It was a long night. The carriage rocked as Thed slept fitfully under the many blankets, but still woke up frozen half stiff, so cold that his muscles ached to move.

  The sun was up and the carriage was no longer moving. A stream of golden light danced around the window curtains. Sliding them aside revealed a dozen neat stone cottages dusted with a shroud of snow. Mr. Brice, a dark figure in his heavy coat and preposterously large fur hat, was stomping towards the carriage. Beyond cottages the horizon dropped off into cliffs and a distant gray ocean that seemingly went on forever.

  Mr. Brice rapped on the glass with a mittened hand, before starting when Thed instantly opened the door.

  “Good morning, young master.”

  “Mr. Brice.”

  “I’ve just been inquiring. That building there—” he gestured towards a cottage that looked much the same as all the others. “Is offering hot meals. Closest thing to an inn this far from civilization.”

  “Is this Dunn?”

  Mr. Brice shook his head. “No, we passed through Dunn during the night. This is… I’m not sure exactly, but we’re close to our destination.” He jerked his head towards the cottages, causing the massive hat to wobble. “Would you like me to get you something to eat?”

  Thed took a deep breath as he thought, the air running like ice into his chest and causing him to shudder. “Could I come in as well? I’m frozen stiff as a board.”

  Mr. Brice’s square and rather uninquisitive face flashed with mild concern before meeting Thed’s unflinching gaze. “Very well, no harm in that. The horses need a rest as well.”

  Thed rose, shifting the blankets, when something rolled loose and thudded onto the cabin floor. It was Massudi, his hideous little ape face open mouthed and unperturbed as it snored on — oblivious to the bitter cold and blow it had just received. Little bugger must have squirmed his way onto my lap, at least he gave off some heat.

  Stiff legged, Thed left his familiar behind and ambled alongside Mr. Brice to the cottage. Snow crunched underfoot, and Thed felt like he was made of snow himself, stiff as he was, but he was refreshed by the stiff breeze; the air smelled of ocean here.

  The cottage (it did not warrant the title of inn, in Thed’s estimation) was a bubble of warmth against the outside world. The proprietor was a crooked stick of a man whose apron seemed one oilystain short of having simply achieved a new, darker color. He had a nervous habit of petting his mustache.

  “Ah, you’re back!” he cried, in a friendly way.

  “Yes, sir. Hot oats for both of us, and a spot of cheese if you have it.”

  “Ah, yessir, something to stick to your ribs! Have a seat, have a seat right here,” the man cleared the only table in the room for them.

  Without comment, Thed sat down. Shabby as the little space was, it was heavenly for its warmth and the promise of food. He and Mr. Brice sat in an unselfconscious silence as the proprietor busied himself across the room, first swiveling the pot over the fire to boil, and then preparing their breakfast so that a baked bready sweetness perfumed the air.

  Within a few minutes both travelers had been served wooden bowls filled to the brim with oatmeal pockmarked with dried currants and gilded with a pat of butter busily melting over it. Thed, feeling human again, thanked the common man before digging into the food.

  “Of course, of course,” the crooked man awkwardly against the stone wall, almost learing despite his gentle eyes, as he watched his guests eat, running his hand over his mustache as if to check if it was still there. “By the way, what brings you gentlemen out this way?”

  “R.T.S. business,” replied Mr. Brice.

  “Ah, from the abbey, eh? I thought the young man had the wizardly look about him. The robes, you know.”

  Thed wipes his lips. “You’ve got a good read on me.”

  The proprietor gave an ugly but good natured smile. “I should hope so. We’re good Brelanders in these parts, and wizards have been leading this country to prosperity since before my great grandfather came to Dunn, even. It’s our place to know wizards, serve ‘em. Good wizards that is, not one of them bad wizards, ya know.”

  Thed opened his mouth but could not speak before Mr. Brice interjected: “What ‘bad wizards’ are you referring to, sir?”

  The proprietor, seeming to remember himself, straightened up abruptly and dropped his hand from his facial hair. “Ah, not an insult to you fine gentlemen in the least! I’m just thinking aloud. There’s some runaway apprentice that’s been running around these parts, nothing but a common thief. Someone to watch out for out on the road.”

  Mr. Brice’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “A runaway apprentice shouldn’t be a problem, but I appreciate the warning. I will be sure to notify the constable in Dunn on your behalf, if you wish.”

  “Nah, he knows. Useless bum. But wizard-folk like you might have a chance of catching the lil wretch. Anyway, here I am bothering you while you’re trying to eat. Please, just enjoy yourselves,” said the crooked man, before shuffling back to the kitchen to clean.

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  Thed ate on in silence, grateful to be able to commit his mouth fully to food. Eventually the proprietor returned and asked them about the abbey until Mr. Brice asked if he’d be willing to assist with tending the horses. As both men stepped out in a blast of cold air, the crooked proprietor put hands to his mouth to form a bullhorn: “Darlin’, won’t you bring this young wizard some small beer while he waits?”

  A girl's voice called back from a back room of the cottage, the words indistinguishable. Then she appeared in the door frame.

  She was fair, and despite being Thed’s age, looked light enough that he could lift her with one hand, with a blue blouse bunched at the top and mousy brown hair that hung in wisps.

  Something made her stop and meet Thed’s eyes.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Thed swallowed a fat lump in his throat. “Hello.”

  She blinked. “What’s that noise?”

  “Noise?”

  Both waited for a moment, Thed painfully aware of her body across the room, until the silence was pierced from beyond the front door: “JYUKRRRRR!”

  “Is that your rooster?” she asked warmly. “I’ve never known anyone to travel with a rooster.”

  Thed felt heat rushing up his neck as he stumbled to his feet. “I’ve uh… I’ve got to go… take care of that.”

  “Are you sure I can’t help—”

  “No, thank you!”

  STUPID IMP!

  It was humiliating. Why did it all have to be so humiliating?

  Mother had lied to him his whole life, father was a stranger, and Master Willousbhy had been some kind of shadowy figure that had overseen his own creation and then only pretended to be a mentor to watch him over the years for his own nefarious purposes.

  Thed shuffled and pulled the blankets tighter as he blew another breath, white mist, into the air as he sat idling in the back of the unmoving carriage.

  Mr. Brice approached before clicking the door open. “Young Master Leighton, I hadn’t expected to find you here.”

  “Can we just go?”

  Mr. Brice nodded, unperturbed. “Of course.”

  As the carriage began rolling away from the village. The bitter cold was nothing against the burning resolve in Thed’s chest to throw himself off the nearest cliff.

  He wondered, had Thomas or any of his other friends at the abbey know anything about his Tautha heritage? Maybe it had been a joke among them that the most naturally talented mage among them had been oblivious to the curse of his own existence.

  Has Jeremy Briggs, that absolute knob, been laughing his ass off at me every night while knowing I was a bastard son of a forest spirit?

  Nothing was out of bounds now. Even girls were a forbidden concept, the mere thought of them a banned pleasure! The sight of a cute farmgirl sending Massudi howling.

  Am I supposed to die a virgin? My entire life is a bad joke.

  Several hours, the better part of the morning, passed in this sort of abysmal brooding. Thed, running a hand over his forehead and muttering miserable nothings to himself until Massudi woke up and started pacing the cabin floor, growling into empty air as well.

  “What are you complaining about?” Thed asked.

  “Jyukurrr.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course. What else did I expect? Look, I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, but I’m going through some things. Do you have any idea what it’s like to discover your life is a lie?”

  Massudi quieted, cocking his head like a puppy.

  “I just… look just come sit with me and be quiet. I promise I’ll be quiet too. Maybe I can warm us up a bit.”

  The little gremlin crawled up onto his lap. It weighed no more than a paperweight and stunk like rotten chicken.

  Thed closed his eyes to focus. He was still bound to the leyline of elementalis, but how effective he could draw on it he was unsure. Elementalis provided him access to the magickal colleges of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, of which he was proficient in Tier 1 of Air, Earth, and Fire. Tier 1 being composed of instantaneous “flash”manifestations of the element in question. He had dabbled in Tier 2 Fire and Earth, but was yet to accomplish his trials in them when his ‘mysterious’ waning in magickal potency had struck.

  Maybe my connection to elementalis has grown since I haven’t… wasted vitae in at least two days.

  Taking a steadying breath, Thed focused. He felt concentrated his will within himself, forming ‘the dipper’ with his mind’s eye, and then reaching out into the space before him to embrace the ever present flow of elemenatlis. A flash like white fire over his heart, threatening to consume him.

  There were apprentices who died on their first rite, that first contact with a leyline, literally incinerated from within by an unconstrained flow of infinite energy. Thed had never seen it, but the older boys at the abbey had told terrifying stories when he was a first year — tales of cindered black bodies, dehydrated eyes sealed shut in a sort of instant mummification. The husks quietly buried in the abbey’s back acres, the families receiving a letter and left to their quiet grief.

  Fortunately, Thed was not a total amateur. In fact he had always had a natural Flow Node, that node which allowed the passage of magickal energy from the body into an instantaneous spell, and had never had to work to form it as many students. It was a major reason he had always been considered so advanced. And now with his one natural Node occupied by Massudi, he could not cast any sustained spells and only had to rely on his Flow Node.

  Thed raised a hand and concentrated on the palm until he became that space, pressed the fired from his heart into the space with a spin until an orb of fire flashed. Brilliant yellow, then dull orange as it simmered low off the embers of elementalis energy drifting from Thed’s core.

  Something for a bit of warmth.

  He lashed at the space twice more. At least first year apprentice spells were returning to him now.

  Why does it all have to be so humiliating? Perhaps after a week of abstinence I can attempt a Tier 2 spell again.

  The burning in his chest subsided, as did the heat flash against his face until the cabin settled into a comfortable warmth. Glancing over, Thed saw Massudi’s sullen little ape face staring at his palm. He could swear he saw a trail of smoke coming off the tips of those oversized ears but it quickly vanished.

  Outside, the long ascending long continued, winding along a trail full of stark gray highland trees. Birds flitted among them, except for one which stood stock still on a signpost, staring as they passed.

  The three eyed crow.