The days of magic are long since past, but they will come again. Searah, Kaytee and Reacca are just moving into adulthood, but as the story starts, secrets about Searah's family, her links to magic and an unwanted inheritance hang over their lives...
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Searah awoke to the sounds of battle. Loud voices and cries came from all sides, crashing over her senses and leaving her feeling dazed and confused. When she opened her eyes, what she saw made her stomach leap with joy. All around her the Belfarian's followers were scattering, left and right they fled from the men in uniforms that had descended upon them.
'We brought backup' came Kaytee's voice from just beside her. 'Didn't think you fancied fighting off all this lot by yourself.'
'Although,' said Reacca on her other side, a note of detached measure to her tone, 'it doesn't look like it would have taken much fighting, most of them are running. Wait a second...' Reacca trailed off as she spotted someone fighting hand to hand with a tall, dark man in Sub-Grouper stripes. She stood up and walked straight over to the pair, ignoring the fleeing bodies and chasing swords around her.
'Garrad!' she yelled, the anger in her voice rendering her almost speechless. The man fighting the Territorial Guard looked round at the sound of his name, faltered and, before he time to turn and run, Reacca had walked right past the Sub and punched him full in the face. He fell to the ground with a sickening crunch as his ankle twisted. Reacca looked down at him, feelings of disgust and anger leaking from every pore. She kicked him squarely in the stomach.
'Bastard!' she turned her back on him and looked at the Guard who was just standing there, a surprised grin on his face. 'He's the reason for all this, he brought everyone here.' the guard starred at her, half bemused, half impressed. 'He went to our old school, I dated,' she hesitated, swallowing back her disgust, 'I dated him and he must have sold us out. He's all yours. Think of the worst thing you could do to him' she said, and the guard nodded. 'Good. Do it twice.' And with that she turned and walked away towards the main building and, Searah guessed, towards where Athalia must be.
The sounds of fighting were retreating now, heading back out into the city and, Searah imagined, out even beyond that as men and women ran for what ever cover they could find.
Searah felt, rather than saw, a shape on the ground behind her and turned.
'Searah, wait, be careful' Kaytee warned.
'It's alright,' Searah said, 'look.'
Lying on the ground was a woman with dirty-blonde hair, her spirits drifting lazily a few inches from the ground where a black scorch mark denoted the spot where her mother had opened the Gateway, and above anything else, where the Belfarian had disappeared. She felt tired, bruised and broken as she stared down at the prone figure on the ground. She placed her hand gently upon her mothers thin and sallow cheeks and closed her own eyes. She could feel a mind beneath her fingers, is faint, scattered and disorganised, but it was there. The woman whom Searah so resembled so much lay still, breathing calmly, seemingly asleep. Her frame looked thin and malnourished, older than the memories Searah had seen of her, and somehow older than even the Belfarian had looked. She twitched her fingers, trying to control that magic that would gently lift her mother from the ground, but nothing came. She felt drained, hollow and empty, like something had been pulled from her, never to return. As she moved to pick her up, struggling under her weight, her mind tried to comprehend everything that had happened and she wondered, vaguely, if she would ever again feel the pull of magic.
