Artemis

  A Warden’s Stone.

  The name rose like a bruise at the back of my tongue the moment Thames lifted it for the square to see. Black glass veined with red. Ashpire. Cut from Mount Avarrek’s throat, where the rock still remembers fire. The official term for it is the Ashpire Stone, but the more common name is the Warden Stone. The stone is a tool used by some Wardens between teacher and student. Different names, same hunger.

  Wardens use it to find out what a child is made of. One hand on either side and a slow pull. If there’s a vessel, the Stone drinks power and gives the lesson back as ache and shaking hands. If there isn’t it drinks something worse – breath, warmth, the will to stand. It was never kind, even in good hands.

  In soldier’s hands it’s even worse.

  Thames cradled it one-handed like a trophy. The red threads inside the glass guttered and flared with each step he took, answering the caster behind him who was already feeding it, even if he hadn’t meant to. I felt that feed the way a smith feels heat through the leather. The air around the Stone bent, not much, just enough that rain slid off in a hiss and the hair along my forearms tried to rise.

  They’re desperate, then. Desperate enough to bring a Warden’s trial into a muddy hamlet and call it a law.

  The Magister sat his horse like a sermon, pleased with the fear he’d brought. The villagers couldn’t name what they were looking at, but their bodies knew. They edged back as far as the square allowed, pressed against one another under the dripping eaves, eyes fixed on the red glow in the glass. Beside me, Celeste kept her chin steady, but I heard the catch in her breath. She didn’t know the Stone by name. She knew me well enough to read what it meant on my face.

  Mount Averrek. I could see it as Thames drew nearer, the way we were taught to picture it when we were young: a crown of black rock, rivers of glass cooling to knives, veins of red-like molten script frozen mid-word. Ashpire drinks whatever element you put into it. Heat. Light. Water. That’s why Warden’s bind it in iron and etch it with checks: to slow the drink and keep eager boys from burning themselves hollow.

  No iron here. No checks. Just leather and the soldier’s grin.

  The Stone makes three kinds of truth.

  A Caster who takes it alone will feel only the slow bleed. A steady pull from the vessel to glass, just enough to leave their hands trembling if left for too long.

  But the Stone was never meant to sit quiet. Not when another Caster feeds it.

  When one pours their element in, the draw doubles back. Whoever grips the Stone opposite them feels the siphon sharpen, their vessel wrung against its will. If they’re strong, it’s a contest, will against will. If they’re weaker, they falter quick, stumbling, drained, sometimes even dropping to their knees.

  And for the ones with no vessel at all… it’s worse. A noncaster can hold the Stone safe enough on its own. They can’t hold it for too long, but safe enough to at least pass it along. But the moment a Caster feeds it while their hands are on it, the Stone takes something else. Strength. They can faint, seize, their bodies shake as if their very marrow was emptied.

  If they’re not strong enough, they may even die.

  That’s the lesson soldiers will give these people. Not the truth of it, only the fear.

  I watched Thames lift the Stone high, the red veins pulsing brighter as the man behind him pressed his will into it. The villagers shrank back another step, mothers clutching children, old men bowing their heads as though a prayer could blunt what was coming.

  Celeste didn’t pray. She stood stiff beside me, jaw set, though I caught the way her breath hitched. She didn’t know the rules of the game. She only knew that I did.

  And that meant, if they called her name, it would have to be mine that answered.

  The Magister gave a sharp nod, and two soldiers waded into the crowd. They seized the boy he’d marked earlier, little more than a youth, barely past his first beard, and tore him from his mother’s arms. She cried out, but the spear haft pressed her back with a warning shove.

  The boy stumbled, mud splashing up his shins, until they dragged him before Thames.

  Thames stripped the glove from his right hand, the leather falling wet against the muck. He cradled the Stone barehanded now, its jagged edges biting against his palm as if eager for skin. The veins of red flickered faint, waiting.

  “Place your hand on it,” the Magister said. His tone was flat, almost bored, as though ordering a sack weighed on scales.

  The boy shook his head once, trembling, but a soldier behind him shoved his shoulder forward. His small hand lifted, hesitated, then pressed to the crown of the stone.

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  Thames smiled thinly, and I felt the moment he began to feed it. The Stone woke like a furnace bellows, the veins inside flaring red, twisting in their glass prison. The air bent around it, heatless yet searing all the same.

  The boy’s body jerked. His eyes rolled back white. His knees buckled as though the marrow had been stripped from his bones. He collapsed into the mud with a sound I hated, soft, final, like meat hitting the block.

  His mother screamed, shoving past the line until a spear blocked her chest. The boy twitched once in the muck, limbs rigid, then went limp.

  Thames held the Stone high again, the red still burning bright in its core. He looked proud, like he’d proven himself somehow.

  The Magister’s gaze swept the villagers, hard and cold. “This is what it means to lie. To waste our time. To hide your gifts. A noncaster weakens us all.”

  The crowd shrank in on itself, every face pale, every body shivering in more than rain.

  And beside me, Celeste’s breath caught.

  The boy’s mother was still screaming when the Magister lifted one gauntleted hand, palm outward. His voice cut through her cries, flat as cold iron.

  “Enough. Take the boy away and give him back to his mother. Grab the next one. I don’t care who.”

  The words dropped like stones into the square. The soldiers obeyed without hesitation, pushing back into the huddled crowd. Panic rippled through the villagers, mothers clutching children tighter, men trying to vanish behind smaller frames. A farmer was yanked forward with the collar, his heels digging trenches in the muck as they dragged him toward Thames.

  I didn’t watch the man. My eyes stayed on the Stone, but my voice angled just low enough for Celeste’s ear.

  “If this turns wrong, you keep riding for Rodin.” My lips barely moved. “Don’t look back, Anna. You make sure to go to your father’s side.”

  I felt her stiffen beside me. “What are you–” she began, but her words clipped short when the farmer’s hand was forced against the Stone.

  The red veins flared again. A heartbeat later, he dropped like a sack of grain, limbs twitching before stillness claimed him.

  The villagers recoiled, a new scream tore through the air, a wave of fear breaking through the square.

  Celeste’s voice came again, sharper, edged with panic. “Art – what’s the plan?”

  I kept my eyes forward, watching Thames lift the Stone for the crowd to see, his smirk spreading like rot. My voice was steady, though I felt the knot tightening in my chest.

  “Truth? I don’t know. But you keep to yours.”

  I finally risked a glance at her, just enough to catch the flash of worry in her eyes before I looked away again.

  “Be careful, Anna,” I murmured.

  The square trembled with the last man’s collapse. Mud clung to his cheek, his body limp, and still no one stepped forward.

  Then a voice split the silence, high, cracking with desperation.

  “Viola!”

  The name cut sharper than a blade. Heads whipped, eyes searching. The sound came from somewhere deep in the crowd, but the damage was already done. A mother shrieked, yelling no!

  The soldiers moved quick, shoving bodies aside until their gauntlets seized the girl from earlier. The one they’d dragged from her cottage. Barely more than a child, thin arms and wide eyes.

  “No, please! Not her!” Her mother clung to the girl’s skirts until a spear haft slammed her back, knocking the wind from her chest. The girl screamed once, high and raw, as they tore her free.

  They dragged her forward, her feet slipping in the muck, until she stood before Thames. He grinned like a wolf, lifting the Stone in front of her. Its red veins glowed eager, hungry.

  “Hand,” the Magister ordered.

  The girl’s lips trembled, but she obeyed, pressing her palm against the jagged crown.

  Thames fed it, and the Stone came alive, veins flaring in a spiral of molten light. The air bent, the drizzle hissed.

  For a heartbeat I braced for the collapse, the twitch, the limp fall into the mud. But it didn’t come.

  Viola staggered, knees dipping, but she held. Her jaw clenched, her eyes wide, but she did not break. The Stone drank, and she still stayed upright. Her hand stayed on the glass longer than the farmer’s, longer than the boy’s.

  When at last she tore it away, she swayed but did not fall.

  The Magister leaned forward in the saddle, studying her with new interest. His voice carried, bored no longer.

  “Well? What are you?”

  The girl’s chest heaved, her lips quivering as though the answer itself might damn her.

  “Fire,” she whispered.

  The Magister’s hand lifted, sharp. “Show us.”

  Her mother sobbed, but Viola raised a trembling palm. She drew in a ragged breath, and then a tongue of flame sparked to life. Small at first, flickering like a candle in a storm, then swelling into a steady blossom of heat. The drizzle hissed as it touched the edges, steam curling into the gray air.

  The square felt silent, every eye fixed on the glow in her hand. Even the soldiers stilled, their faces hard but their gazes intent.

  The Magister’s mouth curved at last into a smile, thin and satisfied. “A Fire Caster,” he said, as though he’d found a jewel buried in the muck.

  He flicked his fingers, and one of the soldiers stepped forward, pressing a heavier purse into the mother’s shaking hands than the one given before. She clutched it without looking, her other arm wrapped around nothing but air where her daughter had stood.

  Viola was already being pulled back toward the soldiers, her flame snuffed out with a hiss, her face pale and set.

  The Magister turned his horse, surveying the crowd with fresh hunger. “Now this,” he said, “is worth the price.”

  The Magister let the silence linger after Viola was taken, his satisfaction coiling in the air like smoke. Then his voice cut sharp again.

  “You’ve seen the proof. You’ve seen the reward. Now, once more, I ask. Who among you will step forward for the realm? Who will serve the cause that keeps your borders from fire?”

  His gaze swept the crowd, pausing here and there on a bowed head, on a face too pale, on hands that fidgeted in the wet. His tone darkened.

  “Do not think one girl enough. AurenVale bleeds. The Triarchy will have what strength is owed. And if no more step forward…” His eyes flicked to Thames, the Stone burning red in the Soldier’s palm. “… then the Ashpire will decide.”

  The murmur that rolled through the villagers was thin, desperate. Fear had their throats shut tight, but one man found his voice, hoarse with anger.

  “There’s no one else!” He pushed forward, mud splashing against his boots. His fists trembled, but he lifted his chin all the same. “You’ve taken what we have. There are no more Casters here.”

  The Magister’s plume dripped in the rain as he tilted his head, studying the man like a spider might a fly. “No more?” he asked, calm as steel. “Then perhaps you lie.”

  “I don’t!” the man snapped. “There’s none left!” His eyes darted suddenly, sharp, desperate to turn the blade away from his own throat. His hand shot out, pointing through the press of bodies.

  “What about them?”

  A dozen faces turned. I felt the weight of it hit like a hammer. Celeste and I stood out too sharply in the crowd, strangers folded into a herd that knew each other’s names.