Zahara Archer's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Zahara was sitting at her desk when the knock came, three sharp raps that made her hand freeze over the blank page. She had been staring at it for an hour, trying to write what she couldn't risk putting into words. The thing she'd learned yesterday sat in her mind like a stone she couldn't swallow or spit out. She opened the door to find a woman in a fur-lined coat standing on the snow-dusted porch of the cabin. The stranger held out a scroll with aurora-colored handles that caught the light like frozen fire. "You've been carrying something heavy," the woman said. "I know what's in that potion you brewed. The one that glows." Zahara's chest tightened. She'd told no one about the iridescent liquid she'd made to test the prophecy's claim. The woman stepped inside without invitation, her boots leaving wet prints on the wooden floor. She unrolled the scroll and Zahara saw her own handwriting copied there, notes she'd burned three days ago. "The circle you want to join sent me," the woman said. "They know you can break prophecies. They'll let you in." She tapped the scroll. "But first, you give me the potion. All of it." Zahara looked at the glowing bottle on her workbench, then back at the scroll with its proof of impossible knowledge. This was the door she'd been trying to find for two years. She crossed the room, picked up the potion, and placed it in the woman's outstretched hand. The woman smiled and left the scroll on the desk. When the door closed, Zahara opened it and found an address in Zephyr Hills, an invitation for tomorrow night, and nothing about what the potion would cost someone else.