Now they were being secretive.
Still, I was included in their intrigues.
Less than twenty minutes later, six of the temple masters had mounted on horses from the stables and trotted down a canopied path toward the Spine. The mountain peaks loomed so largely in my mind. The magic cascaded in waterfalls down the jagged, terrible rock faces.
Even since early in the week, the magic was more visible to me. To the point where I had to ask for help withnotseeing it. I was afraid I was going to end up walking through a forest of magic, unable to see more than a few feet in front of me.
Mistress Sona had chuckled and handed me off to Master Vitas, who was the most magic-soaked of all of the masters, save Master Dorian.
“Tell me what you see out there.” Master Vitas had pointed to the valley that stretched out beyond the back of the temple grounds.
“Crawling strings of magic. Everywhere. There are some trees, which are also draped in strings, and just a few open patches of grass.”
“Hmm. I can see why they asked me. Do you know why they asked me?”
I shook my head.
“I want you to close your eyes and let the magic well up, dig in. Take over a bit. I can feel you’re holding it back to some degree.”
Nodding, I let out an even breath. My eyes shuttered, and I pulled in some of the magic. It rushed in, nearly overwhelming me. I staggered under the onslaught and couldn’t gain control of it again. It swirled and pushed and pulled and yanked—
“Whoa! Whoa!”
A bubble of calm settled over me, and a masculine chortle filled the once-again peaceful night.
“Yes, they were right to ask me. I want you to slowly open your eyes and look at me. Tell me what you see when you do.”
A little afraid, I opened my eyes.
I saw Master Vitas painted with magic, outlined with it, colored in with it. There was so much of it, not a bit of him uncovered.
“You see everything coated, don’t you?”
“Do you see the world like this, Master?”
“First. Stop with the master. I’m Vitas. I’m only twenty years older than you are, and I shouldn’t be a master any more than you should. It’s only because I have so damn much of the magic that I’m here.
“Second, yes. Icansee the world this way. The rumor you’ve heard about me being born using magic isn’t far from the truth. I saw the world painted with magic when I was just eight. It took me years to learn to control it. You won’t take nearly as long.”
“This is terrifying.” The words slipped out. I couldn’t speak.
“It is, and I spent two years looking at the world like that.”
“Sweet Mother of S’Kir.”
He let out another chuckle. “You’ve already got the technique. You dropped your walls to let the magic in. You have to put them back up to keep it out.”
“Wait, you told me to drop the walls I already had up?”
Vitas cocked his head. “It is far easier to take walls down than put them up. Rebuild what you had, make them higher and better, and you’ll understand how to control what you see and don’t. But—don’t lock all of it out. You want to have enough magic to be able to sense it and hear what it’s telling you. Warning you. Advising you.”
Bit by bit, I started building the walls against the tide of magic. I chose my bricks and made them glass so I could easily see out of them, but they stemmed the flow.
“I thought magic was just a force to be used.”
“No, no. Not at all. It’s part and parcel of our existence, and if you move beyond the power of it, you can find the subtlety of it, sensing the shifts in someone else’s.”
Grinning, Vitas watched me. “How do you think I beat Bebbenel when I was tested?”
