The Lost Seeker

As the oldest of seven fairy siblings, Bel grew up quickly, taking care of her younger brothers and sisters while her mother earned coin. In her village, magic schools are segregated: the Magistrate oversees the boys’ formal education. The girls learn at the healer’s knee. Unfortunately for Bel, her daily chores leave little time to learn much of anything except little tricks here and there to make sure the fire stays in the hearth and the porridge doesn’t boil over.

She doesn’t like school much, anyway. And who needs spells when raw, wild magic is all around? Sure, the channeling is a little tricky, but if she has a proper focusing item, it’s no trouble at all! And she has so many focusing things now. Her youngest brother’s broken toy horse. Her sister’s little doll…

But neither spells nor wild magic are enough to save the village the day the ground shakes and fire pours down from the mountain. Those who can fly take to the skies. Those who can cast race against the flames to give the rest time to flee.

And those whose wings have yet to grow in…well, they have their parents.

Except Bel and her siblings don’t. Their mother’s gone to the market and hasn’t been back for days. Bel can fly (barely) but she can’t carry much of anything yet. And with all the able-bodied fairies gone, she is on her own to save them all.

As the flames lick closer, devouring the walls of her beloved home, Bel draws on its immense power to open a portal. It’s too much to control. Her focusing items burn up one by one. But the portal holds long enough for every one of her siblings to jump through. Then, just as she feels her wings begin to singe, Bel leaps into the portal and closes it behind her.

But when she emerges on the other side, her siblings aren’t there. She screams for them, to no avail. Though she is magically depleted, she tries to channel anyway in hopes that the magic will show her where her siblings have gone. But without a focusing item, something of theirs to lead the way, the magic goes nowhere.

For years and decades, Bel travels the realms, seeking her lost siblings. She creates new focusing gears, finds ways to store magic in trinkets so she’ll never run out again. She consults wizards and warlocks, and anyone else who might help, trading trinkets for spells and information.

She finds nothing.

Until her path crosses that of a mean rogue who uses her blood to make a stone glow. If a stone can activate with blood, it has magic. Bel shares blood with her siblings. If she can figure out the stone’s design, she can recreate it and bend it to find her brothers and sisters.

Naturally, the rogue will not part with her treasure but, upon hearing Bel’s tale, she is not unreasonable. She allows Bel to study the stone—as long as Bel doesn’t slow her down.

Bel never expected to travel with a rogue or get embroiled in her misadventures. But for her siblings, she will do whatever it takes.