Elestar Ravencrest's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Elestar Ravencrest counted the empty cups on his study table and found eleven. Eleven cups meant eleven winters since the last apprentice had climbed his stairs. He was ninety-eight cups older than he should have been, and his hands shook when he lifted the kettle. He crossed the room to the tall stained glass window. Purple and green light fell across his white beard. Below him, the Darkwood pressed against the base of his tower in a black tangle of pine and thorn. No road cut through it. No lantern moved along its edge. He had built his home on this crag when he was young and proud, and now the same walls that kept him safe kept everyone else out. He had knowledge no book held. Spells for stopping fever. Spells for turning grief into sleep. If he died with them, they died with him. He gave himself one more spring. At the workbench he laid out silver wire, a tuning peg, and a single white feather from a bird he no longer remembered. He worked through the night. He bent the wire into the frame of a small harp. He fixed wings to its shoulders. He stitched a song into the strings, one he had learned from his own teacher, a song that woke the sleeping magic inside a person who carried any. At dawn he opened the highest window. The harp sat on his palm, cold and quiet. "Find them," he said. "Any child in the wood with the gift. Play until they follow." The wings snapped open. The harp lifted, struck one clean note, and flew out over the trees. He watched the silver speck until it vanished into the mist. He was still watching when something tugged his slipper. Elestar looked down. A flower stood on his floor. It had bright petals, a green stem for a body, and two small feet planted on his rug. One of his wool socks dangled from its hand. It grinned up at him. "Out," Elestar said. The flower skipped behind the workbench. He heard a drawer open. He heard a drawer close. He heard something being dragged. Elestar sighed and lowered himself into his chair. His knees hurt. His messenger was gone. His sock was gone. But somewhere in the Darkwood, a silver harp was playing his song over the treetops, and for the first time in eleven winters, someone might hear it and look up. He poured a twelfth cup and set it across the table from his own. Then he waited.