Chapter Sixty-Four: Cloaking the Tempest

  “Close your eyes, what do you sense…?” Selriph’s question came amidst the stillness of the woods, as nature itself had granted him silence for the transfer of knowledge he was engaging in.

  “I… feel a warmth within….” The girl’s voice came as a whisper.

  “Good… can you feel how it’s burning outward, through your skin? Your very body…? His eyes followed the energies, seen and unseen, around the girl—her skin aglow, her magical energy a strange mix, like a pulsing static and hearth fire.

  “I…think so…?” Her voice came unsure, barely concealed by a veneer of obligatory compliance.

  “Can you imagine yourself forming that energy into a blanket? Wrap it around yourself. Like you are trying to keep the heat within yourself.”

  “I…” Leian squinted her eyes, her face contorted in effortful labour.

  One might have thought she was trying to conjure a massive storm of arcane energy—worthy of taking down a fully sized drake.

  Yet, only her face showed signs of exertion; her magical aura was unchanged – wild and fluctuating without control from the nascent seer: the girl with Liona’s Sight.

  “Is…? Anything happening?” Her eyes opened as she looked at her exposed forearms. The veins still glowed faintly with golden energy.

  She…? Is that a legitimate question? Of course, nothing has changed! Her energy is still running rampant.

  Selriph inhaled deeply, attempting to portray an instructional calm—a facade that felt extremely foreign to him, given his age and the sheer awkwardness of somehow being thrust into a role of mentorship, which was brought about by necessity rather than indulgence or experience.

  After all, he was barely an apprentice himself.

  “I am sorry… I don’t think it’s working—I am such a slow study…” her voice came low, defeated. Roughness of self-loathing coloured her voice.

  Selriph’s eyes widened at the unexpected reaction as he quickly formulated a placating reply. “No, the fault is mine. I have never attempted to teach the… mystical arts to anyone before.”

  His gaze fell upon the book they were examining, the worn paper detailing what should be a straightforward 1st-level spell: suppress aura.

  “I might have been hasty; perhaps a demonstration would aid your understanding? As Selriph began to assume a seated, meditative position, Leian’s eyes found him, and his question took on the tone of a command.

  The runaway mage closed his eyes and felt the surrounding veil. With a soft well of arcane energy, he felt the blanket that had muffled his presence, his aura lifting like a fog wafted away by the winds of his will.

  The familiar, comforting presence of the Aracne’s warmth gradually returned to his skin, a feeling he hadn’t experienced since his time in the ratways beneath Caer Eldralis.

  “Can you feel it? My arcane signature?” Selriph muttered, his eyes still closed, and a soft light filtered through his eyelids as he allowed his aura to burn forth, a soft presence in the woods.

  His decision to display his aura openly—which resulted in his skin glowing with blue arcane energy—was done exclusively for an academic demonstration, not in the spirit of boasting or releasing the long-held restraint.

  One to show the process in action.

  As he exhaled, he once more formed the pouring arcane energy in his mind’s eye into the veil, the smothering shroud around his body. This comforting presence and warmth of his own arcane furnace slowly faded as the paradoxical sensation came over him again: a feeling of burning with a fever, yet feeling simultaneously cold.

  Then he opened his eyes — his skin all but inert, just like his magical aura, burning no brighter than the layperson throughout the empire.

  “There. Did you get that? Now you try it—follow your instincts.” Selriph’s lips curved into a gentle smile, his satisfaction evident in the flawless way his demonstration unfolded.

  That expression was not mirrored at all by his apprentice—or rather, the person whom he was attempting to teach.

  Her face was plastered with doubt and perhaps even scepticism, much like someone listening to a delirious drunkard’s claim of sainthood or possession of the secret to immortality.

  Selriph’s head recoiled slowly, surprised by the unforeseen response. The carefully constructed facade of his instructions began to crumble as his voice became flustered.

  “Just… give it a try. It really isn’t that hard—if I could do it in minutes, you should have no issue.”

  No words escaped her lips as Leian closed her eyes tight; soft grunts of near-endearing exertion escaped her.

  “Just follow your instincts, feel the flow of energy and mould it to your will. Cover the warmth around you like it’s a blanket on a cold winter’s day.”

  And yet, her instincts, as it turned out, were woefully insufficient.

  Along with Selriph’s imagery metaphors, the only result from this meagre attempt at a lesson, if it could be called that, was spelt out plainly by the expression of the spectating dire wolf.

  Deadpan, almost disheartened, as it strolled away to the thinning woods beyond — seemingly out of boredom.

  The poor girl spent thirty minutes in pointless mental exertion, with no discernible conscious stir or manipulation of her divine, or to be more precise, her arcane gifts, if one were to adhere to the interpretations of Selriph’s internal semantics.

  ***

  The youth would have continued his fruitless endeavour, were it not for the soft coughs from the girl.

  The reason wasn’t sickness or rudeness, but a simple need for water.

  A deep ocean blue glow illuminated the runaway youth’s hand, causing the wisps of arcane energy to transform into water droplets, which remained suspended in the air just under his open palm. Leian cradled the iron mug in her hands, and the slush of liquid began to drop into it, slowly filling with the conjured water.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Apologies for that … have a drink before we try something…simpler.” As Selriph flicked his hand, the hydromantic energy dissipated with the gesture.

  “Please… There is no need to apologise. You’ve already done so much, saving me and looking after me. I know you must have your own things to do,” she said, gazing at the nightly steed. Its forelegs flexed repeatedly at the knee in sharp, impatient motions, bringing the hoof up an inch before setting it down. It stood next to the bloody merchant cart filled with the youth’s ‘mercantile’ supplies.

  Selriph gazed at the same sight that Leian’s eyes had been drawn to. “Don’t mind her; we are not in any real haste—just so long as we have supplies to sustain us.”

  The ocean eyes scanned the surrounding woods for the canidae that would surely demand the most of any game they managed to hunt after the lesson. Nowhere in sight, for now at least.

  Where is Emmett…?

  The boy dismissed the wolf’s absence with a shake of his head. Perhaps it was casually exploring the local scenery, taking a relaxed, loping walk—assuming a dire wolf could appreciate such a simple thing.

  His smooth hands contrasted with the crusty pages he flipped through in the tome, landing back on the page of the suppress aura cantrip.

  Selriph then looked up at the girl, who had already placed the now-empty mug down, posture straightened in attention.

  “Let’s continue. Are you able to read this? “He pointed to a sentence on the left side of the tome, which was written in the runic tongue.

  Leian squinted her eyes as she jutted her neck forward, struggling to comprehend the faded ink. “Veil…Kin.. Orus…?” Her voice rose as if unsure.

  So she can comprehend runic scripture. Perhaps this might work!

  A small smile appeared on his left cheek; the lines of it met the scar there.

  “Very good, you are already familiar with the runic language.” Selriph’s eyes softened with a gentle look of approval.

  “Repeat after me: Vael-Kyn Aurus” The incantation came strong, almost like a military command, as arcane energy brimmed in Selriph’s hand—the familiar veil washing over his person. The imagery came as if involuntarily implanted in his mind from the very power of the words he chanted.

  “Vael… Vael-Kyn Aurus…” Leian’s voice came as a barely measured stutter.

  Unlike the brief, but very much noticeable stir of arcane energy—control, mastery even—from Selriph, Leian’s words barely elicited anything. Her aura shifted like a campfire struggling against the slightest breeze from a hesitant handclap.

  “That… is odd. Try again: as you know, the direct translation for this is veiling, suppress, aura, try to… allow whatever natural imagery comes to mind from those words.” Selriph’s instructional tone barely masked the budding hint of confusion at his whole understanding of arcane theory, which was entirely based on his own experience.

  He heard the soft inhale from the girl as his mind began to wander.

  “Vael-Kyn Aurus”, the voice came clear, more sure this time, as if declaring an undeniable fact.

  And yet, as he expected, nothing stirred or changed in the girl’s brimming aura, still as naked as the day anyone was born.

  I… don’t understand… what am I doing wrong?

  He recalled the unique sensation of divine power he had felt from Varos and Yuldric during their encounters in the ratways and the warehouse. The fight with the theurgist from less than a day prior came to mind, and the body was likely now sustenance for the forest’s subterranean critters.

  The ‘holy’ energies the inquisitors and holy mages possess… It’s definitely magical, even if it feels slightly different…

  His eyes traced the budding chaotic energy that flashed through the girl’s skin.

  Is it because arcane imagery doesn’t work somehow…?

  His memory flashed to the pendant he had given away to the boy in Fallbrook Eilan, its ‘holy’ energies cloaked by a tool meant to suppress ‘arcane’ energy—one and the same, at least in the boy’s view.

  No… even if that were true, this should at least work to some extent. So what’s happening??

  Selriph flipped through the tome as if trying to find an answer buried deep in the pages.

  Of course, Varnel’s text would not provide such a bespoke solution—if such a scholarly article even existed in the hundreds of centres of arcanum outside Eldeitia.

  It did, however, provide a modicum of an answer when Selriph fruitlessly flipped all the way to the first pages, which contain its title: The Arcane Foundations.

  The word seemed to come to life and stare at him.

  “Foundations…” he muttered under his breath, all but inaudible to the girl.

  “Leian… forgive me for asking this again, but how much experience do you have with the divine arts…?” He presented his inquiry with a layer of politeness that seemed to shield it.

  “None—mother has very strong views about what the church will do with my gifts. Why?” Her head tilted in confusion in the periphery of his vision.

  Selriph barely managed to avoid slapping his forehead—the source of his struggles was as clear as the sun.

  Selriph traced back to his only experience of formal instruction, in the ratways below Caer Eldralis. It was not the lockbox that Vick used to gauge Selriph’s arcane aptitude, nor was it the first lesson of necessity: the need to suppress his aura.

  It was the first thing the old man had asked of him in their initial lesson, the same activity scribed by Varnel himself: an activity for a budding mage to familiarise themselves with their latent arcane abilities:

  Lifting a pebble.

  ***

  As the sun began its descent into the horizon, the golden rays that cut through the amber trees illuminated, or rather, almost accentuated the arcane feat that had transpired in front of the runaway youth. Joy filled his heart, and he felt the same adrenaline rush as during his last Nathallow celebration at the Daryth Estate, where he received a gift from Aera of the house of Falnu, his childhood friend.

  That gift, that weapon—the only thing he brought with him into the four-year torment.

  It was a wonder why the same joy filled him at the mediocre feat of arcane progress before him—something that took an excess of two hours of familiarising Leian with the most infantile grasp of how to sense and manipulate her magical energies.

  After all that, Leian had finally lifted the pebble. The arcane energy, like a tiny, flattened soap bubble, ready to burst at the seams, barely held up the copper coin-sized object.

  “I… I did it! Selriph look! I can finally do it! Her voice broke with happiness, her eyes about to water.

  “Well done…! You have successfully harnessed, moulded your arc–– divine gifts to your will.” The pride in Selriph accompanied the whirling vortex of doubt that crept into his consciousness.

  This isn’t enough. If she can lift only a pebble at day’s end… how long will it take before—

  Selriph felt a comforting touch as the girl’s fingers enveloped his hand. “It… this is so much. Thank you…”

  “I… It really isn’t anything special, is it? It’s a pebble,” as Selriph’s free hand pointed at the ordinary piece of earth next to the girl.

  “It is to me—I feel better, better than I ever have. Nothing helped, not the herbs, the potions, or anything else. But... I feel better, less sick, all because of you,” she said, squeezing Selriph’s hands.

  A faint blush crept onto his face at the unexpected compliment, which felt like an untuned note against the disappointment in his mind.

  After all, it was well and good that the girl finally could harness her magical gifts—truly. Though her success was limited—if measured by the youth’s metrics—she didn’t need Selriph to absorb her excess magic, which she called a ‘sickness’, even after nearly six hours of continuous magical study.

  In all likelihood, this ‘sickness’ was simply because of poor regulation of the arcane energies writhing in the girl’s body, which caused her severe discomfort, nausea, and intrusive visions that plagued her waking moments and dreams.

  So for her to feel like his lesson—or rather, improvisatory attempt at dispensing information — was even remotely helpful? It was great, although he wondered if she was simply being polite and masking the immense failure of his instruction.

  “I… that’s very kind of you to say that, as he looked into the ocean eyes of the young girl and the sensation of her hands, so much like the moment he shared with Fionil Daryth in their innocent days in the Daryth Estate.

  Then a soft gurgle broke the moment of appreciation—not from a wandering creature of the forest.

  But from his abdomen.

  As if in response, the girl’s own digestive tract responds in kind.

  He slowly pulled his hand away from her, catching the colour rising in her cheeks. “Let’s call it a day for now. We need to find something for our demanding guts.”

  Selriph rose to his feet, hand on his estoc, as he looked westward to the sun that had now hidden itself behind the Greyspire Mountains range to the west.

  Only have an hour at most… hopefully I can find something before nightfall.

  As if answering Selriph, he heard the faint rustle from beyond the forest, something pacing through the soft undergrowth of shed pine needles and leaves.

  And the distinct sound of something being dragged along it—every few steps, of whatever was approaching, something caught, accompanied by a drawn-out shhrrrk on the layered litter.

  Selriph turned in its direction, his estoc drawn in a swift flash.

  Then, when his eyes had lingered on the sight, the estoc hung limp by his side, as an exasperated sigh escaped Selriph’s lips.

  In his vision, Emmett the dire wolf, with a bloodied trail behind him, was dragging the half-eaten carcass of an antler-bearing beast.