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rachelmsterling

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  1. The summer Vrinn turned seven, her not-quite-mother led her from the edge of their village and deeper into the forest than she’d ever gone before. This was unusual, since Vrinn was often shouted at about wandering too deep into the woods. She had a habit of losing track of time and her own location when she was exploring. Crane—the woman who’d carved Vrinn from her dead mother’s womb and been responsible for her ever since—was furious whenever Vrinn came home late, always ordering her to stay closer to their cabin. So, the idea of actually being led into parts of the forest that Vrinn never seen, leaving foot trails and even deer paths behind was thrilling. She stared around herself at the trees whose trunks grew a little wider than the ones surrounding the village, ancient oaks and elms, their leaves rustling far above her head like they were whispering a thousand secrets back and forth every moment. Even the birds sounded different this far from home, their cries sharper and more chaotic. They sounded less like song birds, and more like harbingers from the old stories the village women told the other children and which Vrinn would sometimes listen to while pretending she was just passing by on some errand or another. Vrinn followed Crane quietly, sometimes swinging her arms at her sides and always taking in the sights around her, everything from the bright green moss growing on tree bark to the yellow-spotted salamander hunkered down in the shade of a stone, but Vrinn never interrupted Crane from whatever important thoughts she was clearly thinking. Vrinn knew that distracting Crane from important thoughts never led to a positive reaction, so it would be best to pretend Crane wasn’t there at all. Crane was doing a good job of pretending Vrinn wasn’t there, anyway. She was leading the way into the forest in a straight line to the west, not following a trail and never turning back to make sure Vrinn was still following her. Crane also never slowed her pace, not even when Vrinn’s tunic got caught in a bramble bush, and she had to hurry so quickly to free herself that she pricked the pad of her thumb on a thorn, blood welling up on her skin in a crimson bead. Eventually, Crane seemed pleased with the spot she’d led them to, a space that wasn’t so much a clearing as a small gap in the trees, allowing more of the bright sunlight to filter down to the forest floor. Crane turned back toward Vrinn, head tilted down to study the child as she towered over her slight frame. Crane wasn’t exactly tall compared to some of the other women in the village, but she was certainly taller than Vrinn. She was solid too, her frame heavy and strong. When she looked Vrinn as she did now, her pale gray eyes serious and severe in her weathered, unsmiling face, it was more than a little intimidating. Crane scanned up and down Vrinn’s body, acknowledging her presence for the first time since giving her a curt order of: “Come with me,” and starting off into the forest earlier that morning. “All right,” she said. “Today, we’re going to test your magic.” Vrinn cocked her head off to one side and watched Crane, waiting for the trick. The first rule Vrinn had ever learned was “Never use your magic.” It was a frustrating rule for someone growing up in Orchys, a village populated mostly by witches and where the other children had been learning spells and potions alongside their letters. But Vrinn had been forbidden from using magic, ever since she was three years and had a disastrous accident with her power. She’d sneaked into the village’s shared barn while hunting for a litter of kittens she’d heard were hidden there. She’d been climbing up a haystack, sure that was the best spot for the kittens to be hidden away by their mother, when somehow, she let out a burst of power that ended up rotting everything stored in that corner of the barn. At the time, no one understood how Vrinn—a child too young to have received any magical training—had managed to cause such a disaster. More important than the mystery behind how Vrinn had managed such a feat, however, the village had struggled to survive that winter on unexpectedly limited provisions. Thanks to the village’s natural magic, which allowed them to produce rich, bountiful harvests every year, Orchys had never experienced difficulties with growing enough crops to feed themselves or with coaxing the land to provide for all their needs. Losing so much of their stores that late in the year had been a shocking blow. The villagers of Orchys weren’t used to going hungry, and they weren’t inclined to bear this new hardship with any grace. Everyone knew Vrinn’s mishap was the reason they had to tighten their belts that year, and they weren’t likely to forget it. After that, the lesson that Vrinn was never to attempt doing magic of any kind ever again had been thoroughly beaten into her. Crane didn’t even need to use her obedience spell anymore to get Vrinn to keep her power locked up inside herself. Vrinn was that good at it all on her own. But now, Crane was telling her to let out her dangerous, unpredictable magic. It had to be some kind of trick—or a test. Maybe if Vrinn showed Crane she was going to be good, could be trusted to have learned her lesson, maybe then Crane would kiss her forehead like the immortals who showed up to help children in stories. Maybe she would say Vrinn was really her daughter after all. Maybe if she passed this test, Crane would start to love her. Maybe. Vrinn shook her head, fighting back the smile that wanted to break free on her face, because she was going to be much too good and clever to fall into the obvious trap. There was no way Crane was going to trick her that easily. “You stupid, useless girl,” Crane hissed, reaching out to slap her ear, not hard enough to really hurt, but loud enough to startle Vrinn. “Can’t you do anything right?” “But,” Vrinn said, feeling stupid even as the words left her mouth. “I’m not supposed to use magic?” “Not in the village, you idiot child, but look where we are!” Crane said, gesturing around them with one hand. “There’s no one else around for miles. Not much damage you could do in the middle of nowhere, is there?” Vrinn studied Crane’s face, the sharp line of her jaw, the gleam of her eyes under thick, iron-gray brows. She looked serious. But then again, Crane always looked serious. As she didn’t seem any less serious than usual, though, Vrinn supposed that meant she was serious about this too. “You really want—?” she asked, trailing off, finding it difficult to even say the words out loud. “Yes, I really want,” Crane said, impatient. She raised her left hand, muttering a series of syllables Vrinn had been threatened never to repeat if she wanted to live into adulthood. As Crane spoke, she moved her hand in a series of small, precise fits and starts until a faintly glowing blue symbol resembling a backwards “R” shimmered in the air before her palm. “I won’t ask again,” Crane warned. Vrinn nodded and spun around, facing the trees, trying to show her willingness to obey. She studied the green canopy of leaves ahead of her, wondering how best to meet Crane’s demands. “What should I—do?” she asked after a long moment, her voice almost lost in the caw of a nearby crow. She didn’t know any spells. She’d never been taught any of the combination of sounds the other children had memorized, tucked away in their minds for the right moment to use them. She didn’t know how to mix together ingredients to make a potion for easing headaches or repelling pests or anything else, and Crane hadn’t given her any supplies to use even if she did. “Dead gods, child, I don’t know. Your magic always seemed to leak out of you and into the world. Just try something. We haven’t got all day for you to waste. It’s a long walk back, and I’m not foolish enough to linger in the woods after dark.” Vrinn took a deep breath, the way she noticed the others in the village would do before they started some complicated piece of magic, like preparing the fields for the first day of planting. Since she didn’t know what she was supposed to do next, though, she figured she’d have to rely on power and intent alone. Those were the two things at the core of every spell, as Vrinn knew from spying on Frelda Imle, the woman who lived next door, as she taught her youngest children about magic. Crane was right about Vrinn’s magic leaking out of her, usually without her wanting it to, so she guessed that would count for power. She just needed an intent, something that would tell the magic what to do and how to re-shape the world to Vrinn’s will. Vrinn scanned the forest, her eyes landing on a slender maple tree up ahead. She thought about how beautiful the maple trees around the village looked in the fall, their leaves vibrant red. It was still the middle of summer right now, but Vrinn decided turning a tree’s leaves should be an acceptable test of her powers. That didn’t seem too complicated. Vrinn closed her eyes, in her mind picturing the tree across from her with every detail she’d noticed. She thought of its height—short in comparison to the much older trees beyond it. She thought of its width, slimmer too than many of the other trees in this part of the forest. She thought of the pointed shape of its leaves, and then she imagined a cluster of those leaves on the upper branches changing, losing some of their vibrant green. Growing a little pale at first, but then deepening into a rich scarlet, a deeper red than sunset. Vrinn sucked in a breath of surprise when, from behind her, Crane’s hand reached out and clutched her shoulder, fingernails digging into her skin through her shirt like talons. “That’s it,” Crane whispered, voice right at Vrinn’s ear. “Keep going.” Vrinn pressed her eyes shut even tighter, imagining every leaf on the tree turning that hue, becoming a riot of brilliant color in the endless green canopy around it. Crane’s hand on her shoulder spasmed, and Vrinn heard a soft thumping sound ahead and to her left, a sound that was echoed by another series of quiet impacts. Puzzled, she opened her eyes. Ahead of her, as far as she could see, the trees had changed. They hadn’t gained fall colors, though. They had died and started to rot, the leaves browned and leathery, their branches falling off, and their trunks crumbling inward and decaying. The wood itself looked like it had laid on the forest floor for decades decomposing, but the most of the trees were still standing upright. Vrinn heard another thumping sound, this time to her right, and it pulled her attention away from the trees. She watched as the body of a large blackbird fell from the sky, landing on the ground nearby. Now that she recognized the sound, she scanned the ground and spotted the bodies of other birds in the tall grass. Only a couple yards away, she saw an owl that had tumbled off of a dead tree. So many birds had fallen to the forest floor, now lying there completely still. Somehow, just like in the barn that day when she’d been too young to fully remember what had happened, Vrinn had—had killed everything in that patch of the forest. Even the grass in the little clearing, starting at her toes and extending back to the treeline where grass couldn’t grow in the shade, had turned brown. Her heart beat rabbit-fast in her chest. She hadn’t meant to do this. She hadn’t meant to. Surely Crane would know that. She wouldn’t blame Vrinn for this, not after she’d ordered her to use her magic. Would she? Vrinn stole a glance up at Crane’s face. Crane stood a half a step behind her and to her left, her hand still digging into Vrinn’s shoulder. Her eyes stared out at the forest, cataloging the destruction before her. “You’re going to learn to control this,” she said. “You’re going to practice every day, until you can do that to whatever I tell you to, understand?” She looked down at Vrinn then, her eyes wild in a way Vrinn had never seen, pupils dark and wide enough to eat up all the color around them. Her strange stare frightened Vrinn, and she tried to take a step back. Crane’s hand on her shoulder anchored her in place, tightening even more when Vrinn tried to move. She winced, sure Crane’s nails were breaking through her skin by now. “Do you understand me?” Crane demanded, lowering her face to Vrinn’s until she could smell the bacon on her breath from their breakfast that morning. Vrinn nodded. “Yes,” she breathed. “I understand.” But she didn’t. Not really. Not at all.
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