Nothing happens.
I grit my teeth. I have done this before. IknowI can move it.
I press harder, reaching with my magics, pushing—a tremor. Small. Barely anything. A slight shift beneath my fingertips.
Frustration tightens in my chest. I can still feel Fire humming in my veins, aching to be used—its hunger sharp and immediate.
But that isn’t what I need.
Valen kneels beside me, his voice steady. “You are treating Earth like an obstacle. You are trying to force it to move.”
I snap my eyes open. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
He shakes his head. “No. Earth does not move because you tell it to. It moves because it chooses to.”
I stare at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You are not separate from the earth, Amara. You are part of it.”
I exhale hard through my nose, shaking out my hands. Of course he’s speaking in riddles. Again.
I press my palms into the dirt once more. This time, I listen.
The ground is cool beneath my skin. Steady. Patient. Endless.
And then, something shifts.
A low rumble trembles beneath my hands, rolling outward like an exhale. The dirt heaves upward, cracking open in rough, broken lines beneath my hands.
I barely breathe. The earth moveswithme.
Valen nods. “Good. Again.”
I exhale, rolling my shoulders and reach.
And the ground responds, more easily now. A broad swath of soil lifts, slow and steady, spreading outward like cracks breaking open in stone. I feel it under my fingertips—alive.
I move with it. And for the first time, Iunderstand.
Valen steps back, watching carefully. “Now—larger.”
I inhale, shifting my stance, feeling the vast presence of earth stretching for miles in every direction. I reach deeper.
And it answers. A deep rumble shakes the ground beneath my feet. Loose dirt pulls toward me in a slow, rolling motion, building, shaping.
I gasp as a section of ground lifts—a mound of earth nearly as tall as me.
Soldiers nearby shout in surprise. Someone curses. I hear a few scattered murmurs, but I barely register them. Because I did it.
I moved the earth.
I step back, heart pounding, my hands tingling with the aftershock of what I just pulled.
Valen smiles—not wide, but real. “Now you’re learning.”
I let out a slow breath, steadying myself. The ground beneath me is no longer unmoving, unyielding. It is mine to move.
Valen steps forward, his expression neutral but focused. “Good. Now, control it.”
