The clearing was quiet again after Ruby’s improvised fire missile had finished tearing through half the treeline. A faint column of smoke still drifted above the forest where the explosion had happened, and several birds continued circling nervously before finally settling back into the branches.

  No one spoke for a few seconds.

  Lyriel stood with her arms folded, staring at the distant damage with an expression that was halfway between impressed and deeply concerned. Calder had slowly removed his hat and was rubbing the back of his head as if trying to decide whether what he had just seen had actually happened.

  Darius broke the silence first.

  “…well,” he said thoughtfully, “good news is we know she won't have to worry about monster atracks anymore.”

  Lena finally snapped out of her stunned silence and pointed at the smoke on the horizon. “She didn’t just knock down a tree, she drilled through a forest!”

  Ruby shuffled her feet slightly, looking embarrassed now that everyone had turned to stare at her again.

  Lyriel let out a quiet breath and lowered her arms. “Yes,” she said calmly. “Your fire affinity is quite obvious.”

  Ruby brightened a little at that.

  “But raw power is only one aspect of magic,” Lyriel continued. “If we are going to train you properly, we must understand your limits as well.”

  Ruby tilted her head.

  “My limits?”

  “Yes.”

  Lyriel stepped forward and brushed some dirt aside with her boot again, sketching another simple rune pattern in the ground.

  “Let us test another element.”

  Ruby nodded eagerly.

  Lyriel raised one hand and spoke the incantation slowly so Ruby could hear every sylble.

  “The spell is called Wind Cutter,” she expined. “Repeat the words exactly and direct your mana forward.”

  Ruby extended her hand.

  She repeated the incantation carefully, mimicking Lyriel’s pronunciation as best she could.

  Mana moved slightly in her chest.

  Then—

  Nothing happened.

  The clearing remained perfectly still.

  Ruby blinked.

  She tried again.

  Same words.

  Same motion.

  Nothing.

  Lyriel watched her calmly and gave a small nod. “That is perfectly normal.”

  Ruby looked at her.

  “It is?”

  “Yes,” Lyriel said. “It simply means you do not possess a wind affinity.”

  Ruby’s shoulders sank slightly.

  “Oh.”

  She looked a little disappointed.

  “What does Wind Cutter do?” she asked.

  Lyriel gnced sideways toward her daughter. “Lena.”

  Lena immediately straightened.

  For the first time that morning she looked excited instead of stunned. She stepped forward into the clearing, pnting the end of her staff lightly against the ground before raising it toward a nearby tree.

  Her posture changed subtly.

  More focused.

  More practiced.

  She spoke the incantation clearly.

  Mana gathered around the staff like a tightening breeze.

  Then Lena thrust the staff forward.

  “Wind Cutter!”

  A sharp bst of air exploded from the tip of the staff.

  The invisible wave tore across the clearing and smmed into the branches of a nearby pine tree. Leaves and needles burst into the air as dozens of thin air bdes sliced through the outer branches.

  It looked like someone had thrown a handful of invisible knives into the tree.

  Branches snapped.

  Leaves scattered.

  The cuts weren’t clean, but they were effective.

  Lena lowered the staff proudly.

  Ruby stared.

  Her eyes were wide with fascination.

  “…that was awesome.”

  It was the first time she had ever seen wind magic.

  Lyriel gnced at Ruby again. “Try once more.”

  Ruby raised her hand again and repeated the incantation carefully.

  Nothing happened.

  Not even the faint stirring of mana she had felt before.

  Ruby frowned.

  Okay.

  Maybe spells weren’t the way.

  She lowered her hand and focused instead.

  Think logically.

  Air.

  Air was everywhere.

  It was just a mixture of gases.

  She could feel the air around her skin if she concentrated hard enough.

  Okay.

  Gather the air.

  Compress it.

  Form bdes.

  Store kinetic force.

  Release.

  Ruby reached out with her mana.

  She tried to move the air itself.

  Nothing.

  Not even the slightest response.

  Her mana didn’t react at all.

  Ruby blinked.

  She tried again.

  Still nothing.

  That was… strange.

  She could easily heat the oxygen in the air to create fire. She had been doing that instinctively all morning.

  But the air itself refused to move.

  Lyriel had been watching quietly.

  She stepped forward and spoke gently, noticing the confusion spreading across Ruby’s face.

  “Your affinity determines what elements your mana can influence,” she expined.

  Ruby looked at her.

  “Most mages can only manipute one or two natural forces. Fire. Wind. Water. Earth. Lightning. Your mana naturally resonates with one of them.”

  Ruby slowly lowered her hand.

  “So if I don’t have wind affinity…”

  “You cannot manipute air directly,” Lyriel finished.

  Ruby nodded slowly.

  Something clicked in her mind.

  So that was the limitation.

  In this world, magic wasn’t purely about logic.

  Your mana had to match the element.

  Ruby looked back toward the damaged tree where Lena had cut through the branches.

  She understood the rule now.

  But that only made something else more confusing.

  She frowned slightly.

  “Wait,” Ruby said slowly.

  Lyriel looked at her.

  “When I use fire magic,” Ruby continued, “I’m definitely maniputing the oxygen and nitrogen in the air.”

  Lyriel nodded.

  “That is correct.”

  Ruby frowned harder.

  “But if I can manipute those gases to make fire…”

  She lifted one hand again and stared at it thoughtfully.

  “…why can’t I manipute the air itself?”

  Lyriel paused.

  Then she smiled faintly.

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “Magic can be… finicky.”

  Ruby stared at her hand again.

  This world had rules.

  But they didn’t always make sense.

  And that made her even more curious.

  Maybe a person's affinity is simply a force of nature more attuned to their mana. Since I can manipute gases, I should be able to manipute air.

  Ruby lowered her hand slowly and stared at it for a moment while the others continued examining the shredded branches Lena had carved out of the pine tree. The clearing smelled faintly of sap and crushed needles, and a few torn leaves still drifted zily down from the canopy.

  She frowned slightly.

  “Magic can be… finicky.”

  Lyriel’s words echoed in her mind.

  Ruby looked down at the dirt, then back at the air around her fingers.

  Her brow furrowed.

  Slowly she closed her eyes.

  If my element is fire, maybe I can just control heat… maybe I can still create the effect I want.

  Her thoughts shifted into the same quiet, structured rhythm they always did when she approached a problem.

  Air.

  Air was just a moving mass of gases.

  You didn’t necessarily need to control it directly.

  You just needed to give it a reason to move.

  Her mind began assembling the steps.

  A tornado is just air in motion.

  You could superheat one side of an air mass. Rapidly cool the other side. That would create a pressure differential. Air would rush violently between the two. Creating a vortex.

  Ruby inhaled slowly.

  Mana flowed from her chest into her hands.

  She didn’t try to control the air itself.

  Instead she reached outward and began heating the air in one section of the clearing while pulling heat away from another. Tiny pockets of temperature shifted in alternating patterns around her, subtle at first, barely noticeable.

  Hot.

  Cold.

  Hot.

  Cold.

  At first nothing seemed to happen.

  Then the leaves on the ground began to slide.

  A faint breeze stirred.

  Calder looked down.

  “…is it getting windy?”

  The air began to move faster.

  The pressure imbance strengthened as Ruby unconsciously refined the temperature gradient, her mind quietly adjusting the pattern like she was tuning a complex machine.

  Hot.

  Cold.

  Hot.

  Cold.

  The wind strengthened.

  Loose pine needles began spiraling across the dirt.

  Lena looked up.

  “Uh…”

  The air around Ruby’s hand began to twist.

  Invisible currents tightened into a circur motion that started small but quickly began pulling more air into the rotation.

  The breeze turned into a swirl.

  The swirl became a vortex.

  Dust lifted from the clearing floor and began spinning upward in a narrow column.

  Lyriel’s eyes widened.

  “…what?”

  The wind intensified rapidly.

  The vortex stretched upward, spiraling higher and higher as the pressure imbance strengthened. The rotating column widened, pulling loose branches and leaves into the spinning air.

  Within seconds the vortex reached above the treetops.

  Clouds began to twist slightly overhead as the rising column of air connected with the sky.

  The wind roared.

  Everyone stumbled backward.

  Lena grabbed her staff as the sudden suction pulled at her clothes.

  “Mom!”

  Lyriel stared at the growing funnel in stunned disbelief. She hesitated, trying to determine if Ruby had control over the phenomenon.

  Ruby stood in the center of the clearing with her eyes closed, completely focused.

  Her hands were slightly raised.

  The vortex climbed higher.

  Branches bent.

  Pine needles ripped free from trees.

  Lyriel’s astonishment slowly turned into something else.

  Concern.

  “Ruby!” she called out.

  Ruby didn’t respond.

  The rotation intensified.

  Ruby introduced spin.

  The tornado fully formed.

  The funnel tightened and darkened as debris filled the swirling column, the roar of wind rising to a thunderous howl that shook the forest around them.

  Ruby’s feet slowly lifted from the ground.

  Mana streamed from her body like invisible threads being pulled upward into the storm she had created.

  Her nose began to bleed.

  Inside her mind, the euphoric rush she normally felt when shaping magic faded suddenly.

  Something colder repced it.

  A hollow feeling crept into her thoughts.

  The excitement drained away.

  Her focus slipped.

  The tornado continued spinning violently around her.

  What’s the point?

  The thought appeared suddenly.

  Heavy.

  Dark.

  What if I can’t use dark magic?

  Her chest tightened.

  What if I never go home?

  The spinning sky above her blurred.

  What if I’m stuck here forever?

  No one understood her.

  They all thought she was strange.

  Different.

  Maybe it would be easier if the storm simply took her.

  The vortex pulled harder.

  Her body spun slowly in the air as her mana continued draining away.

  Lyriel moved instantly.

  The elf unched forward, leaping into the spinning wind with a burst of magic that forced a path through the violent air currents. Her cloak snapped behind her as she reached the center of the storm and grabbed Ruby’s arm firmly.

  Ruby’s eyes opened briefly.

  For a moment she saw Lyriel clearly.

  The elf’s silver hair whipped violently around her face as she held Ruby tightly in the storm.

  And in that moment—

  Ruby saw something else.

  Something familiar.

  Lyriel’s face.

  Strong.

  Beautiful.

  Mature.

  For just a second it reminded her of someone else.

  Emma.

  Ruby’s vision blurred.

  The roaring wind faded.

  The world went dark.

  And everything disappeared.

  Ruby woke slowly.

  The first thing she noticed was the pain.

  It felt like someone had packed her skull with hot sand and then shaken it violently. Every pulse of her heartbeat sent another wave of pressure behind her eyes, and when she tried to open them the room swam slightly before settling back into pce.

  She groaned softly and pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead.

  “…ugh.”

  The familiar wooden rafters of the cabin ceiling came into focus above her. Pale afternoon light filtered through the loft window, painting long golden lines across the walls. For a moment Ruby just y there breathing slowly, trying to figure out why her entire body felt like it had been wrung out like a wet rag.

  Then a faint blue glow drifted into her vision.

  Arkhavel hovered directly above her bed.

  The ghost was leaning slightly forward, arms folded inside his long sleeves, his expression calm but observant as he watched her regain consciousness.

  “Ah,” he said quietly. “You’re awake.”

  Ruby squinted up at him.

  “My head feels like someone dropped a mountain on it.”

  “Yes,” Arkhavel replied dryly. “That would be the mana depletion.”

  Ruby blinked slowly.

  The memories returned in pieces.

  The wind.

  The vortex.

  The spinning sky.

  “…the tornado,” she muttered.

  Arkhavel nodded once.

  “You attempted to simute wind manipution by creating a pressure differential through thermal imbance. Quite clever, actually.” His glowing eyes flicked briefly toward the window where the distant forest was visible. “And catastrophically excessive.”

  Ruby groaned and rolled onto her side.

  “So I almost died.”

  “Not quite,” Arkhavel said. “Though you were… approaching an interesting threshold.”

  Ruby cracked one eye open. “Interesting threshold?”

  “The point at which your body colpses before your mana channels rupture,” he crified calmly.

  “…cool.”

  Arkhavel drifted slightly lower, his voice softening just a fraction. “Your new master intervened.”

  Ruby’s brow furrowed.

  “Lyriel?”

  “Yes. She dispersed the vortex and extracted you before the rotational pull increased further.” He paused thoughtfully. “A rather impressive dispy of control, actually.”

  Ruby rubbed her temples.

  “She stopped a tornado.”

  “Yes.”

  “…that I made.”

  “Yes.”

  Ruby stared at the ceiling for a moment.

  Then sighed.

  “Okay, that’s kind of awesome.”

  Arkhavel tilted his head slightly. “Your enthusiasm is mispced. Had she been even slightly slower, you would currently be a collection of spinning limbs scattered across half the forest.”

  Ruby winced.

  “Noted.”

  She slowly pushed herself upright, though the pounding in her skull protested immediately. Her legs felt weak as she slid off the bed and stood, steadying herself against the wooden frame for a moment before taking a careful step toward the dder.

  Arkhavel drifted after her silently.

  When Ruby reached the loft dder she paused.

  Voices drifted up from below.

  Lyriel’s voice.

  Calm.

  Measured.

  “…I’m afraid there is not much I can teach her.”

  Ruby froze.

  She crouched slightly near the top of the dder, quietly listening.

  Darius spoke next, confusion clear in his tone. “What do you mean there’s not much you can teach her? You’ve been here one day.”

  “Exactly,” Lyriel replied gently. “And in that single day she has already demonstrated control and raw magical instinct beyond what most apprentices achieve after years of training.”

  The crackle of the hearth popped softly below.

  Calder shifted somewhere near the door.

  “So what are you saying?” Darius asked.

  Lyriel took a slow breath before answering.

  “The only logical path is the Royal Magic Academy.”

  Ruby’s stomach tightened slightly.

  Darius sounded even more confused now. “Why not the academy in Muriel?”

  Ruby knew that name.

  Muriel was a town a few days away.

  Its academy was known mostly as a general magic school where smaller families sent their children. It was respectable, but it wasn’t… prestigious.

  Lyriel’s response was immediate.

  “A girl with Ruby’s potential will need teachers who understand talent at that level,” she said firmly. “And peers who can challenge her instead of simply watching in amazement.”

  There was a pause.

  Then she continued more softly.

  “The Royal Magic Academy exists for students exactly like her.”

  Ruby leaned slightly further down the dder, her heart beating faster now.

  Another sound came from the room.

  A quiet, irritated sigh.

  Lena.

  “She’s been here one day,” Lena muttered from somewhere near the hearth. “You barely even started teaching her.”

  Lyriel didn’t answer that immediately.

  The silence said enough.

  Ruby slowly pulled herself back from the dder.

  She didn’t want them to know she had heard.

  Instead she slipped quietly back across the loft and sat down on the edge of her bed.

  Her head still hurt.

  Magic college.

  She stared at the wooden floorboards.

  “I’m only a kid,” she murmured to herself.

  Arkhavel hovered nearby, watching her thoughtfully.

  Ruby looked up at him after a moment.

  “What do you know about the Royal Magic Academy?”

  The ghost tilted his head.

  “Nothing about the modern one.”

  Ruby blinked.

  “Nothing?”

  “In my time,” he said calmly, “there were seven towers.”

  Ruby frowned slightly.

  “Seven?”

  “Six known towers,” Arkhavel corrected. “Each devoted to a specific magical discipline. Apprentices would travel from across the continent to study within them, dedicating their lives to the mastery of their chosen element.”

  He drifted slowly across the room as he spoke, the faint glow of his form reflecting softly against the wooden walls.

  “Fire. Wind. Water. Earth. Lightning. Nature.”

  Ruby listened carefully.

  “And the seventh?” she asked.

  Arkhavel smiled faintly.

  “The Dark Tower.”

  Ruby raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course.”

  “Yes,” he said dryly.

  He folded his arms behind his back.

  “Each tower functioned independently. Students devoted themselves entirely to their chosen discipline, pushing its limits further and further through research and practice.”

  Ruby leaned forward slightly.

  “So what happened to them?”

  “A war,” Arkhavel replied simply.

  “Several centuries ago the towers were destroyed during a magical conflict that reshaped much of the continent. In the aftermath, the surviving magical institutions abandoned the old system of separation.”

  He gestured vaguely.

  “Now the various magical disciplines are studied together.”

  Ruby considered that.

  “So people can study more than one element now.”

  “Yes,” Arkhavel said.

  He paused before continuing.

  “There are advantages to that approach.”

  Ruby tilted her head.

  “And the disadvantages?”

  Arkhavel’s glowing eyes flickered faintly.

  “Jack of all trades,” he said quietly, “master of none.”

  Ruby nodded slowly.

  “If I went there… I could learn more than one element.”

  “You could,” Arkhavel said.

  Then he leaned slightly closer, his voice lowering.

  “But I would advise against it.”

  Ruby looked up at him.

  “Why?”

  “Because true mastery requires devotion,” he said. “To become an Archmage you must reach a level of understanding and power no other mage can surpass within your chosen affinity.”

  Ruby blinked.

  “Archmage?”

  Arkhavel’s smile returned.

  “You,” he said softly, “will do so with dark magic.”

  Ruby stared at him.

  “…what?”

  “My dream,” he continued calmly, “was to become the first Dark Archmage.”

  Ruby frowned.

  “First?”

  “Yes.”

  He drifted slightly higher.

  “Dark magic was never officially recognized among the towers. It was feared. Condemned. Forbidden in most regions.”

  Ruby crossed her arms slowly.

  “But now some humans use it,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  His glowing eyes brightened.

  “You will build a reputation. Demonstrate mastery. And one day you will succeed me as the first officially recognized Archmage of Dark Magic.”

  Ruby stared at him.

  Then something clicked in her mind.

  “…wait.”

  Arkhavel paused.

  “Our contract,” Ruby said slowly. “You said I owed you a favor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that it?”

  Arkhavel blinked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You made me promise a favor,” Ruby continued. “Is this what you wanted?”

  The ghost was silent for a moment.

  Then he chuckled softly.

  “Well… originally I intended to cim your mana upon your death and use it to resurrect myself.”

  Ruby blinked.

  “…wow.”

  “But,” he continued calmly, “I have since revised my expectations.”

  He studied her carefully.

  “You are not an ordinary child.”

  Ruby shifted slightly on the bed.

  “And a master’s true wish,” Arkhavel said quietly, “is for their disciple to surpass them. And if I was your grandfather, I would want nothing more than your success."

  He folded his arms.

  “So yes, that is my favor. You will cim the title of the First Dark Archmage. And then cim me as your Master!”

  He looked directly at her.

  “Do you accept?”

  Ruby tilted her head. The sudden gushing over her felt a little off putting.

  “If I say no?”

  “Then our contract is void,” he replied calmly. “And I return to wherever I came from.”

  Ruby considered that.

  Then another thought occurred to her.

  “What if I don’t have an affinity for dark magic?”

  Arkhavel smiled.

  “Oh, child.”

  He drifted slightly closer.

  “There is no human alive born with an affinity for dark magic.”

  Ruby stared at him.

  “…what?”

  "That is something we can eborate over ter. Do you accept?"

  Ruby looked at the questionable expression on the spectar. She knew books and movies. There had to be some underhanded ulterior motive.

  Had she really grown on this ghost in such a short amount of time?

  Her abilities aren't that amazing. All she has done is use logic. There are probably millions of mages like her at this academy.

  And after she sees her family again, does any of it matter? Would she want to continue down the path of dark magic? She is already pretty comfortable with fire magic.

  Would she even be good at dark magic?

  How does thinking logically help with magic pertaining to death? But what would she be missing out on if she said no?

  Ruby pulled herself out of her mental gymnastics and looked the specter in his glowing eyes.

  "Deal."