The Mage's Heart

d the dying coals of the evening fire, we spin tales of naughty children stolen never t

t births, and diviners to foretell the weather, but to fear sorcerers or sorceresses w

r the Fae with their deceptive beauty,

other’s denial was final and

, and the cold had seeped into the gloomy room, the dark wood of the furnishings and the floor fading

y carried in with the wood, froze when it was exposed and then scurried away, its long hairy legs disappearing back into the pile from which it would, no dou

The fabrics now had faded and become threadbare, and had not been replaced by new, the occupants of the bed no longe

e surfaces were dusty, the floor crunched with debris, and the room carried with it the scent of stale body odour a

n to sleeping else

sted fingers remarked upon hearing of the birth of my brother, Fiane. He gave challenge to that with the

lightly to seed. His belt did not tie as tightly as it once had, and his dark hair held more silver, but h

the little face, screwed up and reddened with fury, and smell the soiled rags he wore. So new t

ed ribbon. No one has done anything to anger the Fae Court or an

caught my skirt as I rose, and I pulled a face as the

he turned back

illbirths had stolen the colour from her skin, the light from her eyes, and the flesh from her bones. She was feverish. The birth had not been easy for her. Sh

ned with the milk she refused to give to the hungry baby. She smelled of body odour, illness, old blood, and now sour cre

.” He wrapped the baby in the blanket lovingly woven by my mother during her first pregnancy, and used briefly in infancy by myself, and no

ss, I could see my father, his cloak dark over his shoulders, striding off down the street. The afternoon was fading into evening, but his passage

d eggs caught in the weave of fine sticks and down feathers. I wonder where the pa

er,” my mother mu

lways been kind to me. She had a six-month-old baby that was widely known, but never openly ac

hat kept the locks so lush. Once, I was told, my parents had loved each other, before time

invited into her company as she had come, in recent years, to resent me for living when the boy children had not, but she had summoned me here today,

told me, fervently. “You can do it. Offer th

dens from where-ever they could get them, only to return them, twenty-years older the very next day, grieving being parted

being stolen by one as a wife, was being a recipient of their costly altruism. A gift from the F

? They’ll be more handsome, and younger than Tilef. It’s better for y

to read, to sew, with gentle kindness, and loving looks. She had taken care of her appearance and overseen the house, so that the maids had never been slovenly. The hous

s no longer the envy of our neighbours, no longer clean, no longer bright, and no longer home to my father. He

skin in clawed demand. “Take my cloak, the blue one. They favour blue. G

t around me, and I had only the one suitor in the village, Tilef, twenty years my senior and who had already buried two wives. I had turned him d

she released her grip, exhau

e is yours mother. This is just

of sound, like the boiling of a kettle. Her eyes glittered with

dn’t been for the good-witch, Isyl, neither of us would have lived. Isyl… Isyl would help us, I was sure. She came every year to the vi

decay of the household, a reflection of the decay of the marriage between my parents. The last time she had been here, she had told me

changeling then I will do as you ask.” Perhaps I could apprentice myself to Isyl, offer to keep her house for

d to sleep. I sat gazing at her, my heart tight within my chest. I loved the mother she had once been to me and grieved t