The sunlight is warm against my face. I tilt my head back, eyes closed, letting it soak in. I love the sun; it makes everything feel alive.
“Briar! Come on, we are going to be late for the market!” my mother calls from down the hill.
“Coming!” I shout, grabbing the basket and hurrying after her.
We set up our stall among the other Eyglantian merchants, laying out the embroidered shoes my mother made. Every stitch is a story, spirals, knots, and curling symbols that she says hold meaning I will understand when I am older.
She always says, “Even a little beauty can warm the hardest hearts.”
I sit beside her, watching the crowd pass. Some stop to buy, most to stare. Their eyes linger not on our wares, but on the tattoo winding up my mother’s arm, a spiral starting at her wrist and climbing her shoulder, splitting into smaller trails across her skin.
I bear the same mark now. I have had it for a year.
The mark of the Eyglantia people.
A mark that makes strangers wary before they even know my name.
“Why don’t you go look around, Briar?” my mother says suddenly, smiling. “Buy yourself something nice.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And take this.”
She hands me a small pouch embroidered with the golden wheel of Ilina.
I grin and take off through the crowd, waving to cousins and friends at their own stalls—the air hums with laughter and haggling, the sound of our people. We are travelers, dreamers, never still for long. That is what I love about being Eyglantia, the world is our home.
I stop at a booth filled with glass charms. When I lean closer, the merchant’s smile fades. She slides her goods back, out of my reach.
I step back, my chest tightening—the same old story. One thief long ago, and now we are all guilty.
Then shouting. Boots pounding the cobblestones. Guards.
Running toward me.
“I did not…” I start, but they are already closing in.
I bolt, ducking into a narrow alley.
“Hey!” a voice says from the shadows. “This is my hiding spot.”
I freeze. Out of the darkness, two violet eyes blink open. That is all I can see, eyes sharp and unnatural, floating in the dark.
“Quick! Find the girl!” a guard yells from the street.
The stranger grins, those violet eyes gleaming. “Gotta go.”
Before I can ask what they mean, the market explodes in screams.
My heart stops.
Home.
I run faster than I have ever run. My sandals slap the stones. The air smells of smoke.
When I reach our stall, a guard stands over my mother, whip raised.
“Tell us where she is,” he growls. “The girl with the violet eyes.”
Something inside me breaks.
Anger.
Rage.
Fire.
It rises through me like lightning, fast and endless.
Flame coils out of thin air, shaping itself into a whip that glows gold and red.
I barely recognize my own voice when I speak.
“There is no girl here.”
The guards stumble back, fear twisting their faces, then flee.
And as quickly as the fire filled me, it leaves.
The world drops into black.
When I wake, I hear voices, my mother’s and another, hushed and trembling.
“Irene, you have to tell her,” says Theresa, my mother’s oldest friend.
“I know, I just… do not know how.”
“We do not whisper,” I say, my voice hoarse. In our culture, whispers mean deceit. “Say it.”
My mother’s eyes are red. “When the guards came, they attacked me. Reggie stepped in. He… did not make it.”
My chest tightens until I cannot breathe. Reggie, our seer. The one who always knew where to lead us next.
“There is more,” my mother says softly. “I was not going to tell you until you were older, but after what happened today…”
She takes my hand, trembling. “When you were born, Reggie saw your path. He saw you serving a great Empress, controlling water. But his vision was incomplete. I… I see visions too, Briar.”
I stare at her. “But that is illegal. A woman seer—”
“I know.” She smiles faintly through tears. “But I believe the world will change. I have seen it. And you will be part of it.”
She cups my cheek. “In my vision, you were not just tied to one element. You commanded all of them. Fire, water, air, earth… and something beyond them all.”
Her voice drops to a whisper.
“You are meant to help the world, Briar. And it is time I let you begin.”