Chapter 1
There had never truly been an Amber Day on the Crescent Islands. According to the calendar, perhaps—but never in the skies. No twin suns ever shone here, much to the relief of the islands' few inhabitants. Instead of hiding indoors or huddling in baths filled with melting ice—just as the Faceless Ones advised—locals lit bonfires and held celebrations. After all, there was no shortage of wood to burn.
Stories about the Crescent Islands abounded. They said the forests could kill you; that the tribes performed sacrifices year-round and scorned visitors from the mainland; that an unseen people dwelled here—beings capable of twisting minds and luring wanderers deep into the thickets, leaving them like broken dolls in murky swamps, praying that wild beasts might claim them. The wildlife was equally fearsome—clawed, fanged, and ever-hungry. Even a harmless hedgehog, as the rumors went, might steal your fingers. Enveloped in a perpetual fog, the forest beckoned with its hidden, flickering lights that attracted strangers like moths to flame, while wet tree trunks and slick humus seemed to cry out: Kill. Shatter. Maim. Legends whispered that when the gods forged the world, they consigned their foulest creatures to these lands.
Many had attempted to reach the islands—people of every race and station—but the raging sea always swallowed their ships just short of shore. The islands lay in an eerie calm, reminiscent of the eye of a storm, which only deepened the dread of any uninvited guest. Those few who returned carried with them tales of unspeakable horrors.
Perhaps Faith was the first to choose to remain here by her own will.
And it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as Terakir, where Imperial Elementals danced a macabre ballet of death—burning rebels alive, forcing them into the earth, strangling them until only desiccated mummies remained. Then, the high-ranking Nine, in service of the crown, would reanimate the fallen only to have them slaughtered anew. Many of those re-slain had been Faith’s companions in past years.
On the brink of her own demise, as she glimpsed the edge of the Gray Shadow’s shroud, Faith had simply vanished—lost amidst the carnage, praying only that no living soul would find her. Nor any soulless one, for that would be too much to bear. All the grand ideals—of regicide, of prophecies, of being chosen—had crashed against the relentless tide of elemental magic. Faith had merely yearned for a long, peaceful life, yet she found herself ensnared in murky schemes and doomed endeavors.
Throughout history, such selective destinies had never borne good fruit. Most sorcerers practiced only their own branch of magic and managed to live, if not happily, then at least quietly. But there were exceptions. Faith could recall vivid examples: the Cursed (may the Shadow spare his soul), Dilian Hakki (may damnation be his lot), Anvir’s current emperor (may he soon decay into obscurity), Frey Geir (once the fae’s darling—his name never spoken in anger), and even herself, Faith Gilmore. Fate, it seemed, ensured that those chosen never lived long enough for the world to remember them.
She still couldn’t fathom the miracle that had carried her to these islands—into the spectral, often unidentifiable grasp of the fae. With wounds that would have killed any ordinary person, she’d survived thanks to the invisible ones, whose method was not to heal by touch or conjuration, but to whisper secret ways to persevere. If your will was strong enough, even advice that defied every modern formula of magic could become a lifeline.
Faith recalled, with a vague clarity, how three years ago she had siphoned raw power from the very core of her being. The maddening whispers guided her to staunch the bleeding, soothe the burns, mend torn ligaments and fractured bones—all while she teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. She had drunk from a nearby stream, plucked rare, bright red berries from tangled undergrowth, and crawled on her elbows when she had no strength left to stand. When the rain fell, she lay in its downpour, fighting to keep her
in her warmth alive. At times, she wasn’t even sure if she was recovering—or if she would survive. Yet the fae, betting on her fate, had described her potential future: a grotesque, multi-armed wretch with no backbone and mouths for suckers. That, oddly enough, spurred her on.
Then, one fateful day, she encountered a man whose shock at her appearance was matched only by the tremor in his voice. Clad in garments reminiscent of a bygone era—a light shirt, trousers, a caftan, and sturdy boots—he knelt and placed a quivering bundle before her.
“Fairy’s child, please… help,” he pleaded, his voice nearly lost in a whisper.
For the first time since Terakir, Faith paused to take in her own disheveled reflection: her ribs protruded through ragged fabric, her translucent skin revealed glowing blue veins, and her short, black hair—barely regrown after the firebenders’ onslaught—framed a face marred by scars and broken nails. Her crooked leg, a painful reminder of past battles, made it clear that she was far from the pristine miracle the man had envisioned. Yet he saw in her not a monster, but the salvation of his child.
“I’ll pay any price,” he added, breaking through her internal critique.
Faith approached the bundle. Inside the tattered blanket lay a child—no longer an infant, but a four-year-old boy, feverish and restless, his eyes veiled in a milky white haze.
“What happened?” Faith asked in a hoarse, unfamiliar voice. “I’m no fortune-teller—tell me exactly.”
“They say it’s brain fever,” the man muttered. “Our herbalists tried, and after much effort, they conceded that my son would be lost in days. I wouldn’t have come if I weren’t desperate. I swear, I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
Faith sighed, wondering if perhaps the gods had left her to serve the Crescent tribes for a reason. She reached inward, into the very core of her magic, and listened as it echoed. Healing another was delicate work—you had to unpick the mechanisms of the soul without tearing it asunder.
“His age? His race? His type of magic?” she inquired, recalling Renee’s endless barrage of questions. Data mattered, even if only for future reference.
The man hesitated. “There are no warlocks among us, fairy’s child. He’s human—four years old. His name is Khosrow.”
The mention of the name caused Faith to wince. Names were heavier than faces—etched permanently in memory. She didn’t press further.
With deliberate care, she unwrapped the child. His vacant eyes revealed resignation, yet she was determined to mend him. The fae’s whispers swirled around her, directing her where to press, where to cut. Commanded to draw blood, she pricked his skin with a stiletto that had, against all odds, survived her previous ordeals. At first, the trickle was slow—escaping from his nose, ears, pooling in his mouth—but gradually, the flow steadied. His labored breathing softened; his fever receded.
“A Faceless would charge a dozen Gwalds for a job like this,” Faith muttered, a wry smile touching her lips despite the dire circumstances. “But I’m rather hungry.”
Raising her gaze to the man’s ashen face, she added, “He’s your son, isn’t he?”
A nod confirmed it.
“He’ll live. And blood washes out in cold water, if that matters to you. Now, hand over whatever food you have, and we’ll call it even.”
Without protest, the man removed a canvas bag from his back and placed it before her, then took his child and staggered back into the depths of the forest. Later, the fae informed Faith that the man had emerged unscathed—and she was grateful for that. The simple fare of meat and bread only filled her a bit more.
That day, for the first time, Faith allowed herself a moment to truly observe the settlement. It wasn’t much more than a vast clearing—a carpet of soft, verdant grass dotted with wild berries, hemmed in by the yawning, dark forest. The ghostly fae didn’t require walls or roofs; tangible structures were beyond their touch. Yet here lay their gathering place, the heart of their wanderings.
Scattered about was a heap of rubble resembling the remnants of a house: a stone oven, fragments of pottery in its firebox, and several glass jars containing mysterious substances. Faith, without remorse, had emptied these jars onto the ground. The sizzling, foaming liquid had eaten away at the soil, and from that moment on, the days passed in an unsettling monotony.
The forest—and the fae—allowed passage only a couple of times a month for those seeking aid. Faith dispensed what she could, demanding in return the supplies she needed. Occasionally, she would send off the more adept among the fae to tend to repairs. Unscrupulous visitors who failed to keep their word were swiftly dealt with. Faith’s early inexperience had led her to let them go, only for the inhabitants of the Crescent Islands to later discover these men mutilated or dismembered on the forest’s edge or back in the city. In such cases, the so-called fairy’s child would shift responsibility onto the wild beasts, and she would strip the bodies of any belongings—remnants utterly useless to the dead shrouded in the Gray Shadow.
The fae themselves were as varied and bizarre as the legends suggested. They did not hesitate to speak of their own peculiarities. Only those touched by magic could hear their whispers, and a rare few could even see them—a fact Faith secretly appreciated, for she preferred the comfort of her own obscurity. Among them, one figure stood out: Ingrid, whose legs bent backwards at the knees, a tail sprouted from her navel, her breasts adorned with tiny shells, and her head capable of swiveling like an owl. Ingrid had been the first to find Faith and was relentless in insisting that it was through her knowledge of the Faceless Ones’ magic that the crippled girl had survived. Faith offered no objection, though Benjamin—a six-fingered, tall hunchback with enormous ears and bare, toe-less feet—objected vehemently. He claimed Ingrid’s methods were the most preposterous nonsense he’d ever encountered. Other fae were also at odds: there was the four-armed, hare-faced Macton and the sprawling, shapeless slime named Louise, all arguing over who had contributed more to their new charge.
Even though the fae were, in their own right, triple the eccentricity of any mortal, they held knowledge that no Tower of Magic preserved in its libraries. Some formulas known to the common folk had been lost, others never even conceived. Their methods resembled the mad scribblings of deranged sorcerers—contradicting fundamental principles, yet working flawlessly in the hands of those favored by magic.
Unfortunately, even the fae found Faith’s spontaneous outbursts of magic to be too erratic. The villagers tried to recall the last time they had witnessed such raw power but found themselves stymied, as if a name had been eluded from their tongues. The incessant chatter among the fae—shouting, bickering—often left them with splitting headaches. After a year, Faith learned to shrug it off; after two, she erected an invisible barrier around herself. For nearly a decade, she wandered the village in a daze, isolated by silence—no birdsong, no rustling leaves, no murmuring fae. That silence proved even more maddening than the constant crackle of magic in the air.
Then, as suddenly as it had descended, the barrier dissolved. One day, a fae rushed to Faith seeking clarification—a request she couldn’t satisfy. She had become an almost contemptible student: the magic of the Faceless Ones flowed through her effortlessly, while the Sixes’ tricks with spatial pockets were child’s play. Yet everything else defied the taught formulas, operating in opposition, simultaneously parallel and perpendicular to their intended patterns. She had been instructed in the art of lighting candles—sealing them in blocks of ice so that blue flames danced in her palm—and nurturing greenery, which, in her hands, erupted as a lightning bolt that split the nearest tree in half.
After one heated session of errors and corrections, Ingrid crossed her arms and commanded:
“Repeat the spell.”
Faith shrugged and attempted what should have been a simple measurement of the stream at the clearing’s edge. Instead, the ground itself warped beneath her.
“And again!” Ingrid insisted, and once more, the result was the same distortion.
“Now try another formula—something of the fourth type. You react more calmly to those. Then return to your work on the creek!”
The flame on her fingertips fizzled into a puddle, and her next attempt raised the earth in a clumsy heap. Faith mentally resolved that her next guest would be given a shovel to re-bury the disrupted ground.
“Well, that’s one for the record!” Ingrid clapped her hands. “Let’s observe it for another month, and I’ll see what I can devise.”
From that day on, Faith’s third year on the Crescent Islands began in earnest. Her chief challenge was the enchanted carrier—a Card, as she called it—which had to be imbued with magic without being drowned, scorched, or cut. The fae’s emissary began frequenting neighboring islands in search of the elusive Six, though, as her first client had noted, no warlocks roamed these parts. More than once, Faith had nearly lost her mind poring over maps until she ended up striking blank spaces with every implement she could find. At times, the village transformed—a barren desert, then a snowy expanse. There were dismal days when she could not keep her feet on solid earth and struggled to descend trees after a miscast spell, nearly shattering her skull. The glade would flood or burn; even the great martyr stream would dry up. Then, with characteristic determination, the fae’s child spat at fate and set about restoring a source of water by hand.
Exhausted from dredging the floodplain, Faith collapsed into bed in a mood as dismal as her circumstances. Outside, the wind howled, and the familiar murmurs and rustlings of the woods encircled her refuge. These natural sounds were usually tolerable, yet that night she was roused from sleep by the unmistakable sensation of something scraping at her door. Neither beasts nor fae customarily dared approach her dwelling.
At first, Faith hoped it was but delirium. But then came a full, insistent knock. Only two possibilities existed: either some fool had come or someone truly in need. Typically, the foolish never made it this far, so with a resigned sigh, Faith opened the door.
There, on her doorstep, stood a little girl—a toddler clad in a silly, ruffled dress adorned with stubborn burdocks. In the darkness, the child squinted to discern shapes, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
“Are you a child of the fae?” the girl asked in a halting voice.
“Yes,” Faith replied, the word coming almost automatically, while mentally noting that this visitor doubled her count. “What do you want?”
“I was told you don’t travel to the neighboring islands. I should have brought her to you sooner, but my grandmother’s legs gave out—it’s all my fault. I can’t tell anyone it was me who messed up, because we have no witchcraft, and if Grandma dies, I’ll never forgive myself. Please help her! We have no one who can heal—I've tried every herb, potion, and poultice my grandmother insisted on, but nothing works… and she’s dying!”
“Enough!” Faith cut in sharply, silencing the endless cascade of words. “You’re a magician, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the child nodded eagerly.
“Then did you miscast the formula?”
“No! I got it right! Grandma says I’m capable—that I can even leave these islands—then… ” Her voice broke into a torrent of tears.
“Quiet now! What’s the spell?” Faith demanded.
“I was reinforcing the fabric—I meant to create a canvas. It was a beautiful embroidery, but I spilled it on my grandmother. Now her legs are useless—she can’t walk—and it’s all my fault—I—I…I—” The girl wept, her words tumbling out in a rush. Even as her tears fell, Faith’s mind raced, forming connections until she finally asked, “You’re Sixesick, aren’t you?”
“Grandma says you shouldn’t call me that, and I ought to be offended—but I always listen to her…” the child murmured.
“Now listen, my dear,” Faith said, astonished by her own luck. “I know that amplification is far from your starting point. You understand how to work with five-syllable formulas and channel them into items, don’t you?” She paused, a spark of hope lighting her eyes. “Give me one of those formulas, and I’ll accompany you to the ends of the earth.”
