The Scent of Sorcery - A Novella Draft Part 3

 

Chapter Eleven

            Ena woke with a startle. The room was dark, but it wasn’t the night that pulled her from sleep. Across the room, the stone on the shelf was brightly lit. Her chest tightened as she sat up. The heat radiating from it was almost painful. She rubbed her eyes and glanced around, making sure she hadn’t imagined the light.

            Ena pushed the blanket aside and stepped onto the floor. The boards beneath her feet held warmth as she moved to the glowing stone. The air around it vibrated. When she reached out, the warmth intensified until it turned to heat. She drew her hand back and steadied herself.

            The light sharpened. Thin rays stretched across the shelves and illuminated small fragments of her life. A mug her mother carved. A shard of crystal her father shaped. Their reflections moved on the walls as if searching for her. The light slowly weakened until it slid inward again, forming a tight core in the center of the stone. Ena felt the shift not externally, but as something she recognized in her bones. The stone was calling.

            She cupped it in both hands and held it close. The surface buzzed like a bee trapped under glass. Cold traveled up her wrists. The sound of her breath seemed too loud in the quiet room. When she pressed her eyes closed, the world tilted. The air thinned. She felt a firm tug behind her ribs, as if a thread had tightened around her. The thread pulled once more. The room dissolved.

            A rush of cold air swept past her. Her breath left her body as the floor vanished beneath her. She braced herself, but there was nothing to grasp onto. The cold shifted, and the pull snapped forward. Ena landed on soft moss. A silver mist rippled around her.

            Ena looked up, expecting to see the rafters of her room. Instead, tall trees rose high above, crowned with a pale glow that collected on their leaves like frost. She turned slowly. The forest carried an unfamiliar presence than the Silverwoods she had crossed before. These trees simply did not stand. They leaned to her, listening, their trunks angled as if waiting for her to speak.

            Ena held the stone to her chest while she slowed her breath. The forest responded with a small sigh of a breeze. The moss beneath her warmed as if welcoming her weight. A soft vibration traveled along the ground like a quiet greeting. She started to consider that this place lived within the memory that magic had shaped for her. It was not the past but the echo of a past. She took a step forward. The mist parted in a narrow line that curved through the trees, forming a path for her to follow.

            The deeper she walked, the more she noticed the forest change. Branches twisted in her direction, not threatening, but reaching for her. Leaves brushed her shoulders with a cool touch that retreated when she looked back. Shadows moved at the corner of her vision. Every sound carried a double voice, an echo; one of the forest and one hidden beneath it.

            A pool of water appeared ahead, gleaming in a small clearing. The surface held no reflection of the sky. It dimly mirrored her shop. The front door glowed with candlelight. The shelves looked gloomy and had a layer of dust along them. She moved closer and knelt at the edge. The image swayed and sharpened. She saw herself behind the counter, pouring a drink for a customer she could not see. Her reflection on the water had no expression, only a still, distant gaze. The image cracked like thin ice and dissolved.

            Ena’s lips shriveled as ripples spread across the pool. The cold wind brushed her neck. She stood slowly to see that the mist had gathered behind her, forming thin ribbons that caught light like strands of glass. They drifted ahead and wove themselves into a fresh path.

            Reluctantly, she followed them into a darker part of the woods. The air grew colder. Frost spiraled across the tree trunks. The moss grew stiff beneath her feet. Her breath showed in thin clouds in front of her. She wrapped her arms around herself to seek warmth and kept pressing forward on the path.

            The mist condensed ahead, designed like a doorway that has lights within. Ena hesitated, but the cold behind her thickened and pushed her forward. She stepped through the doorway.

            The world opened through tall panes of glass all around her. They reached from the ground to the canopy of treetops. Each carved with runes she had seen on her parents’ old workshop table. The air here radiated heat, not cold. The warmth brushed her cheeks and stirred her hair. Mirrors cast scattered reflections of her. Some looked younger, older, and others with expressions she had never worn.

            Ena walked carefully among them. Her footsteps left small, smudged imprints on the chilled ground. Each mirror shimmered when she passed, catching her attention each time. She paused for a moment to notice the mirror in front of her. It flickered, revealing not her reflection, but the memory of a room. She stepped closer. It was her parents’ workshop. Her heart twisted as tears formed.

            She saw them shaping an enchanted mug together. Her father steadied the clay with a focused look. Her mother whispered over it, guiding the glaze that glowed under her fingertips. They worked in a rhythm born of years of shared craft. They didn’t need to speak. Their quiet harmony filled the room. Ena reached for the mirror, feeling the heat it radiated. The image shifted.

            Her mother looked up, her eyes bright with joy. Ena expected her mother to look away again, back to work. But her mother raised her gaze as if she were looking directly at Ena. The mirror grew hotter. Ena stepped back as the heat surged and snapped into cold. Frost spread across the glass. Her mother’s expression softened until it faded.

            A sharp heat touched her hip. The stone in her pocket flared through the fabric. She pressed a hand to her chest, realizing her parents had not simply left a memory.

            “You left a message. I don’t understand,” Ena murmured.

            She turned to the mirror on her left. Frost stretched along its edges. The reflection showed something different. She inched closer carefully. It showed Bekkar.

            He stood behind the counter at his tavern, head bowed, arms braced against the wood. Lantern light flickered across his arched body. His reflection blurred briefly then steadied. Something behind him stirred in the shadows. It was not a person. Not anything she could recognize. A thin shape stretched along the floor, reaching for him. Ena gasped, her breath fogging the air. The shadow withdrew as she stared at it. Then the mirror dimmed, and her reflection returned.

            Ena stepped back and scanned the mirrors. They darkened together as heat rose from the floor of the forest. She could feel the magic shifting, rearranging itself, deciding where to lead her next. A faint crack sounded in the distance. The mirrors trembled. One cracked right down the center. The sound bounced around the mirrors like a bell struck in anger. She cupped her ears with her hands. Cold air rushed from the broken glass and swept across the ground. She took a step back, shielding her eyes from the gust.

            The broken mirror cleared. It revealed a scene, not the memory forest where she stood, but a real one. A figure cloaked in deep blue stood at the edge of the forest. The cloak moved without wind, as if something inside pushed against it. The figure lifted a hand, exposing fingers as thin as carved glass. Frost spread wherever they pointed. Left, right, up, then down. The figure began drawing a shape in the air. The Enchanter’s Mark.

            Ena stared in the mirror in disbelief.

            “Is this what’s happening?” Ena asked.

            The figure tilted its head slowly, as if listening to something she could not hear. Then the glass thickened with frost until the image vanished. Ena stepped back again, bumping into a shattered mirror behind her. A sharp pain wrecked her foot; she jumped to notice a shard of glass stuck in her foot. The floor cracked as the forest began taking back the warmth it had provided her with. A low rumble traveled through the ground.

            A tear opened in the path that had brought her to the mirrors. Mist gathered, trying to hold it steady, but the edges frayed like cloth pulled too tight. The forest wanted her to leave before something else arrived. The stone in her pocket burned against her hip. Mirrors shattered as Ena rushed to the opening. Light burst around her. The forest collapsed inward with each step she took. She shielded her face as the world swirled, pulling her out of the memory.

            The floor returned. She blinked, and the room fell still again, the stone back on the shelf.

 

Chapter Twelve

            Ena sat on the edge of her bed, chest rising and falling fast. She pressed her right hand over her heart. The stone blinked with light from the shelf across the room. She looked at the window, wondering how long she was gone. Frost had formed on the glass, presenting the Enchanter’s Mark. The symbol glimmered and then melted away.

            She stood and gently touched the windowpane. Only cool glass remained beneath her fingertips, but the symbol had not been imagined. And neither had the figure in the mirror nor the shadow reaching for Bekkar. She grabbed the stone and turned to the stairs to check her shop. Noticing that her feet ached with pain with each step. When she reached the bottom, the shop stretched before her in dim shapes. Tables waited empty. Shelves barely lit, their soft enchantments seemed muted, as if the room held its breath.

            She moved behind the counter and lit a single candle. The flame leaned in her direction at once, curving in a small arc near her arm. Enchanted light usually stood firm, but tonight, it flickered like a nervous creature. Ena placed the stone on the countertop. It radiated a soft warmth. It almost matched the rate of her heartbeat. She gently brushed her thumb across the surface. A clank pinged behind her. Ena gasped and spun with the candle.

            The kettle in the corner rattled on its hook. She expected the kettle to be hot, but no heat omitted from it. The metal was cold to the touch. Her fingers recoiled. Frost formed along the handle. Magic flowed strangely.

            “What did that memory do to me?” she whispered.

            She sat the kettle aside and brewed the evening’s tea by hand. The smell of peppermint and cinnamon filled the room, warm and calming. She poured herself a cup and took a hefty sip, trying to settle the tremor in her chest. The tea’s warmth steadied her grip, yet her mind returned to the figure in the mirror.

            Ena tightened her hand around the cup, then set it aside. The stone glowed again and expanded slightly. The candle flame wavered. A shape passed briefly across the shop window. She shifted to look again. The glass caught her reflection, stretched thin across the surface. Her silhouette looked older in the dim light, more defined, as if the shadows pressed against her outline to sharpen it. The stone brightened. It cast a circle of blue light across the counter. The circle slid slowly, inching to the door.

            Ena stood. The shop grew colder as she neared the window. Her breath clouded in the air, much like in the memory forest. She pressed her palm lightly against the glass and wiped away the frost. An outline of a handprint appeared on the outside surface and then melted. She took a few shaky steps backwards, unsure of who or what had been close enough to mark her window. The stone on the counter clicked, with a loud crackling sound like the first break in ice.

            Ena turned, cupping her ears to muffle the noise. Light swirled within the stone, forming shapes that darted around one another. Threads of silver and smoke wove themselves into a symbol, and the Enchanter’s Mark appeared again. The glow beamed from the stone and floated above it. Frost began forming on the counter in small star-like patterns. Ena leaned closer. The pattern shifted into a line of text as she reached for it. In a Dwarven language she didn’t know, yet she understood them. Follow the echo.

            She touched the text. The letters dissolved into a thin mist that curled around her wrist and tightened slightly. The glow above the stone trembled like a fragile reflection on water.

            A sudden knock struck the front door. Ena inhaled sharply. The mist scattered across the counter, and the frost patterns shifted into sharp shapes. Another knock followed. This one heavier.

            “Ena,” Bekkar called from outside. His voice was muffled, but it carried a strain she hadn’t heard from him before. “Are you awake in there?”

            Ena hurried to the door, hesitating to leave the circle of frost, though her steps felt weighted and her feet still ached. She grasped the handle. The metal stung with cold. When she pulled the door open, Bekkar stood beneath the street lantern. He looked her over with a tense search in his eyes.

            “Your window flashed blue a moment ago. Half the street dimmed for a blink. I thought something happened,” he said.

            “Something did,” Ena said, stepping aside and motioning him in.

            Bekkar entered slowly. His gaze swept the room. When he saw the frost on the counter, he stiffened. “That wasn’t here earlier,” he said.

            “It appeared when the stone spoke,” Ena said. Her voice carried a tremor she couldn’t hide. “It spelled it out in Dwarven text.”

            Bekkar approached the counter. The frost recoiled from his hand. “Tell me what it said.”

            Ena lifted the stone. “Follow the echo. But I..,” she started.

            Bekkar met her eyes. “Then we need to find out what the echo is,” he said.

            Ena wasn’t sure how to even begin explaining the Enchanter’s Mark, or the stranger, or the memory forest, or the figure to him. But she knew just the right brew to lighten the load. “Let me make us some coffee. This will take a while,” she said.

            “I’ve got time,” Bekkar assured.

            Ena moved over to gather her beans and herbs to mix her father’s favorite brew for relaxing and storytelling. The blend carried a soft sweetness and a heat that lingered in the chest. The perfect mixture of memories that hurt a little. She grabbed her kettle and hummed her spell to get it going; the runes on it glistened with excitement.

            Bekkar leaned against the counter watching her. His eyes traveled between the frost on the wood and the stone in her hand. The tension in his shoulders softened a bit as the scent of coffee began filling the room. The aroma seemed to warm even the coldest corners of the shop.

            Ena grabbed her comfort mug and a similar one for Bekkar. When Ena poured the brew, a gentle glow came from the surface. Not bright, but just enough to soften the air between them. They sat down at the small round table near the window. The glass beside them held their reflections stretched by the light. Ena wrapped her fingers around her cup, feeling the heat steady her mood. Bekkar took a sip and nodded with approval.

            “All right. Start wherever it makes sense,” he said.

            Ena looked down at her coffee while the steam lifted and curled upward. “Something appeared outside this morning. A mark formed in the air. It was the Enchanter’s Marl.”

            Bekkar’s expression tightened. He set his cup down slowly. “That is magic your kind speaks of with caution.”

            “It has not been seen in decades, and before that, centuries,” Ena said.

            “Then why did it come for you?” he asked.

            She traced the rim of her mug with her thumb. “My parents knew something about it. The stranger said they had left a path for me. Then the stone pulled me into a memory forest.”

            Bekkar stared at her with an eyebrow raised, trying to understand. “Memory forest?”

            “Yes. A place shaped by magic. The trees knew and remembered things. It wanted to show me something.”

            “What did it show?” Bekkar asked.

            Ena swallowed. For a moment the bitter memory crept back into her limbs. “My parents. A shadow watching you in your tavern. Something cast the Mark into the world. Something cold.”

            “It watched me?” Bekkar asked.

            “It reached for you.”

            Bekkar leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath. The window beside them fogged with warmth in response. His reflection blurred. Ena’s reflection blurred beside his. In the glass, the frost on the counter stretched thin in their direction before melting back into themselves.

            Bekkar tapped the table. “So, we have someone casting ancient magi. They know your name. They know your parents. They know where to find you. They know where I am.”

            “Yes.”

            “And you said it wants you to follow the echo.”

            Ena nodded. “The stone said that. I don’t know what the echo is.”

            Bekkar lifted his mug again and stared into it. He spoke slowly. “Echoes come from something loud. Something that already happened. If the Mark is calling you now, maybe the echo is whatever magic your parents touched years ago.”

            She felt a quiet ache pull at her chest.

            Bekkar’s gaze moved to the stone on the counter. “You said it showed you a path. Maybe it will show another.”

            Ena reached for the stone, grabbing it cautiously, and held it above the table between them. It rested in her palm, feeling heavier than before, and emitting a heat. The warmth of the coffee mingled with the stone’s shifting heat. The temperature changed in small waves, warm then cold, like the stone was breathing in two worlds at once.

            Bekkar frowned. “Is it doing that because of the brew?”

            “No,” Ena whispered. “It reacts to truth.”

            “Then it is listening now.”

            The stone flared into a thin line of light stretched across the table. It touched the surface and spread outward like a ripple in water. The ripples formed small shapes. Circles, branches, and paths. A map.

            The table glowed with the outline of the city. The market district, her shop, Bekkar’s tavern. Streets twisted like roots crawling to the horizon. The glow dimmed around everything except one small point. The forest at the city’s edge.

            Ena leaned closer. “It wants us to go there.”

            Bekkar studied the shifting light. “Is this where your forest was?”

            “No. This is outside the city.”

            The glow dimmed and sank back into the tone. The candle flame near the counter trembled. The frost on the wood dissolved into a thin sheen of water. The clouds cleared enough to show the street outside. The city slept, unaware of the cold creeping within it.

            Bekkar placed his empty mug on the table and stood. “If the echo is waiting in the forest, then we go to the forest.”

            Ena stood slowly. “Tonight.”

            Bekkar nodded. “Before the cold reaches something else.”

            Ena began gathering the tools she needed. A protective rune stone, a sealed vial of her mother’s herbal infusion, a pouch of warm embers for the road, and tubes of healing potions. One of the mugs she enchanted flickered on the shelf. She slipped it into her pack.

            The shop felt heavier as she approached the door. The warmth of the room pressed against her back. For the first time since opening Mystic Mugs, the shop felt like it feared for her.

She touched the door frame lightly. “I will come back.”

The air warmed around her hand. A small glimmer appeared in the grain of the wood. It was her mother’s rune. She stepped outside and sealed the shop door with her spell and an extra protection spell.

The cold closed around her as it moved like a slow tide rolling to the city. Bekkar waited under the street lantern. Ena joined him. The forest stood in the distance like a dark silhouette caught in glass. The moon reflected on the forest’s edges.

Bekkar looked at her. “Ready?”

Ena took a calming breath. “Yes.”

They began walking to the edge of the city; the night deepening as they walked. The shadows followed quietly behind him. The echo was waiting, and whatever cast it was no longer staying hidden.

 

Chapter Thirteen

            The city walls faded behind them as Ena and Bekkar approached the tree line. The forest loomed darker than she expected, as if the night had pooled inside it. Ena felt the stone in her pack pulse. They stepped beneath the branches. The path forward was drenched in darkness; only a touch of moonlight beamed slightly ahead. Bekkar lifted a lantern, but the flame shrank, unwilling to chase back the darkness. Ena reached into her pocket to touch the stone. It warmed up. A pale blue light seeped between her fingers and stretched forward in a narrow beam. The trees’ leaves shuddered overhead, and their bark swelled with glowing runes.

            “Ancient magic,” Bekkar said.

            “Older than the city,” Ena replied. Her voice wavering.

            They walked in silence until the trees thinned around a clearing. A shallow pool rested at the center, perfectly still. The stone in Ena’s hand brightened again.

            “The echo is near,” she whispered.

            Bekkar knelt at the pool’s edge and dipped his hand in. The surface rippled, then stilled faster than it should have. “This place knows something about us,” he said.

            The pool twinkled. Ena blinked several times. For a moment, she saw two reflections. She and Bekkar, standing side by side. Then both images shifted into two unfamiliar figures. One had long ears like Ena but wore armor of bark and silver thread. The other was a dwarf with a braided beard streaked with gold dust. They stood back to back as shadows reached for them from all sides. Their hands glowed with the same blue light as her stone.

            Ena stepped closer. “These are not my parents.”

            Bekkar moved beside her. “But that dwarf. I’ve seen his face. In old tavern carvings and in the legends my grandmother used to tell.” He stood slowly. “That is Gundrik Kildrak.”

            “The dwarf who forged the peace treaty between the mountain clans and the forest guardians,” Ena said.

            “And that elf,” Bekkar whispered, “I don’t know her name, but she was said to have walked beside him. The stories say they vanished before finishing their mission.”

            Ena knelt. “The echo is not a memory of my parents. It’s a memory of theirs.”

            The reflection changed again. Now, the dwarf and elf pressed their palms to a stone shaped exactly like the one Ena carried. Blue light surged between them. But the moment fractured. Darkness slashed through the scene. The pool swirled. The forest roared with a sudden cold wind.

            Bekkar grabbed Ena’s wrist and pulled her back as the pool erupted upward in a column of mist. Shapes curled within the rising fog. Thin shadows twisted into hands that stretched for them.

            A low voice whispered around the clearing. “The pact was broken.”

            “Bekkar, step back,” Ena yelled.

            The shadows pressed closer. Bekkar pulled his axe free. Its blade radiated in the reflection of the blue light. “Spirit of the old pact,” he called. “Show yourself!”

            The mist gathered into a form. A tall figure cloaked in frost stood above the pool. Its voice slid across their skin like freezing rain. “You carry the Mark. You carry the echo of the ones who failed.”

            Ena inhaled, tasting ice. “Tell me what they failed.”

            “They sealed the bond between dwarf and elf,” the figure said. “A bond of shared magic. But fear split them. Fear fractured the pact. Their power lingered in the world and waited for another pair to rise.” The head turned to Bekkar. “One dwarf.” Its gaze moved to Ena. “One elf.”

            Bekkar stepped forward. “We did not come to bind anything.”

            “You can because the bond called you,” the figure declared. “The world remembers what your ancestors tried to mend.”

            The mist shifted again. The pool glowed with in new light. Ena saw fragments of her parents weaving enchantments over long nights. She saw glimpses of dwarven smiths shaping runes into metal. Two cultures that once shared the same magic, now separated by time. Ena felt tears forming.

            “The Mark came because I’m their child.”

            “And I’m his descendant,” Bekkar said. His voice softened. “Gundrik Kildrak. My grandmother spoke his name like a blessing.”

            “Your bloodline carries the echo. The pact waits to be completed,” the figure’s voice rumbled.

            The shadows stretched around them again. Ena reached for the stone. Pain shot up her arm, but she braced it. “Tell us how,” she said.

            “Bind your strength. Fear unravels magic. Trust restores it.”

            Ena looked at Bekkar. His face was steady but drawn. He nodded to her. They stepped to the edge of the pool. Ena held the stone between them. Bekkar placed his hand over hers.

“I fear losing what my parents left me,” she whispered.

“I fear never being enough to honor my family,” he whispered.

            The stone cracked. Light spilled upward in a blooming arch. It lit the forest in soft blue. The shadows recoiled. The spirit bowed its head as if acknowledging their truths. The light folded inward and then burst across the clearing in a circle. The air warmed as the freezing wind subsided.

            “The pact breathes again,” the figure said, its voice thinning into a whisper.

            The pool settled as the mist dissolved. Bekkar lowered his hand from the stone. Ena felt its warmth stabilize for the first time since it had appeared. They stood together as the forest continued to fall into silence. The tension in her chest loosened.

            “We should tell the city,” Bekkar said, adjusting his pack.

            Ena closed her hand around the stone. “And let the new pact begin.”

            They began their journey out of the forest. The trees parted willingly as moonlight guided them back to the city in the distance. For the first time, Ena didn’t feel watched by shadows.

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

            Ena and Bekkar returned to Everbay just as dawn was setting in. The city was quiet, wrapped in the soft hush that came before the morning markets opened. The air still carried the last trace of the cold that had haunted the night, but it no longer reached for them. The echo was gone, and the pact was complete again.

            They walked together through the waking streets. Lanterns flared out one by one as vendors lit their cooking fires and children ran down the cobblestone paths with bread in their hands. The familiar scents of roasted nuts, herb oil, flowers, and morning tea drifted in their direction.

            Liesh was the first to spot them. The goblin florist dropped an entire bucket of glowing blossoms. “You are alive,” she said, hands on her hips. “Both of you. And you look like you wrestled the moon itself.”

            “Close enough,” Bekkar laughed.

            Word traveled fast. By midmorning, a crowd gathered outside Mystic Mugs. Neighbors, curious travelers, enchanted sprites, even the silver scaled siren from the fountain. Questions flew faster than Ena could answer.

            “What attacked the market last night?”

            “Why did the shadows shake?”

            “Why did the river glow?”

            “What did you two do?”

            Ena exchanged a look with Bekkar. For a moment she felt the weight of every secret, every fear, and every memory carried through the forest. The warmth of the restored pact steadied her, and Bekkar’s quiet nod gave her strength. She stepped forward. “Old magic that belonged to more than one people. It was broken once, and now it's whole again.”

            “It’s not something to fear. It needed balance; the two of us restored it,” Bekkar added.

            The crowd shifted with murmurs. Someone asked if danger was coming back. Another asked if monsters were involved. Ena shook her head. “The echo was not a threat. It was a reminder.”

            “A promise. One that both elves and dwarves forged long ago. One our city forgot.”

            The tension eased. The siren hummed a soft note of relief. A dwarf in the crowd nodded respectfully at Ena. A pair of elves nodded back at Bekkar.

            “This has shown us that we are stronger together. Bekkar and I have decided something.”

            Bekkar grinned at the crowd. “We’re combining our shops.”

            Gasps, excited chatter, and one dramatic squeal came from Liesh. Ena opened the door to Mystic Mugs. The warm scent curled out the door, welcoming everyone inside. “His craft strengthens mine. My magic complements his. Together we can serve something that celebrates all of Everbay.”

            “A brewhouse of unity. Magic and craft. Pottery and ale. Warmth and fire.” Bekkar raised one of Ena’s mugs.

            The rest of the day blurred with planning. Bekkar carried crates of dwarven heat stones into the shop. Ena rearranged shelves, tracing new runes along the wood to prepare them for blends that never existed before. Neighbors offered ideas, chairs, banners, and more enthusiasm than either of them expected.

            By late afternoon, the crowd drifted away. Ena finally had a quiet moment to look across her counter and breathe. Bekkar stood beside her with his sleeves rolled up and a streak of soot across his cheek.

            “Where do we start?” he asked.

            “With a brew,” Ena replied.

            She reached for a blend she had been experimenting with before everything changed. The base was soft and floral, but something had always felt incomplete. Bekkar placed a warm ember spice beside her. ‘Try it with this,” he said. “It gives strength to gentler flavors.”

            Ena hesitated before tipping a pinch of the spice into her grinder. The scent filled the room, richer now and vibrant. She poured the mixture into a tall copper brewer. Bekkar added an orange dwarven heat stone beneath it. Ena set her hands on the brewer and hummed her enchantment into the copper, ensuring her magic wrapped around the mixture. The runes along its surface brightened. When the brew finished, Ena poured two cups. The liquid gleamed gold with swirls of indigo beneath it.

Bekkar tasted his first. His eyebrows shot up. “That is incredible.”

Ena tasted hers. The flavor opened on her tongue. Warmth, light, depth, and a note of courage. The blend was the beginning of healing for both of them. Ena set her mug down gently. “This is the first brew of the new Mystic Mugs and Ember Stein.”

“The scent of sorcery,” Bekkar said. “Let the future begin.”

To be continued...

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