Linden
The Conflict Arc in the Fleck Series

Backstory: 100 years prior to Magic in the Shadows

One of the most haunting and morally complex arcs in the Fleck Series, for me, centers on the Sisters Three—Calla, Nerine, and Arum—and their quiet, calculated resistance against the Demon Wizard Hectare’s plan to consume Nerine’s magic in the formation of a sacrificial orb. Readers are introduced to this backstory through the Sage in the Crystal Ball, who reveals the long-hidden struggle between the sisters and Hectare. Bound by blood, loyalty, and decades of shared trauma, the sisters orchestrate a century-long scheme of magical deception with one goal: to protect and salvage Nerine from being consumed by Hectare’s ambition.

1. Hectare’s Origins
   Initially, Hectare possessed a modest capacity for magic—primarily illusions and spell-castings unearthed in dusty, forgotten places. To his credit, he was keenly aware of his own ineptitude. Desiring true power, he surrenders himself to one hundred years of service within the mountain of living Shale, to undergo a transformation into a Demon Wizard.
2. The Shale
   The Shale is a sentient and torturous magical force that demands a soul-bound offering in exchange for infused magic and full freedom. Apprenticeship to the Shale is torment: as the Shale sips blood from veins, peels skin from flesh, tears flesh from bone, and grinds bone to dust—reconstructing the body, infused with the raw capacity of magic. Few, who take the oath, survive the two hundred years: the first hundred years to infuse the body with magic, followed by a brief reprieve in which the apprentice must craft a suitable offering. If the offering fails, the second hundred years of servitude begins—a sentence no being survives.
3. Hectare’s Motivation 
   When Hectare first appears, his intentions are clear. He is driven by vanity and calculated ambition. As a shallow social climber, his interest in the sisters is purely transactional from the beginning.
4. The Sisters Three
   Upon their introduction to Hectare, the sisters are young—Calla fifteen, Nerine sixteen, and Arum seventeen. Yet they are neither passive nor defenceless. Their rare, blended genealogy (human, elfin, fairy) grants them long life and natural magical ability. Given the authority of their father, it was customary for their elder brother to conduct suitor arrangements.
5. Calla’s Fate
   Hectare begins by facilitating the proposal and transfer of magical coins to commit Calla, the youngest, to a human king as a royal consort.
6. Nerine Chosen for Sacrifice
   In anticipation of his apprenticeship to the Shale, Hectare selects Nerine to be his bride. According to custom, a suitor submits two gifts to the family: in the case of the sisters the brother demanded magic-coins as a proposal gift and again as a gift to finalize the union. When submitting the proposal gift, Hectare applies a binding spell-crafting to ready Nerine’s womb to accept a drop of his blood—designed to siphon her magic into the formation of a sacrificial orb. This orb (intended as his future offering) would secure his full release from the Shale in one hundred years, leaving Nerine a depleted husk.
7. Hectare Is Summoned
   To his delight, Hectare is summoned early by the Shale and forced into immediate submission.
8. A Miss-Spent-Spell
   Returning to the sisters’ home Hectare provides the balance of magic-coins serving as the gift to finalize the union. Arriving late, he finds the sisters already in bed. Standing at the door, he casts his spell blindly across the long room, presuming Nerine lies alone beneath her blanket. The sisters, unaware of his true intention, make no effort to shield themselves. The binding takes hold on all three, diluting its power:
   “I must go and you must stay,
   one hundred years to the day.
   Be ye devout and wait for me,
   come my bride when I have need of thee.
   Rest yourself and wait for now,
   this spell in place of our wedding vow.”
9. Consequences of the Mistake
   The wedding-vow-spell-crafting leaves all three sisters magically indistinguishable to Hectare, who upon his release from the Shale cannot determine which one bears the original binding-spell-crafting.
10. The Sisters’ Three-Part Scheme
    First, when Hectare is released from the Shale, the sisters send Arum in Nerine’s place.
    Second, each sister contributes one-third of her magic to Arum to protect her from depletion while forming the orb.
    Third, because Arum lacks the original binding-spell-crafting, the orb formed by her will be flawed. In addition, the sisters embed a counter-curse to ensure the Shale will reject the orb.
    “For the ritual of his great power, a touch of taint, an offering sour.
    Recommit his mind and body to cower, justly tormented – Shale to devour.
    Elfin quick, alert we wait, cry for the fairy, that is the bait.
    Quiet now and hear our song, bittersweet a century long.”
    Their intent is simple but high-stakes: When the offering is refused, Hectare will be pulled back into the Shale for a second term—a fate he will not survive. The orb will fracture, returning in one-third shares to the sisters.
11. Warning from the Sage
    The Sage in the Crystal Ball cautions:
    “Such was the hasty colluding of frightened girls, unaware of the full cost of their devising. They press forward, having little perception of the sorrows their actions would impose on those with whom they were not yet entangled. Even now the three remain obliged—captive to this folly of their younger selves.”
12. Fleck’s Involvement
    Complications arise when Arum takes Nerine’s place and Fleck is introduced into the sisters’ scheming.
13. Flight from the Castle 
    After helping Calla and Arum escape the castle, Fleck tells Maple that she’ll only be gone briefly to escort the sisters to the Five Finger Forest, where they can hide from Hectare in the diffusing magical mist. Fleck hopes to draw Hectare away from her town, thereby keeping those she cares about safe. Maple—eighteen, pregnant, and eager to leave her village—insists on accompanying Fleck.
14. The Village
    Fleck believes she’s fulfilled her obligation to Arum and Calla when she delivers them to a small village flooded with magical creatures. The very creatures that Fleck and the twig-men released from imprisonment beneath the Valabosa Castle. Arum knows the creatures can sense Hectare’s magic in her and fears these creatures, hostile to Hectare, will drive her out of the magic veil of the forest before she finds Nerine and secures her one-third measure of magic. Arum carries two-thirds of the required magic (her own 1/3 share and Calla’s 1/3 share); without Nerine’s contribution, if Hectare captures Arum before the orb is complete, he will siphon her remaining magic into the orb, and she will perish.
15. Maple’s Mistake
    While pregnant with her daughter Laurel, Maple mistakenly believes that the orb forming within Arum is a pregnancy. This misunderstanding allows Calla and Arum to manipulate her—urging Maple to persuade Fleck to stay with them until the sisters can reunite with Nerine. Foolishly, Calla and Arum devise a plan to disguise the completed orb in the shape of a child and place it alongside Maple’s new-born. They trust that Maple, unaware of its true nature, will keep it safe until Hectare returns to claim it.
16. The Rift
    This deception opens a deep rift. Fleck, moved by Maple’s certainty, begins to see the orb—that Maple has named Linden—as a child requiring protection from Hectare. The sisters see the orb as their strategic weapon that will ensure Hectare is reclaimed by the Shale.
17. Unravelling the Plan
    When Gavin and Fleck rescue Linden and bottle Hectare, the sisters are furious. The orb has not fractured. The magic hasn’t returned to them. Worse still, the Shale cannot find Hectare—unaware that he’s been imprisoned inside the bottle by Gavin.
18. A Death That Isn’t
    With no other trace of Hectare available, the Shale takes the only remnant it can detect: the drop of his blood embedded in Linden.
    The orb was freely given by Arum to Hectare. Hectare then offered it as payment for freedom, justifying the Shale’s claim to the orb. Linden closes his eyes and dies in Fleck’s arms.
19. Book Three: A Stunning Realization
    Magic in the Shale opens with the revelation that Linden may not have died—he may have been taken by the Shale.
    The story continues—not just as a tale of curses and sacrifice, but of love, identity, and one piercing question: What happens when something created for destruction is loved into something else entirely?

Apologies—this post is longer and more involved than my usual blogs. I wrote it as briefly as I dared while still including the details that explain why Linden’s story arc is central across the series. His arc shapes choices, reveals truths, breaches boundaries, and challenges old-world ideas of sacrifice as characters attempt to justify their actions in their struggle to survive.