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Chapter One
“You really can’t use your magic?”
Rochelle didn’t know what to do with that question. Barely two months prior she’d woken up, completely naked and freezing cold, on the outskirts of some small village-town she’d come to learn was called Corast. Frankly, it had skyrocketed right up the list of her most traumatizing experiences. She counted herself immensely lucky to have been discovered by a sweet elderly couple and felt guilty every time afterward when she caught them eyeing her wearily. They’d let her stay at their home for four nights, fed her, and provided her clothing. It was during her time with them that she’d come to the shocking realization that not only had she been somehow abducted from her California apartment, she’d been dumped somewhere impossible.
The only phrase Rochelle knew to describe Corast, and the land around it, was as a magical fantasy world. The kind typically found in epic novels or brightly colored, flashy anime. Everyone had magic. They were born with it. They learned to wield it as children. It was unheard of, in the kingdom where Corast resided, for someone to reach adulthood without having ever used magic.
That wasn’t the only reason she’d likened Corast, and its greater kingdom of Yafae, to an anime. In the world Rochelle came from, it actually was. Yafae was the primary setting for a moderately popular anime known asSentry of a New World. It was a series about a Japanese man reincarnated into the body of a Yafae teen, both of whom had mysteriously died. The character subsequently discovered he possessed immense magical power and by the end of the first season was bequeathed a unique title and accompanying responsibility as a show of gratitude from the King. The title of Sentry of Yafae. In simple terms, the show was far from original. Rochelle had probably watched at least half a dozen other similarly themed shows about reincarnating into obscene magic and becoming a noteworthy figure. But she’d enjoyed that one so much so she’d watched it several times.
Never in her wildest dreams had Rochelle imagined she’d end up living in the forgotten fringes of its world.
She sighed and pulled her attention back to the moment. At least her tiny bit of “fangirl knowledge” had come in handy, once she’d started making peace with her new reality. She knew things she could play to her advantage, however risky. Things like how the smaller nation that happened to be right on the other side of the border to Corast was known for its anti-magic stance, and how the natives there looked more like her. So she offered an honestly tired smile to the latest curious Yafaen, a customer at the shop where she’d found work, and said, “I might as well not even have any.”
The younger girl made a dramatic face, like an exaggerated pout, before immediately brightening. “But you’re in Yafae now! You should get a tutor.”
That was something Rochelle had learned very quickly. Possibly faster than she’d really learned—or at least accepted—that she’d been transported to another world. The people around her all assumed she was some sort of refugee. There weren’t any refugees to speak of in Corast specifically, but it was a border town, so they’d seen a few in passing and heard talk from traveling soldiers. Refugees were becoming an increasingly common thing in trade and port towns. It was an easy enough lie to go along with.
“She can’t get a tutor,” Rochelle’s new employer said sharply. Bjorn was a keen-eyed man who hadn’t warmed up to her yet, but was at least overall more likeable than her previous employer. For starters, he didn’t purposefully call her by wrong names. “Tutors cost money. If she had money, she wouldn’t be sleeping in my storage room.”
Rochelle winced and averted her eyes. Sharp was a very good word for him.
“Sleeping in your … storage?” the customer repeated.
“Yes. And she has work to do, so please harass her after we’ve closed for the day.” He made shooing motions in the girl’s direction.
Rochelle plastered a smile on her face and lifted her gaze to the tanned, dark-haired young woman. “Thank you for your patronage.”
The customer blinked, smiled, and pulled her purchase closer to her chest before turning and scurrying away. She called well-wishes over her shoulder as she disappeared out the door. The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she seemed nice, if not a bit nosy.
Rochelle slowly released a breath and moved on autopilot toward a display that had been bumped by a previous customer. “I’m sorry,” she said. There wasn’t currently anyone else in the shop—it was still early in the day—and she knew her boss disliked personal matters taking the focus from work. He’d in fact made that clear when he’d agreed to let her work there.
“In the future, tell the gossips to please refrain during work hours unless they’re prepared to put you up.” He turned to duck into the back, where his office was.
Rochelle still had her hand on the slightly skewed boot when she heard what sounded like a scream. It was outside, not too close, and the sound ended abruptly. Her heart slammed into her ribs. Surely she was hearing things. Being thrust into such an utterly foreign environment, she’d been on edge from the moment she’d peeled her eyes open and realized she was outside when she should have been in a bed. The tension in her shoulders hadn’t loosened yet. It probably didn’t help that she’d been sleeping on a pile of old blankets and fabric scraps for the past several weeks.
It’s actually more impressive that I haven’t collapsed, or started hallucinating.Unless she had. That was an uncomfortable thought. If her boss threw her out, she’d wind up a vagrant, undoubtedly to be chased from the village. And then what? Corast was small, and isolated, but at least it was a resource. She struggled with people sometimes, but that wasn’t the sort of ostracization she wanted.
A blur of movement rushed by the window while she was distracted with her worrisome thoughts, and Rochelle gave herself a shake. A heartbeat later, something came flying through the window in the blurry figure’s wake. The glass shattered, flying everywhere, and the projectile knocked over two pairs of shoes before crashing onto the floor just beyond where she’d been standing before she’d leapt aside.
As her eyes widened in horror, the projectile exploded.
In the same instant, Bjorn tackled her to the side, both of them crashing into a pile of shoes and knocking down shelves as heat, smoke, and crackling red-orange flame burst into the compact space. But the main rush of heat was blocked by the larger male body suddenly crushing her, grunting and coughing over her shoulder. Smoke filled Rochelle’s lungs and tears built over her eyes.
“O-oh go—” She cleared her throat roughly. She wasn’t supposed to say that. Why did it even matter in this kind of situation? Rochelle shakily brought her hands up to push at her employer’s chest. “Hey. Hey, we have to get up.” She could barely speak. The smoke was already so thick. And she could hardly hear herself over the ominous snapping of the rapidly mounting fire. Leather shoes and wooden shelving made for quite a flammable workplace, it turned out.
Bjorn groaned and shifted his weight, removing most of it from her. “Out,” he said, his voice strained. He locked his dark stare onto her. “You have to … get … out.” His eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed, but he seemed to have managed to throw his weight to the side at the last moment. Somehow, he tumbled off her instead of crushing her beneath him.
Rochelle shoved herself up, choking and crying from the smoke as much as fear. Her skin burned from the heat despite that the flame hadn’t reached them yet. She could barely see through the thick haze of the smoke, but she reached down, wanting to take the man who’d probably just saved her life with her to some semblance of safety.
The store was so thick with oppressive, dry heat that it was startling when her fingers pressed into something wet and sticky. Her stomach lurched and she barely kept from heaving her breakfast all over him when she realized it could only be one thing. With shaking hands, and despite the breath-stealing heat and deafening fire climbing the walls around her, Rochelle grabbed hold of Bjorn’s arm and rolled him awkwardly over onto his stomach.
This time she did throw up, though she turned her head enough to empty her stomach on the floor instead. She had been exposed to death several times before, but this was the first time she’d actually seen it up close.
He’d saved her life. But the effort had cost him his own. He hadn’t even liked her. She was just cheap labor to help run his small shoe store. And he was dead, because some asshole had thrown a firebomb—afirebomb—practically at her feet. That would be jarring even in the world she’d come from. Who did that in a world so overrun with magic?
Rochelle wiped shakily at her face and curled her fingers into his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice raspy from the smoke and the vomit. “I’m so sorry. Thank you, Bjorn.”
Something creaked ominously overhead and Rochelle knew she had to leave. She had to get out, to survive, to make her employer’s sacrifice worthwhile. If she even could.
