The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace

nickname. “The people who once lived here. They protected the wall and kept others from entering our lands.”
    He closed his eyes for a moment, reliving the last time he’d been so close to the Citadel. Keepers lined the wall, each standing an arm’s distance apart with their palms flexed toward Santarem. One hundred full Mages worked together, guiding the combined power of his people to construct the barrier. They poured their essência into the spell. The majority of them died, and the rest of them remained forever changed.
    Jacaré had been deemed too young to participate, being only a year older then than Leão was now. But he’d been heartsore from too much war and loss and ignored the command.
    He had stood directly at the center of the Citadel, not far from where Leão crouched among the brambles, and offered his essência to help create the barrier. He’d lived so much in those eighteen years, and suffered to protect his people. The thought of giving his life hadn’t scared him, but living with the memories did.
    Something had gone amiss; instead of killing him, the magic had rebounded, smashing into him with the force of a landslide. Instead of putting his total essência into the wall, the magic had changed him. He’d survived and aged perhaps two years in the three hundred since. A grown man, the High Captain of the Elite Guard, who looked like he should be Leão’s best friend instead of his commanding officer.
    At first it seemed like a cruel joke. He’d wanted to die but was cursed with more time. In the passing centuries he learned to put his loss behind him and live with the memories and nightmares. He hadn’t disobeyed an order since that day.
    Until now.
    “We should never have relied on someone else to protect us,” Pira continued. “We should have used our magic and destroyed them all.”
    “Enough, Pira.” Jacaré didn’t lose his patience often, but his sister pushed him closer to the bounds of his control than any other person. “Scout ahead. Leão should have a report by now. See if you can follow his trail.”
    She nodded and moved along the scree, her feet seeming to float above the loose rocks.
    “They don’t understand,” said Texugo, once she was well out of earshot. “Their entire generation can’t. They’ve never had cannon fire ringing in their ears days after a battle. The smell of burning pitch and the flavor of fear are all elements of a grand story. They don’t believe there is anything more powerful than magic.”
    “That’s a lot of words from you, my friend,” Jacaré said, and wondered for the thousandth time since they’d left Olinda if dragging Tex on this task had been the wrong decision. The man had been old when Jacaré was young. Now wrinkles etched his skin like furrows in pale sand, and time had bleached all the color from his hair. Tex wasn’t just old. He was ancient.
    Despite his age and cantankerous attitude, Tex knew Santarem better than anyone. He’d traveled it from coast to coast, and from mountaintop to desert dune. But more than that, he remembered the people.
    “I’ve got a few more things to say.” Tex lounged against the boulder like it was a feathered divan. “Something’s . . . not right.”
    It wasn’t a very definitive statement, but Jacaré didn’t need clarification. Traversing the mountains between Olinda and Santarem should have been a dangerous journey. But the peaks had been bereft of living creatures, both predator and prey. The deer herds had abandoned their valleys, the wild goats had disappeared from the slopes, and the giant cats had vanished.
    “I know. I feel it too.”
    Tex studied his boots for a long moment before speaking again. “You know the barrier better than I do, Jacaré. If those creatures are getting across, doesn’t that mean it’s very weak?”
    “Probably.”
    The older man grimaced. “Have you given any thought to what we’ll face when we cross the wall?”
    “It won’t be like last