Name: Sophie Edwards
Title: Mage: The Guardian’s Oath
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pitch:
On the third day of the harvest month, Clara
Vedette was born. Again.
Her life lies within a village surrounded by an
invisible, exit-less wall. She spends hours watching the forested outside,
longing to escape. So, when a way out appears in the midst of a rainstorm, she
leaps at the chance to explore.
But the wall protected her, and beyond the
borders of her village, her gifts expose her to raging power and growing
corruption.
Meanwhile, an army amasses on the wasteland
ready to fight for pure magic – power that wielded wrongly would subject all to
eternal misery. Outnumbered three-to-one, only one thing can stop the cunning
controller: the weapon Clara hid eighteen centuries ago. But with no memory of
her past, she must figure out where it is before the hunters seeking her life
can claim their prize.
When the lines of right and wrong merge, she can
no longer tell who her true enemies are. Does she have the courage to dip into
the darkest magic? Or will she risk losing her freedom and everything she
loves?
Revision:
I had never seen the wall surrounding my
village, although I wandered the length of it countless times. Rain soaked me,
its needles numbing my skin, but I didn’t falter running my fingers along its
clear surface. The wall was smooth and cool under my fingertips, but without a
reflection of the two moons, only touch proved its existence.
It wasn’t glass. In the village, when I pressed
my nose against my cottage window, my eyes stared back at me, but when trying
it against the wall not even a flicker showed.
Someone could walk right into it, but all the
villagers avoided it, and I’d never seen a glimpse of anyone outside no matter
how fiercely my curiosity pressed.
I pounded my fist against the surface and stared
at the forest beyond.
The wall protected us. It cloaked us.
Yet after eighteen years, the village felt more
like a prison and the dangers nothing more than a myth. We were trapped, denied
any chance of adventure or exciting prospects.
I breathed in the musky scent of thorny ferns
growing nearby, perhaps warning of dangers that supposedly prowled beyond the
border’s safety. I’d never seen any of those either, and with no way out, the
rumours couldn’t be disproved.
I tore my eyes from the wall and focused on the
muddy path. My obsession with the outside landed me in trouble on more than one
occasion. If Matriarch discovered me out here again she’d send me to train with
Griff – a fate I’d rather forgo, but the need to find Lallana spurred me on.
I pressed on over the slippery ground, protected
in my boots, and allowed the moons’ light to guide my way. Both full and
bright, they lit up the path with ease.
A shimmer of light hair confirmed my suspicions,
and I frowned at the sight of Lallana perched on a branch, sheltering under the
thick canopy. Her tear streaked face shone in the moonlight, and it struck me
that she was fourteen now. She appeared far younger, though had grown so much
from the young child who followed me everywhere. Being four years older than
her, I hadn’t expected to become so close, but with her persistence at clinging
to my side and our shared training, our relationship blossomed, and we became
sisters.
I glanced back along the path and smiled at
Charlie, jogging to catch up. Even at his young age of fifteen, he cared too
much about Lallana to stay in bed.
I sidled toward her and hopped on to the branch,
glad to be out of the rain.
She startled and sniffed. “How did you know I
was here?”
“Don’t I always know how to find you?”
She gave me a little smile and wiped her cheeks
with her sleeve.
“Matriarch won’t be pleased you’re out so late,”
I said.
Her eyes widened. “You won’t tell her, Clara?”
I raised my eyebrows, and she giggled.
“No one has seen you since the training
session,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to her knees. “I was humiliated.”
“It’s easily done.”
“When was the last time you stepped on Ruben’s
robes?”
Ruben, easily the kindest of the three village
Elders, made Lallana’s embarrassment all the worse. “They’re long,” I said.
“Anyone could have tripped on them.”
“I tore them off him! Everyone saw …
everything.” She shuddered.
I held back a rising giggle. “I suppose it
didn’t help that he’s rather old.”
Charlie laughed and clambered up beside me, rain
dripping from a mess of brown hair. His eyes shone in the moons’ light and
dimples chased his grin. He arrived through the night eight years previously,
scratched, bleeding, and bruised. No explanation was offered about his
mysterious appearance, and his refusal to speak of the outside prevented any
chance of satisfying my curiosity. Matriarch asked me to keep an eye on him,
and as the only three children in the village, we quickly became family.
He nudged Lallana. “Look on the bright side. You
needed to defend yourself. Pull off anyone’s robe and you’re bound to have the upper
hand.”
Her expression softened then. “It’s a silly
class.”
“It’s important,” he said.
“Is it?” I wondered. “We’re completely safe in
the village, and with no way out …” Not for the first time, my desire to know
how he got in danced on my tongue.
“There’s the dangers, though,” he said.
“You believe that, do you?”
“Of course.”
I thought, at first, the dangers caused his
injuries, but he insisted it was simply the journey through the forest. Sharp
terrain, he said. Then, he closed up again.
“We don’t even know what the dangers are,” I
said. “Our training might not be any good against them.”
Charlie flapped a stray hair from his eyes.
“Well, when you’re in charge, you can decide what to teach.”
“I don’t want to be in charge.”
“Why not?” Lallana asked.
Because I didn’t have that kind of strength. Or
the will to be responsible for so many people. Why would anyone look up to me?
I spent more time watching the outside than I did in the village. Taking place
as an Elder would remove that freedom for good. “There are others far more
capable of that.”
“They chose you,” Charlie said.
“With no apparent reason.” I had nothing to
offer, more likely to mess up than make the village better. My strength lay in
working in the fields. Even combat and leadership held nothing in my skills or
interest. Besides, being in charge wouldn’t help sustain the population.
On the other side of the wall, shadows shifted
below the trees, unreachable by the moons’ rays.
A papilion flew beneath the canopy. Lallana
reached out with gentle speed, tenderly grasping the palm-sized creature. Its
glowing wings and feathered antennae gleamed through the shadows with the same
silvery light as the moons. She placed it on her knee, using her neck-tie to
wipe the heavy raindrops from its wings. Its low purr flitted through the
night.
I watched it silently, wondering if it, too,
felt trapped within the border.
“Clara?” Charlie frowned. “You okay?”
I sighed and dropped from the branch. Another
night staring at a desired future. Another night where nothing changed. “Come
on. Time to get back.”
Charlie and Lallana exchanged a glance.
“What?” I asked.
Charlie hopped down beside me. “Happy
eighteenth.” He reached out a balled fist and placed their gift in my palm: a
single, clear crystal, carefully attached to a piece of frayed string.
“Is this the string you keep in the box under
your bed?” I didn’t know its significance. He treasured it. Something from his
past, before he came to the village, but I’d given up questioning him years
ago.
He nodded. “We needed something to tie the
crystal to and … I wanted you to have it.”
A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t think he’d
part with it for anything.
He watched me with wide eyes. “Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect, Charlie. Thank you both.”
Lallana beamed.
He grinned. Much shorter than me, he needed to
stand on tiptoe to tie it round my neck.
The string grated against my skin but was oddly
comforting. The weight of the crystal felt unusual against my chest, and for a
moment, it tingled.
Then, the whole world shivered, and the rain
shifted.
Raindrops parted, cascading like a waterfall in
the shape of an arch, exactly where the wall stood.
