The Hob's Bargain

hunched in the corner of the small cellar behind a barrel of flour. Boots thudded dully on the floor above me. I couldn’t tell how many people there were, but certainly more than one.
    I remembered the big butcher’s knife sitting beside the ham, and I scurried out of my hiding place to get it. I wished Quilliar had shown me how to fight with a knife when I’d asked him, but he’d been growing increasingly conscious of the differences between boys and girls. He told me to ask Father, knowing it would be useless.
    Wood splintered above me, and I ducked, certain they’d smashed through the floor—it sounded like someone had thrown our bed from the loft. The floorboards were new and tight. I couldn’t see through them to assess the damage the thieves were doing, but they couldn’t see me either.
    I heard them laughing, and I scuttled back behind the barrel. I hoped they wouldn’t think it odd there was no meat in the house, or they might start looking for it. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the hollow sound of their boots on the floor.
    Who’d have thought the sight had tried to warn me of danger? It never had before. I hunched down against the earth floor, and something more than cold began to seep in my bones.
    Magic. I knew what it had to be, thought I’d never felt it before. The ground began to glow dimly, sullen red with small bits of gold here and there. As I watched, the bits of gold began to grow bigger and the red duller.
    I worried for a moment that the raiders would see it, or that they’d caused it somehow, but the force of the emanation soon drove all thoughts of raiders from my head.
    My body vibrated from contact with the earth. Power wrenched through me, making it hard to breathe. Did the bloodmages feel this way as they stood over their victims? By all rights I should have been terrified, but the sweet taste of magic prevented fear from touching me.
    Red was woven over the gold in layers like a giant woven cloth, holding the gold back.
    I stared at it, and suddenly knew what it was I saw.
    Magic hadn’t always been wrestled from pain and death. Once, so long ago the memory of it had disappeared except for Gram’s tales told in secret on dark winter nights, one mageborn child to another, magic had been a joyous thing summoned from the earth. But jealous bloodmages had bound it until no one could use the wildling’s power.
    Beneath the red blanket, gold magic called to me, singing tenderly in my soul. Something snapped, and one thread of red came unbound. Then another.
    Layer by layer the bands of red were being torn away, and the power of it lifted me off the ground. I hovered a fingerspan off the earth as one by one the angry red cords gave way. When the crimson ties broke, I could feel the corrupted touch of bloodmagic pull in places I’d never felt before—like a hair caught deep in my throat. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel it all the same. The blood cords pulled me by their ties to the land of my birth, until I saw …
    â€¦a tower, dark with the force of the mage within. He called the magic tied to the land. I felt the strength of him like the heat of the smithy forge. Madness lurked in the heart of his call, adding its strength to his purpose.
    Then the vision was gone. With it went the last of the binding spells of the bloodmages. I felt them go—as any mageborn native to this land would have. For a moment the floor glowed brilliantly gold, then the light traveled up the walls as if driven by demons, fading, leaving me sitting, exalted, on the ground, alone in the dark cellar.
    My eyes told me the magic was gone, but where I touched the ground, my body still tingled with its sweet warmth. I felt clean, though I’d never known I was dirty. I put my fingers against the dirt of the cellar floor and knew the bloodmage’s hold on the magic of the land was gone.
    A loud shout drew my attention to the raiders above me: I’d forgotten about them. Without the protection of the magic, fear returned apace. For a moment, I thought they’d seen the light as well, and waited for them to storm the cellar to investigate.
    My heart pounded, my breath came in quick pants, but they were only fighting over some piece of loot. Gram’s silver mirror, probably.
    Let them fight about it. Let them just go. The longer they were here, the better the chance they would find me. They’d been here for a long time now: