Chapter 4
We both wake up around sunset the next day, and Evaline seems tense as she walks around the clearing we stopped in picking up wood to make a fire. I briefly check again for the outpouring of energy, but my patch seems to hold. She starts the fire the normal way, which I think is strange because I know I saw burned patches in that clearing. My curiosity eventually wins out and I have to ask.
“Why don’t you just light the fire with magic?”
“My strongest power is connected to the air, so it’s very inefficient for me to try and use fire when I can just light it the normal way.” Strangely enough, her answer makes a lot of sense to me.
“Do you know what my strongest power is?” I ask, hopeful.
“Not yet, I have yet to see you perform any magic, so I can’t tell what you’re strongest at. That’ll have to happen when we stop for the night. I won’t let it happen now because it could cause your magic to pour out again, and it would be bad if that kept happening. Now, you can help make breakfast.”
After that, she doesn’t say anything about magic to me until we leave for the day. By the time I land and she stops running, the sun is setting. Evaline looks nearly as exhausted as I feel, so we talk little as we set up camp. We both sit down on nearby logs, silently eating our supper. Once we finish, I stand up and offer my hand, saying “Want to spar?”
She looks a bit surprised, but readily accepts my offer. I fight like Tam taught me, doing my level best to keep from going to that strange, whirling style of fighting that suddenly seems like second nature to me. After Eveline beats me handily because of a rookie mistake I made because I was trying to restrict myself to the disciplined, rigid style I was taught, I decide to try what feels natural. I spread my wings and take a step back, putting as much space between Evaline and I as I can in the small clearing. She signals the start and we both charge toward the center. At the last second I jump, using my wings to lift me just enough to clear Evaline and land right behind her. Although the move startles her, she is incredibly fast, blocking the sword in my left hand with hers. I’m already moving, bringing my right hand and the sword in it level with her sternum.
“Yield,” I grunt, trying to keep her from throwing off my left sword and regaining the advantage.
She smiles mischievously, “Never.”
I press all the harder, but suddenly Evaline steps back, making me lose my balance, then fires a blast of her air magic into my legs, knocking me over. Her sword is inches from my face in seconds, keeping me from getting back up.
“Yield,” she says, face full of mirth.
I scowl, but admit defeat. She offers a hand, helping me up. She apparently decides that now is the time to teach me some magic at the same time I do, but she speaks first.
“I suppose I’d better teach you how to use all that Radiance you have stored up.”
“Probably,” I agree. She starts to explain to me, and it seems pretty straightforward. Radiance, the basic magical energy, is a measure of your power, but also your control. Magic acts somewhat like a muscle, getting stronger the more you use it. People usually have their greatest strength in four elemental magic classes, but the rare few have control over something other than just air, fire, earth, and water. These she speaks of in hushed tones saying, “Although they’re rare, they are often incredibly powerful, but most are unstable in some way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, for some reason speaking in the same whisper.
“The most powerful ones often have their magic backfire, affecting them negatively in some way. For example, someone who can manipulate minds could constantly have their ability to read minds active, making them go mad from constantly being woken up by the thoughts of others and never getting sleep.”
“That sounds like a horrible fate,” I say, taken aback by the drawbacks of magic.
“It is, but you shouldn’t worry about something with odds that are astronomically small.”
“What do you do to find out what someone’s primary magic is?” I ask, eager to find out what I can about my own magic.
“It’s a pretty simple type of meditation, you just mentally build a channel from the plug in your well of Radiance to the tip of your index finger. Try it now and I’ll be able to tell what you can best do from the color of light your Radiance shows up as.”
I close my eyes and focus on the dam I built yesterday, creating a small hole for a rivulet of that brilliant power to flow to my left hand. It flows quickly, building up at my fingertip until it ignites in a brilliant burst of multicolored light that almost blinds me, even with my eyes closed. Evaline cries out in pain and I extinguish the light, snapping my eyes open. After I blink away afterimages from the light, I see that she’s looking around, eyes unfocused. That’s when I realize the obvious, the light was brighter than she expected and it blinded her. I’m about to offer help when green light starts swirling at her fingertips, building for about five seconds before she holds her hands up to her eyes. When she pulls them away from her eyes, she can definitely see, because she glares at me silently for a while before seeming to come to a decision.
“Your education in magic can continue tomorrow night,” she says, cold and distant. She doesn’t speak as she walks over to the other side of the fire, not bothering to use her bedroll as anything other than a pillow. I do likewise, but sleep is a long time coming. I don’t focus on much beyond learning to fly and wondering about magic during the day, but Tam’s death keeps me up, especially because I don’t feel like I’ve grieved properly, which probably won’t happen for a long time. The memories of that night are shoved in a kind of pile in the corner of my mind, there but pushed to the side, ignored. I eventually drift into a fitful sleep. I wake up to an extremely dreary morning, heavy fog and drizzle blanketing everything, including me, in a thin layer of freezing cold water.
Evaline seems just as displeased by the weather as me, and she was already angry. I get up and reignite the fire for breakfast silently, still a bit groggy. Suddenly Evaline cries out. I whirl around, wide awake now, and see a monster not dissimilar to the one that chased me through the woods all those years ago, the day Tam found me. The creature has Evaline in its grasp, one long, razor-sharp claw pressed against her neck, drawing a thin line of blood. She makes eye contact with me, fearless despite the situation. I can tell she has a plan, but she obviously needs me to do something before she can execute it.
I notice the giant monster has one clawed arm on the ground, knuckling like a gorilla. It, like the other Twisted I’ve seen, seems to have a strong resemblance to one animal or another. It seems to be nearly blind, eyes unfocused, constantly smelling the air and adjusting its head slightly, making it seem like it can see me. I crouch into my fighting stance, stalking towards my pack, where my swords are. I do my best to stealthily draw them from their scabbards, but they emit a slight scrape coming out. I let out a mental stream of curses, looking towards the monster. It’s turned its head in my direction, alerted by the sound of my swords, but that tiny distraction is enough for Evaline to slip out of its grasp. I take my chance and attack. I sprint toward the monster and jump, using my wings to boost upward and toward the creature’s head. It definitely has very strong hearing to accompany smell, as it swipes a huge clawed hand at me. I dodge, barely, and the close call sends even more adrenaline through me.
The adrenaline is accompanied by a shift in my senses, turning toward the heightened awareness that happened immediately after my Shift. My reflexes also seem to speed up, as I see the next swing happen much sooner. I counterattack, drawing black blood from the arm, if you could call it that, of the creature. I see another attack and back off quickly, leaving an opening that Evaline immediately capitalizes on. She jumps at the creature, swinging her sword whilst simultaneously sending a blast of wind toward it. It stumbles back, but recovers quickly, backhanding Evaline across the clearing. She hits a small tree with enough force to make the trunk splinter, but I don’t have time to check on her, as the monster has turned its attention to me. It swings at me, and I barely avoid being gutted by its claws. I feel a line of fire on my stomach, apparently I didn’t jump back far enough. I look at the barely wounded Twisted, knowing that with Evaline out of commission I won’t win this fight.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I back away, taking stock of where our equipment is and the best way to get to it. Evaline still seems to be holding her sword, albeit loosely. Both our packs are near the fire, on opposite sides, so I’ll probably only have time to grab one. I know my pack has enough food for about a week, if we ration well, and supplies to get more. Evaline has been pretty secretive about her pack, so something valuable must be in there, but I’ve never seen her take it out, so its usefulness is debatable. All in all, I decide to go for my pack, then Evaline. I attack the creature, swinging wildly, but duck left, under its retaliatory swipe. I sprint towards my pack, barely slowing to scoop it up, then change directions, heading toward Evaline. The monster is startled by my move, and takes a few seconds to adjust, seconds I use to help Evaline up and make sure she’s conscious enough to hold on. I swing the pack into the harness Oriole made for me, then grip Evaline tightly as I take off. She’s pretty heavy, and barely conscious, so I don’t get much altitude before swinging to face south, my wing beats the only sound as I head in the general direction that we were traveling before we were attacked.
Many hours and even more miles later, I land in a small clearing high up on the slopes of a small mountain in the Rockies, still in Canada. I can see the border from here, a line in the distance where a few trees are gone. I can see one small stop, miles to the east, but, other than that, no one as far as the eye can see. I set Evaline down. Shortly after our flight started, she passed out. She has a long gash along her left arm, and she’s pretty pale, so I assume she passed out from blood loss. I don’t think there’s much I can do about that, but for now I tie a tourniquet made from my shirt around her arm while I try to think of what to do. I don’t know where I’m going, so I’ll have to wait for Evaline to wake up before I do anything.
I think back to last night, when I blinded Evaline. Whenever I see her do magic, it seems like she does some motion with her hands. I know that magic is accessed by focusing on making that channel from your well of Radiance to your objective. Her fingers had started to glow with green light, which I assumed was earth magic, and she’d touched them to her eyes. I had seen green light in the burst that had blinded Evaline, so I assume I’m capable of healing magic too. Evaline seems to be breathing pretty slow, and it’s getting cold, so I decide to risk it and try healing Evaline. I focus inward, on my radiance and build a new channel similar to the one that created the burst of light. This time I notice the different colors of light, so I do my best to filter out everything except the green and turn it back toward the main well. Eventually, my fingertips flare with green Radiance. I grin, but grow serious when I open my eyes and remember why I’m doing this. I move carefully, trying not to dispel the brilliant green light. I gently grab Evaline’s arm, unsure of how to heal her. I didn’t need to worry, anyway, because I feel power flowing out of me and into her wound as soon as I close my fingers around her arm. I see the wound close within seconds, and color soon comes back to her face.
Evaline doesn’t wake up, but I remember the sickening sound of her hitting the tree, so she’s probably concussed too. I decide not to try and wake her up, but I use the energy still lingering in my hands on her head, just in case. I’m exhilarated by what I’ve done, but doing it has exhausted me in a way I’ve never experienced before. I collapse moments after standing up and walking away from Evaline. I fall asleep seconds after I hit the ground.
I wake up an unknown amount of time later. Evaline is still asleep, and I’m pretty parched, so I wander off to search for water. I find some pretty quickly, filling our canteens before splashing some on my face. I get back to camp, afraid to leave Evaline alone for too long. When I get back, she’s awake, but groggy, and she hasn’t moved from where she’s laying. I rush over and offer the canteen. She nods, wincing, and I hold it to her lips. She drinks greedily, revitalized by the cool, clean water. Eventually, she motions for me to take it away.
Evaline finally seems to notice our surroundings.
“Where are we?” She’s slurring slightly, a very bad sign.
“Somewhere on the United States-Canada border, in the Rockies,” I say, unsure.
Evaline is quiet for a moment, I assume she’s lost in thought until she sighs,
“Myar, I can’t focus, I probably have a concussion, and I need you to heal me.”
I focus on my Radiance, doing the same thing I did… yesterday? I’m not sure. It works, and I quickly put my hands to Evaline’s head. Her eyes finally focus, and I can tell she’s thinking clearer, because she very quickly becomes very confused.
“Myar, since when can you do healing magic?” So she’s caught on to my new ability. I grin.
“Yesterday.”
“What?! Do you know how dangerous that is? If that hadn’t worked, it would’ve killed me!”
I’m hurt by her reaction, “I saved your life, and no, I didn’t know it could’ve killed you, because somebody hardly taught me anything.”
“I was getting there,” she’s indignant.
I chuckle darkly, “Sure, whatever you say.”
She definitely wants to continue this conversation, but changes the subject.
“How’d you figure out how to do that healing magic?”
“I imitated how you did it.”
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Evaline’s gone pale, like she’s seen a ghost.
“Why not?” her expression has me concerned.
“No one that we know of has ever done a spell like that without serious training to do healing magic,” she seems very suspicious of me now.
“So, essentially, that was supposed to be impossible, and I did it because I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“You would be capable of that if you had prior knowledge, and chose not to disclose it. You did catch on to magic awfully fast.”
So that’s why she’s so suspicious. She thinks I’m some kind of double agent. I try to defend myself, “What would I want from you?”
“You’d want to find out where our base is, but, of course, you already know your mission.”
“That is not my mission, largely because I don’t really have one.”
I don’t mention that dream conversation I had with the dark man. I still wonder if I can talk to him, figure out what he wants, and, more importantly, what he did to Tam. Evaline’s just staring at me, apparently considering something.
“What?” her stare is starting to creep me out.
“I just had an idea, but I don’t know if it would work, because it shouldn’t be possible. Then again, if you aren’t lying, your magic really doesn’t care about what should be possible.”
“What do you want to do, and how do we do it?”
She seems to be a bit shocked that I agreed so readily to her plan. Evaline recovers quickly, though, and starts explaining her plan.
“You seem to be capable of quite a few types of magic, judging by the different colors of light that appeared when you manifested your Radiance. One of those colors was purple, the type of magic associated with the mind. It should allow you to, with proper training, communicate telepathically.”
“Didn’t you say magic like that was rare and dangerous, and had a tendency to backfire?” I’m not exactly enthusiastic about this plan.
“Yes, but I’m not giving you a choice,” She’s not going to let this go.
“Fine,” I grumble, “What do I have to do?”
“You should be able to access mind magic the same way you accessed your healing magic, however you did it. You’ll just have to replace green Radiance with purple and redirect it to your head.”
“My head? Why?”
“That’s all I know about using mind magic, since it’s so rare. I’ll handle what to do after you manifest your magic,” Evaline seems pretty confident in her plan.
Then again, she’s not the one who might have her power backfire severely. She’s looking at me impatiently, so I close my eyes and focus on my Radiance. I feel, more than hear, my wings spreading out behind me. As soon as they’re fully extended, the magic seems easier to control. I slowly kneel, keeping my eyes closed and my wings extended. Radiance is flowing steadily from my well, significantly more controlled than the previous times I’ve used it. It winds its way up my rib cage and into my head, and I can feel it there, illuminating previously dark, unused parts of my mind. It’s a strange experience, but not unpleasant.
Abruptly, I feel the presence of another mind, and the equivalent of a mental knock. I ‘open the door’ and let the other mind in. It’s Evaline, I can tell that immediately, and it seems like she can see or hear anything I broadcast, because an experimental Can you hear me? has an almost immediate reply of Yep, and this is weird. I can’t help but grin, as this is definitely weird, but also amazing. I must have broadcast that last part, because she quickly replies It is amazing, and your wings are all lit up because of your Radiance. I’m a bit confused by that, and ask what she means, and she shows me an image from her perspective. My wings are spread, reaching all the way across the clearing, and every single feather is highlighted with a soft purple and gold glow. It’s beautiful, and a bit unnerving, because the image is moving, like a video, and I can tell this is how she’s seeing the whole thing unfold.
I’m pretty detached from my physical body by now, so it surprises me a little when my body opens its eyes and looks up, splitting my perspective, and I can see from Evaline’s point of view that my eyes are glowing a brilliant, icy blue. I disconnect our minds, standing up. I look at Evaline and grin, awed by what just happened. She smiles back, and I realize it’s dark out. I can only see because of the fading glow from my wings and eyes. A wave of exhaustion washes over me, and I stumble, at the same time Evaline collapses. I lay down, more controlled, and fall asleep soon after.