Stupid, maybe? Risky,definitely.
In the Outerlands, magic isn’t just outlawed. It's erased. Scrubbed from our stories, stripped from our blood. No one teaches you to read your Threads, let aloneusethem.
But mine? Mine never learned how to stay quiet and if I don’t release them now, I’ll cross the border twitchy as a drunk squirrel. And that’s how you get noticed, that's how you getReassignedand end up as dragon snacks.
Exhaling slow, I shrug off my jacket, knotting it around my waist before pushing my hair back. As I lift my left hand, a flash of the old burn scar catches my eye, faded, but still there. Still reminding me. But I shake it off and step toward the edge of the Ravine, boots grinding over stone.
Eyes closed. One breath in.
Hold.
Out.
Then I stretch my arms wide, jaw tight, fists clenched until my knuckles burn. Let it build, let it spread. Hot and pulsing, wild beneath my skin, until my whole body trembles from it.
Every instinct screams to keep it buried, but it won’t stay down. It’s crawling up my spine, cracking through my chest, begging to break loose.
For a heartbeat, the world holds still.
Then I open my fists?—
and my magic bursts free.
CHAPTER TWO
Wind slams into me in a breathless, spiralling surge—violent,hungry. It rips at my clothes, snatches strands of hair loose until they sting across my cheeks.
My magic, my Threads, tear out of me and finally the pressure breaks, drops, and for one breathless beat, there’s quiet.
Jaw softens, hands loosen, I open my eyes. Light fractures through the air in front of me, splitting the world into shards of colour as invisible threads of magic spill from my fingers, wild, untamed. They reach out, thin as ribbons, sharp as glass, dragging two elements with them, pulling in air and moisture, more and more, until it thickens into a swirling, chaotic mist.
And just like that, I’m smiling. Wide, sudden, real.
Because this? This always reminds me of her.Mum. Something in the light, the wind, the shimmer—it tugs at memory. I don’t remember details, just the feeling. The way her hands moved, the hush in her voice when she taught me in secret all those years ago.
Maybe that’s what this is, not just power, but her. A small part she left behind, threaded through my veins, surging just beneath the surface. And now… It’s mine.
My spark. My storm.
My secret.
Because I shouldn’t know how to do this, not me, not someone fromhere. But Mum was Innerland born—trained, drilled and refined like the rest of them. She said my Threads were never quiet, that they didn’t need coaxing, just control. She taught me what she could. How to listen to them, how to release them… at least, until the fire; after that everything changed…
My throat tightens before I can stop it, memory slicing sharp through the calm I’m always pretending to hold. But I swallow it down, hard, and force my focus back to the Threads weaving between my fingers—the shimmer, the pull, the storm that shouldn’t exist.
But it does.
Because of her. Because she was so powerful.
At the time, I didn’t really understand how much, I was too young. But now? Now Ifeelit.
Growing up in the Innerlands, though, didn’t mean she could throw her magic around. Not with the Citadel always watching. Magic over there might not be outlawed, but it’s still leashed, still monitored. But at least they’re actually allowed to listen to their Threads, taught how to use them,control them.
I drop my hands just as a final, unexpected surge of magic lashes out, alive and sudden. The gust nearly tears my jacket from my waist, but I catch it and breathe. Relief floods in, fast and full. A quiet calm, a peace so blissful it almost hurts, because I know it won’t last. My Threads never take long to refill, recharge.
Shrugging on my jacket and slinging my pack over my shoulder, I take one last look at the Ravine.
One last hesitation.
