Sara Holland - Evermore

The Sorceress

Tonight, I will make the Alchemists bloodJules Embers bloodinto a weapon.

I stand in a room deep below the ballrooms and balconies of Shorehaven. A timelender hunches across from me, sweating as he mixes powders at his workbench. Hes the latest in a long line of timelenders Ive commissioned to lure the Alchemist out of hiding. All have been inadequate so far; all have died for it. But something tells me tonight will be different.

The air prickles with danger. With promise.

The people of Sempera are so uncreative with their precious time, their blood-irons. When they dont drink them like beasts, they fritter them away to make their flowers bloom, or feed them to their fires to make themselves warm in the winter.

But the right blood-iron could burn down the world.

When the timelender tips the vial of Jules Embers blood into his little cauldron, light flashes through the roomas if were not far underground, as if day has come early and all at once. The ash and grime billow around me before the boom knocks us both off our feet. For an instant, flight. I think of the world as a hide stretched taut across the frame of a war drum, the kind I remember from centuries ago. Someones just brought the mallet down.

Even as my back hits the floorboards, my blood sings with triumph. An image burns behind my eyelids: a landscape of flames, the outline of a decrepit town with a pathetic name: Crofton .

I laugh to myself as I stagger to my feet. The timelender is lying prone on the floor, knocked there by the impact, gasping like a fish. So it is you, he murmurs. My true name, Sorceress , dies on his lips.

Never mind that. Inside the bronze cauldron, giving off its own faint light, is a shifting, sparking liquid. No color and every color at the same time, the magic is hard to look at directly with these human eyes. The man dying at my feet has created it out of Semperas finest diamonds and only one year of the blood-iron sweet Jules Ember left behind at Everless.

I bring the small cauldron to my lips and drink the Alchemists time. Just a little.

I have plans for the rest.

Pain lances my throat.

I breathe, alive, grip the edge of the table as my weak body shudders. I wait for the time to coalesce into a thousand daggers like it did that night at Everless, the night I finally realized who Jules Ember was under her skin, in her heart. I wait for her time to fight its way out of me like something alive.

That doesnt happen. Instead, power seeps into me.

Energy courses through the room, magic in every particle just waiting to be unlocked and set loose on the world, snarling like a pack of wild dogs.

I pour a few drops of the liquid into a bottle, dark green to hide its contents diamond quality.

Aboveground, I hand the bottle to the Everless boy Ivan Tenburn. Hes afraid of me now; he holds it like it will bite him. Good. I need him to be careful. I need our creation to make it to Crofton intact.

Where it will deliver the Alchemist to me.

Make me a fire, I whisper into Ivans ear.

TO THE CITIZENS OF SEMPERA

A NOTICE for the capture of Jules Ember of Crofton, murderer of the First Queen, the late Savior of Sempera, the Lady of Centuries; and of Lord Roan Gerling, beloved son of Lord Nicholas Gerling and Lady Verissa Gerling, devoted brother of Lord Liam Gerling.

A reward of five hundred years of blood-iron is offered for the murderesss living capture and delivery to Queen Ina Golds soldiers.

When I wake, my hands are covered in blood.

Its only a trick of the moonlight and shifting shadows. Still, I frantically scrub my palms against my damp cloak, as if such a simple gesture could wipe away the red that stains my memory.

I sit in a corner of my friend Ammas shed right outside of Crofton, my teeth chattering more with fear than cold, as her aunts three chickens cluck softly at me from their pen. Spring rain taps against the roof. When I was a girl folded in Papas arms, the sound of rain was a lullabyit sang of new life, of fledgling wheat that would soon be harvested, kneaded, then baked into bread on a blazing hearthstone. The rain lulled me to sleep, as soft and real as the voice of someone I love.

Now its a faint drum becoming louder with every gust of wind. The sound of doom approaching.

The shape of Crofton drew me in from the woodsthe broken line of rooftops against the sky that Ive seen so many times before. Our cottage is only ten minutes down the path, I realize, then theres a pang of grief as I remember that it no longer belongs to Papa and me. I would trade all the splendor and luxury of Everless for one more evening by the fire with him. But even Everless is lost to memy first real home, now forever forbidden.

I didnt mean to stop after fleeing Everless, but when I caught sight of the familiar shed jutting from a recently plowed field, I couldnt stop myself. My feet moved of their own accord. As if by ducking into this familiar darkness I could turn back time itself, weeks and months of it, and undo everything thats happened.

Say good-bye to Amma, if I were lucky.

That was hours ago, in the dead of night. There are soldiers out searching for me. Jules Ember, the Queens killer. Ive heard them at times, crashing through the undergrowth and clumsily breaking branches, always giving me plenty of time to seek shelter in a cave or up a tree. Now Im here; now Im safe

Something snaps outside. Its loud enough that I hear it over the sound of rain and low rumbles of thunder.

I press my eye against a crack in the old boards that make up the wall Im leaning against, fearing some soldier or wandering bleeder has stumbled upon my hiding place. Im not sure which would be worse. A bleeder roaming the woods would likely cut my throat, drink all my years for himself without pausing to glance at my face. But a soldier would throw me in chains and drag me to the palace in a prison carriage. It turns out not to matter. All I see outside are the trees as they sway with the wind, their branches bending into whipping, shadowy arms that seem to point to me, whispering

Murderer! Alchemist!

I swallow. For a moment, I swear that I glimpse the face of the girl who hunted me in my childhood nightmares, outlined in a flash of lightning. Pale animal eyes that wear kindness like a mask. Hair dark as the night sky. Her white teeth bared in a grin.

When I was a child, Papa told me my dreams could never hurt mebut he lied. Two weeks ago, the girl tore out of my nightmares and stepped into the world.

Caro. The Sorceress. My ancient enemy.

I breathe in. Out. I close my eyelids, trying to calm my racing breath, listen to the rain make steady taps on the roof. I hug my knees to my chest, letting the sound fill the darkness around mebut its not enough to dispel the knot of anxiety gathering in my chest. In the woods, I was able to ignore my fear. Shove it aside and let my attention be taken up by the task at hand: walk, hunt, hide. Get to Ambergris, the dock city where a ship waits to take me away from the land of Sempera, at Liam Gerlings arrangement.