“It’s more than pronouncing the words and copying the feeling,” I was saying to my little sister, who was writing down every word. “The next time you say an incantation, pay attention to how much mana it uses compared to when you use that same spell without the incantation. You’ll notice the silent casting uses less mana. And if you pay attention, even silent casting uses too much mana at first. The more you use the spell, the less mana it uses as you start casting it more efficiently. Didn’t Elias tell you this?”

  “He’s explained this to me… I just can’t get it!” Talia said. She stretched out her hand and summoned a ball of fire. “How are you so much better at magic than me?”

  “You shouldn’t compare yourself to me. Perhaps this kind of magic isn’t your strong suit.”

  “Then what is?”

  “That’s what you’ll have to figure out,” I said, almost letting out a sigh of relief when Talia appeared to accept my answer. “Have you thought about what you want to do with magic?”

  “What do you mean?” Talia asked, tilting her head.

  “Are you trying to fight? Do you want to heal? What is it you are hoping to accomplish with magic?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Not an unexpected answer. Talia was eight years old; I would have been a bit surprised if she had an answer. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do myself. Being a healer wasn’t part of my plan, though I would have no qualms about healing someone if needed. Hopefully school will give me an idea for my future in this world.

  The front door opened. Standing there was Damon, holding a wooden sword in his hand. “Thorian! What are you doing? You should have been ready to spar by now.”

  I almost groaned. I’d rather help Talia with magic than spar with Damon. How had he not realized swords weren’t for me? Sure, I was improving, albeit very slowly, but it was clear wielding a sword wasn’t my forte. It was a shame Damon refused to believe that.

  “I’m coming,” I turned to my sister. “We can talk about this later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I grabbed my wooden sword and followed Damon. We hadn’t even started the spar, and I was already annoyed. This wasn’t going to be fun. I stood across from him and took my position. This time I was using the Gylorian stance. Aggression was what I was best at with a sword, not like that was much to brag about. Renna would beat me as easily as Damon did if we sparred with swords.

  “Go,” Damon said.

  I bolted forward, raising my wooden sword up high and struck. Damon easily blocked my attack and countered. Wind blew my hair aside as Damon missed by mere inches, giving me the chance to attack once more. My sword went straight for his wide-open rib cage. In the past, this would have excited me as it looked like I would score a hit. I know better now.

  Damon dodged the strike and countered. A loud crack echoed across the yard. I couldn’t help but scream as I felt my left leg break. Damon wasn’t done; he swung again and cracked my right side. I felt a couple ribs crack. I went to the floor, wheezing as the pain threatened to overwhelm my senses.

  That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I healed myself and threw my sword aside. “I’m done!” I shouted. “I’m not sparring with you anymore. What you do is not right and you’re a terrible teacher!”

  “Thorian, you’ll un-”

  “Understand when I’m older my ass!” I yelled. My face felt hot. A part of me wanted to blast Damon with magic. Oh, how good it would feel to get a good hit against him, yet I knew what would happen if I tried. He would avoid the attack and hit me again. I should know, I tried to attack him with magic in a similar situation to this. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  With those final words, I ran, ignoring Damon’s words. I didn’t hear a single word he said as I ran. I ran until I could no longer run and then stopped, gasping for air and turned around. I was relieved not to see Damon chasing after me, if he wanted, he could have caught me with how fast he was.

  From this day on, I would no longer train with the sword. What was the point? I sucked and to say I was tired of getting hurt was an understatement. How would I convince Damon of my resolve? I wouldn’t use a sword to spar him. If he tried to force me, I would fight with magic. At least that way I would improve my skills in a meaningful manner.

  Ugh, the thought of confronting Damon filled me with dread. I resigned myself to staying away from home until nightfall. If Zena and Damon get mad at me about it, well, I’ll deal with that when I get home.

  “Done with training already?” Renna asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  That’s when I realized I walked all the way to Renna’s house. I hadn’t been thinking about where to go and here I was, going straight to my only friend in this village. “You could say that.”

  “What happened?” Renna said, her right brow raised.

  “I had a fight with my father,” I said after a moment. There was no point in not telling her. Besides, venting should make me feel better, right? “I’m done training with the sword. Not only do I suck at it, but I’m sick of feeling my bones break every time we spar. It’s painful and its time I focus all my attention on magic.”

  “Wait, your father… breaks your bones?” Renna’s eyes were wide.

  “Uh, yeah,” I forgot I’d never told her about how badly he hurt me in our fights. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. “He says I’ll thank him for it later as it’ll toughen me up.”

  “I’m sorry he’s training you like that,” Renna looked distraught, though she quickly regained her composure. “When my father was training me, he taught me techniques and did some light sparring. He’s a bit too old to do that now.”

  “Sounds better than what I got,” I kicked a rock and watched it hit a tree. Great, now my big toe hurts. “Sorry, I’m just frustrated.”

  “It’s not right for him to do that to you,” Renna said.

  It was quiet, but I could hear the cold fury in her voice. At least I knew she cared. “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said. There was no point in venting about this, not if it would make her mad too!

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Fine, I’ve got something to cheer you up,” Renna looked toward the forest and back at me. “I was thinking of going. It’ll make you feel better killing weak monsters.”

  “Yeah, anything beats being home,” I said.

  That’s what we did. We entered the forest and began slaughtering any monster that came at us. This forest mainly had shadow wolves and goblins. There was the occasional giant ant. None of them were challenges. We took turns taking them out. I’d take out a group, then Renna would.

  The monsters here were too weak to help me get stronger. Still, it felt good to let out my frustrations. Killing a group of monsters was therapeutic. I was quickly forgetting about my fight with Damon as we killed and laughed with one another.

  We did this for over an hour. I finished burning the last few goblins, then turned to Renna. “I’m pretty sure we’ve killed enough monsters. Want to get out of here?” I asked.

  Renna wiped her blade on the back of a dead goblin before taking out a cloth and cleaning her blade. “Yeah, we’ve done enough for today.”

  With that, we both headed toward the exit. We’d made it deep into the forest. It took us longer than I thought to see the exit and we didn’t see a single monster on our way out, not that I expected to find any.

  As I got close to leaving the forest, I suddenly felt tired. I was exhausted, my body heavy. Before I knew it, I collapsed to the ground, barely holding myself up on my hands and knees. What was happening? My breathing came in ragged gasps, and I was finding it hard to stay awake.

  Poison? But how? I hoped my detoxification magic would be enough and cast it on myself. My body tingled. Thankfully, I found myself starting to wake up. I breathed a sigh of relief; whatever poison had hit me wasn’t beyond my healing skills. But how did I get poisoned? Nothing hit me nor did I drink or eat anything while in this forest.

  A thud behind me wiped the how from my thoughts as I turned to see Renna lying on the ground. I rushed to her side and ignored the pounding in my chest. Please don’t be dead. Please. I can’t believe I hadn’t checked on her after healing myself.

  Once I got to her body, I quickly cast detoxification magic and felt her pulse. She was still breathing. Phew, that was a relief. I wasn’t sure I could’ve ever forgiven myself if she’d died. At least the poison wasn’t deadly, but how did she get poisoned?

  I looked over my own body and found nothing unusual. Nothing sticking in my skin, no cuts or wounds of any kind. I didn’t examine Renna as thoroughly. From what I saw, she wasn’t hit by anything either.

  Loud screaming caused me to whip my head toward the entrance of the forest. Wait, more than one person was screaming. I almost ran to see before remembering there were monsters here. Leaving Renna would be stupid, so I quickly picked her up and put her over my shoulder.

  That was easier said than done. She was heavy, at least for my ten-year-old body. If I hadn’t been doing physical training, I doubted I would have been able to carry her out of here. I walked out of the forest and almost dropped her before catching myself.

  Alcion was under attack. There was screaming coming from the village, along with horse riders and people I didn’t recognize in the village. There was some fighting, yet there were too many foreigners. They had to outnumber the village five to one. There were carriages and it didn’t take me long to realize there were people in there, the people of my village!

  I barely got to comprehend what was going on when I saw movement coming my way. There were two horse riders coming and they weren’t people I recognized, just like the others. I set Renna down on the ground. Whoever they were, they weren’t friendly. Each wielded a sword.

  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about what I had to do. I conjured two stone bullets and fired one at each rider. My instincts as a soldier took over. If I was wrong in attacking them, I’d think about that later.

  The first stone bullet ripped a hole into the first rider. I doubted the man ever saw what was coming as he got blown off his horse and rolled onto the ground. The second rider did not suffer the same fate. He destroyed the stone bullet with a quick swipe of his blade, then he put both of his feet on his horse’s saddle and stayed in a crouching stance.

  I launched two more stone bullets. The rider simply jumped off his horse at the exact moment I launched the attack. The stone bullets missed him completely and now he was charging at me. He was quick, it reminded me of a slower version of Damon.

  I pooled my mana, creating a stronger a stone bullet and summoned earth spikes at the same time. The man moved even faster. He avoided the earth spikes, along with the stone bullet, missing his head by inches.

  Panic rose within me as the enemy closed the distance. I rolled to the right, barely dodging the steel blade that smacked into the ground. I raised my right hand, and a powerful gust of wind blasted out of my hand. To my surprise, the attack connected. The man went flying away from me. He rolled on the ground, giving me a chance to fire two more stone bullets.

  Both stone bullets hit the ground. The man was already in motion and closed the distance between us once more. I dove and felt a sharp pain spread across my back. Without waiting, I blasted air out of both my hands and launched myself further away from the attacker. Landing hard on my stomach knocked the wind from my lungs.

  Turning, I saw the attacker almost on me. I stretched out my hands and conjured a dust cloud. I had a plan. An earth spike was ready to launch, along with a stone bullet. I waited the couple of seconds it took and attacked the moment I saw the man come barreling out of the dust cloud.

  The stone bullet was blocked again, but the attacker couldn’t react in time as the earth spike launched from the ground, impaling the man in the chest. His eyes went wide, and blood came pooling out of his chest as he fell to the ground, motionless.

  Time seemed to freeze as I looked at what I’d done. In this new world, I’d hoped to never have to kill another human or fight in a war and here I was, killing two men without thinking. I didn’t regret my choice, there was no doubt in my mind the two riders would have thrown us into a cage. It was the fact there was no avoiding it.

  It seemed no matter what world I lived in; I was always forced to fight. My back was stinging from where the sword struck me. That’s when I noticed blood dripping onto my pants. I cast a healing spell, and the pain vanished. I patted my back as best I could to make sure I got it all.

  Renna. I needed to get her somewhere safe. I turned to see Renna sitting and rubbing her head.

  “You’re awake,” I said while rushing over to her.

  “Yeah, I’m still so tired,” Renna said. She was shaking her head. “Sorry, my body is so sluggish. All I could do was watch.”

  “It’s okay,” I hoisted her to her feet and supported her by putting her arm around my neck. “I’m guessing us being poisoned was by whoever is attacking the village. How we got poisoned, I couldn’t say.”

  “The village…” Renna stopped as she stared at what was happening.

  “Yeah, I need to get you somewhere safe. Then I’m going to see what I can do to save the village.”

  Renna tightened her grip on my neck. For a girl so tired, she sure had a strong grip! “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “If you go into the village, you’ll be captured or killed,” Renna said. Somehow, she was able to tighten her grip further. There was no way I could escape without using magic or hitting her and I wasn’t going to do that! “You can’t help them.”

  “You don’t want to help them?”

  “There are too many enemies. There’s nothing either of us can do,” Renna said.

  Anger rushed into me. I wanted to tell her she was wrong. I stopped myself. When I was in Vietnam, I had been in a similar situation. A group of soldiers were ambushed and without thinking, I rushed in to help. My recklessness got two of my friends killed. I later learned that if I’d waited and surveyed the area, I could have not only saved my friends, but reduced the casualties sustained as the enemy had been unaware of my unit’s position. I’d regretted my actions for the rest of my life.

  I couldn’t allow my emotions to cloud my judgement. There was more than my life on the line. I had Renna to think about.

  “You’re right,” I said. The words stung and my throat felt dry. A part of me felt like I was betraying not only the villagers, but my family. How could I live with myself if my family was killed? “Let’s get back into the forest and wait until the invaders leave, then we can figure out what to do.”

  “Good choice,” Renna loosened her grip.

  I knew what I was going to do. I’d go after the villagers and save them. That was going to be my mission. There was no way I could stay here and live, knowing that most of the village was being held as prisoners or slaves. I would save them, even if it took me years.

  We climbed into the trees and waited. The yelling didn’t stop for many hours. I didn’t try sleeping. All I could do was wait. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.