The Wastes of Time
Chapter One: The Phoenix
“Get up, Atuya,” Dayris said, hands resting on his staff. “You can’t possibly be done yet.”
She groaned, pulling herself to her feet, head still spinning. Seconds ago, his blast of Air magic had hit her square on the
chest, throwing her balance and sending her tumbling to the ground. His blasts always seemed to disorient people, and she
wasn’t immune.
“When am I ever done?” she said hoarsely.
Dayris chuckled, but pulled himself into a steady stance. “Then why don’t you show me?”
Before he could anticipate her actions, she flung herself at him, gathering her Light magic in her hands. The magic wasn’t
visible, even if it could be felt, but Atuya never just flung herself at an enemy. Dayris just dodged her punch, gathering magic of
his own. However, she was one step ahead. Her magic was ready to go, and go it did—sending a paralyzing flash of light into
one of his legs, larger than she had ever done before. Her fingers and arms tingled with tiny pinpricks, like a swarm of ants
marching up her arms. Dayris let out a small gasp as he crumpled.
Atuya tensed. Was he alright? She hadn’t ever tried to do that on a person before, after all. She stepped closer to see if
he was conscious.
What will they say if I’ve killed him? she thought. No, no, no, Atu. You couldn’t have killed him. The mats are soft, his
head will be fine.
As she leaned in towards his face, his eyes flew open—as did his hands, armed with a blast like a tornado. She was flung
back yet again, and nearly crashed into the walls.
He really needs to tone that down. I could’ve cracked my head!
She pushed herself up, although it was considerably harder without her staff. She looked around for it, and instead spotted
Dayris pulling himself up on a leg that was barely functioning. She held in a giggle as he hopped a couple times to keep his
balance before using his staff.
“What was that?” he asked, swaying on the spot.
She grinned, a warm bubble rising in her chest. “Something new. You like it?”
He sighed, but even from a distance she could tell that he was smiling. “It’s...interesting, like all of your other creations.
And also like your other creations, it needs to be refined. You look exhausted—your legs are looking like they could give out
under you. How much did it cost?”
“I’m guessing around seven pounds of berries,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a good spell, but it isn’t much use if it brings you down as well as your enemies. Refine it to use
less magic, and you’ll have a powerful weapon.”
She just nodded. Right now a nice piece of fruit and a book to curl up with—and fall asleep to—sounded really good.
Maybe an apple, since it is fall. Maybe with some cheese...and a nice cup of tea. I’ve just borrowed those books from
the Library, so I don’t even have to drag myself there. It’ll be the perfect relief from Dayris.
She put her staff away, stretching her burning muscles. Her fingers were particularly sore, the joints protesting as she
moved them, creaking like old hinges. They were almost numb, even—but that was just the cost for that spell. Her magic was
depleted, and even if she had any, she wouldn’t use it. The magic wear would probably send her into a 15-hour power nap.
She left the building, as she did nearly every day. The streets were the same, the plants and other buildings were the
same, and the sounds were just the same. Each day was generally distinguished by the progression of some new spell of hers.
But today wouldn’t just be filed away as another especially exciting day where she tried something new on Dayris, because
today just wasn’t the same.
Atuya felt her muscles tense and her hair stand on end before she felt the telltale zinging pounding of magic in her bones.
But this time, she didn’t have to pay attention to feel the magic as it made its way through living beings—it forced itself into her
brain, and made her heart pound to its beat. It pounded some more magic into her, too, like it had sped up the process to
absorb magic.
Fire magic, she realized. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
The bird dove out of the sky, calling melodically. It looked like it was on fire, with brilliant red, orange, yellow, and gold
feathers. It swooped down on a building in front of her, opened its mouth, formed a ball of fire three times larger than it, and
blasted it straight into the building.
She felt the deep rumble as the building collapsed, and went up in flames. It shook her out of her stupor—she had to do
something!
She ran into the building, past the few people that were running to safety. But her magic senses told her that there were
more trapped in the building—the initial blast must’ve knocked down enough of the roof to trap some people in a room. She
followed their magic like a fishing line through a maze of fire and rubble, eventually coming to the door. A large beam was on fire
and blocking the door.
This is going to put me out for a few days, she thought as she prepared a magic blast.
“Stand back!” she cried. “I’m going to blow it open!”
She felt them move away and let her magic free. It vaporized a large hole in the beam, enough to part the flames. The
people trapped in the room scurried to meet her. Together they made their way out through the increasingly treacherous
building.
However, even as she came out into the clear, she knew something was wrong. The bird—a phoenix, she remembered
from ancient myths that had been told to her as a child—was still pounding magic into her veins, and she could feel the telltale
signs of it gathering magic, and letting it loose.
She emerged into a world on fire, and watched the phoenix vanish into the distance as quickly as it had came. But it didn’t
take the bodies or the destruction with it.
“Murderer!” she screamed. “You’ll pay for this!”
Chapter Two: The Angel
“Get down, Atu!” Dayris called, flinging out a burst of magic—so strong it made even her tremble—at the Angel, narrowly
missing her head.
The Angel’s wings faltered, and it screeched in a voice that was more animal than human—high and alien.
Like the repulsive creature it is.
She released her own burst that she had been preparing, heart pounding, the magic burning in her hands and pushing her
into the earth, sending a ball of spinning light into its chest. It didn’t cry this time, but finally fell to the earth.
The great beast was surrounded by an aura of light that made it impossible to look at directly, although its general form
was that of a human with wings. And now that it was lying broken on the ground, she could really see clearly how unmistakably
human it looked. It still gave off waves of Light magic that particularly resonated with Atuya, since she shared the same
element. It was unsettling, but the beast drew in more magic to the area than she could alone, and so it gave her a boost. It had
given her a boost to deliver the crippling blow.
Watching it lie broken, she almost felt remorseful. Its own magic helped me defeat it. How...sad.
Indeed, she felt some strange emotions she couldn’t quite decipher radiating out of the beast. The magic patterns that
indicated emotions—as the magic shifted in response to emotion—were unfamiliar. She didn’t even have to reach out her mind
to feel for them like she had to for people—they were just there.
Get out of my head, ugh!
They were almost as alien as the Angel itself, filling her head with the feelings of a creature she couldn’t even begin to
understand. She looked over the figure despite herself, the light fading from around it. Now that its halo of light was gone, she
could see its eyes—white, with a round, black pupil.
Like mine, she thought, stomach dropping.
Somehow, the Angel’s eyes met hers. They were dull now, but she could’ve recognized them anywhere. They were
exactly like hers. She knew well enough what her own eyes looked like from the now countless hours spent staring into her
hand-mirror, many of them in tears. More than once, people had chased her out of their shops or spoken behind her back about
them. How she was cursed. It had especially stung when, as a child, her peers had teased and ran from her. After that, she had
gotten used to people not quite meeting her eyes, but there were still many days when she cried herself to sleep.
The Angel’s eyes were still locked onto hers, a new sort of emotion making its way to her through its magic. It made her
limbs tingle, and her stomach writhe. It held her gaze magnetically, something in it begging her to look deeper.
Why? What do you want from me, you killer?
She clenched her fists and tried to send it the message to leave her be, hoping her thoughts would reach it. Even
while the Angel pulled itself away from the others in her group, trying to avoid their knives, it still stared. But something in it
reacted to her, sending a jolt through her bones. Its magic whirled around faster than she could think, making her head spin.
Then it struck her. A bolt of fear—and also of hope. It wasn’t like anything she had felt before in people, but she could
understand.
Help me, the Angel seemed to beg, eyes wide. You don’t understand what will happen if I die.
Why would I help you? Your kind has killed hundreds!
Its magic tensed, drawing itself into the Angel’s core.
The magic, she barely understood through the fuzz. It needs Guardians.
Then their gazes were broken. A man was stepping in with the others for the kill, blocking her eyes from reaching the
Angel. She reached for the Angel, trying to feel its magic and understand it, but was only met with confusion again. She
stumbled forwards, but it was too late. Even if she couldn’t understand now, the sharp writhing and sudden stop of its magic told
her that the job was done.
She shook herself. What am I doing, trying to understand it? What did it mean that magic needed ‘Guardians?’
She felt its magic leak out into the world, much of it finding its way into her, reminding her even more of the Angel. It filled
her up, replacing the magic she had lost during the battle and then some. It didn’t heal the magic wear, though. She was
exhausted—physically and mentally. Channeling that much magic had left her hands burning and bruised. But that was the
price you had to pay—as the magic was channeled through you, it was bound to do some damage.
“Atu,” Dayris said, waking her up from her trance. “You’re to be honored tonight for dealing the blow that brought it down.”
I don’t know what I’ve done. If the thing is to be believed.
She rubbed her palms, feeling the bruising protest and ache. “I don’t see why we do that,” she finally said quietly. “It’s a
communal effort. I just happened to get...a shot in at the right moment.”
It seemed like an afterimage of the Angel’s eyes were burned into her own. Begging her. But for what? What were
Guardians?
“Well,” Dayris paused, looking at her hands, “we need something to strive for in these times.”
“If only we could focus on building more knowledge and technology instead of defending ourselves,” she said, thinking
wistfully of the great Library.
“Now we have to focus on protecting what we have, Atuya.” He pressed a feather into her hands—long, white, and perfect
in an unearthly way, like the Angel itself. “Don’t forget that.”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she hugged the feather close. As she held it, she felt the Angel’s magic that was still
seeping out of its body shudder and stop. After a few moments, it continued, but something wasn’t right. The air seemed
charged.
Chapter Three: The Tree
“Good news—the extermination is done, we believe,” Dayris said at his seat in the Council, as the leader of Air. “We
intercepted an Angel, and grounded it. That was the first one we’ve seen in months.”
The assembled members nodded, talking among themselves excitedly. Atuya looked around at their similarly happy
faces—it seemed that she was the only one without.
She had helped to kill a few of the other entities, like the Angel—some of the Sea-Horses that had risen out of the lakes
with weed in their manes and deep eyes and a Phoenix like the one she had seen that first day. But when they had killed the
Angel, something had changed. Usually it was a release—like the Angel’s magic initially—but this time, the magic hadn’t just
escaped. Ever since, she couldn’t shake a feeling of unease—the magic seemed to be at unrest. It was on the move—flowing
from place to place, being to being—but never settling. It had been getting worse, and it made her want to bite her fingernails off.
She had already bitten them too much to do any more damage, so she settled for being uncomfortable all day. She bounced her
leg in her seat and tapped her fingertips on one hand, gently rubbing the feather from the angel she wore on her neck with the
other.
Dayris shot her a look, and she groaned. He knew her too well for her to hide her nervous energy.
“Atuya was at the hunt, too,” he said. “Apprentice, do you have anything to say?”
No one will believe me about the magic. No one else seems to be able to feel it—or maybe they don’t want to feel it.
What did that Angel do?
She looked around. She wouldn’t put it past most of them—they saw something they were afraid of, and they struck. It
was the human way. But not all of them were like that.
“Well?” Dayris said, breaking into her thoughts.
She took a deep breath—it was now or never to find out if anyone had noticed the magic. “After we killed the Angel, the
magic changed. Ever since, it’s been restless. Different. Changed.”
The six Council leaders made faces at each other. Finally, Dayris turned to her.
“I don’t think it is, Atu,” he said softly.
She felt a bubble of fire rise up into her cheeks, but more than that, she wanted to scream at him—even if she wasn’t one
for screaming. How could he, one of the best mages she knew, not feel it too? And by the glances, stares, and murmurs around
her, no one else felt it either. She knew that something was wrong. She wasn’t going to tell them about the Angel’s eyes—they
were already unsettled enough with hers—or their communication, especially not if they didn’t believe her.
“So none of you believe me?” she said slowly. “None of you can feel it?”
Dayris shook his head. “You must be tired after that fight, Apprentice. Get some rest, and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“It’s been three days, and it’s only been getting worse. I’m not making it up.”
They must think I’m crazy. I’m not! After killing the Guardians, something has always felt off.
She had taken to the title the Angel had given to her for it, even if she didn’t know what it really meant. And even if she still
resented the thing, something about it was starting to creep up on her.
What are you guardians of? She wanted to ask the Angel. The land, K’leppe? The outside world? Magic?
Her mind rested on that thought, chewing over it like cud. The Council had moved on from her outburst after she had zoned
out and stopped responding, but Dayris was still looking at her. They drew the meeting to a close, but she wasn’t listening.
A touch on her shoulder, buzzing with Air magic, woke her up to the empty hall. “Atuya,” Dayris hissed. “Are you alright?”
She shook his hand off, turning to him, but not meeting his eyes. “Well,” she drew in a breath, “I’m alive. But something’s
wrong.”
Dayris reached out a hand for her arm, but pulled back before he touched her. “Killing them always upsets me, too.
There’s something intelligent about them that I just can’t shake off. Alien, too. But intelligent...just not in a way we can
comprehend.”
She wanted to tell him even more about the whole truth of the Angel, but just nodded. “Yea. Maybe that’s it. I need to
rest.”
But she knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. The uneasy feeling of something wrong was prodding at her mind,
keeping her frantic.
She let him lead her out of the echoing hall and to her house. They didn’t speak, even when he left for his own house. She
watched him go down the lane until his figure was obscured by a tree.
The tree itself was rather nice—it provided shade, and apples. She had known it all her life, and it had always felt like an
old friend. She had always silently greeted it every time she went by, and thanked it for its harvest. But now...something was
different about it. Its branches were whipping, but she knew there was no wind. The power of magic reaching up to strike
washed over her, and she knew.
“Dayris!” she cried, running out of her door and out into the lane barefoot. “Move! Run!”
He turned around at her cries, but it was too late. Before he could respond, the tree struck, wrapping him in small
branches and drawing him in to the center of its crown. Bigger ones started to overtake him as the tree creaked and groaned.
He fought back, using his magic to slice through the branches, but for every one he managed to free himself from, three more
overtook him. Soon his hands were bound, and he lost his main way of expelling magic.
Atuya gathered her magic. But what to do? She couldn’t cut through those branches without hurting her mentor. And the
tree—she knew the tree, and it was far from magical enough to do this. It was the magic, not the tree.
So she gathered her magic to do the paralyzing move. It worked partially using the victim’s magic, stopping it, so even if it
wouldn’t paralyze a tree without nerves, hopefully it would block its magic enough for Dayris to get free. The tree was moving
using magic, anyways, so stopping its magic surely meant stopping the tree.
Amid the lashing branches, which grabbed at her, she reached the trunk. But before she could expel her magic, her waist
was grabbed by a branch as thick as her arms. It pulled her up and away, drawing her away from the base of the tree.
But she was still within reach of the trunk. With a blast of energy, she released her magic, which slammed into the tree
with a whump, a crack and a flash of light. She felt the tree’s magic shudder to a stop as the tree itself ground to a halt. The
branch was still wrapped around her, but it was looser, and didn’t move. Dayris was already starting to make the most of it, and
had wriggled and cut his way out of many branches. She freed herself and went to help him, her hands shaking—she didn’t
know how long the tree would be paralyzed.
Finally, after several tense minutes that felt like hours, Dayris was free. They dropped from the tree and ran back to her
home, glancing behind them every few steps.
“What was that?” he panted, slamming the door.
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “But I felt it—the magic building for an attack—and I ran to warn you.”
“You felt it?” He gave her a look that made her shift from foot to foot. “I felt nothing. Nothing before it grabbed me, that is.”
He pointed ruefully to a lash across his face, which was bleeding a little.
She couldn’t say anything for a while, so she settled on making some tea. They both sipped it in silence for several
minutes. Slowly, her heart slowed, her shoulders un-tensed, and she breathed normally. She took a deep breath.
“I felt it,” she repeated. “How else would I have known to warn you?”
He nodded. “I don’t know how it’s possible...but I believe you. You’ve always had a gift for magic, especially sensing it
between beings. Though I can’t understand how I wouldn’t have felt it too, being as close as I was. While I’m no expert at
sensing, I’m still more than competent.” He rapped his fingers on the empty mug.
“I don’t understand either,” she replied. “But I also know that I can feel the magic is restless...do you believe me now?”
He stopped his tapping and stared at her for several uncomfortable seconds. “It seems impossible, but maybe you can
feel things that no one else can. I think this was proof enough of that. If a Council member can’t detect overwhelming magic,
then no one else should be able to either.” He chuckled. “But you don’t seem to be like everyone else right now.”
She smiled. “When have I ever?”
He laughed, and for real this time. “Just like my Apprentice to boast about how extraordinary she is.”
She felt her face heat up. “I’m not that special—I just was born with ability.”
“Which you’ve honed through years of practice and hard work. Not to mention your seemingly impossible ability to
predict...whatever that was, back there.” He glanced out the window, where the tree could be seen. “Can you...feel it now?” he
asked in a whisper.
She stretched out her senses, but felt nothing besides the usual energy from the tree. It held no malice, and no hint of the
magic she had felt earlier. It seemed to be normal.
She shook her head. “No. I think it’s safe now.”
“Well,” he said after a long pause, “it seems like we have another problem to deal with.”
Chapter Four: The Storm
The Council was called to order the following day. Shortly after Atuya arrived and sat down in her spot, Dayris limped in,
covered head to toe in small bandages. He picked and fiddled with one as he made his way over to her to talk.
“They seem to be giving more credit to your...ability,” he said softly.
“You don’t vouch for things lightly,” she said.
That earned a chuckle. Dayris was infamous for being particularly cautious and slow to agree to ideas or theories. More
than once, the rest of the Council had yelled at him for dragging his feet. He was well aware of his reputation.
“Before long, I think they’ll believe you. Be prepared, though. The questions will come.”
“I’m prepared.”
I’m definitely not prepared, I spent all of the morning trying to figure out what to say and couldn’t settle on it, but no
one needs to know that. Dayris’s word will count for plenty!
She watched the members filing in, grumbling and casting dark looks at her. Once they spotted Dayris, however, they
were generally shocked into silence. The other Councilors talked quietly to Dayris, occasionally looking and gesturing at her.
She felt herself slide down lower into her seat.
“So,” the Light Councilor said as she sat, “we have an emergency meeting today. It’s very important, so please pay
attention. Dayris?”
Dayris cleared his throat. “So—there really isn’t any better way of putting this—last night I was attacked by a tree.”
Atuya couldn’t help but giggle with the rest. Looking back on the situation, she thought it was quite funny. The great
Dayris, defeated by a tree?
“Settle down,” Dayris said crossly. “The tree attacked me, grabbing me with its branches. It was full of magic, but I didn’t
feel anything until I was taken. However, my Apprentice did. She was nearby, and came running to warn me. Atuya?”
Atuya pushed herself to her feet, her legs threatening to collapse. She took a breath to steady her nerves.
“I was in my house, watching him go, when I felt a wave of magic preparing to attack pass over me. It was overwhelming,
and I knew it was the tree, since it was acting oddly. I ran out to warn him, but I was too late—he was already wrapped in the
branches before he could respond to my warnings.” She paused—it wasn’t as funny now that she was recounting it. “I freed him
eventually, and we fled to my home. After that, the tree has been completely normal.”
She sat back down as people started arguing. Dayris tried to call them to order, but in the end, only a cracking whip of
flame from the Fire Councilor got their attention.
“Listen—I didn’t feel the tree until it was on me,” Dayris said. “But my Apprentice did. How could that be possible? If
anyone should be able to feel magic, it’s the Council.”
Several people nodded in agreement, but still more looked disgruntled.
“Couldn’t she have set the tree on you? Then she could pretend to warn you!” someone she couldn’t see said.
I would never! Dayris is a jerk, but he doesn’t deserve that. That tree would’ve killed him!
“And what would my motive be?” she found herself saying.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her heart pounding.
Oh no, no no, why did I say anything? Think before you act, Atuya, that’s how it’s always been!
That at least shut up the doubters.
“Atuya is my trusted Apprentice,” Dayris said. “I’ve known her all her life. She is highly talented, and also highly
committed. She’s closer to being the next Councilor than most of you. I have no reason to suspect she’d attack me—especially
since I would’ve felt that kind of magic. Besides, have none of you noticed that she’s not an Earth user? She’s not capable of
doing that.”
Dayris is vouching for me. I don’t need to be prepared.
“So maybe she noticed the tree acting oddly, and the magic sensing is a ruse, or else a delusion caused by seeing the
tree acting odd,” the same person who had accused her of attacking Dayris said.
I did notice it acting funny, but I felt it too!
Dayris didn’t have anything to say to that. “Atuya?”
She stood up again, but this time with confidence. She knew what had happened. She turned to address all the members
sitting with her.
“Yes, I saw it whipping. But that could’ve been just the wind, for all I knew. I felt the magic, and that’s what alerted me.”
“It still seems impossible that you would feel it but Dayris wouldn’t,” the Light Councilor said. “Perhaps he’s the one
with a problem. There were no other witnesses, correct?”
She nodded. There had been no one but them, which really was unfortunate, looking back on it.
“Listen, Tari, I’m not defective,” Dayris said. “My Apprentice clearly has an ability to sense things we don’t. I can still
feel your magic swirling around like a dog chasing its tail.”
She waved him off. “Defective or not, it’s not realistic to believe that your Apprentice really can sense things that no one
else can.” Tari locked eyes with Atuya, making the latter shift her footing and look away. “Trust me, I’m well aware of her
abilities. I can feel them better than any of you since we share the same element. But this doesn’t explain any
extraordinary abilities. Are we all in agreeance?”
Only one Councilor besides Dayris disagreed. The rest of the assembled people also tended to agree with Tari.
Atuya sat back down, her insides twisting into impossible knots. So they really didn’t believe her. Even with Dayris’s faith.
Maybe I should’ve prepared.
She let herself tune out the rest of the meeting, shoulders slumping, retreating into herself. She eventually let her senses
spread out to the people around her, feeling their multicolored magic reacting as they did. Even if she couldn’t feel their feelings,
she could somewhat translate them. Anger, confusion, frustration, and occasionally a more collective rippling of similar feelings
as one of the Councilors said something to them were all things that she could feel.
From the edges of her mind, she felt another feeling. Rage. But from who? She could feel the magic gathering, swirling,
preparing to strike. It was Air magic, she could tell, but she still couldn’t pinpoint from who. She recognized it, though.
Who’s doing this?
As she concentrated, she felt the magic come into focus more. It was wild, untamed, and like the more natural Air magic
she felt around her from intense gusts of wind. But who was it? It seemed to come from all around the hall, not any one person.
The feeling of anger became even louder as the magic reared up to strike. She snapped her eyes open, coming back to
reality. Outside, the wind howled, although no one noticed with the argument going on inside. Yet again, she was the only one
who felt the magic.
Before she even knew what she was doing, she ran for Dayris. She hauled herself up the steps to the Councilor’s raised
platform, and flung herself at Dayris.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Yet again, all eyes were on her, but she could hardly concentrate on it with the storm brewing outside.
“Get down, all of you!” She took a hold of Dayris, flinging a glowing magic shield up around them.
Even though she had never been partial to defensive magic, she still had a few good spells she could do. This was one of
them, and she was thankful that Dayris had made her drill it until she had perfected it, because right after the shield was
complete, the storm finally got in.
It broke down the doors, and hurtled into the stone building like a tornado. It had picked up branches, rocks, and other
objects, which it now flung into the hall like a child with an indiscriminate throw and bad aim.
She saw people getting hit by the items before she closed her eyes and focused on the shield. The wind, sharp as a knife,
cut at her defenses and threatened to pick her and Dayris up, shield and all. She concentrated harder, retreating into herself like
she had when she felt the feelings of the members. When she could hold out no longer, the storm finally died down, leaving the
air completely still.
She opened her eyes to chaos. The hall was completely upended. Their chairs had been blown around, a few odd ones
even lodged, still trembling, in some masonry. The people who had been sitting on them, however, had it worse. Several were
unconscious on the floor, and many more were bleeding from the sharp wind itself. Some had managed to huddle together under
a shield someone else had made, or made one of their own, and were relatively unharmed. But there was still not a single
person without injury, bar Dayris. Her shield had cost her several cuts on her body—a more minor version of what the wind
would have inflicted on its own.
Tari struggled to her feet. “What happened?” she said in an uncharacteristically small voice, looking at Dayris and Atuya.
“I felt it, and I tried to warn you,” Atuya said.
Tari shook her head, shaking the fear from her like a wet dog. “No, you didn’t. I still don’t believe that you could feel it
and we couldn’t.”
Dayris raised his voice. “What other explanation do you have? That was obviously magic, and obviously none of
us can feel it until it’s at our throats. Except for Atuya, evidently.”
Tari sat down in the rubble, mumbling to herself. “But how can we not feel the magic until it’s fully manifested?”
“I don’t know,” Dayris said. “I don’t know.”
Atuya didn’t say anything. She felt a tug at her heart—like she wasn’t meant to be there, by her master’s side, where she
had always loved to be.
Chapter Five: The Earth
The attacks had gotten worse. Storms in the fall that flooded valleys and took up whole wooden buildings in their flow,
weeks in the middle of the winter with the burning sun and no water, and freezing nights that froze over the rivers in the middle of
the summer. During all that, there had been earthquakes, hostile plants, wildfires (and fire tornadoes), and yet more gusts of
wind that battered and beat at even stone buildings.
The great Library, the place with all accumulated human knowledge, had not been immune. Several shelves of books had
burned, with not all of them having copies to replace them. The beautiful masonry had been battered and burned, and the roof
had almost leaked water on books during a bad storm. Thankfully, many people manned the Library, so any book-threatening
events were generally responded to well, but it made Atuya sad. And mad.
She was still able to feel the freak events happening, provided she was close enough. People had learned to trust her, as
she had a hand in preventing all the books from going up in flames since she had forewarned the Librarians and they had been
able to set up a fire circle around the Library (although the flames managed to get inside anyways). However, most of the
members of the magic Council still refused to believe her, bar Dayris, the supporting Councilor, and a handful of other members.
She tried her best to ignore the nay-sayers, which was surprisingly easy. She had been distracted anyways.
Ever since the storm in the Council, she had felt unrest. She took walks, climbed down valleys, and went to places she
had never gone before. Training sessions with Dayris—now specifically formulated to help combat the strange events, and
combined with all the other high-level Apprentices and their mentors—seemed boring. She couldn’t concentrate, and
consequently was preforming terribly. They had sat down several times to try to work it out, but nothing seemed to work.
Unless she was out exploring, feeling the odd currents and pockets of magic, she couldn’t focus. That was the one time
that she was able to use her full attention, and it was refreshing. She had even discovered that she could predict the events
even further in advance. By feeling the strange homeless pockets of magic, and monitoring their condition, she could feel when
they were accumulating too much magic and about to expel their energy in an event.
But why? Why does the magic lash out? Where did it come from?
She thought while sparring with Dayris, as always lately. She absentmindedly aimed a kick at him after he had already put
up his hands to signal her to stop. He managed to avoid it by an inch.
“Atuya!” He waved his staff in front of her, snapping her out of her trance. “Are you paying any attention?”
She felt her face turn tomato red. Despite the wanderings of her mind, she always felt terrible when she drifted off like that.
She looked down at her feet. “No, I’m not,” she said to the ground.
She heard Dayris sigh and put the staff down. “If you can’t focus, I can’t teach you.” He leaned in closer, lowering his
voice. “I believe that it’s not your fault, but we can’t waste time doing this. Take a break, Atu. I think that’s what you need. You
never give up, but right now I think you should.”
Her heart sank into her feet. She had never turned down practicing before. It had always been the place where she was at
her best—and able to concentrate.
She pulled away, only to realize that several Apprentices were staring. However, they looked away—as ever—when they
saw her eyes staring back. Her weird, white, Angel eyes. But her head was filled with itchy, scratchy cotton that urged her
to get away, so she quickly forgot as she ran out of the building. She hardly paid any mind to the rubble that marked where
the first building that had been destroyed by the Phoenix was. Her mind was far away, wondering where else she could go.
-=+=-
She stared at the stream, bubbling away from the mountains to join a tributary, a river, and eventually the ocean. It had
always calmed her, even with her need for exploration, but now even the little stream couldn’t distract her from the urge to
go floating in her brain.
She stabbed at the mud with a stick. “Why? What is wrong with me? Where do you need me to go?”
Her lines in the earth turned increasingly sharp, digging up sediment and flinging it into the stream.
‘You.’ When has this turned into an outside person making me go places? It’s just. Me. Just me in this head. No Angel.
Stop being stupid, Atu.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind her.
She yelped and whipped around, drawing her magic into her hands.
“Whoa, calm down, Atu.” Dayris stepped out of the trees, hands up.
She let go of the breath she was holding and let her magic rest. No one had bothered her out here yet—leave it to Dayris
to ruin it.
Not that there’s much left to ruin if I’m slowly running out of places where I can concentrate.
He looked around, eyes lingering on the patch of mud she had disturbed. “Nice place. When did you find it?”
“A few months ago,” she replied, putting her mud stick down. “It helps me think.”
He sighed, and sat down on a rock next to her. “You’ve been missing for three days. Where have you been?”
She pointed at her bag, which she had filled with food and supplies. “Wandering. But it’s not doing me any good anymore.”
“So it’s not helping you clear your head. Anymore.”
“Yea. It used to help, but now my head is still filled with…with fluff even if I explore.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, both watching the clear stream resolutely. Neither dared to look at the other.
“I think you need to go,” he said finally. “It’s hard to see you so...tortured like this. Something must be telling you that you
need to go for a reason.”
She looked up at him, although the words didn’t quite flow out of her mouth like the stream went down the mountain.
He’s just put it into words, hasn’t he? Something that I haven’t dared to.
“I think you’re right,” she said at last. “Listen, there’s something I haven’t told you yet.”
He nodded. “If I’m being honest, I know you haven’t been telling me a lot of things, but that’s alright. What is it?”
She reached for the feather she still wore. “The Angel. You know how killing it started this all?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“There’s more to it. I didn’t just feel the magic act strange after the Angel died. The Angel and I...” She stared down at the
feather, still somehow pristine and retaining its virtue despite her constant handling. She took a deep breath in and quickly
mumbled, “we talked. Kind of. Sort of. It wasn’t really talking.”
She stopped as she felt Dayris’s magic twist around with unheard thoughts—although they soon weren’t unheard.
“Slow down. You mean to tell me you talked with the Angel? But you never went anywhere close to it!”
“Like I said, we didn’t talk. Not really. After I...grounded it, I felt its magic and tried to decipher its stupid emotions, but I
couldn’t. They were completely alien. Then, we locked eyes, and I saw that its eyes were like mine.” She closed her own eyes,
letting out a sigh.
“I have noticed that,” Dayris said after a moment. “As you know, I’ve been in many...parties, and I’ve helped to, well,
kill many of the entities. All of the Angel’s eyes—once you can see them, that is—look like yours. It was always unsettling
to me, since I couldn’t help but feel somewhere that I was hurting, well,” he paused, scratching his head, “you. There’s
always been something human-like about them, too.”
She nodded. “I knew my eyes were like theirs before the Angel, too. But as we kept locking eyes, I started to be able to
understand what it was feeling, even though the feelings and magic patterns were still alien. And it was powerful, too—powerful
enough that it felt like it spoke to me.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “It...it begged me to help it. And when it realized that it
was doomed, it...warned me. It said that humans didn’t know what we were doing by killing them, the Guardians. That the
magic needed the Guardians. Or something to that effect.”
“That’s incredible, Atu,” Dayris said. “Incredible that you could understand it. But...it does trouble me.” He turned his
palms upwards, staring at them. “I think that humans have brought these freak events on themselves, and this only confirms it.
We killed magical beings, and somehow it’s all connected.”
They let themselves think over each other’s words for a few minutes before Atuya dared to speak.
“I think I need to go outside,” she said. “Outside K’leppe.”
“Outside the Garden,” Dayris said absentmindedly. “Outside paradise. Outside the Cradle of humanity. No matter how you
put it, it doesn’t sound good, but I think that’s what you’re being called to do.”
“And no one will stop me,” she replied, thumbing a smooth pebble. “Not even myself.”
Dayris let out a laugh, a full and hearty one, and she couldn’t help but let out her nervous energy and laugh along. It filled
her up, and she felt her head clear. She laughed some more until it was the only thing that she could feel—no magic, no
sadness, nothing but joy, at least for the moment.
“You tend to stop yourself, Atu,” he said at last. “You’ve always been overly careful.”
“I consider it a virtue, thank you very much.” She threw the pebble at his toes, making him yelp. She almost felt bad for
that, her gut twisting.
“You know what those books say,” he massaged his foot, “virtues are vices. But I think you should still be extra careful,
Atuya. No one really knows what’s out there.”
And then the earth opened up under him, swallowing him whole. Atuya tried to scream, but no sound came.
Chapter Six: The Journey
She watched Dayris as he slept. For the moment, he looked peaceful. He had been moaning at every movement until the
doctor had given him something to make him sleep. She had almost wanted to cry out with him as she had carried him off the
mountain, already crying over his battered body.
Now the cuts had been bandaged, and the broken bones splinted. He had several bruises blossoming, but at least he
couldn’t feel it, at least for the moment. Soon he would be better, they assured her. And it wasn’t her fault, no one could tell
when they were coming. That had come from Tari.
I should’ve felt it. Why couldn’t I? Why? Why did I let myself shut everything out and let him get hurt?
She felt like banging her head into the wall, but the healers probably wouldn’t let her. She was the only one who could tell.
She had been able to protect Dayris twice, but now she had failed. And he had paid.
I knew the magic was acting odd in the area as I went up the mountain. Why? Why did I forget that?
She wanted him to wake up and offer some more good advice. But all she had was his last bit of wisdom: she should go
where she was being pulled.
Stupid Angel.
-=+=-
She put the last well-wrapped piece of bread into her last saddle-bag and tied it shut. She had enough food to last her a
month, if she was careful. Water she would have to find on the way, but she had been practicing sensing water through magic.
Although her affinity was in Light magic, she still had little connections to the others, enough in this case to let her find water if
she was within 100 feet of it. And with a couple of water skins, she could gather enough in one sitting to last her alone a week.
The horse would have to be watered regularly.
She took the bag, fixing it in place on her horse, a stocky white mare called Willow. She perked up at the sight of Atuya—
Atuya had been feeding her extra apples every chance she got to fatten her up.
Atuya couldn’t help but smile as the mare sniffed at her pockets. She drew out the apple Willow knew she had, and gave
it to the horse, who munched loudly on the crisp fruit.
“Not many of those where we’re going, I suspect,” Atuya said, watching Willow eat. “I mean, who knows what’s out there?
People had to have gotten them from somewhere before they started writing things down. Maybe there’s some wild apples out
there somewhere. At least I packed a half-dozen.”
She thought of the perfect little apples, all juicy and the perfect amount of tart.
“Whenever I eat one, I’ll think of you and K’leppe, Dayris,” Atuya said softly. “I have a feeling we won’t be back for a while,”
she said, stroking Willow’s mane. “But that’s why I packed the bow, eh, Willow? We’ll be safe.”
She looked back at the hospital, where Dayris was still recovering. He hadn’t woken up after three days, even without
being given more medicine to keep him asleep. The doctor had told her he was slowly knitting back together...but only time
would tell if he would ever be as nimble or good with magic again. But she had to be brave, brave for him, brave for her, and
venture out into the unknown. No one had ever come back once they ventured outside.
But I’ll be the first.
She mounted Willow and rode off into the night, passing streets and buildings she knew well and ones she had more
recently seen during her exploring frenzies. She was just about to come on to something a bit more unknown when she felt a
pulsating wave of magic smack her in the face. She stopped Willow. Tari stepped out of the shadows of a broken down hut,
arms folded and magic ready to go.
“I knew you’d try something like this,” Tari said, eyeing her saddlebags. “Breaking free of K’leppe entirely instead of just
exploring steadily further inside its bounds.”
“And is it any of your business if I do?” Atuya responded, a bit more bravely than she felt. But it was all she could do to
keep her voice from breaking.
“I’d say it’s plenty of my business, seeing as you’re partially my responsibility, especially with Dayris out of
commission,” she snarled. “Even if Dayris snatched you away before I got a chance to try to train you myself.”
Atuya had already gotten some hints that Dayris had purposefully chosen her instead of other, more suitable, Apprentices
with an Air affinity. It was highly unusual for someone to take on an Apprentice that didn’t have at least a decent affinity with
their type, but she and Dayris had made it work.
But did you really want to train me, Tari? With all my issues then? And now would you have believed me about the
magic like Dayris?
“But would you have defended me against the rest of the Council?” Atuya said. “Would you have believed me?”
Tari’s magic stopped coiling up to attack, and instead just froze.
“I—” Tari started. “I can’t believe it, though.” Her hands fell to her sides. “It’s just impossible!”
“I’m glad I got a mentor who believes me, then.” Atuya started to urge Willow on, but Tari stepped into their path.
“Wait. You’re not quite so blameless as you think, are you? If you really can detect them, why didn’t you save Dayris?
And now you’re going before he can wake up to tell us what really happened. You’re hiding something, Atuya.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came.
“You and Dayris had stopped training two weeks before this. All the other apprentices saw you storming out of the building
and never returning. Are you telling me you didn’t have a falling out?”
“It’s not like that!” Atuya burst. “You know nothing—nothing about me, nothing about Dayris, nothing about
anything!”
Tari smiled. “I only know what I see—and I see a troubled youth, now prone to lashing out and acting inappropriately. Can
you blame me?”
Atuya regained control of herself, and started to stare Tari down. “I would’ve done anything to save him. I can’t say the
same for you, though.”
Tari met her stare for the first time, one of the only people that had ever done so. “Then why didn’t you save him with your
ability, if you really have it?”
Atuya bit her tongue and urged Willow on.
Tari let them pass, but Atuya felt her eyes on them. Eventually, the old buildings faded into wilderness she had explored
well, and then not-so-well, and finally into forests and hills she had never seen.
She was finally outside K’leppe—and even though her gut was telling her it was right, her heart wanted nothing more than
to turn back.
-=+=-
She splashed the cool water from the stream over her face, washing away the grime and oil from her face. Willow drank
nearby. After nearly a week, she had gotten out of the forests that surrounded K’leppe and gotten into an area with high
mountains and low plains. More than once, a giant shadow had passed overhead, the creature who had made it gone before she
dared to look up. It had unsettled Willow too, but the horse was enjoying herself for the most part.
And so they waded through the grass together, Atuya feeling the delicate magic in the grass as it reached for the sun,
Willow grabbing a few bites before Atuya could stop her. The sky was big, light blue with wispy clouds that drifted lazily
overhead with little promise of rain. The sunsets set it all on fire, outlining the mountains in oranges and pinks and reds, the
grasses swaying in this light and almost looking actually on fire. The night, free for the most part of clouds and away from
obstructing trees, was wide and bejeweled. She stared at it—flickering lights in all shades, bright stars and dim clusters, and
the occasional moving light, called torch-runners, for they dashed quickly but faded fast too. Her eyes would slowly close under
the sky as she finally could watch no more.
The days were hot, but they were clear and uneventful. She lost herself deep in thought and feeling, connecting with the
magic in what ways she could. And on that particular day, the sun was blazing. She and Willow sheltered under the sparse
shade of a tree, both unwilling to go on. She lay against the trunk and the heat lulled her to sleep.
When she woke, she had already known something was wrong. Her magic alarms were ringing, but for what they had no
idea. They just were going nuts, banging around in her head like bats. However, despite her head’s incompetency, her nose
knew very well what it was—a fire. And in all this grass, much of it yellowed during the summer, it was coming on fast.
Willow had figured it out too. She was yanking at her lead, trying to pull herself free.
“Steady girl, steady!” Atuya calmed her down, but the animal was still wild and tensed.
She gathered everything she had set down and got on Willow without even strapping it on. It was time to ride—the fire
would be on their heels before they knew it. The only advantage they had was the forewarning—the fire was upwind from them.
They ran away through the streaming grass, heading for a rocky patch of boulders in the mountains. This would be the
best place to hold her ground.
And so while shields had still never been her specialty, she again thanked Dayris for drilling at least one good one into her
head. She surrounded herself and Willow with it, and the licking flames had no way to get in. The boulders and lack of fuel did
most of the work, but Atuya managed to do the rest. The air in their bubble was clean, and they were safe from any other
danger.
And then, almost as suddenly as it had came, it was gone. The flames died down, and the fire stopped. Abruptly. Right as
it was starting to chew through some particularly tasty and dry grass a bit further on.
She only then gathered her wits enough to realize the truth.
“The freak events are following me,” she said to no one in particular.
But at least I can sense them, she thought to herself grimly as she and Willow settled down for the rest of the day,
waiting for the final embers to die. Stupid Angel. Messing with my head and now almost getting me killed.
But even her head doubted that.
Chapter Seven: The Heart
She had barely noticed it, but Willow had. After passing through a land with trees, and struggling over rocky mountains,
they had come to a strange place. After two months of travel, that was. The bow had served her well.
There had been no events after the fire, but she had felt the magic following her, almost. But here it was strong. Even with
her bad affinity for anything that wasn’t Light magic, she could still sense the other five types streaming through this site. In
particular, in this place, with high peaks and streaming wind, was partial to Air magic. Nearby she could sense a concentration
of Light magic. But while she felt she was close to her goal, she wasn’t there quite yet.
You would love this place, Dayris.
The magic that swirled around her lashed at her outside as much as her inside. There was so much that even she felt that
she could pull off some decent Air magic. What would Dayris, the best Air mage they had, be able to do?
What would he be able to do if he wasn’t potentially crippled in body, mind, and maybe even magical ability?
She shook herself. She had last seen Dayris in probably the worst stage of healing. It had been two months—who knew
what he would be like now?
So she took a deep breath and let herself absorb the magic. Indeed, if she stretched out her senses, she realized that this
broad area must have a place for every type of magic, just like this one. The currents were all headed in specific directions
according to their types. But they must all be flowing to and out of a central point, because even from this distance she could
feel something pulsating in the center of the land, some miles away.
Willow had been steadily getting more nervous as they had been going on. She had her own small bit of magic, a bit of
everything, like every living thing.
Every creature except the Guardians, that is. They were just one aspect, somehow. There can be biases like mine
towards a type, but just one thing?
She shook herself again. She was still being pulled, and Willow shouldn’t be forced to go on. She let the horse free in the small
meadow they were in. She was smart enough to escape any predators. Although Atuya had a feeling that Willow would be
waiting for her to come back. Even if the apples had run out a while ago.
She gathered what supplies she had in a saddle-bag and set out for the center of the place. After another day’s travel, she
had made it out of the Air area and into a central point that had every type of magic fairly equally. Here she felt the land pound
into her soles, the air sharp and crisp in her lungs, the light blinding and the dark shifting, the water clear and pure, and the heat
of the sun pressing. Everything was amplified, as if her senses were working in overdrive. And above it all, she felt a beating,
pulsing rhythm work its way into her veins, her heart beating twice for every time it beat once. She counted it out to herself.
One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and…
And underneath it all she got the same feeling she had with all the other Guardians. This magic was theirs—or were they
the magic? Whatever it was, the Angel was—in part—there. Part of a particularly resonating part of the beat for her—the Light magic
part.
Part of her was still longing for K’leppe, but another part of her wanted to go on. And that part was overpowering. Another
part of her was really hungry, that part being her stomach. Part of her toes were hurting after being stubbed on a rock.
Moving on, she thought, pressing forwards towards a great mountain with many caves.
This would be a nice place to live if we felt like being ants.
Indeed, she rather felt like an ant—like a small bug crawling through the ground, wary of any force bigger than her. At least
the caves were well-lit, until they weren’t.
She stared at the growing darkness around her. “Well, I’m not going to stumble around in the dark, am I?”
She gathered her magic to her hands, trying to create a simple lighting effect. It was one of the first things a Light mage
figured out. However, instead of being the brightness of a candle, like she expected, it grew into a miniature sun before she
could stop it. The excess magic in the air practically leaped into her, fueling the madness. After a small struggle, she managed
to get it down to the more reasonable size of a ping-pong ball, but had to wait for the afterimage to go away.
And so she followed the magic heading into the heart of the mountain. Every so often, her light would grow before she
could stop it, and she’d have to take a minute to get it under control again, but otherwise she ran into no issues.
No issues, that was, until she came on a wall of fallen rock.
“You know I can’t just blast through you without accidentally blowing myself up too, huh?” she said to the wall. Naturally,
there was no response, so she set to work moving the rock.
Several sweaty hours later, she was done. The cave-in wasn’t serious, at least, and she had managed to use just a touch
of magic to break up the larger rocks. She continued on.
And then there was a literal wall of fire, not more than one hundred feet away.
I get it now, she thought as she moved some of the rocks to make a bridge across the fire, you’re testing me. Or
being stupid. Bit of both, honestly.
And so she crossed the fire as quickly as she could, getting singed a little but otherwise unharmed. Naturally, there was a
great chasm right after that, with air coming from somewhere whistling through.
Good thing I have a rope, you stupid chasm.
She tied it to a sturdy rock on her end and tossed the hooked end across the chasm. It held, but unfortunately was getting
battered and frayed by the wind. She sighed and crawled across the rope, all four limbs clinging to it as she dangled from the
bottom. It gave out shortly after she finished crossing.
And of course there was a rushing river afterwards. She sat for a while, trying to puzzle it out, when it occurred to her that
she could just move more rocks into it.
The rocks washed away.
“Why? Why do you hate me?” she asked the river. She stared across the river...and realized that it was a dead-end
anyways.
That can’t be right, I still feel like I need to go through there.
Under the river, a strange and alien thought seemed to say. There’s a passage under the river.
The magic she knew was from that Angel was doing something funny.
“Well, I’ve got nothing to loose, right?”
But I could go back. Or I could try to cross and bust through the wall. Or sail down it. No, no, no. I’m being indecisive
again.
But indecisive she was, at least until she fell into the river. It was icy, and clawed at her skin and eyes. But she kept them
open, and in keeping them open, saw an opening rushing up under her. The current was strong, but underneath there was
somehow a calmer spot, and she was able to pull herself into and then up through the hole, coming up gasping in a bright room.
An impossibly bright room. Her eyes snapped shut, but her eyelids still let in lots of blinding light.
At least I know this stuff well, right?
She felt her way around the room, the more familiar elemental magic letting her pass more easily than the others. Soon
she was out and on to a nice, normal passage. Nothing too bright, nothing too fire-y, and certainly no more boulders to haul.
So she sat down on a nice rock and ate some lunch, her orb of light dancing around her happily, slowly expanding with the extra magic again.
It was just some dried meat, but it was good. She put the last of it in her mouth and turned to look ahead, stifling a cry at what
she saw.
Dayris looked at her, smiling. But his smile was too wide, and his eyes not at all smiling.
“Wow, Atuya! You’ve gotten so far,” he said, laughing. “You’ve gone through land no human has ever dared to cross, and
into a place that no regular creature has ever seen. It’s incredible.”
She looked away, shaking herself.
“How did you do it, though?” he asked, in the same voice he always did.
She looked up, and they were by the stream again, her stick in her hand, the sediment still being taken up into the
stream.
“How did I do what?” she asked, poking at the stream again.
“Leave me,” he said, still with a happy tone.
She stopped prodding with her stick, and let her hands relax.
“I didn’t mean for you to get hurt,” she said softly. “We were just having so much fun that I couldn’t even feel the warning.”
“You made a mistake,” he said. “Or did you? Did you purposefully let me get crushed up in the earth so you could justify
leaving for me?”
“I didn’t, I really didn’t! It was an accident, I didn’t let it happen so that I could go off and be a tragic hero or something!”
She let the stick drop in favor of clutching her sides.
“But you left me,” Dayris said. “You left me to be in pain all alone. If you really didn’t want to try to be a tragic hero, you
would’ve stayed by my side. If it really had been an accident, that is.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, not quite knowing if she meant it or not.
“And why do you still hate me?” another voice said.
She looked up and saw those same eyes—her eyes—looking back. The Angel stood in front of her in all its glory,
wings spread and halo of light glowing.
“Why do you blame us for what you humans have caused? You slaughtered us without even knowing what we were.”
“We—they—thought you were a threat. That’s what humans do—fight. What did you expect after a Phoenix killed many of
our own?”
“We never were a threat, and we never held malice,” it said. “We are what you imagine us to be. We act indiscriminately.
You saw that as a threat.”
“An indiscriminate wildfire still is a threat, right?”
“You have no idea what you’ve done by killing us.”
She got off her rock, and walked right past Dayris to the Angel, staring up to meet its eye. It was rather tall—about seven
or eight feet.
“I have a guess. You were the vessels of magic. The Guardians of it, as you told me. Without you to contain magic, now
there is a surplus running amok and venting itself in harmful ways, particularly around humans.”
The Angel didn’t respond, so she turned around to not-Dayris. “And you—the real you—told me that I should follow
my gut. My gut was telling me to leave, even if it hurt. I don’t even know if you’re alive,” she choked on her sobs, “but I have to
do this.”
She walked down the trail past the stream, and once again found herself walking down a normal corridor. She wiped her
tears and headed steadily to the place she needed to be.
The Heart was almost indescribable. Swirling with every color, and even some impossible ones, it was like a giant, beating
heart in the mountain. Its veins attached it to the rock, some one color, others a combination of many. It was both perfectly
bright and perfectly dark, both hot and icy, and both solid and insubstantial.
She felt the Angel—the real one—at her side. She felt the feather still on her neck.
“Can you fix it?” it seemed to ask. “Will you take on the burden for your whole race? Will you make it right?”
The Heart was like her own, already stretching out and touching the magic in her. It knew her, but it almost overwhelmed
her with its power.
“Is this where you all are?” she asked the Angel.
It nodded. “We were beings of pure magic. This is where much of the magic we used to be has gathered.”
She stared at the Heart for a time that seemed timeless, like one stretching moment. The moment could’ve been minutes,
it could’ve been days. But the pull was still there, drawing her step by step towards the heart.
She touched it with her hands, plunging them into the heart of the Heart. The magic pouring through her living hands was
almost too much to bear, and she knew that her hands couldn’t survive in there for long. The magic from the Heart intertwined
with hers, connecting them. Soon, she was a part of the Heart.
Images and memories flashed through her mind. All alien and different from hers, but in a language she could still
somehow understand. The Guardians, gentle and caring for every creature. The Guardians, destructive and ruinous. Sleeping,
talking, watching, and sometimes hurting. They had minds, but still managed to be indiscriminate. They turned to her.
“You have passed our tests,” they said as one. “You traveled far and then passed the tests in the mountains.”
“Some tests,” she grumbled. “Some were too easy.”
“And others a bit hard, no?” an impish creature, a Guardian of Dark, responded. “Against your nature, or else particularly
deceptive.”
But they all laughed, Guardians and human together.
“I’ll fix it,” she said as she stepped away from the Heart. Her hands and body was healed of the damage the Heart had
done. But even as she went farther and farther away, she still had a connection to it. It was nowhere near as overwhelming as
what had happened when she was in the Heart, but she could feel it pulsing, feel the trails of magic coming from it, and feel
magic of every type far around her. It was like nothing she had felt before.
She narrowed in on Willow. Sure enough, the horse was right where she had left her. She imbued Willow with the magic
she could now control, and both sped across the terrain towards home.
Chapter Eight: The Sands of Time
Before she got home, she knew that something was wrong. The magic was around K’leppe like a thunderstorm, lashing
out and destroying. When she finally saw it, her own heart skipped a beat.
K’leppe, her beautiful forest, was a wasteland. Trees were burning, the mountains were heaving. Many areas had been
crushed to sand. She felt human life huddled in the middle, and small parties now trying to break away.
She left Willow behind and ran faster than the wind, boosting herself with her connection. Her feet hit sand, and jagged
rocks. She ran until she found Dayris’s magic.
He was fighting. No, not fighting. He was using what little magic he had to protect the others while they were battered on
by all manner of freak magic events.
“Stop!” she cried to the winds, to the rain, to the sky and fire. “Stop hurting them!”
And it stopped. Not all of it, but she had quelled some of the chaos, shoving the magic fueling it to another place.
She ran to Dayris, who had finally collapsed. She touched his hands, his hair, his face. “Dayris!” She didn’t stop the tears
from flowing freely onto his face and the sand.
“Atuya?” he said. “You’re alive!” He tried to get up, but fell back.
You know what you have to do, the Angel said to her.
She nodded and shoved some spare Air magic into Dayris. He gasped. Although it wouldn’t heal him, it would be enough
to keep him alive.
“Stay alive, alright?” she said to him.
And then she ran again. Through the storms, through the fire, through the shadows. It all bent out of her way. She found
the eye of the storm, and she gathered the magic. She pulled from the earth, from the fire, the air, the water, the beating sun,
and the shadows where things hid. She pulled from the Heart, dragging the magic across the continent to do her bidding. It did
not flow through her, which would have killed her; it flowed around her, and she controlled it.
She already had the image in her head. Dragons. Why not dragons? They were just a myth, but they were the perfect
bodies for magic. Massive, strong, and long-living. They wouldn’t be alien to her like the Guardians had been—she knew that
already. They would have a mind like a human’s.
As she formed the magic into dense little eggs, she felt as if she already knew what each one would be like. One for each
element, and each with their own personality. Playful, fiery, cunning, prideful, cynical, gentle, brutal, and any combination of.
She had a feeling they would all be at least a little prideful.
And so as the storm of magic whipped around her, going into the eggs, she cried.
I almost wish I knew them. I almost wish that I could live longer to see them grow, and perhaps experiment with my
abilities. I can control all the elements now, it seems.
And in her mind’s eye, she pictured the young dragon she would’ve understood the best. A Light dragon, large and
understanding to his siblings, and loyal too.
Just because I can control all the magic doesn’t mean I don’t have a preference, ha!
Finally, the work was done. The last of the magic vanished into the eggs. They sank into the sand, buried into a deep
cave. She felt herself being taken by the sand too. But she didn’t care. Dayris’s spark was strong. Her dear mentor would live.
I wonder if my bones will be lost to the wastes of K’leppe and time. Maybe they’ll be magical bones, at least.
The Angel was next to her. “K’leppe, as you know it, is gone. The Cradle has cracked, and now humanity is venturing
beyond its bounds. This was its undoing.”
Will they remember K’leppe?
“Not as you do. It will be lost to time.”
She looked at the sand in her hands. The sands of time obliterate.
“But life goes on.”
Feel free to leave a comment or like, if you like it. I would greatly appreciate any help and suggestions, and also the likes ;) This is sort of an origin story for the First Six. It started with my initial writing of the description of the K'leppe wastes, which included some spooky magic, and kinda took off from there. It was supposed to just be 'how did K'leppe turn into a murderous desert,' but came out differently. And I honestly don't mind it. It was a nice dive into more of the specifics of how I want magic to work, and a short and sweet story. I honestly prefer it to the main one on Karasu, but that's partially because a lot of that text is unedited writing from when I was 13 and 14. That monstrous thing needs to be chopped down and condensed quite a lot. I don't know if I like how the character development turned out here. It was hard to fit some semblance of an arc into 12,000 words, especially when you have to introduce the setting! So it's not nearly as thought-provoking as I like, but I think it turned out pretty okay considering it's supposed to be more of a creation story instead of a character arc. I would've liked to have both a good myth and character arc, but I'll take what I can get. I was getting close to my deadlines! But that's just my thoughts on what I think it's majorly lacking in.
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