Chapter one
Sirin
IN WHICH SIRIN AGBUYA IS EXPELLED FROM THE WATCHFUL ORDER OF LUNOLOGISTS, AND BEGINS A PERILOUS JOURNEY, AGAINST ALL ACCEPTED WISDOM, ENTIRELY ALONE
AtnopointinSirin’s intricate fifty-four step “Plan to Locate the Source of Magic” had she included a step for “sit in the old headmaster’s office and receive dressing down.”1Yet, there she sat nonetheless.
“Sirin, I am most disappointed in you. I’d thought you gave up this obsession years ago,” Lord Lagrath said, wiry hands steepled in front of him, eyes and cheeks eternally drooping in disappointment.
It was simply notpossiblethat this man’s face was natural. Sirin studied the wrinkles on the Lord Lunologist’s parchment-hued face with morbid fascination; the man looked taxidermied, frozen in time at the precise moment when he looked old enough to impart wisdom, but not yet old enough to be put out to pasture. He could claim that he didn’t alter his looks magically until he was blue in the face, but no one looked exactly the same for that long without lunology.
“Our Lady provides for our magic, as she provides for the air we breathe or the water we drink. You must give up this pointless fixation. If our Goddess wanted us to know where our magic came from, it would be obvious. It is concealed from us because she wills it so.” He leaned toward her, hands splayed atop the large purple-heart wood desk. “Perhaps you could research the lifecycle or temperature tolerances of lunula pyrocystis instead,” he urged with a patently fake smile. As if by using the scientific term for the bioluminescent algae that fueled their magic, he could tempt her to study it rather than its provenance.
“My Lord, thisobsession,as you call it,“ she spat, “is not the same as air or water at all! Weunderstandwhere those come from. We can observe and explain the processes required for the creation of each. We have equations and formulas detailing how they’re produced, and how they interact with the world around them, and neitherare finite resources. The world is covered in water and air. Doesn’t it strike you as noteworthy, that lunula is only magical when it comes from the Spine? Doesn’t that bear investigation? Just think of what we could do if we could makeanystrain of lunula, or evenanyalgae at all, magical!2There are places along the southern coast where lunologists havestopped practicingbecause the cost of materials is too high! And anyhow, people have researched the temperature tolerances and life cycle todeath.”
Thisis what happened when her colleagues were left alone. They voted their headmaster in as the leader of their professional organization so he could lord over their entire lives. Forever. For people whose magic was dedicated to changing things, they were awfully terrified of it. She had hoped in her time away some things might have changed for the better.
But no, everything was exactly as she remembered. The domed roof, the oppressive feeling of darkness after sunset, the faint mildew smell clinging to his coat beside her. Dr.—no, Lord Lagrath now—had added the portraits of each graduating class from the past ten years to previously blank walls; one for each year she’d been away. Otherwise, the only addition to the room was the layers of dust built up on the bookshelves lining the walls.
Sirin’s plump backside had grown over the years, but his repertoire of lectures clearly had not.3She could have written the entire speech down had he asked and saved them both the time and energy.4It seemed they were to return to their traditional roles. He would be the long-suffering schoolmaster, and she the petulant rebel railing against any authority; Sirin doubted he would ever see her as anything else.
After ten years of only brief visits between her travels, she returned to the Citadel as the last stop before beginning her expedition. Part school, part city, the Citadel was a nursery to some of the brightest minds in the world and the origin of the most important innovations of the last two centuries. There, she’d learned how to control her magic and was beaten over the head with lunula biology, ridiculous amounts of anatomy, theory of mind, and methods for consuming large amounts of information quickly. She’d taken courses on how one could best modify their body for combat or to excel in specific professions. Endless infuriating hours were spent on the ethics of using her magic, on proper harvesting techniques, and on the entire ecosystem of the Spine River where it lived. Sirin could draw diagrams of lunula’s DNA, even her own, with her eyes closed. She couldn’t count the number of papers she’d written on theoretical uses of lunula, or philosophical explorations of why its use was confined to the user’s body.
But the source? The all-important font upon which their magic hinged?Thatthey relegated to a day-one introduction, hand-waved away as a blessing from the Goddess shared by nearly every major religion. In a place dedicated to learning, they allowed the very source of their magic to be shrouded in mysticism. Despicable. Somehow, the brightest minds in the world were content with consuming magical algae without inquiring into the advent of its existence. At every turn, professors had shooed her away, annoyed when she did not accept the same canned response.
The lack of answers wore on her like a loose tooth. The pain of the prodding was nothing compared to the satisfaction it gave her. She’d spent all of her adult life gathering whispers about the headwaters of the Spine. All she needed to do was follow it north and surely she would find the source. Findwhatever it wasthat made the algae fuel their abilities. She had theories, plenty of them, andneededto find out if any of them were correct.5
“I do appreciate that the Lady has provided all she has. But she has provided whatcould bea finite resource and we have no way of knowing! If we woke up tomorrow and the river was dry, what would we do? We have no way of re-infusing it or accessing any other magic at all,“ Sirin declared “Are you going to tell me if that happened, you would be content to sit back and accept that the Lady had provided and she must have decided to revoke our access to magic altogether?”
“Of course not, my dear,” he said. Sirin rolled her eyes again. His use of ‘my dear’ was her cue that now, he’d play the doting father figure to the poor little girl with no parents. Lovely. If she’d hated the routine as a girl, her ire had only grown over the years. At thirty, she’d long since lost hope he’d ever treat her as an adult, let alone an equal.
“But neither air nor water are pieces of our Lady’ssoul. The research you propose is blasphemy and may very well cost you your life. You take the gifts our lady has given us and throw them in her face.“ He rubbed his wrinkled hand across his brow as if he had a headache before turning to her with despondent eyes. Appealing to her sense of guilt now. Right on schedule. As annoying as he was, at least he was consistent.
“I’d hoped, after you graduated, your travels would temper your zealotry with the reality of life. You have a gift, Sirin, freely given to you, and as a member of this Order, you have an obligation to use it for the betterment of society. You have a strong mind; I know that if you could find something else to fixate on, you could do such wonderful things,” he droned.
Sirin sighed, relieved. If he’d reached this point in the lecture, he was winding down. Any moment now, he’d sit back down, re-steeple his fingers and dismiss her with an admonishment. She hoped her mother wasn’t paying attention in the afterlife because she’d have smacked Sirin for this amount of disrespect toward her elders, but she’d passed her breaking point long ago.
He sighed, “I am afraid if we cannot come to an agreement that you will cease these efforts, I may be forced to detain you or even strip you of your membership to the Watchful Order.”
What?
Sirin shot out of the chair, fists clenched at her side, body vibrating with rage. Hedaredthreaten her with expulsion? Her membership in the Order was what granted her licensure to work as a lunologist. He’d beggar her if he expelled her! And for what? For daring to pursue her own research? Alone? She wasn’t asking for help or permission, only peace.
She’d financed her expedition on her own, she’d plannedmeticulouslyfor half her life, and now this antique of a man was trying to stand between her and the answers they alldesperately needed. Could he truly not see that relying exclusively on one source could lead to disaster?6She twisted her skirt between her hands, willing her voice to calm but knowing she had only moments before she’d start shouting.
“That you would ask me to abandon finding the source of the single most important resource we have is outrageous. It’s irresponsible. I am not asking to bring anyone with me. I understand the dangers of the extreme north. All I ask is that you leave me aloneto do my research! If I can find the source, it could revolutionize lunology forever!“ She was leaning over his desk now, her pointer finger inches from poking him in the chest.
“Sirin!” he barked, ignoring her finger as he moved to tower over her. “People have died!”He bit each word off so sharply the spittle flew from his lips.7Lowering his voice and leveling his face with hers, he reined in his temper and continued. “For years, I have tried to steer you away from this because I can’t imagine losing you, too. Those deaths are our greatest shame, and my most important responsibility is to prevent more.”
Sirin wasn’t sure why Lord Lagrath expected this to be surprising to her.Of course,people had been lost trying to find the source. Everything she knew about the Arctic led her to believe it was incredibly dangerous because it was almost entirely uncharted. Disappointment settled in the pit of her stomach, while he was always infuriating, he was rarely this blatantly unimaginative. Scare tactics should really have been beneath him.
“We’ve lost no less thanone hundred peopleon expeditions to find the source.8Fivefull caravans and two search parties,“ he said, slow and quiet.
One hundred?Sevenentirecaravans of lunologists? It couldn’t be possible. She dropped back into her chair, recoiling from him as if she could escape the knowledge of such a horrific loss. Blinking rapidly, she struggled to comprehend his words, tamping down her emotional response to the information. Could so many people truly disappear without a trace? It was unfathomable. There should’ve been records everywhere, whispers of lives cut short. She’d spent ten years hunting down leads. She’d have found something—wouldn’t she? But, as she considered it, she recalled a few… anomalies. A lunologist that suddenly stopped publishing, or graduating classes that had seemed anemic in the reunion portraits, the explanations for absences vague.9There might have been a hint or two which could point toward such a thing. She’d assumed the records had been expunged for being blasphemous. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
“Those expeditions were fully manned and fully armed with some of our most talented lunologists and trackers. We lost practically an entire generation of lunologists to this damn question you won’t leave alone!” he snapped.
His breathing was ragged now. Sirin widened her eyes, shocked at how much this seemed to shake him. She’d never seen him so out of sorts; this was more than simply the passage of time wearing on him. He was haggard, a man worn thin from the stress of this secret. The thought of so many lunologists dead was nearly as baffling as the fact that so many people had already tried to find the source.
