Rune Mage [Fantasy/Adventure | Book 1 +2 | Complete]

Chapter 36: Little House on a Hill

Finberry was a little town Loren had never really visited. The only significance it had was being home to Mage Harred back when she was alive – and being the site of her death – and as an en route point to Molash, on the south coast.

She got off the train, glancing at the ragged passengers that scurried away through the tiny station. Peron helped Felora hop off behind her and took most of the bags, lugging them over his broad shoulders without a word. Four platforms made up the station; only about five people also alighted from the train. Puffs of black smoke crept along the ceiling before escaping through the holes between the slate pieces in the roof; some of these trains still used coal instead of red runes. Her boots tapped on the rugged, cracked stone ground, her rainbow-lined cape swishing in her wake. Seiren and Madeleine's childhood home. The air was cleaner, reminding Loren of freshly-mown grass and the forest in the summer where she and Rowan used to play.

"What a nice little town," said Felora, peering left and right. Children played in the streets, but they weren't the sleek, shiny-faced children Loren was used to back in Sarre. Felora flinched when one of the little ruffians brushed past her, screeching in his pursuit of his equally small targets. "Like Danaway.. . but a bit cleaner."

"If you have nothing to say, Felora, you don't have to force yourself," said Loren with a smile. Felora flushed.

The Finberry children's faces were streaked with dirt, their hair in messy nests like the orphaned children in Bicknor. They looked just as happy, chasing and screaming after each other. The jovial cacophony brought a smile to Loren's face. Finberry might be poor, but at least they weren't impoverished or dangerous.

Small shops opened down the main street: florists with their collection of autumn blooms in their varying blood reds and violent oranges; cloth merchants with their rolls of material; fruit pickers with their baskets of apples and oranges. Their friendly chatter reminded Loren of Bicknor with its close-knit but vast community. A few glanced her way, recognising outsiders; none approached her. Peron kept close to Loren, wary given recent attacks. Felora hummed, taking an avid interest in Finberry but at the same time keeping a distance from the locals.

Rowan said Seiren once spoke of their childhood home atop a hill. It wasn't hard to find the solitary hill on Finberry's mostly-flat land populated by two-storey terraced houses, each with their tiny little front gardens. Occasionally, a dog barked behind the windows. It was quite a serene, peaceful atmosphere, without the hubbub of a large town and the harried feeling associated with a busy community. The houses thinned towards the hill, as did the passers-by and their curious looks. Loren kept her face hooded and strode up the slight incline, the flattened, bare ground running through the overgrown grass told her people still frequented this path, even though the only thing ahead of her was a little one-storey red-brick bungalow with a chimney. Peron and Felora kept quiet.

The air tingled here, like the beginnings of static electricity. The hairs on Loren's skin and the back of her neck stood on end. She breathed in, life flooding through her lungs. Magic. It was a sensation she knew well. She reached forward. The air particles trembled before her fingers. Even after six years of that dreadful incident, the magic still hadn't dissipated. There must have been some powerful spells that night.

Some powerful spells... from the hands of an untrained twelve-year-old. Loren frowned. How peculiar. No matter how raw Seiren's talent was – no, especially given how raw her talent was – there was no way she could concentrate it to leave such a mark behind. She could have perhaps destroyed the house and her mother's body, but she could never leave such remnants. It was impossible.

She paused, taking in the dainty brick house. The windows were covered with dust on the inside and streak marks of years of weathering. The doormat was caked in moss, as were patches of the red brick walls. The door handle had rusted, its surface flaking with pieces of brown and gold. The door knocker had long fallen off. On the west side, the wall disappeared in its entirety. Moss had grown over this side and vines stretched over the shards of glass still clinging to the window frame; sunlight reflected off the broken pieces. A few broken plant pots lay on the ground, their contents long swept away by the elements. To the average passer-by, this might not seem out of the ordinary, just another abandoned house, but there was a tingling in the air that throbbed with the traces of powerful magic.