Bright light poured through the open window of the ramshackle building that Anaya had been sleeping in. She groaned, pulling her blanket over her head. Why did the sun always have to rise so early?

All at once, a buzzing sound erupted from her pack and she sat up, staring at it as it moved about the floor like a thing possessed.

“Stop it!” she hissed, throwing herself upon it. She didn’t even have to look inside to know the source of the problem: The divining rods.

Even with her weight upon the bag, the rods continued to hum and vibrate, and Anaya plunged her hand into the pack desperate to grab the things and get them under control. However, as soon as her hand touched the first of the rods, she yanked it back in shock. The rods were fiery hot to the touch.

She released the sack, eyeing it as it continued its dance across the dusty floor, and then shuffling backward as it began to pour colorful light into the room like some kind of prism.

“What-”

It was then that she became aware of the humming outside her window, a steady thrum that she felt in her bones more than anything else. The pulse of vibration rose and fell with the vibrations of the divining rods, filling the air with an electrifying sensation.

Anaya scrambled to her feet and ran to the window to find the source of the sound. From her tiny window in the alleyway, she could see almost nothing, but she got the sense that the sky itself was on fire. Balls of flame rained down in every direction and the people in the streets stopped to watch. There was a brief moment of confusion followed by shouting and running.

“I think we ought to go,” Anaya said to the divining rods as she scooped the sack up and stuffed it under her arm.

She ran out of the old building and down the alleyway, stopping dead when she reached the open end of the street and took in the sights all around her. Many of the fireballs fizzled and died before ever hitting the ground, but some struck buildings and caused stones and mortar to fall, shaking the ground with each new impact.

Anaya started to step out into the road, intent on getting to the city’s gates when she saw a battalion of armored soldiers marching toward her. The divining rods gave another outburst and she had to squeeze her pack tight to her body as she turned and ran back down the alley in the opposite direction.

There was shouting from the soldiers, directing people to get inside and seek shelter. But Anaya knew that if she stayed inside the city walls, the divining rods were sure to expose her. As she ran, the ethereal forms of the harpies formed and fluttered about her, screeching and crowing. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t stop her as she ran for the eastern wall of Torg Uyen.

As she rounded another corner, she came up short, realizing with frustration that the city guard had already locked the smaller side gate and was directing people back to their homes. Looking around wildly, Anaya’s eyes landed on a nearby building. Its roof was wide and flat, and she almost thought she could jump across to the wall if only she could get up there.

Another shout from the soldiers told her she was out of options. Sprinting to the building, she clambered up a stack of crates and barrels, rolling onto the roof just as another group of guards came marching past.

Steadying herself, she crept to the edge of the roof, judging the jump that had seemed so simple from the ground. From up here, the distance looked much greater. She was almost certain that she was going to regret this, but the divining rods were now emitting flares of color, leaping from her arms without provocation.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Swallowing hard, she backed away from the edge, dropping into a running stance and taking a deep breath. She began to hum one of her grandmother’s songs, keeping her eyes trained on a tree limb that jutted out from a tree on the opposite side of the wall.

As she ran, she let the ancient song pour out of her, and when she made the final leap, her feet kicked through the air like a windmill come free of its axle. Only she wasn’t like that at all. In fact, her feet made contact with something soft and pillowy, and when she looked down, she realized that the tree’s limb had stretched toward her, spreading out its leaves into a series of steps for her to cross the distance.

The moment she reached the other side, the tree limb curled back in on itself, returning to its original size and orientation as she clung to the tree’s trunk. Relieved and astonished, she lowered herself from the tree’s top, dropping from one branch to the next until she was dangling just above the ground and had to drop.

Then she saw it. A ball of fire larger than the building she’d just leapt from, careening toward the ground. She had only a moment to stare in awe before the meteor made contact, throwing stone and fire hundreds of feet into the air. The sound of the explosion tore through the air, sucking the air from her lungs and causing the tree to whip back and forth violently, dropping a deluge of leaves and nuts all around her.

By now, the divining rods had torn free of their sack and they were spinning and bouncing around on the ground, starting tiny fires in the grass, only for the harpies to swoop in and douse them. But Anaya couldn’t be bothered with such trivialities because she was having a stunning revelation as the last bits of debris rained down from the explosion and the air settled into a strange stillness around her.

The mage’s tower.

That great sphere of fire and energy had struck at the very heart of the enchanted forest where the mage’s tower lay. Whatever power was being contained within that tower had either been destroyed or set free… including the other ancient artifacts she’d seen while she was there.

Vaguely, she grew aware of the harpies settling on her shoulders, tucking their wings neatly into their sides and staring out into the world with unblinking curiosity. The divining rods settled also, the last of their fiery outbursts fizzling out into a dull stream of colorful smoke, and then they lay in the dirt like two bits of discarded copper.

Dusting the rods off, she inspected them closely. They no longer burned in the palm of her hand, and for all appearances, they might have been regular old rods at any old Makara market stall. Except for the harpies. They seemed intent on staying in the physical world rather than returning to wherever they were from. And while Anaya could not be certain, she had come to believe that wherever that place was, it was tied directly to the divining rods themselves.

Standing outside the city, Anaya was faced with a decision. Already she’d been on the brink of leaving Torg Uyen in search of her people. She’d been preparing for weeks for the trip ahead. But now, with the contents of the tower laid bare and the possibility of ancient magical secrets exposed for the first time in generations, Anaya could not bring herself to walk away. At least, not without taking a look for herself.

“Probably a waste of time,” she remarked to the harpy perched on her shoulder, even as she tucked the rods into her robe and gathered the rest of the supplies that had fallen out of the torn sack. “Obviously, whatever destroyed the tower must have destroyed everything inside it. Nothing could have survived that explosion.”

But as she spoke, she was already walking along the outer wall of the city, heading straight toward the center of the explosion, the thought of the ancient secrets drawing her forward like a siren song.

“We do have to search for survivors,” she continued, thinking of the young mage that had led her to the tower in the first place. If it hadn’t been for him, she thought guiltily, she never would’ve been able to reclaim the divining rods for her people. She felt she owed him the simple courtesy of her thanks and a proper burial.

Mostly, it was the magic, though. She knew the Mage Consul was powerful beyond measure, and the knowledge he kept contained in that tower was worth all the gold in Andrysfal. Whole civilizations had risen and fallen on that knowledge, and she wasn’t going to let it all fade away without trying to salvage what she could. Then, she would go in search of her grandmother and the caravan, wherever they may be.