Ewan Greenwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

For three weeks Seren taught Ewan the wards. Ewan copied the old marks onto scraps of hide by candlelight. He learned the shapes without believing in them. But when Seren carved a small ward onto a birch board and held it over a flame, the fire bent away. Ewan stared at the wood. The mark held. That was the proof he needed, and it frightened him. Then Seren set his stylus down. "This will not last," he said. He touched the scorched board. "Birch burns. Stone cracks. The ward needs a surface that fire cannot eat. Without it, the shield fails the moment flame touches it." He looked at Ewan. "Whatever we carve on wood is a promise we cannot keep." Ewan's stomach dropped. Weeks of work, and the wards were still useless. Aisling crossed the room and picked up the ruined board. She turned it in her hands. Her hatred of magic ran deeper than his, but she wanted the next village saved as much as anyone. "Then we find a surface that does not burn," she said. "You've hunted rare things before, cousin. Think." Seren went quiet. When he spoke of dangerous things, he grew shorter, not longer. "There is one thing," he said. "A tablet made of dragon scale. Fire slides off it. A man in my village had it once." He paused. "A thief took it. I tracked him for a season before I came here." "Where is it now?" Ewan asked. "Buried with the thief," Seren said. "The scales pulled at him. Burned him without flame. I found him in a hollow, curled around it. I left it where it lay." He rose. "I can find that hollow again." They rode out at first light. Seren read the ground the way other men read faces. By dusk he stopped at a hollow between two hills and pointed. Ewan dug. His shovel struck something hard. He pulled it free and wiped the dirt away. The tablet's surface shimmered with overlapping scales, green and orange and purple, layered like armor. It was warm in his hands though no fire touched it. Seren scored a ward into the scales with an iron point. The marks bit deep and held. Ewan carried the tablet back to camp and set it over the cook-fire's flame. The men gathered close. The fire licked the underside. Nothing caught. The scales stayed cool. The ward glowed faint and steady. "It holds," Seren said. "This will not burn." The men cheered. Ewan did not. He had what he came for. A ward that fire could not break, carved into a thing that felt alive in his grip. He had sworn to end magic. Now he carried its strongest work in both hands, and he could not put it down. To save the next village, he would have to spread this thing he hated. The tablet warmed against his palms, waiting.