Tracey Le
The moon blotted out the sun, on the winter solstice.
Natalia watched the morning sun in its young radiance. With the cuff stone around her neck, she lifted a hand, and bent the rays around into the room.
Anthea woke up, bleary. She rummaged in her bag, and pulled out her scarf, wrapping it around her neck.
Anthea pulled her cuffstone out of the bag where she had stashed it. She put it around her neck, clicking it into place. The gemstones winked back at her in the mirror.
She crawled into the bed, pulled the blanket over head. Thinking about the day, she started sobbing again, and wept until she fell asleep.
Cynthia brought out the blankets and sat on the couch.
"So, you still hanging out with Saskia?" Rosabella asked Evelyn, eyeing her as she popped another crisp into her mouth.
"Haven't seen her since last equinox," Evelyn replied.
Rosabella rolled her eyes. "She's hiding from us. She needs to give me back my game board."
Evelyn broke into a short laugh. "She kept asking me to give the refuge fire cuffstone so she could play with her boyfriend."
"Right."
Evelyn quickly looked around, then leant forward and lowered her voice. "Tanya would have noticed the next day if it was gone."
Rosabella laughed.
"What's your name?" Rosabella asked the girl with the blonde wavy hair.
"Anthea," she replied.
Natalia stirred the pot, avoiding the eyes of Marissa, the social worker who was showing the new girl around.
Tatiana glanced curiously at the girl who had just arrived, her face streaked with tears, her blonde hair in tangles.
She noticed the bracelet of twinkling topazes on her wrist, and the golden stone at the centre of the cuff around her neck.
The girl wiped her eyes, and caught Tatiana looking at her. She hid her arm under the cloak and turned away.
Anthea was a ministerial princess. Her hair was usually twined in a plait like a crown around her head. But now the plait had come undone, and her fringe was a twisted mess of curly hair among masses of blonde waves.
When she saw her father lying limp over his morning meal, she had him carried into his room, thinking that he was ill.
She had barely returned to her own room to search for cures, when cloaked shadows shifted to reveal someone.
She fled. She went into hiding and sought shelter at a woman's refuge.
Seven young sorcerers race to take control of magical shrines now overturned by rebellious factions, in a fantastical world ruled by the dualisms of aqua & fire and solar & lunar sorcery.
During the winter solstice on a small planet in a binary star system, Lunar insurgents overthrow the ruling Solar faction.
