“Hey, boss,” I called out as I nearedhim.
His eyes fell to my feet, which were bare, and he smiled. “You’ve beenlistening.”
I shrugged. “Just a little.” Truthfully, I noticed when I hadn’t been connecting with the Earth enough. I got mild headaches and stiff muscles, so now it was mandatory that Idid.
“Waaaaa!” The bleat of the resident goat made me jump and clutch my chest. She sounded like a screaming child. It wasunsettling.
“What happened to her bell?” I asked Isaac, as she tried to head-butt my leg. Without her bell she could just attack out of nowhere and I wouldn’t know where she was! Freaking goat wasn’t all right in the mind. She was constantly head-butting things, trees and people mostly—which explained why she wasn’t right in thehead.
Isaac smiled. “It fell off and gotlost.”
I dodged her next attack and picked up a stick. “You want this?” I waved it before her as she ramped up to come at me again. “Go get it!” I threw the stick but she just came at my shin full-force, cracking intoit.
“Ow! Get out of here!” Iyelled.
“Waaaaa!” she shrieked, jumping into the air like alunatic.
Isaac laughed deeply, a genuine belly laugh, rare coming fromhim.
“Do you have some marijuana plants on this land that I don’t know about? Because I think she ate them. She’s crazy.” I got ready to dodge her again but she just froze, looked over her shoulder, and took off running through the path in the trees toward where the main camp was setup.
Isaac was watching me with twinkling eyes, but underneath that merriment he looked strained about something. “She’s been a good source of companionship for me while I was out here allalone.”
The mood suddenly became somber. Isaac and Logan had both lived a solitary life. Still, I couldn’t see a neurotic head-butting goat as a good companion. But I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t cute. I had a rescue dog, Logan had a kitten, and Isaac had a head-butting goat. It actually fit our personalitieswell.
Isaac had a hand on each of his staffs, and his eyes fell to the piece in my hand. The purple crystal looked almost magenta in the middaylight.
“Mother Earth is a powerful magician,” he stated as he started to circle me slowly. “If she cries too long, she creates floods. If she buries her tension and aggression, it ends in potent earthquakes. She can grow too cold, too hot, give life, create death. Mother Earth is a formidableally.”
Whoa.Things just took a turn for the serious. The druid lessons hadbegun.
I just nodded and Isaac pointed to the tattoo across my shoulder. “Faery, Earth, Mars, it doesn’t matter. That chi, the Nwyfre, is everywhere, and druids have long been able to connect with it and wield it. It’s our purpose increation.”
Doublewhoa.
“But as druids were originally meant to be powerful together, Ardan has created a hierarchy and made himself the most mighty, trickling energy down into hisminions.”
That was interesting to me. I always wondered how exactly that worked. “So you and I?” I pointed to his shoulder. He’d said before that we were connected. He was my master and allthat.
Isaac nodded and stopped his circling. “I am a druid master. Which means, I’ve been through enough training and done enough work with Mother Earth, that I can now train initiates. You and I are connected magically. I will make you more powerful, and you make me more powerful. We can only grow together. Neither will take from the other to leave them weaker, like Ardan does with his people. That is not the way of earth magic. We shareequally.”
Ahhh. “So … we’re like apack?”
Isaac smiled. “Yes. A very small pack with noalpha.”
I smirked. “But you said you were themaster.”
He shrugged. “Dated language to describe the teacher. Sloane, I’ve waited decades for you. For a student. Now we can grow in power together, to become great enough to defeat Ardan, and restore balance and life to the earth cycle. I wasn’t strong enough on myown.”
I wasn’t sure about the other stuff, but killing Ardan was high up there on my to-do list, so it all sounded good tome.
“Let’s do it!” I gave a light tap on mystaff.
Isaac frowned for a moment. “The only issue is, I’m not sure how to train a fire druid. Wind, water, earth, I could handle, but fire … it’s dangerous. You would need to tap into the very core of Mother Earth, the very depths of the darkness you hold withinyourself.”
My eyes bugged. “Darkness?”
Isaac shrugged. “Fire is a dark element. It’s fueled by passion yes, but also rage. Every fire druid has unknown obscurity and fury in their depths. A wrath that needs to becontrolled.”
