Genre: MG Fantasy

Title: Storm of Magic

Word Count: 57,000

Song: The William Tell Overture

Pitch:

A violent mage storm infects eleven-year-old Rell with potentially fatal magic. He needs help to learn how to control his magic before it explodes–and takes him with it– but all the mages are dead.

250:

At the flicker of green light, Rell raised his head from weeding the row of corn and glanced across the open plains. Maybe it was nothing, just a trick of the light or a reflection. Everything was some shade of green or yellow in that direction except the line of clouds on the horizon.

In the next row over, Da said, “Back before the war, we’d have had a mage spell the seeds before we planted. Then the corn would grow faster than the weeds and choke them out. Things were easier then.”

Rell grimaced. Once Da got started on what things were like before the war, he could go on all day. Weeding the fields was boring enough without that. “Yeah, well, all the mages are dead,” he muttered. He glanced over toward the blackened stumps of what used to be the family’s orchard. And a good thing, too. He knew better than to say that out loud, though.

Rell snapped his head back around to the plains at another flash of light. Orange. He’d swear to it. There were a lot fewer things on the plains at this time of year that could be that color. He jumped to his feet, brushing the heavy clay soil from his hands and tossing his head to get the unruly brown hair out of his eyes.

A bolt of red lightening forked down as Rell watched. He waited for it, but no thunder followed the flash.