by Helen Savore
Alexandrea fingered her cymbal bracelet, but didn’t give it up. “It’s what I had on hand. Slip them on your pinkies if they don’t fit.”
Jamie smirked, but slipped on the rings. “So, air?”
She nodded. Moralynn had focused on earth shaping because of the hints he was a Smith, but to her that was short-sighted. If he was going to learn to shape, then he should learn more things. Humans would never fully gain the same depth as the fae, who had years upon years to study and perfect, but they could come to understand the basics of all.
“You don’t just have to balance between an individual element and curative capabilities. You should learn to apply the right type of Shaping to the right situation.”
“So not just a defibrillator in my medical bag?”
Her laugh turned into a hum. “I’m not sure I would call Earth Shaping the defibrillator.”
“More like a hacksaw?” He drew a flat hand against his own arm.
“That’s better.”
“With Earth I’ve focused on defense.” Jamie jogged with his hands stretched to either side and his chest out as if trying to block someone. “So then, what is the more offensive element?”
Alexandrea shuffled to catch up. “Elements are not inherently offensive or defensive. They’re different ways to shape the elements in nature.”
“So you going to fight me with air right here, right now?”
He had a point, and this wasn’t a time for nuance. “Fire.”
“Fire,” Jamie stretched out the word. “I can see that. Fire, heat resistance, that would be quite the skill to master.” He winked. “Maybe I should have been a fireman instead?”
Alexandrea tilted her head but bit off the smart response. Jamie always looked to something else. She should stop being disappointed and just focus on him while he was present.
“You can make of your life what you wish.”
“But?”
“What but?”
“You’re being too…” He paused. “That sounds like a platitude. What do you really mean?”
“I guess I still like the idea of you practicing medicine, even if it is in your own exciting way.” She put a hand to her cheek and shook her head. “With all the problems in the world, I still care about here.”
Jamie stepped closer. “You know, it didn’t occur to me. Your head was always in the clouds, in stories. The library, research, then the bookstore, it all fits you. But you have the same abilities to cure that I’m only now just learning. Why didn’t you follow your father in the practice?”
Alexandrea turned her back to him. “I just couldn’t. I can heal, but…”
She couldn’t find the words, but Jamie didn’t interrupt or jump in. When the silence became too much, she thrust her chin out. “I am what I am. And what I am is not a flame thrower.” She summoned a wind funnel that lifted her and turned her back around. “Let us focus on air for the moment.”
She paused, but Jamie didn’t argue the change in topic, so she continued. “Air Shaping is versatile. It encompasses control over all gases. The ability to change the currents, moving the flows. The ability to gather pockets of air, or to dissipate them. Once you can manipulate the currents, it is an easy thing to move things within the air. Also of interest is to plucking things out, particles that the air carries, or to excite at the molecular level and create weather effects.”
“Can I fly?”
“Today, no.” She dropped to the ground. “Someday, yes. I can carry myself small distances within the air. Longer ones require assistance and concentration. My talents are aligned more to fine manipulation within the air than the heft of heavy items.”
Alexandrea collected a few pine cones from the forest floor and juggled them. “Let’s not confuse your first wind control with your earth control. We’ll get to the rocks soon enough, don’t worry. Normally one would start with extending the senses, but I think you need to get a feel for the air. Try this first.”
She took one hand away from the juggling, but the flow of four cones continued with her deft right hand. Then she took it away. The pine cones stayed in the air and flitted about as if being juggled by human hands.
“Okay.” Jamie grabbed a cone and tossed it with a hand. Again. And again.
“You’ve got a rhythm. Now try to grab it in the air.”
The cone fell right to the floor.
“You want to try that again?”
“I’m not sure what it should feel like. With earth shaping it feels like an extension, like a phantom limb is grabbing the earth. I don’t know how to hold air.”
They needed a different approach. “Let’s go to the pond.”
It wasn’t long before they arrived, and she searched the edge for a nice, flat stone.
“Here,” she said. “I want you to skip the stone, but feel how it’s moving through the air, sense how it’s interacting with the water to continue to skip.” She stepped back a step. “You cannot use what you cannot sense. Think about the visualization we’ve done of anatomy for healing. Think of the air as a system, and the rock you throw disturbing that system. Track its disturbance, see the reactions.”
Jamie looked from her to the stone in his hand. “Sensing airflow, okay,” he said and closed his eyes. With a windup and a flick of the wrist, he sent the stone on its journey. Although his eyes were closed, his head nodded with each skip. Until the stone sank and his eyes opened.
“I could feel it displacing the air, throttling more below as it flew.” He illustrated with his hands. “When it hit the water it was a tense pressure, brief skimming that could direct it farther, rather than piercing the water’s surface.” While speaking through it, he found another stone and repeated the action.
“Again,” Alexandrea said from behind him as he continued to repeat the procedure many times. Before he lost his pile of rocks Alexandrea stopped him. “Okay, you’ve done this, now skip it in the air.”
“It’s still different.” Jamie gave a curt shake of the head. “The water tension is subtle.”
“Yes, it is.” Alexandrea laughed and grabbed a stone. “Either exercise would be good for you, Jamie. The precision control required to skip the stone along”—she sent the stone skipping through the air, but at the end of its momentum it halted midair—“or the sustained control to create an air bed to maintain it in the air.” She pushed the air to send the stone back, perfectly level, and into her hand.
Jamie raised his brows, but wound his arm to throw. It started at a good angle. At the first inflection point, rather than making a playful skip, the stone shot high into the air, accompanied by a rumble hitting their ears. “Whoa!” Jamie said, running over and looking up.
“Pull it,” Alexandrea said. “Gain control of the fall before it hits you on the head. That went too high.”
Jamie complied and the stone dropped into his waiting hand.
She looked from the stone to Jamie. “Maybe we should work on persistent control before precision.”
“Why?” Jamie asked.
“Because it seems like power, in small bursts, isn’t going to be a problem. I wonder how long you can sustain that,” she muttered. “Are you drawing more from the foci? Or is this some manifestation of a Smith’s grace?”
Now it was Jamie’s turn to blink. “Alexandrea, if you think I have any idea—”
“No, sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I was only thinking out loud.”
He shrugged.
Alexandrea snapped her fingers. “The rings, can you give them back?”
“Sure.” He slipped them off and dropped them into Alexandrea’s palm. “Leaving me nothing to practice with?”
Alexandrea rolled them around in her hand, feeling along the inner and outer ring. They seemed intact. “Nothing I can tell by pure observation.” She grabbed the stone from his hand and placed her hand high in the air and offered the rings in her other palm. “Never mind, we continue. Grab it with air and keep it there. Then let’s take a walk around.�
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Jamie put the rings on again and stretched out a palm to control the stone’s balance from two feet beneath it. As they strolled, the stone didn’t fall, but it shot too far into the air.
“Take away your hand,” Alexandrea said.
“But you said I could use it to concentrate. It helps.”
“I know I did, but I was not counting on those sonic booms. You’ve got too much energy in too little space. Remove your hand as the focus and let the air cushion form between the stone and the earth.”
Jamie pulled his hand away, and although the stone swayed, it hovered, leveling off at a more reasonable height. It dipped like a sine curve which shrank into progressively smaller waves.
It wasn’t quite steady, but after trotting about for several minutes it remained in nearly the same position. Alexandrea spoke up. “Let’s try the skipping again?”
“Sure thing.” Jamie plucked the stone from the air. He lined up for another toss, and it sailed smoothly, racing towards the first inflection point. As it arced down ever so slightly, it launched straight up into the air.
Both lifted their heads, searching. It was just their luck they hit a clearer part of the forest; there wasn’t enough of a canopy to deflect the stone.
“I don’t even see it, Jamie.”
“Dammit!” Jamie threw a punch, and a hole plowed into the ground. “Oh, come ON!” he yelled.
“It’s okay, Jamie,” Alexandrea said, trying to give him a pat on the back, “things happen. This is day one. But, um, can you feel it up there with your earth sense? I’m afraid of what will happen when it falls.”
Jamie stilled and returned his gaze to the skies. “Found it.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s falling too fast. I can’t take control of it, and it’s heavier somehow.”
“Come here.” Alexandrea offered her hand. “I can move us faster if we have to. Let’s watch for it.”
He took her hand, and they both stood close, alternating between looking up and towards the path to make sure no one appeared.
“Wait, that’s not right,” Alexandrea said as the speck too quickly became larger and took on an azure hue. “That’s no stone.”
Jamie squinted. “Does that guy own blue?”
“Raebyn,” Alexandrea huffed as she tried to tug Jamie away. But Raebyn fell too fast. She cursed. “I almost wished I hadn’t ditched Adhomai earlier.”
The dot elongated and materialized into his demion form. He was falling fist first, right towards them.
Jamie dropped Drea’s hand, and they jumped apart.
Raebyn’s fist crashed to the ground, but he used the force to bounce to his feet. “You should be more careful what you toss.” Raebyn opened his fist, and the stone dropped out of his hand.
Alexandrea took in a deep breath, then vibrated her cymbal charm and called on her pearl trinkets. Anything to strengthen her mental abilities.
“You shouldn’t be here, Raebyn,” she said, unable to keep the disdain from her voice.
He faced her. “You truly have no say on my actions, little fledgling. I do not mean you any harm, nor any to humankind today. This is more a sightseeing tour.”
Jamie agitated the earth behind him, forming a wall.
Alexandrea tried to wave Jamie off, though she knew it wouldn’t help. Had she ever explained that Raebyn was a shape shifter? He’d seen the speckled flight, but who knew what he made of that.
Lucky for them, Raebyn hadn’t attacked yet. Perhaps they could talk through this.
“It would be best to ignore my passage.”
“It would be difficult..., Lord… Raebyn…” Alexandrea searched for more words, hoping to distract him long enough for Jamie to dismantle the wall he built, “to ignore your passage in this instance, since it is you who have chosen to interrupt and visit upon us your belligerent presence.”
Raebyn’s face pinched as his eyes narrowed, and he spilled through the air towards her. “What has inspired your words today?” Raebyn’s body continued to contort and break apart. More eyes grew behind his head and presumably spotted the wall.
The wall fell flat onto Raebyn, but amorphous blue flowed from beneath it and spun into a mist. The mist twirled to reform Raebyn, but a second mist swept towards Jamie.
“No!” Alexandrea lunged towards Jamie. She tried stirring the wind to disrupt the particles. Raebyn could slip between it, though—this was himself, his being. He was not only a cristiline, but the Cristiline, with a mastery over his own body that rivaled none.
Blue crystal structures surrounded Jamie’s feet, and for all that he struggled, he could not move. He let out a savage growl as earth battered at crystal, but it was too solid to break.
Alexandrea could only watch, the winds having turned on her, keeping her away. The crystal climbed higher, past Jamie’s knees, and his movements were reduced to stiff jerks.
“That was not wise. Twice now you have taken punishment for these ladies.” The blue crystal reverberated.
The tones it sent out hit Alexandrea’s ears in a strange way, causing aches. She covered her ears, trying to cut out whatever extra that harmed them.
Jamie screamed, his hands too bound by the crystal growth to protect his ears.
“I do not expect you to be wise, young one…” The voice came from the figure Raebyn, thinner and smaller, but still him. “I offered to not harm the lovely heir of our dear Phoenix Sparked.” Raebyn motioned, and the crystal cracked, turning to mist and rejoining him. “I will not harm you today, either. However,” he said, glaring at Jamie, “I would not count on my generosity in the future.”
Jamie shook himself off, panting, but paused to catch Raebyn’s eye. “Noted.”
“I’m sure he means—”
Raebyn held up a hand. “It is enough. Do not worry, fledgling. He has understood my warning.” He then dropped her a low bow. “Now, if you will continue to cower, I must be off.”
Alexandrea said nothing more and watched as Raebyn jumped into the air, bursting again into a fine blue mist.
Before she knew what she was doing, Alexandrea found herself in Jamie’s arms. Or was he in hers? In between gasps of relief she drew a hand across his face, shoulders, then arms.
“Are you hurt?” she asked. “Do you feel anything? He didn’t leave anything behind?”
He gave her a tight head shake, but it continued, turning into a quiver. “How did he… what?”
She touched his cheek and shushed him. “He’s gone.”
Jamie took her shoulders and shook her. “It wasn’t like being caught in dirt. It was him, all around me, surrounding me.” He closed his eyes and winced. “Trying to find a way to get inside. What could he have done if I were cut or bruised?”
“I don’t know, Jamie.” When Raebyn fought Moralynn in her bookstore, the possibility hadn’t occurred to her. Raebyn was already dangerous, but was he more dangerous than they suspected? Yet how many times now had they faced him he where hadn’t inflicted mortal injury? Was there something else going on?
Though she didn't have any comforting words, Jamie’s breathing slowed, but he did not still entirely. His eyes narrowed and he grimaced. His hands dropped away from her arms and instead curved gently around her back, pulling her closer.
He said no words, so Alexandrea didn’t respond, except to lay her head on his chest. They stayed that way for a good long while, letting fear drip away and relief fill them.
36
Moralynn’s face became still as stone. Her heart barely beat, and only shallow breaths passed between her lips.
They were on their way to Avalon. Moralynn was returning.
Moralynn shied from the edges of the little boat, attempting to sit in the exact center. It was not the water she disliked, though she was displeased she could not control these waves and their perpetual motion. The destination gripped her mind, paralyzing her.
There were worse possibilities, so this was the path she must walk. Or sail, rather.
This was the one site she
continued to refuse, did not want to explore. However, after centuries of nothing, she was running out of time. It was incomprehensible. Yes, dwindling memory had made her consider Alexandrea her last heir, but she always knew, deep down, if something went wrong, there would be others.
Even when Boderien passed. Immediately she had had similar despondent thoughts, but too soon after she found Adhomai, and finding the Grail became a possibility.
Raebyn targeted her folk without a doubt now. She should know better, while he offered alliance in one hand, he wrought harm in the other. He might have claimed he would not hurt them, but why attack at all? Luckily, he’d been more brutal to Jamie, but the threat to Alexandrea was real. It was one thing for Alexandrea to possibly not take on the mantle of the Phoenix, another if she died before giving Moralynn another potential heir.
She considered for a moment withdrawing her from the Earth, but knew that would be going too far. Perhaps she should consider the other route. For so long she had been sure it was Alexandrea, so she had not worried about her more reclusive nature. Now she had to consider contingencies.
Would Jamie be acceptable to her? Would he be willing? She had not had a pair of Druids in centuries to ally with.
But those were all future possibilities, there was still something she could do now.
They could try Avalon.
She did not want to watch the water and witness that delicate change between the bay and the isle. Nor mind the sky for its shift to riotous color. Although they lingered in the ocean near Avalon’s shores, she still was not sure if this was the right thing to do.
“Is this really the best way?” Jamie appeared the most comfortable of any of them, sitting in the back, keeping an arm lazily against the rudder.
Moralynn maintained her center position, but the boat was too small to put her far enough from the water’s edge.
“It is the only way,” she confirmed somberly. She closed her eyes. Which images would be useful? Her early memories continued to fail, but Avalon was still there. Especially the last time she visited. She opened her eyes and water sloshed in her face. It stung. Such a mundane worry, yet it did not calm her. “There is not much of a difference between Glastonbury and Avalon.” She inched both arms out, trying to maintain her balance without displaying her nerves.
