This road goes to the end

Boundary 1607

'Do it again!' Vale said in a voice barely above a whisper. 

Malachi rubbed his hand against the nape of his neck and worried his bottom lip between his teeth. 

The tiny dust devil that he'd summoned was the greatest act of magic he'd ever performed, and he was both elated and confused that his friend was so astonished by it. 

Vale was Fey, practically brimming with magic and capable of far greater feats than Malachi, but he watched Malachi summon another tiny twister with pure glee on his face. 

'That's bloody brilliant.' Vale said as he poked at the swirling dust and leaves and watched them fall apart. 

He looked up at Malachi with a dopey grin that didn't quite sit right on his far too angular face. 

'What?' Malachi asked. 

Vale shook his head and let the grin fade as he did, replacing it with a nonchalant mask. 

'I'm just very impressed with your ability to use magic.' He said coolly. 'Because you're just a human, or at least human adjacent.' 

The words Human adjacent make Malachi pale. 

Being reminded that somewhere in his ancestral line there was a link to Freya the first, the mother of all modern witches, made his stomach roil and cramp. While Malachi believed his magic was a gift, an energy that had entered his life and given him purpose and drive, no one else thought as he did.

There were very few people in the village that believed there could be any good found in magic. If anyone was found to be a descendant of Freya their life would go down one of two paths. They would either be forced to work as a church witch, and use their magic to enforce the church's will or, meet their maker at the end of the hanging rope. 

'Hey!' Vale said, pulling Malachi from his dark thoughts. 

Malachi jolted himself out of his mental spiral and looked into the large silver eyes of his friend. The silvery pools of light always managed to bring him home and help him find his centre. 

'Sorry.' He mumbled. 'I was just thinking about...' Malachi let his sentence trail off into nothingness. 

Vale frowned and placed his hands on Malachi's shoulders. 

'My mentioning of your witch heritage made you uncomfortable.' He said. 

Malachi opened his mouth to say that he was completely unaffected by Vale's words, but after spending so much time with the Fey he'd found that lying to someone who could not lie felt morally wrong. 

'It's just...' Malachi started. 'It's just hard to think about myself being a real witch' He whispered the last word. 

'But you are.' Vale said frankly. 

It was true, even if Malachi sometimes wished it wasn't, but hearing it out loud made it too true. 

Magic was a gift, but it was also a curse. 

His family loved him, but if they knew that he had magic then all that would change. 

No matter how happy magic made him, it would always be a noose around his neck. 

'You're right.' Malachi finally answered Vale. 'But I don't have the time to think about that now, I need to go back home.' 

Malachi pushed himself to stand and brushed the dust of the road from his trousers. Vale stood up half a second later, moving in one fluid movement that shone a spotlight on how awkwardly Malachi moved In comparison to the Fey.