"Sweeper girl," shouted a shrill voice.

Glancing across the room, she met the pale eyes of SanMother Zeera.

"What are you waiting for? You've been at Momuria for half an age. The rest aren't going to dust themselves."

Shale turned back and finished the polishing. Her mind was a tangle of thoughts, with no clear thread. The task took her to the end of the night, until the townsfolk filtered out. After the vestibule doors were closed and locked, she blew out the candles, then left the broom, dustpan, and duster back in the storage room.

Supper was a small bowl of pottage. When she finished it, she retreated back to the junior dorm and sank into her straw bed. One by one, the other juniors arrived from the refectory and went to their own beds.

The breathing of her peers soon became louder and rhythmic as they departed this realm, falling into the land of sleep. Despite her best efforts to join them, Shale remained awake, staring at the ceiling. She could still hear the farmer's voice, looping around in her head, speaking of evil dogs, whispering trees, and little boys clawing open their own stomachs.

Eventually, feeling that sleep was a lost cause, she dragged her satchel out from under her bed, slung it over her shoulder, and left the dorm. She was extra careful when passing the senior solars, only quickening her pace when she entered the yard, where the chill night air bit the flesh beneath her gown.

She entered the belltower, climbed the spiral stairs, and emerged onto the bell loft. Then she drew over to the stone arched window and nestled down onto the pane.

Hundreds of slated and shingled rooftops decorated the town below. Most of the windows and doorways were closed and dark, but on the south side, the inns, taverns, and alehouses still glowed with the light of candles and lanterns. Their distant music and raucous conversation could be heard even from here, interspersed with the sounds of their laughter.

Further on, stretched the seemingly endless expanse of the Arinoa Sea, where the moonlight-illuminated phosphorous danced with the reflected stars.

The sea was a gateway to the other greatlands. There were fifteen in total, but some scholars believed Yim was larger, that it held secrets beyond what had currently been discovered. Shale had never left Yern. She'd only heard stories of the other greatlands. She desperately wanted to see them with her own eyes, but knew that'd never happen. Her place was here, trapped in this tiny town, until she was old and grey.

Sighing, she opened her satchel and retrieved her leather-bound book. This was it, she thought, running her hand over the cracked spine. This was her escape from these shores.

With great care, she opened to the first page and was greeted by that familiar smell. Like an old friend. The parchment was yellow, dry, and flaky from the ages, but the ink was still dark and legible.

The introduction was written by a Jwanish man named Has-dal-ungui. It read:

In antiquity, it was popularly posited among contemporary scholars that the art of magic was the expression of unlimited potential, and therefore abided by no rules. But having devoted my entire life to the study of the higher arts, I hereby refute these claims. There are laws in all things that exist, including magic. In my time, I have observed a definitive ten.

1. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Magic is not pure creation. Rather, it is the manipulation of pre-existing energy.

2. Magic, like language, is both a learnt and inherent art. The capability exists naturally within those predisposed to it, but it must be consciously learnt and practised to fully express it.

3. The power of the caster must outweigh the power of the spell, plus the sum of the energy.

Eyes hungry, Shale read through them, mouthing the words before she came across them, such was her familiarity with the text. She read right until the last one:

10. Magic creates no closed loops. Every door must have a key.

She found herself grinning. Most people feared magic, but she thought it was wonderful. Philosophers and Stargazers believed that magic was at its most potent at the point of creation, and since then, Yim had been like a punctured wineskin. Magic had been leaking out of their world, until now, in the sixth of the known ages, it had vanished altogether.

Except five years ago, the Skysphere predicted an unnatural war soon to arrive and there were even rumours of Magizyra. Was it possible for magic to return, she wondered. When a wineskin was punctured, the wine didn't cease to exist, it just went somewhere else. Was it possible that with the right repairs, magic could come back from that somewhere else?

Sadly, none of that concerned her. Nothing happened in Silverwood. Even if the world was thrust into a new, magical age, she'd still be here.

Folding to the next page, she read the first story, which was Trinity of the Eldest God.

Contained within the book were seventeen stories. Each was written in different handwriting, by a different author, at a different point in time.

They began all the way back in the unknown ages, travelling right up to their present, the Age of Illumination. Some told tales of great heroes, such as The Arch of Light or Dread of the Undead. Others were spooky folk tales, such as Neverman or The Rain Wraith. Then there were the new tales, which were possible extrapolations of true history, such as Darkstorm and War of the Red Mist.

She consumed these with an ample appetite, in no particular order, until drawing to one of the oldest, scariest stories.

The Wrath of Murgal took place during the Fractured Age. When the Magizyra were down to their final numbers and desperate to win the war against men, they resorted to something unholy. They used the material left from dead Titans to construct a weapon of their own.

Murgal.

But soon, the faux Titan grew a will of its own. It went on a mass killing spree, totalling many Eloronian cities until the Magizyra were dwindled down to an endangered species. It would've swallowed all of Yim, were it not for the final remnants of Magizyra, banding together to create a new weapon.

The Andul Hammer, crafted from the final scraps of Titan material, but imbued with wards to keep its intent pure, was given to the greatest known warrior of the age, an Orian prince, who sailed to Elorona. Prince Rabarshan took the hammer to the Plains of Náibrakarn, where he fought the faux Titan for three days and three nights before he found an opening. He planted the hammer into Murgal's heart, breaking his body and shattering his soul into a million pieces.

At the end of the story was a string of complex symbols, a single word. Shale had never found a match for the language in any book in their vast library. She could only assume it was a language now dead to the realm, which was a testament to the age of her book.

She continued to read ravenously, even as the town quieted from the closing of the inns and taverns. She read right until the very last story. Her favourite story.

The Song of the Phoenix was about a young girl named Anavra, who lived in a secluded village with her mother, separated from her father, her brother, and her friends. She begged to leave, but her mother insisted the world was dangerous and they must remain hidden. So Anavra made the best of it. She spent much of her time reading and would often walk through the forest just south of their village.

During a stroll one evenfall, she saw a bolt of golden light plummet from the sky, into the trees. She rushed toward the trajectory and found a creature of light entangled in the brush at the base of a jagged ridge. It was a phoenix. It squawked and struggled desperately. For hours, Anavra tried to calm it, but it made aggressive, warning sounds any time she got near. Until she sang to it, a song she remembered from her grandmother.

It calmed enough for her to get close to tend its wounds with water and a poultice. She freed it, but it was unable to fly. It could barely move, so she built it a makeshift shelter. By nightfall, she had to return home, but made a point to visit it the next day, with food, more water, and medicine and salves.

Each day she returned to it, the phoenix was slower. It became dimmer and dimmer, until it faded from a warm golden to a pale white. Its injuries were oozing and lined with red veins. Anavra was a trained healer. She had come to terms with the fact that her visits were less about healing the creature, and more about giving it comfort and company in its final days. It would only glow slightly brighter when she sang to it.

On the ninth night, those red veins had cracked all over the phoenix's body like intricate webbing. Seeing that the creature was barely breathing, Anavra knelt and wept between choruses as she sang to it, right until it fell apart, into ashes beneath her hands.

After that, she continued her daily walks through the forest. Until one day, a couple years later, she was stilled by a song, echoing through the trees. It was her grandmother's song. Racing as fast as she could, she reached the solidified ash mound of the phoenix's grave, just in time to see it explode with golden light. A baby phoenix, no bigger than a pigeon, emerged and flew around Anavra, spinning and twirling. It sang her grandmother's song. Their song. The Song of the Phoenix.

Grinning, Shale heaved a sigh as she closed the book. It was difficult to say why this story, in particular, was her favourite. It didn't have the greatest battle, the noblest hero, or the most terrifying monster. It just made her feel good, like a warm hug, transferred through words.

Maybe it was because of how similar she was to Anavra and how much she could relate to her. The other stories were simple escapism, but this had the right sprinkling of truth, or at least, a truth which spoke to her.

She slid the book back into her satchel. Her satchel. It'd been thirteen years since a three-year-old Shale had been found on the monastery steps by SanMother Felda, with nought but this satchel in her possession. There was no letter of explanation of why her parents didn't want her, just a storybook and an amulet.

Digging into the pack, she brought out the amulet and held it in her palm. The circle of faded bronze had a strange symbol engraved onto it, similar to those at the end of the story, The Wrath of Murgal, but also different, as if belonging to an older dialect.

She'd tried to research it in the library too, but had wasted months of study sessions without even coming close to an answer. How could this be all that was left of her former life? A storybook and a useless amulet.

As she stuffed the amulet back into her satchel too, she became aware of something on her peripherals. Through the arch, she saw something massive looming against the horizon. It was a monster. Murgal had come to gobble Silverwood up.

But no. Common sense quelled the fires of her imagination and she soon recognised the silhouette as a ship.

Eleven, it was a large ship though. The last time she'd seen a vessel of that size had been-

A secret hope flared inside her, like the final choke of the uncovered embers to a fire one believed had burnt out long ago.

But as she watched it crawl toward the docks, she saw the plain ship was nowhere near so large and magnificent as the White Nimbus. Odds were that it was a trading galley, barely fit for a merchant lord, never mind a Kersaja.

She sighed and scolded herself for even entertaining the thought. She should have learnt a long time ago that such hopes only left pain and disappointment.

In the end, she slung her satchel back over her shoulder and went back to bed.