The first thing that Mom had us do was ask me and Idrel to use the powers that we had so that Liza could copy us. Elya walked off to the side and sat near one of the torches on the wall watching us as we practiced. Idrel immediately was able to hold a fire between her hands, while I was not able to get a single drop of water. Mom came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders.

"Aryet."

"Yes?"

"How do you usually activate your affinity?"

"I think of things that remind me of water."

"What are those things?"

"The river near our house, the rain."

"Alright, let's try this. Close your eyes and focus on two things, my voice, and the sound of fire burning the wood around you. Focus on every part of the fire, the flame, the sounds of the burning wood, every crackle, every single noise, I want you to separate them and focus on them individually."

Everything around me was quiet except for the fire. I heard the flame go between loud and soft, I heard other noises that I couldn't understand, they happened at random times and they happened quickly. I focused on the flame, sometimes it was very loud, so loud that it made an echo, other times I had to focus just to hear half of it.

"What sound are you focusing on?"

"The flame."

"Good, now answer each of my questions without thinking too hard. What does the river near our house remind you of?"

"Water."

"What about the water?"

"It's moving."

"Can you see the fire in front of you?"

"You told me to close my eyes."

"Can you see any flame in your mind?"

"Yes."

"Where is the flame going?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. Think of the flame in your mind, think of where the flame starts and where the flame ends. Where is the fire going?"

"Up?"

"Correct. The fire is going up, or, in other words, it is?"

"Moving."

"So just like the water of the river, the fire is?"

A spinning ball of water appeared in between my hands, the way that Mom described the fire to me allowed me to think of water as well.

"What I just showed you with Aryet was the way that I was taught to manifest my affinity. Think of something that reminds you of your affinity, and it will come to you, even if you're somewhere that you would never believe is connected to what your affinity is. Now, Liza, do you think you can try to show us your affinity with your sisters as examples?"

"But Mom, I don't know what my affinity is."

"I do. You see, your father comes from a family where you can tell what their affinity is through the color of their hair. Your father has brown hair as his affinity is with the ground, the rocks, and the dirt beneath us. Aryet has blue hair, like the water she controls, and Idrel has pink hair. Don't ask me why a fire affinity gives you pink hair, I don't know. You, Liza, have purple hair, which means your affinity is with what we call force."

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"Force?"

"Have you ever pushed something, or maybe pulled it?"

"Yeah."

"That is the force I'm talking about, simply put. Moving anything, breaking it, creating it, any sort of action that changes the characteristics of an object, whether it be where it is, the shape that it's in, or how much of it there is."

"I still don't understand."

Mom tossed a pebble on the ground near Liza and started walking towards me.

"Here, I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about, and what I want you to try and do is lift the pebble off the ground without touching it. Alright?"

"Okay."

She got behind me and spoke in my ear.

"Hey Aryet, just remember, this is all so we can grow as a family."

"What?"

I felt a large pain in my back, and before I knew it I was halfway across the arena. Mom had pushed me as hard as I could, and as soon as I touched the ground my head hit the stone floor. I rolled over a couple of times before finally being able to stand up, but I was extremely dizzy. My head felt like it would explode, and I fell to the ground and couldn't hear or see anything around me. My ears were ringing and I felt like I would die right there. Eventually, I was able to see and hear again, and I saw that Idrel was over by me, while Mom was walking over to us. My ears finally stopped ringing and I was able to hear what she was saying.

"Are you two alright? I'm sorry for pushing you two so hard, but I thought taking you by surprise would give Liza a better chance to understand her affinity in its purest form, or at least in the purest way I can show it to her."

"Did she lift the pebble?"

"She did, yes. Now, all of you come back upstairs and we'll have a quick conversation. After that, you can all go back to bed."

We made our way back up the stairs that we came down, and Mom closed the bookcase by pulling on a different book, one closer to the bottom of the shelf. After the door was fully closed we all went to the big room and sat on the couch, and Mom sat back in the chair she was in.

"Over the next five years, I will be teaching you as much as I know on how to control the affinities given to you. You heard Aunt Alena talk about how she was founding a school, and how she wanted you three to be students when it was complete. I want you to succeed at this school, I want you all to set an example for the other kids there. You will be able to do this if you let me help you understand yourself and the affinity you have, but I need all of you to be open to that."

She turned to Elya.

"I know I let you sit out today, and while I won't force you to do what your sisters are doing immediately, I'm going to expect that you come around eventually. The world is too dangerous for me to allow you to go through your entire childhood without even touching the powers that have been gifted to you, and so I also need you to understand that I am doing this in your best interest. Every time I push you to do better, every time I criticize you when you do poorly, every single thing that I will do to you over the course of the next five years is something that I am doing so you can all have better futures than me and your father did when we were your age. Can you promise me that you'll try to join your sisters and learn more about your affinity eventually?"

Elya waited a bit, but she nodded in the end.

"Good, now you can all go to bed."

We got up from the couch and headed to the stairs up to our bedrooms. As we were walking out of the room, Mom spoke again.

"I love you all."

Before I had the chance to respond, Idrel had already replied.

"We all love you too Mom, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

We all went up to our rooms, and I jumped back into my bed and fell asleep quickly. The next morning I woke up just when the sun was rising, and as I went downstairs I saw that Mom and my sisters were already eating breakfast. I quickly grabbed whatever was left and ate it, and we went back down to the arena to practice with our powers more.

For the next week, we would be constantly practicing with Mom there as we were doing it. Liza had quickly learned how to use her power, and only a few days after being able to lift a pebble she was already bringing stones that were larger than her up and down the staircase, and she had just started learning how to move objects instead of just holding them above the ground. Idrel was practicing shooting the fire that she created between her hands, and every day she would wake up, create, and then shoot fire as many times as she could, and go back to sleep. The only time that she would take breaks was when she either needed to eat or when she could no longer create any fire. Mom wanted me to get more control over the water I was creating, so she would have me hold the balls of water I made for as long as I could and then immediately make another ball of water once I was unable to hold the one I had just made any longer. I fell to the ground a few times during the week when I tried to hold the water between my hands for longer than an hour, or maybe it wasn't an hour. We all could barely say what time it was during the week, the arena was dark and still only lit up by torches. Mom had to force us to come upstairs so we would eat lunch, and sometimes Liza and Idrel refused to.

The first week had passed, and Liza, Idrel, and I had all made a lot of progress with our powers, however Elya had not even started to try with hers. Eventually, Mom got upset with her, and on the eighth day of our training, she started arguing with Elya about her learning to control her power