Imogen walked to my side immediately. “What do you need, my prince?”
“When Asher returns, tell him that as soon as I’m done healing the rescued, I need him to head to the Dragon sanctuary with me. Ask him to bring every kind of weapon he can find, there is much I need to practice…
There will be no rest tonight.”
27
Learning how to use magic was like learning how to walk. How to be. It was an intuitive experience that was centered entirely on how connected you were with your own self. It was something you felt in your soul, in your bones, in your veins.
It was stopping the entire world until the only sound you could hear was the beating of your own heart. It was following the threads of energy that bonded your cells together, knitting muscles and nerves, and literally making you whole.
That was the only way I had to describe it. It was indeed a feeling. Something that coursed through me constantly, eager to answer my call. Eager to befeltand be set free.
Golden energy swayed around me while I hovered in the middle of the room, eyes closed, arms extended to the sides. No, I couldn’t see the magic floating around me in perfect harmony and creating a sphere of power that renewed me with every heartbeat, but I could sense it.
Devenish magic swayed around my body as the soothing waves of an endless ocean, and I floated within its benevolent might. What had once been random splashes, reactions of my magic, was growing into a sea of power that expanded from me more and more each time I opened myself to it. Every moment I welcomed it and recognized it as the force it was, my ally, it grew inside me, it became stronger.
I’d learned to set it free more easily, instinctively, and to sense its intention during the last four days… with Raithian’s help. I trusted my magic now, which was mind-blowing.
A loud gasp, followed by a mumbled curse, echoed through the space, bringing a smirk to my face, and popping the “bubble” in which I floated. My eyes opened in time to see the swaying magic dissipating back into my being, just as my feet touched the ground.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to interrupt,” Kingston mumbled from the entrance of the room when I turned to face him.
“It’s fine. I was just meditating, or recharging?” I paused, trying to remember the actual purpose of a practice Raithian said used to be calledbathing in your power.
Maybe it was both since it was meant to enhance our ability and help us become one with it. I never thought I’d be the type of person who enjoyed meditating, but it felt amazing being in the “bubble”.
“Anyway,” I shrugged. “You are not the only one who’s freaked out when seeing me like this.”
“You should be getting ready,” he chided, offering me his signature scowl as he walked to the bed, where the rest of the suit Willow made me lay. The chief’s faithful armor covered his large and muscular body, but it had been flawlessly polished to look brand new.
I made a face. “Honestly, I was hoping Willow would come to help me wrap the top. I have no idea how it works.”
Yeah, I could do unexplainable magic, communicate with Dragons, heal, and even change the very fabric of reality, but apparently, putting on an ancient ceremonial suit was where I drew the line.
“The pants were easy, because… pants,” I explained, walking to his side, “and the skirt looking panels that go on top were too—I think—but I can’t for the life of me figure out the shirt situation.” It wasn’t really a shirt, so that was where the problems began.
It was Kingston’s turn to chuckle, a sight that had become so normal since he finally forgave himself and proclaimed his love for Willow, that I could hardly remember—no, never mind, I could still remember the special way he growled just for me.
Glancing at the panels tied to my hips, he became pensive for a moment, and then swiveled them until the open part faced the front, revealing the slim pants I wore under it. The skirt was a different material than the pearlescent white sacred Dragon skin, similar to silk but kind of see-through, shimmering under the light with the same aqua hue the skin had.
His brow furrowed a bit more as he reached for the long wrap on the bed, and I helped him extend the sacred skin to its full length. Part of it fell to the floor, widening at the bottom and somehow reminding me of a veil. After a few minutes of turning and flipping to try and make sense of it, his eyes finally brightened.
He took the narrower end, lifting it to my body. “Arms up.”
The moment I lifted them, he wrapped the sacred skin around my waist, securing it on the left side with tiny hooks I hadn’t even noticed. It reminded me a bit of the wide fabric “belt” men wore with tuxes in the Mirror World, except this had a load of extra material. Turning it again, he flipped the wrap from my left hip and draped it across my chest to fall over my right shoulder, securing the longer end to the back of the “belt” and finally letting it fall in place behind me.
It wasn’t a veil; it was an imperial cape.
The ancient Devenish outfit seemed a cross between an Indian royal suit and samurai robes, and I never thought I would love wearing a skirt as much as I did.
Kingston smiled at me and stepped back, a certain honor capturing his features before he nodded towards the standing mirror.
Taking a deep breath, I turned to face it, my breath halting from the sight.
That couldn’t possibly be me, but my back still straightened with the wave of duty that swept through me in that instant. The man who stood before me, was not the young man who grew up experiencing only hardship, loss, and pain. Not the one who secretly sought tiny wisps of hope in the solitude of his life, clinging to them desperately until they burned before his eyes.
That young man was gone.
