It wasn’t unusual for Sage to escape the cramped family home after dinner, to spend some time alone in the cool evening air. Typically, she would lay somewhere in the meadow that spilled down the lazy hill behind the house and look up silently at the sky until all the stars came out. Today, she looked out over the hill for a likely spot, but found her eye drawn toward the towering trees of the wood beyond the meadow. She turned back around as a fresh peal of laughter floated out of the bright windows of her family home. She thought of the huge amount of love contained in such a small space and she felt warm, like turning her face to the sun on a hot, clear day. It was easier for her to connect with her family through the quiet a little ways away; being at the center of so much energy overwhelmed Sage. She heard a breeze winding its way through the trees and gently bending the tall grass and flowers of the meadow as it drew closer. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply when the breeze reached her, as if she were inhaling the wind itself. It smelled like the forest. She opened her eyes and turned back to the wood. Her gaze fell on the darkened windows of Miriam Honeywell’s home. It seemed further away and smaller than it really was. As if the house itself had deflated with the family’s loss. Sage suppressed a shiver and focused instead on the thud of her footsteps carrying her through the meadow. She meandered much further than her usual evening walk, deciding as she passed between the first of the enormous trees that she would sit beneath the overhang of a small waterfall she had found years ago in her wandering to admire the crystal blue plunge pool.

  She breathed deeply the familiar smell of moss and wood as she strolled beneath the trees. Sage didn’t understand the fear the townspeople had of the old growth forest. Despite the countless ghost stories, monster tales, and terrifying legends she had heard since her childhood, she could never see any evil lurking in the shadows of the giant trees, nor hear any menacing voices on the gentle breeze. Still, she had never stayed in the forest past dark. In the warmth of daylight or even the twilight haze that filtered through the trees now, Sage found great comfort in the solitude and quiet of the forest; she found something reassuring about the enormity of the trees themselves, their leaves larger than her face. She couldn’t imagine a person large enough to put their arms around the trunk of any of these trees; Sage doubted even three people linking their arms together could circle around most of the trees. They exuded a timelessness that felt unyielding, pristine. The playful bubbling of the stream drew her forward. She followed it to the dull, consistent rush of the small waterfall.

  The waterfall formed a wide, curved crescent moon shaped overhang as the water plunged into the deep crystal blue pool 50 feet below. The pool itself was massive, and only slowly filtered into the small stream that flowed back towards town. The waterfall spilled haphazardly down the rocks as if it were nearly empty, with large gaps between spotty streams of water. Sage carefully picked her way over the rocks into the alcove formed by the overhang. She liked the echo of the water, and had identified a favorite sitting spot - a dry rock with a great view of the pool and the sky over the stream as the current swept out of the pool. She settled in and stared into the water until her eyes unfocused. Her mind wandered, first to her nervousness for the festival tomorrow. She went in circles around this for a while, but tired of distracting herself from the deeper disturbance in her mind. She had always wished for the Sign of Elements, but had long since settled that any Sign would do. Now she allowed herself to wonder, for the first time, why that was.

  What had always been so appealing about the Wardens? The price of entry was The Substantiation, which was usually fatal. After that there were more tests and trials, but they were closely guarded secrets. And even if she did make it through all that, her paths forward were limited and rigid. Become a Seeker, and hunt down others showing Signs - that certainly didn’t seem appealing to Sage. Ripping children like Colby from loving homes wasn’t something she felt she could bear. Become a Hunter, a contract killer of dangerous beasts and monsters. While the tales told of epic battles between Wardens and monsters were thrilling, the idea of killing didn’t excite Sage either. There were surely more functions a Warden could serve within the Citadel itself, but these were a complete mystery to outsiders. Maybe that was the allure - their secrecy? Sage considered the romance of being inducted into an ancient, elite order shrouded in secrecy. But she felt no emotions stir inside herself.

  This was usually the point in this thought process when Sage would berate herself for her selfishness, for this deep nonsensical longing for something she didn’t want. But today she felt both too tired of this pattern and too interested in what lay beneath it. If she didn’t want to be a Warden, what did she want?

  Power. Sage felt shocked. The answer came instantly and felt foreign, almost as if whispered into her ear by the waterfall. The answer also felt true. She felt a mixture of excitement and shame bubbling up inside her chest. She had never thought of herself as a power-hungry person, nor did she think she was particularly cunning or cruel. Is that really all that power means? The question spread through her mind like an ink blot. She remembered her idle fantasies of being Empress - kind and benevolent, but Empress nonetheless. More idle fantasies of fending off dragons single handedly, healing wounds with the touch of her hand, bending the very elements to her will. She realized she had always looked up to her father as a powerful man, and he was one of the most gentle, forgiving people that she knew.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Sage frowned. Power? She remembered the mundane fantasies of the Sign of Foresight she had belittled herself for earlier that day. Perhaps it was more purely about having a special or unique quality, to set her apart and give her purpose. She bit the inside of her cheek. Or it could even be that magic of any type is exciting and flashy - she had always admired those who could embrace attention and create a spectacle. Sage felt confused and uncertain. Was she coming up with excuses to avoid considering what it would mean for her if she did want power? That doesn’t sound like me. She shook her head and forced her eyes to refocus.

  Her gaze had shifted during her thoughts away from the water and had come to rest on a large flowering bush on the opposite bank that she had never noticed before. As her eyes slowly refocused, she saw two large yellow eyes within the bush blink at her. Sage jumped violently, her heart pounding in her chest. She saw also that it was now very dark. How long have I been sitting here? Sage felt herself on the verge of panic. She looked again at the bush and was unable to spot the eyes. She wasn’t sure if she felt disturbed or relieved that they were gone. Shaking, she forced herself to slowly go back over the rocks the way she came. She would never forgive herself if she rushed and slipped on the rocks, whether the yellow eyes had been real or not. Once she was back on soil, she ran as fast as she could back toward the safety of her house. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she neared the edge of the wood, and she was certain the breeze she was feeling was from something breathing on her neck. But she burst out of the treeline untouched, and didn’t stop running or look behind her until she was back inside.

  She was breathing heavily and latched the door behind her back, still afraid to turn around. The house was dark and quiet. Is everyone already asleep? She leaned back against the door to catch her breath. She closed her eyes and listened, half-expecting to hear footsteps outside or something scratching at the door. She waited in the silence until she convinced herself that the eyes must have just been a wolf, or maybe some flowers that she mistook in the darkness. She slowly opened her eyes and took several slow, deep breaths before quietly making her way up to her bed. Her hands shook with adrenaline as she pulled back her blanket and slipped into bed, trying not to disturb her sisters who were already fast asleep. Sage focused on keeping her breathing slow and even until she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Sage looked at the reddish brown smudges on her hands resting in her lap. In the moonlight she couldn’t tell if it was dried blood or mud. She didn’t remember how it got there. Someone in a dark hooded robe sat to her left, holding something tightly in their hands. Sage couldn’t see their face. She looked to her right and saw a line of people in the same hooded robes, kneeling in the mossy glade, illuminated only by the full moon. The last person in the line slowly stood and walked to a stone altar on the other edge of the glade. Sage noticed the large yellow eyes staring out from the darkness behind the altar. She felt fear shoot from the top of her head through her toes, but her body wouldn’t move. She could only stare as the hooded figure kneeled before the altar, smudged hands open and raised above their head. Sage hesitated to call what reached out from behind the altar a hand. It had the general shape of a human hand, but the fingers were much too long and sharp; it seemed to form as it exited the darkness, first of shadow itself but then moss covered tree bark. By the time the hand reached the upraised palms of the kneeling person, it had almost normal proportions and deposited something into the palms before disappearing back into the darkness. The hooded person closed their hands around the object, stood, and returned to sit to Sage’s left. She understood that she was in line to do the same. She looked to her right and everyone who had been there had somehow shifted to her left. Her heart raced. She felt herself standing and walking slowly towards the altar despite her mind screaming to run the other way. She kneeled and raised her palms. She heard only gentle creaking, like wind through the trees, before she felt a warm, smooth stone placed in her palms. As soon as the stone touched her palms, she felt a calmness wash over her. She stood and turned to rejoin the others, but they were gone. She looked down at the small but surprisingly heavy black stone in her hand.