“Have either of you ever discovered something new about your magic? Something you hadn’t known before?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Nox replied.
“I don’t know, just…something you didn’t think you could do before.”
He shrugged. “All Shifters learn as we grow. We don’t always take the same form as our parents, or anyone in our bloodline for that matter, so everyone has to figure it out as they go.”
Arowyn’s next dagger whizzed past my feet. “Striders are kind of the same. We have different levels of power, at least. It took me a while to realize I could do things others couldn’t.”
Nox glanced at her. “Very ominous. Do tell?”
“Everyone from Celstria can stride, but distances and how often you can do it vary. What no one’s really taught is how we leave a bit of our…essence, I guess, whenever we stride.”
“Your essence?” I asked, brow furrowing.
“Yeah. An imprint of our power. The stronger you are, the more you leave behind, and the more often you stride to a certain spot—say, your home—it’s like a nexus for your individual magic. And ifyou’re powerful enough…” Arowyn trailed off with a smirk, raising her hand in the air with her palm facing up.
A faint shimmer appeared before a small box materialized in her open hand.
I sucked in a breath. “Where did that come from?”
“My house.”
“InCelestria?” Nox asked, mouth agape. She gave him a bland look, not bothering to confirm the obvious. Nox shook his head in disbelief. “How did you do that?”
“My essence is the strongest around my home since that’s where I use my magic the most. I can summon objects from there at will, if they have enough of my power in it.”
I blinked at her. “I’ve never heard of Striders having an ability like that.” Bethaly hadn’t mentioned it before, and none of the limited books I’d read on the other provinces even hinted at the possibility.
She smiled smugly. “Why do you think I was chosen as the challenger?”
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” Nox said with a chuckle.
“How did you end up figuring out you could do that?” I asked. “Did your parents teach you?”
“My mother said she did it once. She was walking home late one night near the Feywood Forest and someone jumped out of the trees and attacked her. She swears she wasn’t carrying a weapon, but she somehow ended up with our kitchen knife in her hand. She hasn’t been able to do it again since.”
“You must have been surprised the first time it happened,” Nox mused.
“Eh, I was, but I went along with it. Learned how to use it to my advantage. I think a lot of us look at our magic as something stagnant, but really, it’s always changing. I’m sure Shadow Wielders like Lark had to learn how to make their shadows take different shapes, and Illusionists find new ways to make the mind see what they want.” She gestured lazily to my bag of charms sitting on the dresser. “Even your spells. You’ve probably donethe same ones all your life and one day you wake up and realize hey, maybe this spell can also do something else.” Her words were slightly slurred from the Luxe, but still, they resonated with me.
She made an interesting point. What if there was a spell I’d been using for years, but only for one certain purpose? I experimented with new enchantments often—that was how I’d discovered my dual protect and attack charm, and my compulsion one, and all the ways dandelion leaves could modify a spell. I’d been searching fornewspells,newcharms, thinking something as powerful as what Theodore did had to call for a type of Alchemy I’d never heard of. But maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe there was a way to change the concept of a spell I’d seen before and make it work in a new way.
“Why all the questions?” Nox asked me.
“I’m trying to learn more about you so I can beat you in the third trial, obviously,” I quipped.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Arowyn said, picking up the empty bottles. “She’s plying us with alcohol.”
I snorted. “Pretty sure tonight wasyouridea. I’m an innocent bystander.”
“I don’t think the three of us have ever been innocent in our lives,” Nox said, laying his head back on the pillow beside me. “We wouldn’t be here if we were.”
Arowyn and I exchanged a glance. “That was awfully…dark,” she said.
Nox drummed his fingers on his chest, those sharp claws coming out once more and pricking through the material every time they landed on it. Four small beads of blood bloomed at the surface. “When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, been through what I have, you realize this tournament”—he brandished his hand, talons retracting—“must be some sort of punishment from the Fates. A penance for who we are.”
My eyebrows knit together. I’d never heard him talk like that. He was always so charming, so carefree, except for the rare timeshe’d brought up his past. Did he really believe the words he was saying? That he was here for a cosmic punishment?
