Maggie of the Mist by Madeleine M. (best ebook reader for ubuntu txt) 📕

Maggie’s eyes fluttered open and her hand shot to the now cool stone around her neck. Looking up through the tree tops above where they had camped, she could still see a few stars. Her breath came quickly as her mind tried to pieces of dream that floated around in her head. The sky to the east was purple foretelling the rising of the day. Thinking her throat hurt and her eyes felt puffy, she quietly got up. The fire from the night before was only a cold bed of coals thanks to the spelled water. Taking her time, she stepped around everyone else still asleep in the early dawn.

As she made her way to the bottom of a tall tree, she passed their packs. With slight agitation, Maggie noticed that her bag had been riffled through. At first glance in this dark light, she wouldn’t have noticed it. There was just something about it that drew her eyes. A few things had been tossed to the side, but that wasn’t any different from the rest. In the dim morning she could see a parchment tossed on top of her bag – her letter.

She stiffened, only allowing her eyes the freedom to move. Stray pieces of her hair caught the measured breathes she was taking.

Maggie had a feeling she knew who snooped. She tried to refrain from glaring at him through the dawn. Balling her fists at her sides, she forced herself to count each beat of her heart between her deep breaths.

Soon she would need to do something about that Tine’la, and soon. But right now there was a more pressing matter to deal with. Instead of waking the others, Maggie just put everything back. Before standing straight again, she remembered something. Digging through one of her larger bags, Maggie retrieved what looked like a stick with the diameter of three fingers. Firmly gripping the wooden piece between her teeth and stuffing a carpenter’s carving knife into her pocket, she began to climb the tree. She brushed bunches of leaves out of her face thinking she’d worry about that Veils cursed noble later.

Eventually she found a branch where she could see the eastern horizon once high in the tree. She set her wooden object close to where the branch connected with the main part of the tree so it wouldn’t fall. Looking to the gradually brightening sky, she felt a tear rolling down her face. Aunt Heather’s words seemed to echo in the branches around her, “Sunrises. They have to be one o’ the Lords greatest creations. Every time the sun comes up to light our day, ‘tis always different. Ever changin’.”  

It might have been an old priestess saying, but it seemed to fit her current situation. It was something her aunt would have told her if she was with them.

Whipping the tear away, Maggie took a long, deep breath of the crisp early morning air. She reached into her pocket and brought out the small blade. She picked up the cylindrical piece of wood and brought the blade to the smooth grain. To herself, she quietly sang the melody of her most favourite lullaby as her mind wandered and her hands worked away. A cool breeze came sweeping through the tree tops as Maggie carved a series of symbols with her carpenter’s knife. There were a double swirl, a star-like shape, and several notched lines that resembled feathers of a bird. She thought each word that matched the symbols as she carved them, infusing each stroke with some mild major magic.

Maggie held it up to better observe her marks and brushed the wood shavings off of her lap. With both arms straight out in front of her body, each hand gripping either end of the stick, Maggie murmured the spell that would activate the weapon.

“Oscailte, cliath.” Open, staff. The language of her home country came with familiarity to her lips. The double swirl and star carvings gave off a soft light as the magic took effect. At the same time, both ends of the stick grew. That continued until the staff’s length was roughly the same height as Maggie. Her aunt had taught her well.

She twirled the new staff, testing its weight. It moved fluidly with the movements of her hands. She didn’t activate the other runes. Redd would definitely want to do that for himself. Instead she whispered the deactivation spell. “Dún, cliath.” Close, staff.

Setting the enchanted stick on her lap, Maggie leaned against her hands, taking on a more comfortable position on the branch. One by one the stars that fill the night sky disappeared into an early morn. Maggie felt like she could sit up there forever, never taking her eyes off the horizon.

As Maggie watched the sky, waiting for the clouds to take on their many hues, the wind picked up. It carried the smell of burning wood. An involuntary shiver ran cold down her spine, causing her skin to break out in goose bumps. There was something about the way the cold fingers of wind tugged at her hair, pulled at her clothes. It was something foreboding. The wood smoke hadn’t come from their camp, of that she was sure. There had been no living establishment – not even a crumbling foundation – for a good few leagues or so. Though she tried, from where she sat, Maggie couldn’t see any smoke.

Not even a wisp of grey reaching for the dim sky.

Maggie closed her eyes and tried to push the wind’s warning away, despite the fact that a heavy fear had settle in her stomach, much like a stone. She tried to focus on something else

Last night she had a dream unlike any she’d had before. Maggie gently ran her fingers along the smooth surface of her cool stone. Strangely, during the dream she’d felt its heat on her collar bone. She traced its outer edge as scenes from her dream flooded her head. Arrows were flying everywhere. Blood stained her clothes and her hands. She knelt in front of someone, begging them not to die. She had pleaded with them to wait until she returned. Where she’d be, she wasn’t sure. She’d looked them straight in the eye and grabbed their hand. She could have sworn she was awake for that part; the hand in hers seemed so real, and warm – a comforting security in a nightmarish world. At first Maggie had expected it to be her Aunt Heather once again being cradled on her lap, like so many dreams before.

Instead, it was…

“What are you doing all the way up here?” asked a masculine voice right next to her, yanking her from her contemplations. Maggie sucked in a startled breath so fast that it hurt, and fell backwards off her perch. Flailing her arms, she managed to snatch the staff with one hand, while the other caught a branch. Why, on the Warrior’s green earth, did he do that? She was about to kill him – what a way to ruin a flowing train of thought. Looking up the tree, right where she had been sitting, Maggie saw someone peering down at her. “Hey, uh, are you alright?” he called down to her – at the moment she still couldn’t place it. No, she was not alright; she was dangling about 20 lengths of the ground, clinging to a branch with just her bare hands and was currently scared out of her wits.

Not to mention that she was now in a rather bitter mood.

Quickly Maggie pulled herself up and climbed back up to her branch, hoping that the sun hadn’t moved too much. When she got back up, she turned and punched whoever it was that had scared her. At the sound of a joking ‘Ow!’ she looked up to see none other than Keith. Not that she was exactly surprised. She felt the blood come to her face in an angry flush.

“What are you doing?” Maggie glared at him.

“I came up to see what it was you were doing up before the sun… and in a tree.” Keith smiled playfully at her. “What are you doing?”

“Some mornings I get up early to watch the sunrise. When I need to think.” Maggie looked straight at him, giving Keith her maddest glare, “And apparently getting scared out of trees. I will get even. You should watch your back.” She was finding it extremely hard to keep her anger flared. What did Keith think he would accomplish by smiling at her like that?

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He grin never wavered.

The two stared at each other as moments slid by, and Keith burst out laughing. He didn’t believe that she could get him? Hah, he would soon be in for a surprise. Then Maggie realized that she had never heard Keith laugh before. It was a warm and joyous kind of laugh; it reminded her of Uncle Will.

Suddenly, Maggie felt a laugh bubble up inside her as her anger melted away. Someone else’s laughter almost always made her happier, no matter how she felt before. When she couldn’t hold it in any more, her laugh exploded into the air.

Keith gave her an odd look, making her laugh more. She almost fell out of the tree again as she balance became unsteady, causing another laughing spree from Keith. Then the two were giggling uncontrollably. Eventually they calmed and their breathing returned to normal.

An awkward moment passed. Both averted their gazes.

“What is a noble doing up so early?” Maggie asked staring out at the tree line that reached up to meet the sky. “Even the servants aren’t up yet.”

“Exactly.” Keith’s green eyes glinted in amusement when Maggie made a face – she had never noticed how they shone when he was happy. Then again, she had never been close enough to see his eyes at all. “It’s easier to move around the grounds without the hired hands snooping about.” He shrugged a shoulder as if it was normal for everyone to dodge their hired help, and reclined against the trunk of the old tree. “Besides, I get more time to touch up my skills in the yard before I have to attend to my duties.”

“Huh.” Maggie hazarded a glance and caught him watching her, his emerald eyes intense. She quickly flicked her eyes forward again. All the stars were gone from the dark fabric that was the night sky. A thought crossed her mind. He was on watch when she had the dream. Should she risk asking him?

Keith broke the silence first.

“Um, how old are you, Maggie?” He asked.

At first Maggie wasn’t sure she should tell him, but then the stone pulsed. Like a comforting nudge. She decided she could risk it “Fifteen and a half winters,” Maggie thought for a moment and then nodded to assure herself that that was in fact her age. “What about you?”

Keith seemed to consider his answer carefully, his haze never leaving her face. “Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in a few months.” Maggie sat and pondered the fact that the boy sitting next to her was almost a full two years older than she and yet still acted like a boy Angus’s age. She had to snuff out the urge to roll her eyes.

Maggie really wanted to ask him where he got his sword. She knew she couldn’t have mistaken her own design. Uncle Will’s seal was on the butt of the handle, no single smith had the same seal. She had only done one sword with that design.