CHAPTER 1
MIKIRA
HORSES WILL SPEAK to you, if only you listen.
That was what Mikira’s father always told her. It was in the way they pricked their ears, in the swish of their tails through still air. It was even truer of enchanted horses, whose blood thrummed with magic, bestowing untold abilities. Whether it be speed or surefootedness, good luck or the uncanny ability to always find their way home, such horses were deeply in tune with the world around them.
It was those enchantments that Mikira relied on now. Dressed in all black, from her worn riding boots to the plain mask obscuring her face, she sat tall on Iri’s back as the stallion tossed his head, nickering impatiently. Enchanted for speed, the desire to run was as much a part of him as bone or blood, just as it was a part of Mikira.
The twisting maze of Veradell’s tunnels—tonight’s racecourse—stretched into dimly lit shadows ahead. The city’s underground passages would be narrow, the turns tight and easy to miss. Breathing deep, Mikira shut out the excited murmur of the crowd, the sharp scrape of hooves against stone as horses jostled for space at the starting line, and the ever-present reminder that she could not go home empty-handed tonight.
“Are you all ready to see some action?” called Jenest, the race’s owner and announcer. A slender, muscular woman with brown skin, she barely approached the riders’ shoulders, even standing on an empty gun crate in the middle of the tunnel. Still, you couldn’t miss her, dressed as she was in an ornate jacket covered in glass jewels and sequins—a mockery of the extravagant garments favored by the nobility—and a blue-and-white scaled mask emulating the Great Serpent, Lyzairin, one of the four Harbingers said to have brought magic to humanity.
People whooped and clapped as she dipped into a bow. “You know the rules!” Her deep voice resonated from her charmed loudspeaker. “All four types of enchantments are allowed, but no weapons! This isn’t the Illinir, and I won’t have blood spilled on my nice clean floors.”
A chuckle emanated through the crowd. The tunnel’s floor was nothing more than a swampy mixture of dirt and runoff from the canning factory above, a far cry from the flashing cameras and manicured tracks of the official races Mikira longed for. She hated being down here, but it was the only safe place to run such makeshift contests. With how tightly controlled magic was, enchanted races required a permit and a hefty tax to the city of Veradell. Jenest was risking prison by operating without one.
And by competing in them, so was Mikira.
“Twenty silver marks to the winner. First rider around the loop and back here wins the purse.” Jenest jingled a small pouch above her head, the real reason Mikira was here. “Take your marks, get ready, race!”
The horses bolted. Iri easily beat half into the first turn, their enchantments either not for speed or too weak to bestow any real advantage. Mikira forgot everything but the feel of the race as they barreled along the tunnel. Her body moved with Iri’s like a reflection, adrenaline rushing through her in a heady thrum, sharpening everything into stark focus.
As they leaned into the second turn, a rider wearing a green and brown half mask imitating the Harbinger Rach approached them. Something glinted, and Mikira barely dodged their blade. Freeing one of her own knives from her hip, she blocked the second swipe, then disarmed the rider with a twist of her wrist.
They rode well, their horse’s physical enchantments clearly stronger than the others. But it wasn’t enough—not against an enchant bred from the Rusel lines. Not against Mikira, whose father had once led Veradell’s racing elite.
Taking the final turn, they entered the straightaway where the race had begun, and Mikira let Iri go. The horse’s speed all but doubled as he careened down the last stretch and across the finish line.
A knot released in her chest at the crowd’s cheer as Iri trotted back toward Jenest. The woman seized Mikira’s pale hand, holding it up in triumph. “Nightflyer wins again!” she called to the whistles and shouts of the crowd. “I know, I know, you’re all shocked. Don’t you worry; I promise I’ll find our little flyer a worthy competitor soon.”
Mikira grinned at the applause. These people loved her, and she couldn’t deny that even without the need for money, she would compete just for the way they looked at her—like she could do anything.
Feeling a different kind of stare on the back of her neck, Mikira turned, catching the gaze of the Rach rider. She was tall, with curious hazel eyes and tawny skin. Mikira could turn her in for the knife, but that wasn’t the first time someone had pulled a weapon on her, and it wouldn’t be the last. The rider crooked the smallest of smiles before guiding her horse into the dispersing crowd.
Everyone would leave through the myriad of tunnel entrances, careful not to raise suspicion. The Anthir didn’t bat an eye when a noble house squeezed every last copper mark from one of their tenants or conscripted them into the Eternal War in neighboring Celair, but if the city guard came across an enchant racing ring without the requisite paperwork and taxes? Everyone involved would spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Her brother used to say that you could murder someone in broad daylight in Veradell, so long as you had the proper paperwork. Unless you came from a noble house—then you didn’t even need that.
Jenest held out the winning purse. “You know one of these days I’d like to meet the person behind the mask,” she said. “Grab a drink or two.”
Guilt panged through Mikira. She liked Jenest. Her upbeat, teasing attitude reminded her of her childhood friend, Talyana, who she hadn’t seen in years. But she was here for coin, not friendship, and no one could know who she was.
“Thanks for the race.” She took the purse and tucked it into her pocket, pointing Iri toward one of the exits. Small engraved arrows marked the way out for those who knew where to look for them, remnants from when the tunnels were used to transport gemstones. After most of the city’s mines dried up, the tunnels were forgotten.
Now the walls had become a mural of one-way messages, from peeling recruitment posters for the Eternal War to notes chalked onto the stone. Most were from Celairen refugees flooding in from the war being fought over their land, hoping lost friends and family would pass the same way, but others were last words left by Enderlish fleeing the kingdom’s military draft, both driven by the war to exchange places in the tunnels’ darkness.
Her brother had never gotten the chance to run—because of her.
Mikira leaned forward to scratch behind Iri’s dark ears. “Someday we’ll ride in a real race. For Lochlyn.”
The horse’s ears flicked at the sound of her brother’s name. Iri had been his, once. But Lochlyn had died in the war, and all Mikira and Iri had left of him was each other.
They emerged from the tunnel into the early morning light of Ashfield Street, where preparations for the upcoming Illinir were already underway. Hosted once every ten years by House Kelbra, the Illinir was a brutal series of four magical races that would take place throughout the month alongside the Illinir festival, all in celebration of the day the Goddess Sendia sent the four Harbingers to bring magic to humanity.
People would visit from all over the continent, from southeastern Kenzeni merchants selling new technologies to Vynan politicians desperate to keep the Eternal War from spreading northward. She’d heard there was even an entrant from as far south as Yaroya, where enchants were fast growing in popularity.
Soon, vendors and performers would swarm the street, children and adults alike donning sinuous tails reflecting the Harbinger Lyzairin, or masks made to look like hammered metal in honor of Rach, the Armored Bull. Already she spotted a young girl bearing Skylis’s crimson wings, her arms outstretched as if to carry her into the air like the great bird she mimicked.
A memory tumbled loose, taking her back ten years ago, when Lochlyn had gone as Aslir, the Bright Star. Mikira, displeased with her Skylis wings, had cried until he placed his mane of white feathers about her neck and said, “There. Now you shine too.”
An enchanted coach blared its horn, startling her and Iri, but she kept him steady as the horseless vehicle jerked around them. The tumult was enough to spook any country horse without a docility charm, and Iri was enchanted to sense danger: to him, that meant everything in this cursed stone jungle.
Eager to escape the noise, she took a shortcut to the Traveler’s Road encircling the city, where they passed only the occasional messenger or cart full of coveted grain heading for the military outposts near the border. A short ride later, she diverted Iri up the gravel path to her family’s ranch—and nearly pulled him to a halt.
Something wasn’t right.
She knew the ranch like her own heartbeat. The rich, earthy scent of it. The sounds of horses and gentle feel of the place that always calmed her like nothing else.
Instead, as Iri trotted up the winding drive, her family’s white two-story farmhouse was quiet—too quiet, like the deafening moment after a gunshot. Her father ought to be in the pastures already, her sisters chasing each other through the long grass beside him, clinging to their last moments of freedom before they went to school for the day.
But the yard was empty.
She leapt off Iri’s back and sprinted up the front steps. Throwing open the door, she staggered into the foyer, stumbling over Ailene’s carelessly discarded shoes.
She’d barely regained her balance when a voice called, “Kira? Is that you?”
“Father?” Relief swept through her as he appeared in his study doorway, clutching a pale gold verillion stalk. Dark shadows rimmed green eyes heavy with sleep, his simple vest and shirt rumpled from another late night spent poring over old books. He blinked at her, then at the open door letting in the daylight.
“Is it morning already?” he asked. “I must have lost track of time.”
Mikira choked out a strangled sound. He’d lost himself in his research again. That was why he hadn’t been out in the fields.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she said tightly.
“I’m getting close, Kira, I can feel it.” He held up the verillion plant. “I think the answer is in how the verillion’s magic binds to things. Actually, can I borrow your knives? The stone—”
“Stop it!” Mikira snapped.
The silence that pooled between them was deep enough to drown in. Mikira adverted her gaze to the plant in her father’s hand, its glow of magic gone. Like this the verillion was harmless, but when plucked fresh from a field, the stalks burning with a golden light, they were full of magic people craved. She’d seen the way it consumed people, poisoning them from the inside out like it had her mother years ago.
Her father was convinced the ranch’s salvation lay in innovative enchantments, using the verillion to harness new wonders, rather than just breeding what enchants remained in their stables. But with every night of research, he put his life at risk. As an unlicensed enchanter, all it would take was one hint of magic to the wrong person, and the Anthir would come for him. The Council of Lords claimed the enchanter registry was meant to prevent a repeat of the Cataclysm, when the four Heretics destroyed the kingdom of Kinahara in their pursuit of magic, but Mikira knew the truth: it was all just for profit and power.
“I left you dinner in the oven,” he said as if she hadn’t just all but spat in his face. He didn’t ask where she’d been. Where his seventeen-year-old daughter went every night and why she returned with bags of coin. He simply smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that never failed to warm her. She let it, because being angry at him was more than she could bear.
If only her father could use his magic openly, they could diversify and strengthen their breeding lines, save their failing ranch. But every horse’s origin was closely tracked, and people would question it if they suddenly possessed a powerful new enchant. All they could do was rely on the careful game of legal breeding and hope they made enough sales to purchase new stock.
That, and Mikira’s races. Without her winnings, they would never make their monthly tax payments to House Kelbra.
“Kira!” A high voice barely preceded the girl bounding down the stairs, her alabaster skin flush with excitement. At thirteen, Ailene was already taller than Mikira, with a lean, athletic build that she put to use besting the boys in backyard races. Part of Mikira always longed to warn her that soon they’d get tired of her competitive nature, her excitability. That a time would come when instead of loving her for these things, they would judge her, like they had Mikira. But she couldn’t bring herself to break her sister’s spirit.
“Kira, can I stay home from classes today?” She clasped her hands together. “I’ll help you with your chores.”
“Don’t listen to her!” Nelda appeared on the stairs, her lips pushed to the side in what Ailene called her “mothering scowl.” Despite being four years younger than Ailene, she’d always had the disposition of an old lady, something their brother had often teased her about. “She just wants to go to the races with Era Keene.”
“That’s not true!” Ailene shot back.
Mikira smiled at their bickering, until she heard it: that sound that haunted her waking moments—the crunch of gravel beneath wheels, unaccompanied by hooves.
There was only one person who ever visited them in an enchanted coach.
Copyright © 2023 by Kalyn Josephson
