by Izzy Shows
I couldn’t help it. I grinned savagely.
The staff knew that it belonged to me, and that was good.
“What have you created?” the Chancellor said, shifting his now-narrowed eyes to me.
I took the staff back, maintaining eye contact with him the entire time as if daring him to stop me. He didn’t. “A focus, just as you asked.”
“It will not allow another to touch it,” he said. “That is outside the norm.”
“So am I,” I said with a little bow. “Thank you for noticing. Have I passed this trial?”
His nostrils flared, the only indication I got that he was frustrated with me. He didn’t like that I had been able to create something no one else could touch—truth be told, it even frightened me a little. I hadn’t known that the staff wouldn’t be able to be touched by another person, but then again, was I even a little bit upset to learn that? No, not truthfully.
I did enjoy that I had thwarted the Order, even in such a small thing.
“You have passed,” he said. The cool expression on his face told me that while I might have passed on a technicality, I had displeased him, and that wasn’t a wise thing to do.
But when had I ever been wise?
Forty
Several people scurried into the room and collected the table and all the things that lay upon it, but no one dared to ask me for the staff I was holding in my hand. I sensed that not only would it not allow another to use it, it would not take kindly to being taken from me. It certainly hadn’t wanted me to give it up.
I had never created a focus like this before, and I wondered again what I’d put into it. I hadn’t recognised a single word I had uttered or any of the sigils I had carved into it. The magic had been pulled from me as if by something else, and yet it had flowed from me, without any issue, into the staff. Had the staff acted on its own? But how could it do that if it had just been a simple wooden staff before I touched it?
I was going to have to go over this with Fred once all was said and done.
“The next trial will commence,” the Chancellor said.
So, there would be no cool-down period between the previous trial and this one. I didn’t hate that; the focus trial had been a rather straightforward deal. Like he’d said, it had been to test what kind of Wizard I would be, and I felt like I had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
A very abnormal one. I grinned at the thought but turned my face away so no one would see it. I didn’t want them to think anything else untoward about me.
“This one will not be so easy for you,” he said, and I turned back to squint at him. What did that mean?
“What will it be?” I spoke before I could stop myself. It was very clear that, inside these walls, the Chancellor was as good as King. I shouldn’t challenge him half as much as I had been, but I couldn’t stop myself from being who I was born to be. I had always been impudent, I had always acted without thinking, and that wasn’t going to change for some puffed-up old coot.
“You will call forth a familiar into existence and join with it.” His eyes gleamed. He didn’t think I would be able to do it, I could tell.
And he had damned good reason to think that, because I had no idea what he meant.
“What, from the ether?” I narrowed my eyes. “You know you’re going to have to give me more information to go on than that.”
“If you are capable of calling a familiar, it will not be a difficult task for you,” he said coolly. “But perhaps you do not think you are capable.”
I gritted my teeth, barely resisting the urge to snap at him. I could do whatever trial he set before me. I was determined, and if I had that behind me I knew I could do anything.
Still…how the hell was I going to do this? I didn’t know what a familiar was, beyond a vague recollection of fairy tales from my childhood. The image that came to mind was of a warty green witch with a broomstick and a cat on her shoulder. I didn’t think that was what I was supposed to do, but maybe they did mean for me to call an animal into existence.
I turned my back on the Order. How the fuck was I supposed to call an animal into existence? That defied the laws of physics. You couldn’t create something from nothing, and I certainly didn’t have the magic to create an animal.
But it was clear that he didn’t mean to give me more than what he’d already said. In fact, he had challenged me not to ask another question, and I’d never been able to resist a challenge.
My lips burned with a thousand questions that wanted to spew forth, but I bit my tongue to keep them from coming out. If he didn’t think I could do this, then of course I had to do it all on my own. There was no other option available to me.
I walked to the centre of the room and sat cross-legged, the staff laid on the floor in front of me. I placed my palms on my knees and closed my eyes.
All right, creature, wherever you are. I need you.
I sent the thought out into the world, lowering my shields so it could get by. Nothing happened. I peeked one eye open, and sure enough, there was nothing but my staff in front of me. I let out a frustrated sigh—how was this supposed to work?
Closing the eye again, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I had to do this, one way or another.
I heard whispers behind me, and instead of focusing on the challenge ahead of me, I turned my attention to the conversation taking place.
“You know she can’t do this without direction,” Diego was saying. “We’ve never asked another mage to call something forth without explaining the process to them.”
“You dare to question me, Diego? Be careful. Your position on this Council is tenuous at best.”
“Diego has a point,” another voice said. “This is a simple enough spell, you’re right, but no Wizard could conduct it without knowing what it is. What you ask of her is not fair.”
“She has proven to be a mage unlike any other. I want to see what she can do,” the Chancellor said.
I resisted the urge to growl at that. That was the answer I had been looking for throughout these trials—that he was purposely raising the bar higher and higher each time a trial came around, just to see if I would be able to jump over it.
At the same time I hated him for it, I also agreed with him. A part of me wanted to know what I was capable of, whether I could leap over that bar no matter how high he set it. I no longer wanted him to tell me how to do the spell. I wanted to figure out what it was on my own.
Especially because someone on the Council had said that no Wizard could do it. How great a challenge was that? I had to do it on my own; there was no other option available to me.
“Rest assured, if she cannot do it—when she cannot do it—we will tell her how to.”
Ah, so this wasn’t just a test to see what I was capable of. He was trying to teach me a lesson: that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted.
Well, fuck you, Mr. Chancellor, sir. I was going to do it and prove him wrong, and he would have to eat shit once this was all over. I grinned at the mental image. It would be very pleasurable for me to rub it in his stupid face.
I took in another breath and forced myself to turn away from the whispered conversation. There was no point in listening to it, since it wasn’t going to help me get through this challenge. Only I could do that.
Breathe, Blair. The power is inside of you. You just have to find it. Fifteen-year-olds are capable of this, no matter that they get to know how to do it beforehand. You know you can do this.
And that did help: knowing that the power had been inside me the whole time, that what I was trying to do was possible.
Another breath in, another breath out. Again. And again. I was meditating now, focusing on my breathing and slipping away to the focused place that hid inside of me.
My body began to sway as if of its own accord, back and forth, and I began to hum. It was all on reflex. I didn’t know if what I was doing made any sense or not, but it was where I wanted to go, so to hell with it.
E
ither I was going to make a fool of myself, or I was going to figure it out. That was really the only option at this point.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Something called to my soul, and I visualised myself standing up. I turned and looked at my body sitting on the floor, at the High Council arguing in hushed whispers behind me. There was a thread tied about my waist, but it didn’t lead back to my body.
I felt a tug on the thread, and I followed. It remained taut, as if what was on the other end was moving. I went where it wanted me to go, walking out the door of the chamber. As I left the chamber, I found myself in another world. I was in a forest much like the one I had walked through in Tír na nÓg.
All around me, the plants were lit up with bioluminescence. The thread tugged me farther into the forest, and I began to run with a sense of urgency. I flew through the forest, guided by only the thread, which kept me from tripping on the branches and rocks that littered the ground.
I heard a howling in the distance, and the ground beneath my feet was suddenly covered in frost. My nostrils flared, taking in the scent of a snowstorm, and excitement began to thrum within me.
Yes. This was right.
I kept running, letting out a victorious whoop and throwing my arms back. I laughed aloud, pleasure running through my veins. My feet thudded against the ground, leaving prints in the snow. I wasn’t cold, somehow. Snowflakes were landing on my jacket, my hair, my cheeks, but I felt no chill from them. My breath was visible in front of me.
My body was alive with a heat I had never felt before.
Still I ran, knowing that somewhere ahead of me was something of vast importance.
I broke through the forest line and came out into what might have been a field. I couldn’t tell through the thick layers of snow. In front of me was a fortress of immeasurable size.
I was struck by the beauty of it and fell to my knees, incapable of doing anything other than gazing at it. My lips parted, and I whispered a word I didn’t recognise. It was gone from my mind.
Speaking of my mind, there was a painful beating at the back of it, the first pain I had felt since coming into this world. My breath came a little harsher, and my heart was beating so fast, I thought it might explode from my chest at any moment.
I placed my hands on my knees and stared down at the ground for a moment to centre myself. I was here for a reason, and I needed to get back to it. I was supposed to be finding my familiar—hopefully, I was in the right place to do that, and I hadn’t somehow performed another spell I wasn’t aware of. Somehow, it felt likely that I had performed a spell that I shouldn’t have, but I brushed that thought aside. There was no point in worrying about that. I was here now and, hopefully, it would all work out.
Where are you?
I sent the thought forward, knowing that what I wished for was ahead of me, possibly inside the fortress. The thread that had guided me here was gone; there was no tugging to guide me anymore. All I could do was hope.
I need you.
A howling sound echoed through the air again, and excitement thrummed inside of me once more. I stayed there, kneeling on the snow-covered ground, and waited.
Moments passed, but I knew I was where I was supposed to be. I wouldn’t move again.
It occurred to me that I should be cold, at least now. I wasn’t running anymore, and that could have explained the body heat I’d felt before, but now I was kneeling in the snow. Why wasn’t I cold?
A figure came bounding up the hill into the meadow. I couldn’t make it out at first, but it was enormous. I should be afraid, I realised. I should be afraid that whatever this was, it would hurt me.
Instead, I had never felt safer in my life.
As it kept running, it came into focus, and I recognised it as a giant white wolf. Its fur was as pure as the snow beneath it, and its eyes were a piercing blue that matched my own.
I should stand. It’s going to run right over me.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t move. I was transfixed by the creature coming toward me. I lifted my fingers to my lips and whistled. The wolf paused to howl as if in answer, and then began to run faster.
It tackled me a moment later, knocking me onto my back. Laughter exploded from me, and it began to lick my face in earnest.
“Settle, boy, settle,” I said, patting its side.
It whined and licked my face one more time before backing up and sitting on its haunches, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. It wagged its tail like any dog would, and it was comical to see a wolf doing that.
I sat up and rubbed my hand on its head, between its ears. “You were waiting for me, huh?”
“I have waited long to see you again.”
I froze. The wolf had spoken to me. Its words had sounded inside my mind, just like when I had spoken to Mal that way.
“You can talk?”
“Of course I can. How else would we work together?”
I paused. “You’re my familiar.”
“Extend your arm and pull up your sleeve. We will be bonded.”
I did as it instructed, trusting it implicitly. The wolf stood, craning its neck forward, and sank its teeth into my wrist. I cried out, stunned, but then I felt the bonding begin. The world spun around me a thousand times at a dizzying pace, and then centered on the wolf. It was looking up at me from my wrist, our eyes locked, and then it pulled back.
“We are bonded,” it said.
I broke into a relieved grin and threw my arms around the wolf, hiding my face in its fur. I had never thought I would feel so safe, so comfortable, so assured around another creature. I had never felt more whole in all my life, as if this wolf had been a missing part of me all these years.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
I stood, and the wolf yipped. We walked together, the wolf trotting along beside me, back through the forest to the door that had led me here. There, I stepped inside the Council’s chambers again. The wolf ran up to my body, which was still sitting on the floor, its spine locked so that it was sitting up straight. It licked my face once, and suddenly I was back in my body, my eyes open and seeing the wolf again.
I grinned and stood, one hand fisting in the wolf’s fur as I turned to look at the Council. My wolf was huge—its head cleared my shoulders so that we were almost the same height.
The High Council members were all staring at me with their mouths agape and their eyes bulging, even the Chancellor.
I bowed, and so did my wolf, extending its leg and touching its head to its paw. We stood as one united force.
“This… This is not possible,” the Chancellor said, his face turning bright red.
“Oh, I don’t know. It seems to be happening right in front of us,” Diego said rather dryly. “Well done, Blair.” He clapped a few times. “Well done, indeed.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, frowning. “I get that it was a hard task. You didn’t tell me what to do. But what’s with all the faces?”
It was Diego who answered me, the others apparently one breath away from apoplexy. “The size of your familiar is directly related to the size of the power you possess. As I expected, you are strong. What is your familiar’s name?”
I looked at my wolf, raising an eyebrow.
“Weylyn.”
“Weylyn,” I said, patting it on the back. Weylyn and I shared a look. There was so much happiness inside me that I thought my heart might burst. I had never felt so attached, so in love, before this moment. “How on Earth am I going to take you anywhere?”
And with that, Weylyn stepped away from me and ran in a small circle, as if chasing its tail. I watched, an eyebrow raised. A moment later, it looked more like an overgrown husky, but not so big that it wouldn’t pass for a regular dog.
“As you can see, your familiar possesses shapeshifting capabilities so that it can pass in polite society.”
I patted the wolf on the back again. “Good boy.”
I had never been so happy.
Forty One
I knew in my heart that he would never turn from me, never abandon me, never leave me broken. I also knew that if anything happened to him, I would never recover from the pain.
Gripping the staff in one hand, with my other hand fisted in Weylyn’s fur, I faced the High Council. I felt much more comfortable now, much more confident in my place here. No one could doubt that I belonged, that I deserved to train as a Wizard of the Order.
What was the use of further trials? I had proven myself repeatedly. I almost expected them to make an exception for me and call an end to this foolishness, but I should have known better.
The High Council didn’t care for me, and apparently, with Weylyn’s appearance, that had only become worse.
“There will be but one more trial this day,” the Chancellor said. “We are quickly approaching the end here, Ms. Sheach.”
I grinned. “Bring it on.”
“Now, we will read your aura.”
The grin fell from my lips. I had known this was coming, but I still wasn’t happy about it. Thank the Gods I had got Mal to remove the mark last night, just in the nick of time.
I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, and Weylyn pressed against my side. He had turned back into his huge self.
“Rest easy, Blair. You will make it out of this.”
I smiled at him, then pressed my face into his fur for a moment to take in the scent of him. He comforted me in ways that no one else could. Not even Emily.
If Emily had told me that everything was going to be OK and that I would make it through this, I would have appreciated the words, but I wouldn’t have believed her. Weylyn’s words rang with a truth that couldn’t be denied. I expected that he would never lie to me, no matter how hard the truth might be to share.
