The Sorcerers of Nigh warned against wishing on stars. It was known across all of Mudsbane’s kingdom that when the blinking orbs ignited and burned across the dark skies; they sought to rearrange the fates. To enmesh the soft belly of dreams with such a force as that, was to risk opening doors best left closed… Doors to misshapen fortunes and wicked celestial tricks.
Aldwin Grey did not agree, as he didn’t with most commonly held fears. He strolled home from the smithery through the crackling night markets of Kaolin. He waded through the drunk swathes of guards laughing and eating street food no doubt unpaid. Aldwin bit back his temper, which was getting harder to do with each passing cycle. He nodded to the vendors he’d known all his life, and watched their faces light up with relief.
As he turned into the residential spirals, the night erupted with streaks of silver and gold, marking the annual Sorcerers of Nigh’s ceremony. Aldwin grinned into his black beard and hurried his step.
Reaching his orange clay hovel, he tore open the thick wooden door and stepped into the warmth. Aldwin’s wife was humming to herself in a kitchen bubbling with the thick spices of true Kaolin cooking. His two sons were wrestling, the older letting the younger land the occasional blow, laughing all the while.
All was in its place. Except his daughter. She had abandoned her cooking smock in a pile in the cramped kitchen, and was leaning half her small body out the round window.
He went to her and placed his hand on her back. She started, turning to him with eyes ridden with guilt and an apology on her lips, both which faded at the sight of his grin.
Aldwin beckoned her to follow and quietly the pair raced to the ladder that disappeared into the clay tunnel between floors. He lifted her, so light, above his head, and as they climbed, her giggle tickled his ears. On the second floor, newer than the ground clay, wooden panels were tacked together in janky angles and corners that bulged outwards like his stomach over his belt. Makeshift rope bridges linked with neighbors’ houses and across streets, built in flurries with imported wood as Kaolin grew too fast under the King’s industry.
The roof unfinished left the golden streams of the sky exposed. His daughter’s face glimmered with wonder. Her cheeks glowed bright as the stars above roared and wrestled under commands of the Sorcerers, as they foolishly tried to write the fates the King demanded. Aldwin watched as magic rained down on far horizons in bright silver flares and felt sickened by the waste of it. He’d been taught since his childhood that magic was a tool to be harnessed sparingly and for the good of all. Not poured into the whims of a spoiled Royal.
“Make a wish, Harri,” Aldwin said.
Harri tore her gaze from the stars and looked to her father, brow scrunched with doubt. An expression he knew was torn right from his own collection.
“But Ma said not ter trifle in King’s magic.”
He pointed to the dizzying, moving sky. “Well, yer Pa says different. You see power changing night to day up there, don’t yer? They’re writing yer future as much as the Kings, don’t yer think yer ought av a say in it?”
Harri tilted her head and watched as fate danced and warbled above. Aldwin saw in her little face her mind opening with dreams. He saw her lips move with silent words and hoped his daughter’s wish would find her well, sometime, somewhere.
11 Years Later
Harri watched the star rise on his last day in Kaolin.
…
To Be Continued…
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