was still inside me.
It crawled beneath my ribs, cold and alive. I could feel the stone table. The girl’s wrists. The voice telling someone to take the magic before it learned to fight back.
Tavia stared at me. “What did you see?”
“A spell.”
“That was not what I asked.”
“Then you should ask better questions.”
She looked as though she wanted to argue, but her face had gone pale. “You touched it.”
“I noticed.”
“You should not have been able to do that.”
“People keep saying that.”
Outside, the forest was silent again. The spell had vanished, but a dark stain remained on the road where it had struck us.
Tavia climbed out first. I followed more slowly, trying not to show that my knees had become unreliable.
She glanced back at me. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s a new dance Tavia .”
“Sable.”
I hated the concern in her voice. It made my chest tighten worse than the spell had.
“I’m fine,” I said.
She did not believe me. That made two of us.
By late afternoon, Thornvale appeared beyond the forest, rising from the mountainside in black stone and silver glass. Five coloured banners hung from its towers above hundreds of students.
The carriage rolled through the gates.
A registrar in grey robes approached before the wheels had stopped. She held a tray of ribbons and a ledger thick enough to ruin someone’s life.
“Name?” she asked.
“Sable Venn.”
Her pen paused.
She looked at the invitation, then at me. “House assignment?”
“My letter says Black.”
“Your letter says the crown has requested your attendance.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It usually is.”
She lifted a black ribbon from the tray and tied it around my wrist. The moment the knot closed, the ribbon turned white.
The students nearest the gate went quiet.
The registrar’s mouth tightened. “White ribbons are given to students with no measurable magic. They are provisional. Most leave before midterm.”
I looked at the white strip around my wrist.
After everything that had happened on the road, the academy had taken one glance at me and decided I was harmless.
That was almost funny.
Then I saw the tall young man standing beneath the royal crest.
He wore black from collar to boots. He was watching me with a stillness that felt more dangerous than just a lack of movement.
Tavia went pale beside me.
“That,” she whispered, “is Orren Veyr.”
I kept my eyes on him.
Tavia swallowed.
“Do not give him a reason to remember you.”
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