Aldrin's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Aldrin knelt over his master's body while the city watch argued about which chain to bind him in. The archmage had taught him every spell he knew. Now the old man lay cold on the stone floor, and a strange mark glowed on his chest. It was an arcane signature, a killer's fingerprint burned into flesh. Aldrin needed to read it before it faded. The watch needed a suspect, and they had already chosen him. "On your feet, apprentice," the watch captain said. "You were the only one here." "I found him like this," Aldrin said. His hands shook. Blue magic sparked between his fingers without his asking. To the captain, that light looked like guilt. They sealed the room with wax and iron. Two guards marched Aldrin toward the door. He memorized the glowing mark as he passed. Three linked circles, one broken. He had seen that shape once, in a book his master kept hidden. He just could not remember where. The guards shoved him into the street. "Leave the city by dawn," the captain called. "Come back, and we hang you." So the watch had made their choice. They would not chase the real killer. They would blame the boy and close the case. If Aldrin ran, the mark would go unread and his master would stay unavenged. If he stayed, he would hang. He did not run far. He went where the watch would never follow, to a shop that answered no questions. A witness lived nearby who worked the night shift. Aldrin found the shop by its door, a slab of old stone carved with sealed circles and dead languages. Inside, shelves held dried herbs and glass bottles. Behind the counter sat a woman with ink-stained hands, the herbalist who had sold his master medicines for years. She looked up and frowned. "They're saying you killed him," she said. No greeting. She kept grinding something in a bowl. "I didn't." Aldrin drew the three-circle mark in the dust on her counter. "Have you seen this?" Her grinding stopped. She reached under the shelf and set down a single flower. Its petals shimmered with points of light, like a piece of night sky. "A buyer came last night," she said. "Hooded. Paid gold for this bloom. Same mark was stitched on his glove." Aldrin stared at the glowing flower. "What is it used for?" "Binding a signature to a body," she said. "To frame someone. Or to hide who really cast the spell." So the killer had walked in here. He had bought the very thing that painted the mark on Aldrin's master. The watch had the wrong man, and now Aldrin had proof of it. He took the flower. "Which way did he go?" "Toward the old quarter," she said. "But the watch is looking for you. Carry that, and you're carrying the murder weapon." Aldrin closed his hand around the bloom and stepped back into the dark.