CHAPTER 8 : HUNGRY FOR HAVOC

“Accused - Avaris Lyonsmar.

Accusation - Excessive use of havoc during Starfall’s siege of Blackthorn Peak.

Suggested Punishment - Stripping of Maelstrom title and immediate banishment from the Coven of Chaos. How do you plead?”

“Guilty.”

~Lyonsmar vs Starfall, Sealed Transcript

NILAH

I'm following Egg around and he's starting to notice.

At first, I just wanted to test my theory. Confirm if it really was a fluke. Because as far as I'm concerned, the havoc that's swirling around Egg shouldn't exist.

I can see it when I close my eyes. Usually havoc has a unique colour depending on the draw, with the most common being blues, violets and greens.

But Egg's is gold.

A cloud of glittering dust hangs over him like a desert storm, and it's getting bigger by the day.

Does the Warden know about this? She must. But she's not treating him any different than usual. She isn't studying him for the anomaly of nature that he is.

Same goes for Cook Yendy and Scholar Tirma. They're respectable witches. Surely they would do something about a farm boy who is disturbing the magic in the very air?

It’s possible I’m the only one who can sense his unique havoc...but that makes even less sense. I'm still in training. A week ago I could barely grasp the havoc from a tadpole—a literal creature of change.

But now...

Now I'm powerful.

His havoc is incredibly addicting. It's so easy to pull from. Every time I get near him I feel like I'm swimming in it. Maybe that's why I spied on him during his first week. Somehow I sensed it, even then.

Should I tell the Warden? Will I get in trouble? It feels like cheating. Witches study for years to be able to harness mere drops of havoc, and here I am with a fountain at my fingertips.

I crouch inside an inconspicuous gooseberry bush at the edge of the potato field. Unlike the mulberry bush, which was fruitless, this one has fully blossomed. I sign the rune for fire with my fingertips. It's the opposite of smoke, a spiral with a tail that flicks upwards. A miniature burst of violet flames ignite in my palm. They hover there, tickling my skin.

Giddiness bubbles in my chest and I can’t help but laugh. At this rate, I'll be a Maelstrom before I'm thirty. Maelstrom Stormwood. You have to admit, it has a nice ring to it—

"Is someone there?"

I close my fist to quench the flame and hold my breath. Stupid. I was so wrapped up in my dreams of grandeur I forgot about Egg.

He's standing next to a rusty wheelbarrow full of fertilizer, with a watering can and a burlap sack of potato slices balanced on top.

It's been a week since Bavetna left, and she still hasn't returned. The Warden told Egg to get back to work, and to all of our surprise—he did.

Every morning he fights the chickens, who really do seem to hate him, to collect their eggs. Then he milks the cows and goats, shovels the animal pens, feeds the pigs, brushes the donkey and hauls water from the well to refill their troughs.

It's painful to watch him struggle with this. It's like watching a toddler learn how to walk, except instead of a cute baby it's a loud boy complaining and cursing and kicking things the whole time.

Although his complaining has lessened since he started. Maybe he's realized no one cares, or maybe he’s just run out of breath.

After his regular chores, he walks up and down the fields with a rake, a trowel and a hoe and plants potatoes. He does this until Cook rings the dinner bell, washes himself off in the pond, changes into something clean that isn't covered in sweat, hay and manure, and eats his meal by himself on the farm house step, watching the woods—presumably standing vigil for Bavetna’s return.

If she returns, that is.

Why do I know all this? Because...I’ve maybe...sort of...been stalking him.

I know I should feel guilty. But I don't. The havoc is just too good to give up. I've been able to conjure fire at will, summon a mirage of a small field mouse wearing a circus hat, and even create a miniature tornado. It was only the size of my pinky finger, but still.

This random farm boy's havoc has allowed me to advance faster than any student at Little Abbey ever has before.

It's...invigorating.

"Hello?" he calls out again. Egg stares in my direction and his grip tightens around the handle of his small trowel, knuckles white.

I stay perfectly still.

After a moment, he shakes his head and returns to the wheelbarrow. He picks it up with a grunt and trundles past me.

Phew.

Where was I?

Oh right, havoc.

The first time I officially realized Egg's havoc was different was at the well.

I figured it was because of the pathways. Either he’d fall and die, or he wouldn't. A sudden and final split of destiny like that would surely produce a significant degree of havoc. Nothing unusual there.

When I told the Warden about it during the evening class, she agreed with me, and went on to explain why.

"Death,” she told the class, “or the potential of it, is one of the most powerful forms of havoc.” Around her fluttered a small butterfly that one of the girls had captured for the assignment.

Half the girls watched the butterfly, distracted.

I did my best to pay attention. I wanted to win. Revory had brought in a robin's egg, which was going through significant change and growth inside its shell, a perfect example of encapsulated havoc.

I wish I had thought of that.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The butterfly was a good contender, until the Warden explained it had already gone through its significant change. "If you had brought me a cocoon..."

No one else had found a source of havoc that came close to mine and Revory’s. My entry had to be better to beat hers or she'd never let me live it down.

I ignored the butterfly and hoped the Warden noticed my dedication.

Revory did the same, back straight, legs crossed on the floor, listening attentively.

"You must be careful not to draw on moments of possible death unless absolutely necessary, in case you influence fate."

She cast us all a serious look, then raised her hand and twisted her fingers, like turning an invisible key in an invisible door.

The butterfly dropped to the floor.

Some of the students jumped. One, I think the student who brought her in—a girl named Heedee with puffy hair and big, brown eyes—gasped out loud. “Oh no!”

That’s when we felt the quake.

It lasted only for a few seconds, but rattled the windows and shook dust off the rafters. A few girls screamed, but I paid attention to the Warden. She didn’t look alarmed, so neither would I.

The quake settled. Gently, the Warden slipped a piece of parchment beneath the butterfly and lifted her up. She spoke softly. "Death is a constant, inevitable force,” she said, making sure to look each one of us in the eyes, “everything must end."

Silence blanketed the room.

I raised my hand. “The shaking?”

“Cutting a life down sooner than fate intended has a ripple effect. The amount of potential lost in that singular moment will cause chaos to erupt in the world.”

“But,” Revory said, her voice small and uncertain, “witches have killed in battle before.”

“Most witches will conjure spells from other sources of havoc that are not human lives, and use those spells to assist armies during times of war—creating shields, raining fire, and cleaving the ground are all indirect techniques. But to take the lives of an entire army directly by stealing their havoc would cause a calamity of unimaginable proportions.”

Another long silence filled the room.

“It can also recoil back on the witch, and they can unintentionally end their own life. That is why it is important to learn this lesson now.”

The Warden covered the butterfly with her palm, focused her gaze on her hands, and when she opened them, the butterfly shot into the air.

Another gasp, followed by a smattering of applause.

"How'd you do that?" Revory asked.

"Healing is an advanced spell. Instead of taking havoc you are giving it away. It requires you to cut a branch of chaos from your own tree to jump-start a new sapling. But like the death spell, it can kill you if you do it wrong or give too much, and requires advanced knowledge of anatomy. And that lesson is for another day.”

I raise my hand. "But isn’t what you did reanimation, not healing?"

"Technically, yes. Practically, no. There are witches who dabble in puppetry of the dead, but that is not a path I recommend taking. It is a dark place to go."

She wandered over to the window and unlocked it, allowing the butterly to dizzily flutter outside and into the evening sky.

“But you are correct, Nilah, I didn't heal it. I simply kept my connection open to the same havoc that I used to end the butterfly’s life, it’s own. This allowed me to give it back. You can’t hold havoc for long—it requires you to make room inside yourself and that’s a risk when dealing with the dead. They drain your natural havoc, the chaos in your life and the future you could have. If you don’t sever the connection quickly you could lose years of your life in mere minutes, age yourself by decades, and eventually die.”

Meloka, a girl with shiny hair straight as an arrow and who always looked slightly annoyed, spoke up. “What about regular havoc, the kind unattached to the dead?”

“Excellent question,” the Warden said. “You can store basic havoc for a time without too much concern, and with practice you can amass large quantities to be used later when you need it, although you might make yourself sick.”

She went on for a time about techniques for storage and I dismissed Egg’s unusual havoc as just that. A life or death chance.

Until the bath house.

The golden glow trailed up the stairs like the mane of a celestial lion. I followed it and looked inside to see Egg, caked in blood and dirt, crying over a tinderbox.

I didn't feel sorry for him, exactly. It was his own fault for running away into the woods. But still...

This time, instead of just observing the havoc, I gathered it and signed the rune for fire.

Fire is one of the first runes you're taught as a witch. Unlike ice, which is static, fire is naturally chaotic, and is therefore suited to havoc. It will burn as long as it's fed, and it doesn't necessarily need physical fuel, a witch can use havoc to keep it burning instead.

I didn't expect it to work.

I'm supposed to be a novice, and although I've conjured fire before, I've only ever been able to light a candle, and usually after several minutes of sweat-inducing concentration.

But this strange, golden havoc tingled the tips of my fingers and hummed with an electricity, as if it were encouraging me to try it.

Later that night I laid in my bunk and stared at my hands, confused.

Where had the havoc come from?

Like the butterfly, who had already grown, the pathway was decided before I got there. Egg couldn't light the fire. There were no more choices or possibilities that I could see. No sources of havoc to draw from.

Unless he was going to fling himself out the window, which I doubted. He's far too full of himself for that.

I pondered late into the night, troubled, until I fell asleep.

The third time was with the weevils, but I refused to use it. Smoke, like fire, was even easier to conjure and I didn't want to risk messing with his—clearly—unusual havoc. Especially if the Warden was watching somewhere from the tower.

But the havoc from the ants and the bluebird felt like lifting a block of lead. The magic flowed easier, but it left me tired and gave me a headache. Whereas Egg's havoc had been light as a feather.

So I followed him. I caught him having some miserable introspection in the pond. The havoc was just...there...for the taking. I played with it, capturing it for myself.

I made a decision.

As long as Egg remained in Little Abbey, I would use his havoc to practice magic.

Look, there was no harm in taking advantage of the situation. If anything, I was causing less chaos in the world, not more. There were no paths to alter that I could see. Maybe Egg just produced havoc the way a flower produces nectar, and I was simply more in tune to it than the other witches.

If a treasure chest falls into your lap, wouldn't you take a few coins? Who am I to question my good fortune?

And that's why I'm hiding in a gooseberry bush—"OW!"

A rock bounces off the back of my head. I jump to my feet, sending an explosion of leaves and twigs fluttering to the ground, and spin around.

Egg is standing a few steps away from me, another rock already in hand. In his other is his rake, which he holds like a javelin. He looks surprised to see me. "Nilah?"

"That hurt, chicken legs!" My head is throbbing like a pulse.

"Sorry, I thought you were—why are you hiding in a bush...again?"

Because you're unknowingly supplying me with the most perfect, most impossible havoc in the world and not using it would be a complete waste of my talents.

"I was picking gooseberries." I smack my skirt to clean it of dirt. "Obviously."

His brow draws together in confusion and he lowers his rake. Suddenly, his expression clears. "Oh, I see what's going on."

"What?"

"Look, I'm flattered. But you're not my type."

"...Excuse me?"

"Don't feel bad. It's common for women to be overwhelmed by my presence. It's the burden of a King. Thank you, but I'm not interested in marrying a commoner."

"M-marriage?!" I stutter, outraged.

"Were you interested in joining my harem instead? The waiting list was quite long when I left but—"

I grab his havoc by the metaphorical neck, sign the rune for levitation, two lines straight up, and throw a chunk of fertilizer from his wheelbarrow directly at his head.

It knocks him off his feet.

"I'm already married to witchcraft. But thank you for the offer." I say, nose in the air, and start to walk away.

WHAM!

A cloud of manure hits the back of my neck.

"You crazy hag! I was just trying to be nice! The girls in my harem are way prettier than you anyways!"

I turn on my heel. Forget havoc, I'll strangle him with my bare hands—!

I stop short.

Walking towards us is Bavetna.

And she's bleeding.