A. C. Rosenfeld

“It’s my garnet. I was the one who formed it and brought it into being. I’ll trade you a shard of obsidian if you would just listen to – “

The man waved a gnarled hand in front of his face. “You’re lucky I’ll even talk to you after the trouble you’ve caused.”

Caster held a vendor’s market three times a week. Vega had sold several of her igneous rocks that she had created from lava at an active volcano in the northern country for raw gold before she had left for the hotspot.

But she needed that energy back. 

“I’ll give you a shard of obsidian and my glass ring,” the mage said, beginning to pull the ring off her thumb.

The vendor let out a long hum of disapproval. “Glass rings are worth as much as cloth. Certainly not enough to buy back a garnet.”

“There is more power by the tenfold in that obsidian than there ever was in that garnet.” She held out her hand and asked, “Would you like me to show you the difference in power?”

“No, no.” The vendor pushed her hand away. “Don’t threaten me, mage. I sold the garnet as soon as I could after you left, no use having that evil magic in my tent.”

Vega resisted the urge to melt the other wares in front of her and stepped back into the midsummer sun. The trio of fools were further down the road; Terragon and Antonia were examining a wooden shield, while Francis was negotiating prices to get his weapons sharpened. 

Caster was pretty in the sunlight. It was an older town, marked by the worn cobblestones and smell of dark wood. Vendor tents filled up each side of the main street down to the northern gate, most of them selling grilled food and dehydrated flowers picked from the meadows nearby. There were only a few tents that held necessary provisions for travelers, like the one Vega stood before. 

She turned away from the crotchety vendor and let her gaze rest on Francis, who was laughing at something the woman in the blacksmith tent had said. It was odd, looking at him when he wasn’t looking at her. Angry at her. Plotting against her. When he was with others, he looked almost kind.

But then he caught Vega staring and his laughter melted away. 

The mage slowly made her way over to him, avoiding his eyes until she stood in front of the blacksmith tent. She murmured, “I had no luck getting my garnet back.”

“But you’ll still be able to fight?”

He had his priorities in order. She nodded and replied, “It was only a precaution. I wouldn’t have done well with it anyway, it’s been a while since I used anything made with lava.”

The blacksmith looked up at her, an eyebrow raised. “You wouldn’t happen to be the magmite mage that everyone’s talking about, would you?” She asked.

“I would,” Vega said icily.

The woman took Francis’ sword off of the sharpener and leaned forward. “I heard you had some obsidian you were selling. Any chance you would sell to me? I could give you some weapons in exchange.”

Vega felt the ice melt from her spine and she smiled in response. “I thank you, but I have no use for weapons. Once we have finished our quest I would be happy to give you my obsidian, perhaps a couple pieces more if I’m lucky. I’d like to be swimming in obsidian by this time next week.”

Francis and Vega walked away from the vendors and towards the southern gate of Caster, waiting for Antonia and Terragon to finish their shopping. 

The swordsman broke the silence. “Terragon wishes to visit a shrine southwest of here. They think it’ll help us find the unholy horror.”

“That’s a fool’s errand,” Vega responded. “We can find it by talking to other villages. It’ll be obvious where it’s gone.”

“Why is that?”

“The villages will be burnt to a crisp, their lands turned to lava fields.”

Francis shivered. “How can we defeat something like that, Vega?”

The mage looked at him in surprise. By now she had seen the swordsman reacting to his friends, to the blacksmith woman, and to her. But she had never seen this expression before. Soft morning light bouncing off his short, auburn hair, streaks of gold where the sunlight was direct, his face striped with shadows. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was pursed in a thin line. Freckles peppered across a strong nose, which was slightly wrinkled in anticipation of the coming days.

“Are you afraid?”

He opened his eyes and met her gaze. “Of course I am. I can spot a hopeless mission from miles away.”

“You think it’s hopeless?” Vega felt her stomach turn at the thought.

“With just me, Terragon, and Antonia it would be. But I’ve never fought with you. I don’t know what to expect.”

Vega opened her mouth to reply, but Terragon’s voice warbled in from a few feet away, “Are you two all ready to go?”

The atmospheric mage stood with a hand on their hip, a satchel swung over their shoulders. They were the oldest in the party; tall, skinny, and grey, with smile lines stretching from the corner of their eyes to their temples. 

Francis nodded. “Just waiting for you two.”

Antonia came jogging up next to Terragon and placed an apple in their satchel before letting her eyes fall on Vega. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you need?” she asked. “This isn’t something I’d like to go into unprepared.”

The magmite mage rolled her eyes at the light-haired archer. “If you all keep asking me this, I’ll start doubting myself.”

They all stared and didn’t respond.

“I am ready,” she relented. “I’ve been ready since I healed. What’s this I hear about a shrine to visit?”

The party began to walk alongside the road as Terragon replied, “There’s a shrine to earth energy nearby. I’m assuming the priests might have felt a disturbance and could point us in the right direction.”

Vega resisted the urge to strangle the other mage. “Terragon, the priests aren’t mages. They can’t sense anything that will help us with the unholy horror. I could sense it better if we could just find an area with slight geologic energy, like a hot spring.”

They avoided her eyes as they said, “It’s – It’s just a hunch. I grew up worshiping earthen energy, it’ll be good to ground ourselves before the battle anyway.”

“It’s not too far away, either.” Francis’ voice came from her left as he began to walk in sync with her. “Less than an hour on this road. We won’t lose too much time.”

Vega didn’t know this area well, and she disliked relying on others to lead her. But as they fell into an even pace she felt herself relax. It was a fertile land – blessed with downpours every fall and winter that led into warm, humid springs and summers. The trees on either side of the road could reach their spindly fingers so far up into the sky that their crowns were lost in low-lying clouds. Low shrubbery and ferns seemed to crawl onto the path, hitting Vega’s skirt when she wasn’t paying attention. 

But, surprisingly, she didn’t mind.

She had grown up in a fertile area like this one. Rain wasn’t as prominent, but the rivers flowed with an engorged intensity every spring from the glacial melt in the mountains. The grasses had been filled with tiny alpine flowers, ones that she threaded into bracelets and rings when she was bored. She had been better than all the other children at this game, always finding the perfect flower or the sturdiest stalk of grain.

The warmth of the sunbaked knolls, the spiced scent of grass reaching so far into her nose that she sneezed, the softness of the dry earth and the feeling of belonging – Vega let the shiver of recollection run down her spine. She hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Not even magmite energy made her feel that way.

The shrine was a small building a little ways off the road, a dirt-trodden path marking the entrance to the holy place. Terragon stepped forward and knelt on one knee, murmuring, “Great earth father and mother, welcome me into your embrace.”

Antonia and Francis followed suit, whispering the same prayer. Vega shifted her weight from foot to foot, waiting for them to be done. But when they both stood they only turned to stare at her. Again.

“You have to, Vega. Even if you don’t harness earth energy,” Terragon said.

The magmite mage scoffed. “No one can harness earth energy. No one has in a millennia.”

There was a pause. Terragon said again, “You have to, Vega. It’s a sign of respect.”

At the last word, Vega glanced at Francis. He looked away. 

Finally, she knelt on the forest floor and placed her left hand on the dirt for balance. “Great earth father and mother,” she said, her voice low. Something moved in her body. She took in a deep breath and smelled her home. 

Vega jolted at the sudden nostalgia and lost her balance, tipping to the right before a hand on her shoulder steadied her. Francis.

“Great earth father and mother,” she began again. “Welcome me into your embrace.”

A low hum emanated from the place where the mage kneeled. As she stood, the hum seemed to come with her, encircling her body and falling into the back of her subconscious. She could no longer hear it, but it was there. 

She gasped out, “What was that? Did you all feel that as well?”

“Feel what?” Antonia asked. She wasn’t meeting Vega’s eyes. 

The mage leapt forward and grabbed Terragon’s arm before they could react. “Tell me what’s going on. Immediately. I will not be kept in the dark any longer.”

Terragon pried Vega’s fingers off their arm and held her hand in theirs before replying, “Vega, I think you’re an earthen mage.”