“Very well,” Sophia said. “While your light can guide your way, it can also be used to blind your enemies. Your shields can be used to protect, but it can also crush those who get in your way. You can project a shield around them and squeeze, until their bones crush. Your healing magic can save your people on the battlefield, but you can also reverse it, to suck the life force from enemy forces. You can also concentrate your Spirit energy into orbs, to use as weapons.”
“Great!” Ava said chipperly. “Let’s try it.”
Sophia drew a deep breath, as if demonstrating for Ava. “Spirit is a calm energy, and it takes careful discernment to feel into it and access?—”
“Well, would you look at that?” Ava interrupted. Her Spirit magic flowed through the bond, and warmth blossomed across my skin, but I didn’t know what she’d done.
Would you stop shining that in my direction? Oberi snapped.You’ll end up withtwoblind companions, and you’ll have to be the eyes for all three of us.
“You’re emitting light?” I wondered.
“Yeah,” Ava said proudly. “I can make my hands glow bright— like,really bright. If it were nighttime, I bet I could light up the whole palace like it was daytime. I can keep going.”
“Not if you want the rest of us to keep our vision by the end of it,” Sophia insisted.
The warmth on my skin disappeared as Ava pulled her magic back.
“Are you sure Spirit is calm energy?” Ava asked skeptically. “Because I’m pure chaos, and that was easy. Give me a harder one.”
“All right. Let’s see what you candowith a shield, besides just conjuring it,” Sophia said. “Project the shield outside of yourself, around that rose bush. Then slowly compress your shield until it crushes the bush.”
Ava had already gotten to work. The sound of snapping twigs filled the courtyard. At the same time, my lungs became heavy, like something was squeezing them.
Then I realized it was my Earth magic responding to her attack. I couldfeelthe rose bush being squashed. The smell of roses filled my nose, but it wasn’t a pleasant floral scent. It was the smell of death as the petals were pulverized to nothing.
I held my breath, each passing moment more agonizing than the last. The bush continued to snap and groan as Ava reduced it to shreds. I winced, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. My magicached, and all I wanted was to bring the rose bush back to life, but I didn’t want to stop her, either. Ava had to master this. It could be a way to beat the Warden.
Finally, Ava let up, and I sucked in a deep breath of relief. A breeze swept through the courtyard, sending a whirlwind of dust particles over my arm. Ava had squeezed so hard that the rose bush was nothing more than a pile of dust now.
“Sorry, Charlie,” Ava said sadly. She could obviously sense my unease.
I sat up straighter. “We have to do what needs to be done to grow your powers.”
“I don’t need much practice,” Ava admitted. “That was easy. Let’s try reversing life force energy. That seems more complicated.”
“This technique requires accessing your healing magic,” Sophia told her. “Notice how your healing magic comes from aplace of love and care. It can also be the opposite— you can pull from hate and destruction. To do this, you must reverse your healing magic, and draw the life force out of a living being.”
“How’s she going to practice that?” I asked. “She can’t try on just anyone. She’ll kill them.”
“Wait here.” Sophia got up from the table, then came back a few minutes later. She laid something on the table in front of us. I heard labored panting and realized it was some kind of animal.
“This rabbit is a Familiar that was bonded to an Elementai who died months ago,” Sophia explained.
“I thought Elementai and Familiars couldn’t live without each other, so if you killed one, you killed both,” I said.
“That’s true, but if the Elementai and Familiar are older, or if the bond between them was strained, the dying process for the remaining partner can sometimes take weeks after the first one is gone,” Sophia said. “The Anichi healers and I have tried everything we can to help this Familiar’s soul pass on, but he seems stuck here. This is an opportunity to teach you how to use your powers, Ava. Help this poor creature die so he can rejoin his Elementai, even in the inbetween place.”
The rabbit panted harder. Clearly, this Familiar was in pain, and helping him to live on wouldn’t do any good. The merciful thing would be to end his life, even if he couldn’t get into the Ancestral Lands right now.
“I’ll try. What do I need to do?” Ava asked, and she shifted to hover her hand over the animal.
“Instead of asking your Spirit magic to heal the animal, do the opposite,” Sophia instructed. “Have your powers indicate to the body that it needs to start shutting down.”
Ava cast the spell, and I could feel tingles of her power spreading out throughout the space, even though I was sitting right next to her. The rabbit gave a shriek and shuddered, twitching on the table.
“It’s working, but he’s fighting me,” Ava said. “What do I do?”
“Sometimes, death is frightening,” Sophia said. “Let your magic tell his soul that there’s nothing to worry about, and he can go on to a safe place while continuing to draw his remaining energy out.”
