Girl of Iron and Magic

5.

5.

PRESENT DAY

It was hard to tell an elf's gender if you weren't an entire elf yourself. The elf before Lotte could've easily been a man or a woman. They were all slender, willowy creatures with long limbs and narrow, gentle-featured faces. This one had a sharp chin, much sharper than Poe's, so maybe they were female?

Their chest was rising and falling, but only barely. Lotte couldn't quite see where they were injured. She knelt down to have a better look. She didn't know much of medicine. Some enchantments she made could take away pain or give power to a healing process that was already taking place, but in this lay the limit of Leilan magic.

Healing, building, creating—that was all Yomi magic. Poe had shown her Yomi enchantments tattooed into his skin. Some for protection, protecting his thoughts and body, some for health.

And one in particular, the one on the right side of his neck, was for healing. Three intersecting helixes that formed a type of springy, six pointed star. Yomi enchantments were always beautifully abstract.

She turned the elf's head, and there she saw it, the healing rune, almost completely faded. Their injuries had cost all the magic of the healing enchantment.

"There's nothing I can do, Fintan," Lotte said, settling onto her heels. "They're going to die the minute this tattoo fades."

Fintan settled on her shoulder, accepting her words in grim silence.

"I'm sorry," Lotte added, looking over at the elf. Wondering if they had anyone waiting for them back home, in the high cities of Lasuran. Why would the elves need to come all the way out here to wage war on the humans? They could just retreat to their home, a place that killed humans. What was driving the elves here?

The night and the enchantment that was meant to give Lotte strength were wearing away. She had to keep moving, to make it into the cover of trees.

"Water," a voice whispered in elven.
Lotte pulled the canteen out of her pack and brought it to the elf's mouth.

Pale lips parted, to take one last breath.

Lotte flinched away. She had seen it, the moment of death. Alive and then...and then...gone.

She screwed the bottle shut with shaking hands and rose onto wobbly legs.

Her head spun, the world spun, but she continued walking.

***
10 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

The four months Lotte spent living on the streets of Raidox were the longest in her life. Each day felt like a year, especially during the first few weeks.

When Lotte ran out of the food and coins she'd pinched from House Mistress's office, she needed to find ways to fill her belly. She'd followed some other street dwellers to a soup kitchen, and even managed to down a bowl of watered-down stew. But the next day there were two constables waiting by the entrance.

She was certain they were searching for her.

In those days before the coup, when the Lord General still wanted to gain public support, all children who didn't have families were supposed to belong to some sort of institute. Even at seven years old, Lotte knew that she had to avoid the city constables at all costs.

Hunger became her only companion until she solved that problem.

After a few false starts, Lotte learned that if she scurried near the east end of Republic Avenue in the evening hours, there were many frilly ladies whose purses hung open, with money ready for the taking.