Elise sat at her bedroom desk in front of a bowl of water. Before Mary borrowed Biscuit nearly a week prior, Elise had read that one could transform water into ice without changing its affinity. Unfortunately as winter had ended, ice was very difficult for Elise to get her hands on. Without the book and with no real ice to meditate on, she had spent two days trying to turn water to ice with no progress. However, Elise liked the challenge.
If it were easy, it wouldn’t be as fun.
She closed her eyes and began to focus on the Ichor around her. Right away, she could see the Ichor in every object in her room, and the longer she concentrated, the more she could see. She could see her father in his study downstairs, likely doing his own meditation. She could even see the few spell scrolls they had made, identified by the fire Ichor contained inside.
She focused on the deep blue water Ichor in the bowl in front of her. She willed the Ichor to rise, causing the water to lift out of the bowl. Very carefully, she condensed the floating blob of water into a sphere and paused.
What now? How do I just… make this freeze?
She carefully moved the ball of water around in the air. She tried condensing it and expanding it, and eventually she let it drop back into the bowl. She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling.
No wonder no one’s found magic before the book. This shit is hard without a guide.
She closed her eyes to focus on the Ichor again, but before she could start playing with the water she noticed a large source of Ichor approaching her house from the street below. She concentrated on it and found that it was actually two sources of Ichor, one being small but with more Ichor and the other being quite a lot larger but had less Ichor.
Mary and Biscuit are here!
Elise raced down the stairs and opened the front door before Mary even had a chance to knock. Mary yelped in surprise, but Biscuit, who sat on her shoulder, meowed happily at seeing Elise. Mary was lightly sprinkled head to toe in what looked like dust, and her fingers had small bandages on them.
“Woah, what happened to you,” Elise asked as she ushered her inside.
“It’s a secret,” Mary said in a whisper that was louder than her normal speaking voice.
“Oh, Malon, good to see you,” said Tobias as he walked down the stairs. “And you too, Biscuit. I could feel your Ichor from nearly a block away.”
Elise grabbed Biscuit from Mary’s shoulder and scratched him affectionately. “What brings you here, done with Biscuit already?”
“Can’t a girl just visit her best friend,” Mary said mockingly, but she paused and laughed nervously. “Actually I have a favor to ask. I’m working on an experiment that needs some supplies and… well…” She shuffled her feet awkwardly.
“How much do you need,” asked Elise, seeing right through her friend.
“Ten gold,” Mary said through a forced smile.
“My word,” Tobias gaped, “what could you need that costs that much?”
Mary took Biscuit back from Elise and had him return to his book form. She sat at the dining table and flipped to a page near the middle of the book. Elise knew that the spells got more complicated the closer they were to the end, so whatever Mary was trying must’ve been more than anything they’ve done before.
“You know how the book has this stone on the cover?” Mary indicated at the opalescent stone embedded in the cover’s center. “Apparently that’s how the book has a core. I’ve been reading about how to make new Ichor cores, and it turns out they’re made with gemstones.” She flipped through a few pages in the book and gestured to them. “Each affinity has its own rune and gemstone it needs in order to make a core for it. Like fire needs a ruby and water needs a sapphire.”
“So you’re saying if you take a ruby and cast a rune on it it’ll become a fire core?” Tobias leaned over Mary’s shoulder to read the page she was on.
Mary made a so-so gesture with her hand. “Kind of, it’s a little more involved than that. You need to make a casing for it and get the size and purity right and it’s a whole big hassle. But yes, once that’s done you’d have something that you can use as an affinity core. The book says necklaces are good for storing them so you can wear the core all the time, but smaller jewels can’t hold as much Ichor.”
“So you need ten gold to get some jewels,” Elise asked. “That seems like a lot, even for jewels.”
Mary groaned, “I know, they didn’t used to cost this much. Almost no one has any, I’ve run around the whole market twice.”
“Is that why you’re so dirty,” Elise teased.
“That’s unrelated, shush. Anyway, I want to get a hematite for an earth core and I was going to ask what kind of core you two would want but literally the only other gem in the city is a ruby, so one of you is getting a fire core.”
“Ten gold for only two gems?” Elise was shocked. Gems were pricey before but never this much.
“It makes sense they’re so expensive, now that Whiteridge is gone,” said Tobias as he fished through his coin purse and handed ten gold coins to Mary. “The mines in Whiteridge supplied all of Thalan with gems. With no one there anymore, everything is likely being imported from Elordia.”
“That makes sense but it still sucks,” mumbled Mary. “Thanks though, Mr. G”
Tobias nodded and smiled. “I bet the king is making a pretty penny off this gem situation, though,” he murmured.
“How so?” Elise asked.
“Taxes mostly. He takes a tax on goods imported over the border. And with the threat of bandits looming over everyone, merchants will be hiring more guards to protect their wares which the king also takes a tax on. And with all those new expenses, the price of the gems will go up to compensate, which increases the sales tax the king takes too. As terrible as it is to say, Whiteridge being destroyed might’ve been purely a financial gain for the king.”
Mary groaned and laid her head down dramatically. “I miss when the king wasn’t terrible.”
“Here here,” said Tobias. “Anyway, did you say you were getting an earth core? Have you been learning earth magic?”
“Yeah, sort of. It’s part of my super secret surprise project, you’ll see.
“I can’t wait,” he chuckled. “We haven’t really learned anything new since you borrowed Biscuit.”
“You can have him back soon, I promise. I just want to finish these projects before the last two gems in the whole blasted kingdom get bought out from under me.”
“Better run, then,” chucked Elise. “Looks like rain soon, anyway. Wouldn’t want your gem seller to close up shop due to bad weather.”
“Oh he better not,” Mary closed the book and stood up. Biscuit turned back into his cat form and leapt up onto her shoulder. “I gotta go, I’ll bring you the water core as soon as it’s done.” She moved quickly towards the door and turned to wave them goodbye.
“Good luck,” called Elise.
“Be safe, come get us if you need anything,” said Tobias.
Elise sat at her bedroom desk in front of a rock. She held her eyes shut as she meditated on the Ichor held inside the stone to the sound of raindrops pelting the window in front of her. She could immediately sense the resilience and hardness of the earth affinity Ichor as well as its intense resistance to change. It wasn’t malleable like water or air, and it was perfectly content staying still indefinitely.
In truth, Elise wasn’t trying to learn the affinity for the sake of casting spells. Earth affinity spells sounded useful, but not particularly interesting to her. In actuality, she curiously wanted to figure out what kind of surprise Mary could be planning. She had called it a “project” which, coming from Mary, could mean any number of things.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Her meditation was interrupted by a flash of lightning and the loud rumble of thunder. She gazed out her window at the pouring rain, completely enraptured by the sight. She always loved watching the rain, and learning about Ichor only increased her love as she could feel the water’s movements nearly down to a single raindrop.
“Elise, dear, do you have a moment,” Elise heard her father call from outside her bedroom door.
“Yeah,” she said as she opened the door, “what’s up?”
“Well, I was thinking. The best way to learn a new affinity is to examine the real thing, right? Why not take advantage of this thunderstorm to learn the lightning affinity?”
“Oh! That's a good idea, let’s do it.”
“Would you like to head up to the roof? We’d get a better sense of it from up there.”
“Isn’t that dangerous, being so high up in a thunderstorm?”
Tobias waved his hand nonchalantly. “We’re so close to the castle that any lightning will just hit that instead. It’s strong enough to handle a little lightning.”
Elise shrugged and opened her bedroom window, making sure there were no books or papers nearby to get wet. As her bedroom was at the top level of the house, her window led to a section of the roof that could be walked on. Elise stepped out first and was immediately drenched. She helped her father to get through and together they walked carefully up to the peak of the roof where they could sit comfortably. Elise often used to climb up there to read when she was younger.
They sat together, enjoying the rain despite how cold it was. Elise meditated on the Ichor around them and got ready to to sense the lightning Ichor whenever it may come.
“How are you doing, Elise,” asked Tobias. “It's been a wild few weeks.”
Elise, without breaking her meditation, thought on the question. How was she doing? Discovering magic had completely thrown her life out of balance. She had spent nearly every waking moment of the last weeks either reading from Biscuit or practicing with Ichor. She was completely captivated with learning all of these new things. If she were being honest with herself, she was having the time of her life.
“I feel really good,” she said finally. “This is a lot of fun and I’m excited to see where it goes next.”
Tobias sighed contentedly. “Me too, dear.”
“I think some lightning is coming,” said Elise, pointing off in the distance.
Far outside the walls of the city, a large cloud of Ichor gathered in the sky. It was far further than any other Ichor Elise was able to sense, and she figured the size of the cloud was what allowed her to still see it. It was hard to tell from the distance, but the Ichor moved quickly and erratically. Soon after the Ichor cloud formed, a second one slowly appeared on the ground below the first. Once the clouds were roughly equal in size, there was a large crack of light bright enough to shine through Elise’s closed eyelids. A few seconds later, they heard the low rumbling of thunder sweep over them.
“That's so cool,” Elise muttered.
“Very,” agreed Tobias. “But too far away to glean anything useful.”
They meditated for a while longer and watched several more strikes hit the mountains in the far distance. Elise didn't mind waiting, however. She leaned on her father’s soaking wet shoulder and closed her eyes; happy to be there.
“Do you see how lightning strikes when two clusters of lightning Ichor link together,” Tobias asked loud enough to be heard over the rain but soft enough to not disturb the relative peace.
Elise nodded into his shoulder.
“Before Mary borrowed Biscuit I peeked ahead in the book, and apparently casting lightning spells without a rune works largely the same way. You gather some lightning Ichor in your core and it’ll link to other Ichor around you.”
“Do you think real lightning is just Elos casting a spell,” asked Elise.
Tobias thought for a moment. “I never thought of it that way… Spells do seem to follow the natural logic of the world.”
They fell back into silence. Tobias was likely contemplating Elise’s question, while Elise was just enjoying the rain.
A few minutes later, Tobias nudged Elise with his elbow. “Look,” he said, pointing at the sky near the castle. A large cloud of Ichor was gathering in the sky, and another was forming at the top of one of the castle’s many towers. Elise quickly began meditating so she could feel the Ichor of the inevitable lightning strike, but she also braced herself for the noise she knew it would make.
CRACK!
The lightning shot down from the sky and collided with the top of the tower with the loudest noise Elise had ever heard, followed by a deep and long rumbling that shook her to her core. The feeling of the Ichor was imprinted into her mind from the intensity of the strike. She could vividly remember the way the Ichor sparked and flew energetically.
Elise pulled some air Ichor into her core and tried to shape it into the form of the lightning Ichor she held in her mind. She made a few unsuccessful attempts before deciding to wait and watch a few more lightning strikes. She has found that changing Ichor from one affinity to another was more about understanding the similarities and differences between the two, rather than any specific action.
A few more lightning strikes hit the distant mountains, but it took several minutes for another one to hit close enough to study it. As lightning struck one of the guard towers of the city wall, Elise noted how the Ichor seemed to have two different states. She wasn't able to explain why, but clumps of lightning ichor in one state seemed to be drawn to clumps in the other state, while pushing away from clumps in the same state. Lightning strikes appeared to be links between large groups of Ichor in different states.
Realizing that this was likely the insight she had been missing, she pulled in Ichor from the air and tried to convert it to the lightning affinity. The Ichor resisted the transformation, but she pushed and soon she held a small amount of lightning Ichor in her core. She was able to change the state it was in, and she spent a while playing with it and moving it around her core.
“Great work, dear,” said Tobias, sensing her accomplishment.
“Do you have it?”
“Nearly. Seeing you do it helped, though.”
Elise could feel the air Ichor swirling through her father’s core and soon he, too, held some lightning Ichor. She gathered more lightning and sent it to her hands, letting sparks of electricity dance between her fingers. She briefly considered touching her father’s arm with the electricity but ultimately decided against it. Tobias, however, did not have such restraint. He leaned over and poked Elise’s shoulder with a lightning-filled finger, delivering her a sharp but harmless shock. She looked at him in faux anger, and they both broke out into laughter.
The pair spent a while gathering lightning Ichor and shocking each other. Soon, Elise noticed a cluster of lightning Ichor gathering in the storm clouds above them. She looked around at the streets around them to see where the other cluster would form, but she found none. The only other gathering of lightning Ichor was… them.
Shit.
There was no time to get back into the window before the lightning would strike, and releasing the Ichor they held likely wouldn’t make much difference.
“Dad, get down!”
Tobias understood, but was clearly worried. There was no time to hesitate, however, so he slid down the roof slightly to give Elise plenty of space.
If this works for fire, it should work for this, right?
Elise stood carefully on the peak of the roof and gathered as much lightning Ichor as she could. Quickly and aided by the adrenaline coursing through her blood, she covered her body with it. The electricity coating her tickled slightly, but did not hurt. With every inch of her protected by Ichor, she held her hands high in the air and braced herself for the—
CRACK!
A white light completely engulfed Elise, and everything faded to black.
----------------------------------------
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“No.“
“Yes, she was on the roof—“
“No, we don’t need a doctor, she’s fine—“
“I don’t know.“
“There’s no damage, the house is fine—“
“Okay.“
“Yes, thank you for your concern, have a nice night.”
Tobias sighed and shut the front door, returning to where Elise sat at the dining table. She was covered in a wool blanket and held a steaming cup of tea.
“Who was that,” she asked shakily.
“A guard who saw you on the roof,” Tobias replied, pressing the back of his hand to Elise’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Great,” she lied. “Thanks for catching me.”
Getting struck by lightning, passing out, and nearly falling off a roof was not part of Elise’s plan for the day. On the bright side, one’s efficiency with an Ichor affinity was directly proportional to their understanding and experience with it, and Elise could say with certainty that she now had an intimate understanding of lightning. She hadn’t noticed right away, but the moment the strike hit her she could see the true color of lightning Ichor: an electric yellow only slightly different from the golden yellow it was before.
Tobias hugged her tightly. “This could’ve turned out much worse. I’m very happy you’re safe.”
“I bet I looked really cool up there for a second,” she chuckled halfheartedly.
Tobias smiled and nodded. “You sure did, dear.”
----------------------------------------
Rosalie dodged to the side as a sword narrowly missed hitting her shoulder. Her foot slipped in the mud but she used the end of her staff to steady herself. She aimed her staff at the heavily armored soldier across from her and poured energy into it. The gem at the staff’s tip began to glow and the raindrops that hit it were immediately vaporized. The soldier readied himself against the heavily telegraphed attack and dove to the side once a large bolt of red light burst from the gem. One bolt split into five, and each adjusted their trajectory mid air towards the moving target. Four bolts impacted the ground, splashing mud everywhere, while the last bolt collided with the soldier's pauldron. The soldier rolled his shoulder and, on finding it not injured, readied his sword for another exchange.
Jacob had declared that sparring would not be postponed for the sake of a thunderstorm, and Rosalie wasn’t complaining. She loved the rain, and she was enjoying sparring much more than she expected to. She was excited, however, for Edward was nearly done with the work he was doing on the fort, which meant only one thing: it was only a matter of days before she and Edward would be setting out to return to the capital.