by J E Mueller
“Yes,” I said, having a feeling I knew where we were going.
“There’s this bit still damaged from the battle and – oh that was probably you wasn’t it? Fire magic can get out of control fast.” She shrugged, piecing the puzzle together for herself. “No matter. When someone has the time after all this nonsense is over all you’ll need to do is dig up the area and mix it with untainted earth and it’ll start growing again.”
“That easy, huh?” I was surprised it wasn’t one of those ‘time and patience’ solutions.
“Yeah, the world is filled with magic of its own. It’ll be fine. We can help it along, or let it do its own thing. Magic can’t hurt it forever. It’s stronger than any of us,” Jamie explained.
“I’m glad to hear that, actually. The damage was a side affect I wasn’t expecting.”
“It happens. You’ve got to learn somehow. Let’s start from the beginning when you started to gain control. Explain what happened when you touched someone for the first time without killing them.”
I laughed for a moment. “Those are two different moments, actually. The first time I didn’t kill someone was because of their own elemental magic. Lee’s magic to be exact. But I guess it was that same night where – thanks to his magic – I felt some semblance of control over my own.”
I explained everything, not leaving out any details. There was no time for that. I needed to be on the top of my game if I was to be of any help in my brother’s plans.
And I had a feeling I would be a bigger part of them than I wanted to be.
“No surprise your magic is based upon your emotions.” Jamie stated. “It’s actually for the best. Most curse magic is.”
“I thought it was only partly based on my emotions.” Why did it always come back to this?
“Nope. All. It’s hard to explain it, but you’ll understand when you think about it. Any time it’s worked strongly, your emotions have been in one direction or another. When it’s weaker your emotions are more stable. Knowing this will help you control your magic.”
She motioned to the area around us. “If you can keep yourself level-headed, you can make this work. Alternatively, if you can push it in the correct direction you can still make it work. Anger will cause your shield to burn all inside it who can’t defend themselves. Joy, happiness, and positive emotions can make the shield flare up equally large but you can keep it from latching onto others. It’s impossible to keep hate infused fire from taking its toll.”
“I think I’ve learned more in this five minutes then I have in any conversation before.” I laughed.
“Once you get control, learning doesn't have to be time consuming. It’s more about finding the right information and path for you.” Jamie smiled, happy to share. “Can’t do that traveling and trying to keep away huh?” She laughed and took a seat on the ground.
I rolled my eyes. “All right, let’s get this practice underway.”
“Fantastic.” Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Let’s see your happy face, we’re going to work on not ‘burning’ me.” She made air quotes. “You can’t kill me with curse fire since it’s too much like mine, but I can feel an attack and you’ll quickly feel it too. So we’re going to try working with a wide range of emotions, eventually even anger, since your fire, yours can’t kill me. Actually, it may give me a power boost. That’ll be fun to try.”
“How so?” I asked curiously. “Just since it’s so similar it’ll be an extra charge?” There could be a lot of use for that.
“Yes. Should be like a shot of adrenaline. I haven’t gotten to work with another person with curse fire in a long time. It’ll be a good learning experience for me, and great practice for you.” Jamie cracked her knuckles, game face on. “Now let’s see that happy sheild. You’re going to be awesome at this soon!” She cheered me on.
Following her idea, and already feeling good I called forth more happy thoughts to the front of my mind. I thought of Tella’s antics, Juni’s wonderful cooking, rescuing my brother, and Lee being very much alive. It felt good to think about and I summoned my magic based around these positive images and created my shield. It was getting easier to create it.
I opened my eyes and saw flickers of flame, not a full fire shield as described to me before. It was awesome to actually see it and study it. The rush of magic going from me, into it, and back around in an endless cycle was strange, but it was exciting. It was about time.
“Good,” Jamie said, looking at the shield. “Good starting intensity. Now add more power to it. Pull from your core, slowly and if you can feel the magic around you draw strength from that.”
I did as she instructed and pulled just a bit more from my core and watched stronger flames join the shield. While I could feel other magic around me, I wasn’t able to grasp it. Ignoring that, I continued to let my shield build up its strength from within myself.
“Now, when you release your shield I don’t want you to let it go. Instead bring it back in slowly.” She stressed her words carefully. “If you let it go, you’re just draining yourself and making your core have to recharge. Bring it back in and you’ll have more energy to keep going.”
Again, I did as she directed and felt the difference immediately. When I had tried to help Zarek I had felt instantly drained and had blacked out. This time around, I only felt a little winded. “That’s...” Words failed me. It was an awe inspiring moment to not have my magic drain me to the point of blacking out. I couldn’t help but to wonder why Lee hadn’t at least mentioned this person before. She was wonderful to work with.
“Less hard on your head too, I bet.” Jamie winked, “Okay. Let’s try sadness. This curse sucks, and it’s never fun bringing that feeling to the front, but you can control it now.”
Sighing, I could pull this emotion without effort. Thinking of my mother’s death was enough to pull the feeling to my core, but I added to it, remembering the empty feeling I had endured when I had thought Lee was gone and when my siblings had died twice before my eyes. When I felt it start to ache within me I pulled the magic into a shield. Opening my eyes I saw that the flame looked different. While I could feel that it was not attacking Jamie who was sitting so close nearby, I also felt it was weaker.
“This may be able to do damage without killing,” I said astounded that it might even be a viable option.
“Correct,” Jamir said standing up to walk around me. “Emotions are so important. Controlling what you feel at all times can make all the difference in any given situation.”
“Now, don’t pull away from that feeling. Switch back to the joy you had felt before. Pull from that and strengthen your shield.”
As I did as she instructed I felt the magic charge, turning from soft embers to full flames.
“Very good!” She cheered me on. “Now this time bring it in, but a little quicker. Don’t take it in all at once, but you can start to speed up the process. As you adjust to it, you can go faster and faster, but never do it all at once or you could knock yourself out,” She warned me. I sensed the warning came from her own experience.
Taking her advice I pulled in my magic more quickly than before, but not by much. I could work on that lesson easily in my own time as well.
Ready to continue, Jamie jumped onto the next lesson. “Now let’s go for anger. After this we’ll work on cycling the magic through different emotions at a faster pace. If you’re going to actually be using this ability in any life or death situations you’ll need to be able to switch quickly.”
Pausing, she stopped her pacing. “Sadly, we’re in a very controlled environment here. In a fight anything can happen. You cannot – and must not – let any emotion get the best of you. It doesn't matter if you see your best friend die or see them save someone. You will have an impact on the shield if you let another emotion dominate your mind. Someone may die. Wars have a high enough casualty count as it is. Don’t add to it more than necessary.”
I nodded, knowing full well that the stakes were much to
o high. “Guess I better make this second nature as quickly as possible.” I needed to stick to this if I was going to be ready for battle soon.
Jamie jumped right back into the lesson. “Reuse the thoughts and images you’re currently using to bring these emotions forth. It’ll help speed it up. Now let’s go. Anger.”
This one was easy. Until recently there had been much I was angry with, including myself. I summoned the magic around me and saw the intense flames flicker and try to burst out, waiting for a victim to come just close enough to singe and destroy.
I felt and saw them jump hungrily at Jamie only to fail to latch onto her. I felt like my magic was being reflected back at me. Maybe that’s how she could tell we had similar magic earlier.
“Good.” Jami nodded. “Very good. Can you feel it attacking me?”
“Yes.” It continued to try and grab at her skin, but her magic was one and the same. With nothing to attack, it simply returned to the shield. I could see it didn’t leave marks or harm her, and wondered if she even felt the intensity of the heat.
“If you’ve got elemental friends, they’ll be fine with this power, but anyone else may not be able to combat the intensity of the flames. It is strong, and you are strong. Wield it like a weapon in this form, use happiness to shield, and sadness to defend but not kill.”
“How can I defend and kill? Knowing my luck, a time may call for it,” I asked.
“We’re not all powerful.” Jamie sighed, but nodded, understanding where this question came from. “While there may be a way, I can’t think of a fitting emotion. Jealousy would hurt like anger, fear much the same way as sadness. Now if you don’t call on a circular shield to encase your allies you have options. Instead, picture a shield in front of you only, like a solid wall. You can direct anger in that fashion and not kill those by your side. That may be the only other way to do so.”
“Let’s try that, then. Moving from an encased shield of joy to a shield wall of anger. That will likely be the transition I’ll be faced with most.” I was glad to test the idea out here and now with someone who wouldn’t be harmed.
We did so, working on the technique several times. The timing was the hardest to get right and key to pulling off the technique. Too soon and I’d hurt whoever was next to me. Too late and... After much practice I felt comfortable enough with it to take a break. My body felt strained from using so much magic at once when it was not used to using any.
“You’ve got all you need to win this fight.” Jamie said as we sat on the grass near where we had been practicing. “I’ll more than willingly help you practice, but I don’t see anything else I can teach you on this subject.”
“What else would you have to teach?” I asked curiously. Now that I was actually able to make progress, I had a desire to learn anything I possibly could.
“There’s so much more that you can do once you’ve gained perfect control of this,” Jamie replied, staring at the sky. “You can have the magic lay specifically on weapons. Create a staff of fire or use it on swords. You can use it like elemental fire magic if you summon it forward and light fires or just simply use it to heat water.”
“The weapons one sounds cool. Never thought of that.” That could be a really fun and practical application of magic.
“It takes patience and concentration to keep it just on a single object, but it can be done. It’s a way of fighting with magic without it expanding every which way, but I doubt we have time for that before you leave for this mission. Instead let’s focus on what we’ve started. The more you master this, the less tired you’ll be when you need to use it for real.” Jamie looked at me. “Ready for another round?”
I wasn’t, but there wasn’t much time to get this down. “Let’s do it,” I said instead and stood back up.
It was getting dark by the time I got back. Dragging myself into the house, I plopped down on the sofa, ready to call it quits for the day. Moments later Tella dashed up to me.
“What have you been up to?” she asked a bit too enthusiastic.
“Practicing my magic. I’m very tired so be careful, okay?” I hadn’t realized how excited she would be to see me again.
Tella nodded vigorously. “That’s a good idea.” She paused for a moment, clearly wanting to say something. Tella shook her head and seemed to say something else instead, “Can I braid your hair?”
“I’m very tired, maybe in the morning,” I replied with a yawn. “Actually that's a great idea. Let’s make plans for tomorrow morning instead?”
She pouted for a moment before giving in. “Oh okay. No sneaking off again though, okay?”
If I had known what sort of effect my leaving would have on others I wondered if I would have stayed for at least a little longer. I felt bad, but was too tired to make amends right at that moment. “I promise,” I agreed wholeheartedly.
With a smile Tella left.
“I think I’ve gained a follower,” I told Lee as he came inside.
He nodded, looking back at the door. “Could be worse.”
“Aren’t there other kids her age around here?” I asked curiously.
Lee sat on the floor in front of the sofa. “Yes, but not a lot. Some days they’re all the best of friends and other days they need a break from each other. There are lots of age gaps around here.” He shrugged, “It’s common in smaller towns.”
“Probably. It makes sense.” I yawned.
“Dinner should be done soon,” he said as he took a seat with me.
“Can I just sleep instead?” I did not feel like I could move another muscle.
“You’re not going to regain much energy without food. Won’t be much longer.” He paused. “How did training go?”
“Everything hurts,” I groaned loudly. “But I’ve gotten the hang of a lot of the basics. Just practice, practice, practice from here.” Another thought came to me. “It’s weird how no one bothers you when you’re clearly practicing magic here. This magic town is weird. No one questions it or looks at you oddly, just you know ‘oh look they’re working on magic stuff, best give them room’. It’s a strangely accepting environment.”
“Acceptance is what we strive for,” Lee agreed. “It’s why I really love calling this place home.”
“Do you ever get tired of everyone knowing you and not being able to just walk around and just be… just exist? It’s nice having time to just roam on your own and not have someone five minutes later be like ‘oh yeah I saw them walking by blah blah earlier.”
“Yes.” Lee laughed. “There’s a lot of those moments, but you can go outside of the village. Not right now sadly, but roaming the forest is a great way to just be yourself. To just be part of the world and not have to worry about anything or anyone since the trees don’t care who you are.”
“That’s true.” I nodded. There were a lot of pros and cons to living here.
“The great thing is that you kind of have an extended family. If I was mad at my mother I could go down the street to a friend’s family and yell it out, and they’d listen, help me see both sides and that my mother was right or trying her best. No one’s really on their own here. You have help. Need to fix your roof? Done. Broke an arm and can’t get to your crops? No problem. Did your child light the house on fire for the third time this week? It happens.”
The last example made me giggle. “That does sound nice.” I closed my eyes, amused at the thought of accidental magical havoc.
“There’s ups and downs no matter where you live. As long as the ups are more frequent than the downs than you’re set.” He paused for a moment, “What’s on your mind?”
“Don’t know really,” I admitted. “A lot's happened recently and it’s been a lot to take in and adjust to it. But I haven’t had time to adjust to much, just accept the facts and move on. Not sure if that makes all this easier or not. Who would have guessed I’d be helping my brother end a war before it begins? Being on speaking terms with him seems odd enough.”
“In a good way?” L
ee asked, amused.
“Yeah. It’s all good, really.” I thought on it for a moment more. “I’m happy overall with the way things are going, I just wish the fighting was over so I could pick and choose what to concentrate on. Of course this shield stuff is fascinating but what if I wanted to learn how to make a pretty cake? Don’t have time. Having time for mundane things sounds nice.”
“I know how to bake a pie,” Lee added happily. “When this is all over I can show you how to do that.”
“That’d be nice,” I agreed. “Can I sleep now?”
“No.” He laughed. “I’ll go check on dinner, though.”
Chapter 28
The next morning I awoke with a cold. It was quickly decided it was magical, since with my curse fire, I couldn’t catch a normal cold virus. I had overworked my magic. Again. It was odd being fussed over and having a fever that took forever to break. It was weirder having Zarek visit me. He stayed for a bit to see how I was doing, and when it was clear I wasn’t awake enough to retain anything, he told me random stories of silly things I had missed instead.
Finally by the next night I was starting to stay awake long enough to hold real conversations.
“What have you been up to?” I asked Lee, not remembering if he had already told me. He had just peeked in the room to see if I was up.
“I spent some time working on committee things and helping Zarek. Tella’s probably checked in on you twenty times, and Mother said you’ve had enough of her special stew to be good to go tomorrow.”
“It tasted… really strange. Not really good either,” I confessed quietly, remembering the oddly bitter after taste.
“Don’t ask what's in it.” Lee shook his head. “It works with magic sickness, and if you keep it all down you’ll be fine the next day.”
“That bad?” I tried to guess at what could be in it, but nothing came to mind.
“Yes.” He shuddered. “Anyway, we've got three more days and we’ll continue on with operation ‘see if they’re stupid enough to capture Zarek again’.”
