A cock crowed, and Lyss sat up suddenly, shocked out of slumber. Rising, she sleepily jerked her dress over her shift. Yawning she tugged a comb through her long blonde hair, to braid it into the two pigtails she always wore. She could already hear Mistress Minn beginning to prepare breakfast downstairs. Still barely awake, Lyss carefully arranged the crystals on the small table by her bed, lit the candles of protection, and chanted the morning spell in her mind. “Morning has broken, red cock spoken, sun risen, gone are the dark night’s visions. May the Star be complete, Seven save us from Demon’s heat, but until then…Laeleena protect us all.”
Rising, Lyss winced. Her legs were sore from picking lungwort and rosemary for hours the day before. She turned to leave her room, still tying yarn around her braids. Stopping, she realized with a groan that she had thought before sketching the Queen’s Mark, and thereby closing the spell. Hastily rechanting the words, she drew an Elvin Star upon her chest. As always the seventh point was left unfinished in memory of Kaatiina, the Betrayed One.
Her mistake in the chanting had cost her precious time before breakfast; already the first rays of sunlight were shining through the loft’s single window, shining upon the candles. Mistress Minn would be growing impatient. There was work to be done: herbs to dry, tea to brew, bandages to weave… Smoothing the wrinkles of her worn homespun gown, Lyss strapped on her Healer’s apron, and gave a final tug on the bits of yarn that tied her braids, pulling them tighter.
Lyss climbed down the ladder to the kitchen. Familiar smells drifted through the tiny cottage to fall upon her nose: fresh-baked bread and sweet butter, and porridge, and the strong perfumes of the remedies. Mistress Minn was the village healer in a Borderland hamlet, and so she treated all sorts of infirmities. Since the Great Betrayal and the Breaking of the Star, Liirick (nicknamed by the Borderlands because it served as a buffer between Tiirlant and the demons, and Laeleentiir and the Castle of the Elvin Star) had fallen to the Demonspawn. It was often dangerous, and few dared to dwell there.
Stepping off the last rung, Lyss padded across the wood-slat floor to tend to the porridge cooking in the iron kettle that hung over the fire. Mistress Minn, Lyss had decided when she first came as a Healer’s assistant from the orphanage in the Kirr Mountains, made the best porridge in all of the Eastern lands. Her opinion had stayed the same over the four years since then.
“Lyss!” Mistress Min bustled in, her stout figure garbed in a simple gown of the same material as her assistant’s, a few errant locks of curly brown hair, streaked with grey, peeking out from behind a wimple. “Finally! I thought ye’d never rise. Hurry, off with that apron! Stop looking like a fish out of water and do it, girl. The Finder is coming; this is your chance!”
Without a word, Lyss flew up the ladder, untying her apron strings as she went. The Finder, here? The man who searched for children to serve on the Elvenguard, the magical force that patrolled the borders for the Demonspawn? Could it be? Training for the Elvenguard meant education, adventure, journeys, and, most of all, freedom. An appointment to the patrols meant release from the servitude that she was bound to by her orphan’s contract.
Stepping into her winter shoes, carved of wood, Lyss winced. Her feet must have grown since last she wore them. Her largest toe curled upward into the point of the shoe, and her heel chafed against the wood. Ah, well. ‘Twas said that the Elvenguard were given leather shoes for winter, not wood, and in summer they had slippers, real slippers, not simply their bare feet.
Below, Mistress Minn chattered, “Your Grace, welcome. I am sorry that I cannot offer more, but this is a Borderland town, and simple…” Lyss shivered, suddenly gripped by anxiety. What if the Finder found her gift to be too small? Would she stay forever in this forsaken place, always to be bound to Mistress Minn? She was a fair mistress, despite her frequent ear boxings, but a constant reminder that Lyss could not act for herself. Would she forever be marked by the slave’s brand? “Please, good Laeleena, mother of them all, not that,” Lyss prayed, touching the mark upon her ear. Straightening her shoulders and wiping a bit of dust from one shoe, she drew the Elvin Star upon her chest. There was no choice but to face her destiny.
His Grace the Finder, Duke of Sennlynn, stood by the hearth, sipping some of Mistress Minn’s restorative tea, deep in conversation with the Healer, seemingly unaware of Lyss’s presence. The small girl’s eyes widened as she saw him. He was a few inches over six feet, but without the hint of giant’s blood that often came with such height. His eerie grey eyes seemed to contain a galaxy within their depths, and his blonde hair was kept cut short in a way that seemed to belie more a peasant then ruler of one of the largest duchies in all Laeleentirr. His attire, too, was that of a traveler: canvas breeches, simple shirt, and dark green cloak, with a plain, undecorated dagger at his waist. Lyss was surprised by his age: he was little older than the archers that sometimes passed through the Borderlands. The Duke seemed far too young for such an important position as he held.
The Duke glanced up. Lyss blushed at her impudence, lowering her eyes and bobbing a curtsey, awkward in her ill-fitting dress and shoes. Something in the grey eyes sparked, and for an instant, Lyss imagine she could see the future, stretching out before her on an endless stretch of stars. The Duke set his teacup down upon the hearth and strode towards her, brows furrowed. Lyss shrank back, fearful that her rudeness had cost her a chance for the Elvenguard. “Laeleena help me,” she whispered, then said, louder, “My apologies, Your Grace…I meant no disrespect.”
“Please, call me Christophe.” The Duke chuckled as Lyss looked up, shocked. “We will be spending a long journey together, if your Mistress consents, and titles will quite irritate me by the end of it.”
Hope bounded in Lyss’s heart, but she quenched it. She had known far too many disappointments in her seven years of life. Craning her neck to try and read the Duke’s-Christophe’s-face, she bit her lip, attempting to contain a giant grin. He smiled down at her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Go and take those shoes off,” he told her. “They must hurt you terribly.” Winking as she stared at him, puzzled, he replied to her questioning look, “you are not the only one with Magic, little one. Now take off those shoes.”
That night, Lyss could not sleep from excitement. She was to leave in two days’ time, after Christophe had finished his search for some sort of herb that the University of Elvenguard wanted. In the meantime, she was to be fitted for traveling clothes, and help her new guardian (for Christophe had appointed himself her caretaker) catalog as many of Mistress Minn’s remedies as possible, to be taken back for study at the University. Lyss was caught up in the wonder and thrill of it all.
Turning over on her side, Lyss fingered a bit of the worn blanket that separated her from the floor. Beside her, the protection candles glowed, one in each of the seven points of the septagram. All but one of the seven burned with magical flame, never guttering, nor smoking. The seventh was never lit, not until the day when the Star was at last again complete, and a seventh Queen sat in the Thrones. There was a sadness of that single, dead wick that did not belong on this happiest of nights, and Lyss longed to light it, though she dared not. Reaching out a hand to touch the candle, she stroked the smooth wax with her finger. Suddenly, her joy disappeared, leaving her only with emptiness and premature homesickness in her heart. The tears dripped down her cheeks, falling upon the rough-hewn boards of the loft, and she finally surrendered to sobbing, weeping for the woman who had been betrayed, and for the girl who had been abandoned and sold into slavery. And in her own bed in the Castle of the Star, Queen Laeleena wept, too, though she knew not why.
