CAMP NEW MOON, MORTALLANDS.
Elita giggled hysterically at the tall shadow figure. It was pretending to slip on a rotted apple at the base of the fruit tree she sat under. Encouraged by her laughter, it did it again, and again.
"What are you laughing at?" a voice sounded curiously from behind her. "I see you sitting here all day, laughing. But there's nothing there?"
Elita still had a bad case of giggles when she turned to the newcomer. It was a boy dressed in a sand-coloured tunic, a mop of Ash-blonde curls upon his head.
"You can't see him. Only I can. He's my friend," she informed him.
"So, imaginary, then."
She shrugged, having argued the existence of her friend many times. By now she'd learned it was best to let people believe what they want. "If you like."
Elita returned her gaze to the shadow man, the ponytail securing her mousey-brown hair to the bottom of her head tumbling down her back.
"You're strange," he mused. "Want to be friends?"
She frowned and glanced back at the boy. Her eyes roamed over him, analysing him, deciding whether he was worth the trouble.
"You're a boy," she said, crinkling her nose. "But I like your hair, so I guess it's okay." She stood, wiping her hands onto the skirt of her worn, filthy dress. She approached him and held out her palm in offering. "My name is Elita, but you can call me El. I'm five sun cycles old and I don't like insects, green food, or bedtimes. Now tell me your name and something about you."
His lips twitched in amusement as he took her small hand in his own. "I'm Atticus. I love bugs, I also hate vegetables, and I don't have a bedtime."
Elita gasped. "You don't have a bedtime?!" she exclaimed as if it was the best thing ever.
"No, I'm eight. So I'm too old for that now." Losing his parents two sun cycles ago also played a part in it, but he didn't mention that.
"Wow, that's so cool." She looked at him in awe, her blue eyes twinkling. "Do you want to come play at my cabin? My mum is sick, but she won't mind if we're quiet."
"Sure."
"Yes! Come on!"
El's little legs worked as fast they could go as she charged in the direction of her home, zigzagging between the log cabins littered throughout their camp. They rushed past the community cooking pot before zooming by the blacksmith's hut, where the blacksmith himself was leant over an anvil, hammer in hand. His bald head snapped up as the youngsters flew past.
"Watch where you're going there, El!" he scolded, seeing them run too close to the stone pit where his hot coals roasted.
"Sorry, Edrin!" It was Atticus who responded. He raced to catch up to El, who was surprisingly fast for someone so small.
El stopped at the edge of camp, the border marked with a three-foot fence made with sharpened sticks tied together. It was flimsy, but with their camp almost in the middle of the Mortallands, they didn't have much trouble. The only place safer was Royal Hill, smack dab in the centre of their faction, where their leaders reside.
It was the outskirts which had the real problems, close to No Mans's Land; they were the first targets in the event of an attack.
"We're here!" she stopped to catch her breath.
El's home was the same as the other cabins—compact and made from tree logs, with sheltered storage attached to the left side. Although hers looked as if it'd seen better days and was a bad storm away from one of the support legs snapping.
Before Atticus could comment, a young woman stepped out of the house, fingers worrying at a discoloured white cloth. Golden hair was pulled back into two simple plaits, resting against her shoulders.
"Oh! Hello, Mercia," El greeted. "Are you caring for Mother again? Is she better yet?"
Mercia appeared grim as she approached the small child. "Elita," she started, and then hesitated, digits twisting in the fabric she held in front of her skirts.
The sadness weighing on her voice combined with her darkened expression told Atticus what she was about to say before she had a chance to say it. His heart squeezed for the little girl he just met, and suddenly he felt like he was intruding.
With a deep breath, Mercia continued, "I'm afraid it's not good news."
--
CAMP NEW MOON, MORTALLANDS.
FIVE SUN CYCLES LATER.
Ten-year-old Elita tied her hair back into an uneven plait, getting it out of the way. A half-barrel sat in front of her, filled with flowers and mushrooms and an old horseshoe. A clay cup filled with swamp water balanced next to her. She picked it up, about to tip it in, when Atticus snatched it from her hands.
"You know you shouldn't mess with this stuff, El," he scolded, spilling the contents onto the grass, away from her barrel of ingredients.
"I trekked across the woods for that!" Elita complained, standing with a furious huff. The skirt of her dress dragged along the ground, far too big for her—the material hung off one shoulder. "I've been practising. I'm good at it now!"
His blonde curls wiggled as he shook his head at her. "It's too dangerous. You don't know what you're doing. Just leave it alone and go play with dolls like a normal ten-year-old."
"Atti, just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I have to play with dolls!" She fumed at the boy who she considered her best friend—until he pulled tricks like this, that is.
"What do we have here then?" Interrupted a kind, soft voice. A lady stepped forward, her dress prettier and cleaner than any Elita had ever seen before. There wasn't a hole or loose bit of thread in sight.
"Lady Edna," Atti said in surprise before bowing his head. He nudged El to do the same.
"Oh!" the ten-year-old gasped in surprise, realising who had approached them. She mirrored Atti's pose. The leader and his wife must have been visiting from Royal Hill.
Lady Edna gazed upon the children with a fond smile curling her lips. She stood tall, her posture straight with her hands behind her back. Her white hair was half-down, half-up, with beads and plaits decorating the strands. A flower crown sat on top of her head, two stray bits of hair framing her aged face.
"Enough of that," she waved them off. "Now tell me, who's the little Alchemist?"
El stepped forward proudly. "Me! I've got very good. My last elixir turned a toad invisible!"
"It jumped back into the pond," Atti whispered from the corner of his mouth before covering his words up with a cough. El glared at him.
Lady Edna's eyes glittered with amusement. "You know, I'm something of an Alchemist myself," she mentioned casually. "And I've been looking for an apprentice. Do you know where I might find one?"
Elita's button nose crinkled. "I can ask around I guess. . ."
The leader's wife laughed softly. "I was thinking of someone close by, actually. Very close."
"What? Like Atti?" she sounded disgusted at the suggestion. "He wouldn't know what to throw in a half barrel if it slapped him in the face! I, on the other hand-" she paused mid-sentence, realisation washing over her features. "Oh. You mean me, don't you," she finished shyly.
Atti rolled his eyes at the same time an adoring smile tugged at his mouth.
Edna's expression mirrored Atti's. "Yes, sweet girl, I mean you."
Elita's heart pounded so hard with excitement that she worried it might burst out of her chest. "I would love to! I can ride to yours every morning. I have my own horse named Petal, he'll take me. I found him in the woods and my best friend Atti helped tame me him. Oh, Atti, you'll let me do this won't you?" The words tumbled from her mouth in a hurried rush, her joyful tone turning anxious at the thought of Atticus saying no.
After her mother's death, he had become the closest thing to a guardian she had left, having taken her under his wing that same day.
"I'll ride with you, El," he assured her. "We stick together, remember?"
"Always." El nodded and her innocent smile lit up her face. "Can we start tomorrow?" She directed the question at Edna.
The older woman grinned fondly at the young girl's eagerness. "I'll be expecting you shortly after sunrise."
--
ROYAL HILL, MORTALLANDS.
ANOTHER FIVE SUN CYCLES LATER.
Flames reflected in Elita's eyes as she gazed upon her hands, currently hidden by two melon-sized fireballs. The potion had worked perfectly, and she didn't feel a thing.
"Well done. I'm impressed," Edna praised her, standing on the opposite side of the workbench. A cauldron sat on top—the table littered with a wide range of ingredients along with empty potion bottles. "Remember, it'll only burn for two minutes. If you want to extend the time, it's two Bindweeds per thirty extra seconds."
They were inside Edna's Alchemy lab. A fair-sized stone building sitting a few metres away from the castle she resided in. The walls were covered in shelves, full of jars of ingredients, some of the submerged in liquid; flowers, moss, and mushrooms hung from hooks. A drying rack sat on the cabinet behind them. Mounted torches lit the room, their flames blue.
El turned her hands in wonder. Despite training with the leader's wife for five sun cycles now, it still filled her with amazement every time an Elixir worked. And made her hungry to learn more.
"Could we not cover our wall with this—this—" Elita frowned, struggling to remember the name.
"—Phoenix tears," Edna finished for her. The yellow skirts resting over her petticoat dragged along the stone floors as she rounded the table, stopping next to El. She took a pinch of powder of out a small, porcelain bowl and held it in front of the young girl.
"Witches Dust," El answered her unspoken question.
Edna smiled proudly.
"Very good." She sprinkled it onto the fifteen-year-old hands, the particles reacting with the flames in a flash of orange before it extinguished them completely. "I like your thinking, El, but we wouldn't be able to make enough elixir to cover the entire border. And even if we did, we'd soon run out of Bindweed."
"The other fractions managed to enchant theirs. I don't see why we can't do the same," she said, frustrated. "That way, we can stop relying on them to help us. What if they decide we're too much trouble one day?"
"My husband. . ." Edna's voice broke and she cleared her throat, gazing out the tall window. Their leader had passed away in his sleep one moon cycle ago. The widower was still heavy with his loss. "He said once, the leaders of the other fractions were. . .otherworldly. They reeked of power, and he got the sense that they could kill him with a snap of their fingers if they'd wanted."
"The people from my camp always told me we had no place at the Circle of Elites."
The older woman hummed. "My husband felt the same way. Jarrek was the bravest man I'd ever met but. . .those meetings always made him nervous. He would try to hide it, but we'd been married for forty sun cycles, I could see straight through him." She glanced at El. "This conversation remains between us."
"Of course."
"They're much more powerful than us, El. More than you can imagine. Truth be told, I have no idea why they keep us safe from No Mans Land."
"They don't do a very good job," El grumbled, thinking of the attacks they endure regularly when the enhancement grew weak and one of the No Mans Land monsters got through. "If they cared, they'd not allow the enchantment to fail before they replaced it."
"No," Edna agreed. "But I think they like to remind us of the control they have. We're. . .merely pets to them. I fear the day they grow bored of us."
The sound of hooves hitting pave stones interrupted them.
"They're back," Elita said needlessly. "Do you think he did okay?"
"I hope so, Elita."
Edna didn't wait around. She rushed outside, which wasn't easy in her old age, but there wasn't a force strong enough in this world to stop her. El followed her out of the door, through the flora-filled garden leading to the back of their stone castle, and round the front of it.
They were greeted with angry shouts.
The group—easily recognised as the leader's guards by their chain mail—dismount their horses. The newly appointed leader, Edna's son, attempted to walk away, but they followed him towards the castle.
"—your father would be devastated—"
"You've doomed us!"
"We should throw him into No Man's Land! Let the creatures decide his fate!"
Lady Edna stepped forward, her voice booming over them like thunder. "Silence!"
The men backed down. Her son faltered, glancing at his mother briefly, before continuing towards his home.
Edna addressed him sternly. "Kolson, get back here this instance!"
Kolson stopped, shoulders stiff, before reluctantly turning to his mother. He stepped towards her, dressed in his father's clothes; a white linen shirt with loose-fitting sleeves and brown breeches. He was a spitting image of his father. His hair was black, tied up into a ponytail at the base of his neck. A plait hung from the tip of his chin, tied off with a bead at the end.
He was around thirty sun cycles old, but the anguish twisting his features made him appear younger somehow.
Enda waited until he was in front of her. He avoided her eyes.
"Look at me," she ordered him, her voice softening. "Good. Now tell me what happened."
Elita felt like a third wheel and took a step back, her gaze landing on the flower patch next to the house. Enda's entire land was full of flowers, all different ones, from Toad lilies to Polly mushrooms. All used for Alchemy. El started to name them in her head in an attempt to give them some privacy, but curiosity won out, and she listened in on the conversation instead.
"They made a fool of me, Mother." Kolson's voice was tight. "We're nothing but a joke to them. We have no say. No power. We're simply there for their amusement. They laugh at how weak we are, did father tell you that? They laugh."
Edna's expression didn't shift. "I am well aware, as were you. Your father learned to tolerate it—a small price for our safety, don't you think?"
"Safety," Kolson laughed dryly. "Well, that's gone to boot now."
Edna's silence was both ominous and deafening.
Elita's heart raced, her gaze flickering between them anxiously. She fiddled with the pocket on her tunic, dread filling her body.
His mother analysed him, searching his features in the hope to find a trace of a lie—of a joke or prank, like the kind he played when he was a boy.
But there was none. Just fear and shame.
When Edna finally found her voice, her words were laced with horror. "Son. . .What have you done?"