Fiction — The MagicLand Chronicles

The Fires of Easterly

Little did we know that beneath the glow of the continuously burning Easterly fires was a city of magic.

Some say it’s been two hundred years since the Third Eradication.

I don’t know. How would I? I don’t keep a calendar. I don’t have a way to tell time aside from the sun’s location against the burnt trees. I can tell you the day, the month, the time of year. But I can’t tell you what year. I don’t know anybody else who knows, either. If it mattered, I suppose somebody would start keeping track.

When I see the glows in the Easterly realm, I wonder if a firestarter like me gassed up some old industrial waste and created a fire that will never end. And then I wonder whether they did it on purpose, or if it was an accident.

Original image: Photo by Erik Mclean from Pexels

Roquanna teases me by lifting her skirt to her torso, then scampers out of our filthy abode. What a tart she is.

I want to paint my fingernails before I start my ritual. A ritual before the ritual. One I always want to initiate before I begin the incantations, but this time the urge is stronger than usual.

I can use black dye Roquanna makes from rusty metal objects like nails and clasps she finds in the…