Vera Coldwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Vera Coldwell scrubbed the scullery floor before dawn, and the stone under her right hand was warm again. She lifted her palm. The gray flagstone glowed a soft orange, like a coal buried under ash. She pressed her sleeve over it and looked at the door. No one yet. But the cook would come down soon, and two nights ago a laundry girl had whispered witch in the corridor and would not meet her eyes. Vera wanted the glow. She wanted it badly. Court sorcerers ate off silver in the black-stone castle on the hill, and laundry girls ate crusts in a wooden dormitory that smelled of wet wool. If she could call the warmth on purpose, she could show a steward, then a tutor, then someone who mattered. If she could not, someone would name her a witch, and the guards would come. She set the brush down and tried. She stared at her right hand and thought hearth, thought oven, thought summer. Nothing. She thought of the stone glowing a moment ago. Nothing. She squeezed her fist until her knuckles went white. Her hand stayed cold and ink-stained and ordinary. She finished the floor and went back to the servants' dormitory before the others woke. Rows of plain beds, gray blankets, the smell of sleep. Under her mattress she kept a pair of thick wool gloves a kitchen girl had traded her for a mended apron. She pulled them on. The knit was heavy and warm and hid her fingers to the wrist. She sat on the edge of the bed and shut her eyes. She stopped straining. She thought instead of the moment on the floor. Her knees had ached. Her back had ached. She had been thinking about the girl who called her witch, and how much she wanted, just for one second, to be someone that girl feared instead of pitied. Heat bloomed in her right palm inside the glove. She held very still. The wool grew hot against her skin. She thought of the same thing again on purpose, the whispered word, the turned face, the wanting. The heat rose. She thought of cold water, of scrubbing, of nothing. The heat faded. She did it again. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Her hand shook. She was grinning at the empty room. A floorboard creaked outside the dormitory door. Vera pulled her sleeves down over the gloves and stood. She had a trigger now. She could call the glow when she chose. That meant she could hide it when she chose, too, and that meant she could plan. The door opened. The housekeeper stood in the frame with a lamp, looking straight at Vera's covered hands. "You're wanted up at the castle," the woman said. "Someone's been talking."