Naomi

Esar woke Naomi again before the sun rose the next morning.

“Seriously?” Naomi groaned, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep.

“We need to go. We should be well away from here when those knights show up to talk to Guennet.”

“Fine,” Naomi said. “Go away and let me get dressed.”

In spite of her fatigue, Naomi dressed quickly and joined Esar out in the hallway.

“I take it your friend and the Ethereal Guard are on their way to Bulrisa?” Esar asked.

“Of course,” Naomi said. Esar handed her an apple and she took a bite. “I still wish I could have gone to meet them. Then I’d be nice and far away, right?”

“They know perfectly well how to handle a construct without your help,” Esar said. “I thought you wanted to learn to control your power.”

“I do!” Naomi said. “Is that what we’re doing today?”

Esar sighed. “You’ve made it clear that I can’t put it off any longer.” They left Guennet’s house and headed west, leaving the softly glowing Asprai barrier behind them.

Naomi jumped at every noise from between the trees as they made their way into the forest. “I keep thinking those knights are going to leap out at us,” she said.

“I know they’re keeping watch, but we’re not the ones they’re looking for. I hope.”

“What do you mean, you hope?” Naomi asked.

“Let’s just say that you and I have reason to be particularly cautious.”

Oh, so he was going to go all vague and mysterious again, huh? Naomi sighed but didn’t press him for more information. She didn’t know who could be lurking in the trees.

They walked for roughly half an hour before Esar judged them to be far enough away from civilization. He handed Naomi a rock the size of a golf ball.

“Go ahead. Show me what you did to the boulder yesterday,” he said.

Naomi tried. How hard could it be to melt one stupid little rock? But it remained stubbornly solid in the palm of her hand, in spite of her best efforts. Naomi hurled it as far as she could with a groan of frustration. It landed with a plop in one of the many puddles that remained from the overnight rain.

“Do you think it might be helpful to have a bit of understanding of what it is you are trying to do?” Esar said.

“You could have started out with that, instead of letting me struggle!” Naomi said.

“I wanted to see if it was something you were capable of instinctively,” Esar said.

“I was. With a way bigger rock than this one, too.” Naomi frowned. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“You just don’t know what you’re doing.”

Naomi shrugged. He had a point.

“Where do I begin?” Esar sighed. “All matter is made up of tiny particles held together by bonds.”

“I know that. I took chemistry. Atoms and ionic bonds and covalent bonds, right?”

Esar shook his head. “Now you’re thinking too deeply into it,” he said.

“That’s a first. I thought I wasn’t capable of thinking deeply about anything.”

“That’s not what I meant. You break down those bonds, at the deepest level, and it’s not a rock any more. You’re just trying to break the bonds keeping it solid.”

“Okay, so you mean, like, a physical change instead of a chemical change. See? I paid attention in science class sometimes!”

“Glad to hear it.”

“But it didn’t get hot.”

“What?”

“Normally, if you want to melt a rock, you have to get it really, really hot, right? But when the rock liquefied before, it didn’t get hot. Did I break the laws of physics?” Naomi said.

“You’re not putting heat energy into it, though. You’re using vitricity.”

“Is that all there is to it? Just put in enough energy that it breaks the bonds holding its shape, but not the bonds that make it what it is?”

“Of course that’s not all there is to it, but I don’t exactly have the equations memorized,” Esar said.

“Okay, okay, I’m going to give it another try.” Naomi knelt down and picked up another chunk of gravel. “Prepare to die, rock.”

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“Are you trying to be funny?” Esar asked.

“Just trying to get in the right frame of mind.”

Esar crossed his arms and took a step backward. Naomi stared at her new rock, then closed it in her fist. The rough edges dug into her palm and fingers. She let her vitricity flow into it the way she would with an incand, and she could feel the bonds within it, holding its shape. What sort of minerals was it made of, she wondered? Which elements made up this simple rock?

Oh, right, she was supposed to be working with her Rispara powers, not studying geology. Naomi fed more energy into the rock, overwhelming the bonds that held its shape, until it didn’t feel like a rock anymore. It felt like clay, the sharp edges turning smooth and squishing to take the shape of her hand.

Naomi opened her hand, and seeing the lump shaped by the inside of her fist gave her a surge of satisfaction.

“I did—” she began, but as soon as the pressure was released, the rock lost its shape, slumping into a puddle in her palm. After it settled, she prodded it with her finger and found it solid again. “Well, I did something.”

Naomi offered the reshaped stone to Esar.

“I’m still not sure whether I should be terrified or impressed,” he muttered, but he accepted the squashed stone and turned it over in his hand before tossing it aside.

“Hey, I wanted to keep that!” Naomi tried to spot where it had landed.

“Then do another one,” Esar said.

“No, I found it.” A tiny spark of light in the corner of her eye had caught Naomi’s attention, drawing her eye to the lump of flattened stone. “Hey, it made a little sparkle! Did you see that?”

“I did not.”

“I can only see it out of the corner of my eye,” Naomi said. “It’s like what triggered the visions before. Do you think when a Rispara uses their powers, it leaves a residue behind?”

“It’s possible,” Esar said. “You are more or less damaging the fabric of reality. And I’m starting to lean towards ‘terrified.’”

“They’re just rocks,” Naomi said.

“Yes. For now.”

Naomi picked up another rock and squeezed it into a fist-shaped blob, a bit of the softened stone oozing out between her fingers. This time she kept her hand tightly shut after withdrawing her power and counted to ten before opening her hand. The rock still slumped a little bit, but it didn’t completely lose its form before it re-solidified.

“I think I’m making artwork now,” Naomi said.

Esar sighed and pulled a copper coin from his pocket, then handed it to her.

“You want me to destroy your money?”

“It’s not worth much. Go ahead,” Esar replied.

The coin felt different than the stones when she sent her power into it, more uniform and orderly. This time, she didn’t close her hand, but stared at it until something broke, and the coin drew together into a bead of shiny metal at the center of her palm.

“Oh!” she cried, rolling the liquid from one hand to the other. “Look how pretty that is.” She tried to let it run back to the other hand, but this time the bead tumbled, solid once more. “Do you want it back?”

“Keep it if you want,” Esar said.

“Thanks.” Naomi slipped the drop of metal into her pocket. “What should I do next? In my vision, the Rispara was able to melt whole buildings and everything around them. He didn’t even have to touch them.”

“And that’s another reason that you’re practicing out here, away from any buildings or people.”

Naomi shuddered. “I would never do that to a person,” she said.

“You couldn’t do that to a person, even if you wanted to,” Esar said. “The books were quite clear about that.”

“I can’t?” Naomi said. “I mean, I’m glad that I can’t, but why not? Aren’t people just matter when it comes down to it?”

“Matter with a mind,” Esar said. “The mind extends beyond physical reality into the unconscious sea. The mind is what shapes vitricity and it will resist any attempt by vitricity to reshape it, or the form by which it defines itself. You can’t force your way in the way you can with an inanimate object.” Naomi opened her mouth to ask a question, but Esar preempted her. “Even if you are a Rispara.”

“That’s not what I was about to say. I was going to ask you how healing works.” Esar didn’t answer her immediately, so she went on, “A person can heal another person with vitricity, right? Isn’t that kind of like changing a person’s form?”

Esar sighed heavily. “You should think of healing more as a cooperative effort between the healer and the person being healed. Both people, their minds, and their vitricity are involved. That’s why you can’t heal someone with the Blight—and why Kelsam had such a hard time giving energy to Jason.”

“Does that mean you can’t heal a person if they’re unconscious?”

“Just because someone is unconscious doesn’t mean their mind is gone, Naomi!”

“Then how—”

Esar threw up his hands. “I don’t know, all right? It’s complicated. I never trained as a healer. Too busy learning what to do about my dreams and every other bloody thing.”

“But what if I need to heal somebody someday?” Naomi asked.

That rendered Esar speechless for a moment. It was both gratifying and annoying, when Naomi did something that surprised him enough to render him silent.

“Rispara were not made for healing, Naomi,” Esar finally said.

“But my father healed someone when he was on Earth,” Naomi replied. “He cured Jason’s mom’s cancer, remember? And she didn’t even have vitricity.”

“Well, I don’t know how he did it,” Esar said. “There was nothing about healing in any of the books about the Rispara that I read.”

“But from what you said, it sounds like I couldn’t hurt Jason, even if I tried. So why didn’t you let me try to help him after Kelsam got worn out?”

Esar sighed. “Just because you can’t cause him harm directly . . . follow me for a moment.”

Naomi followed him into the center of the clearing, where Esar began unfastening the buttons on his tunic.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Naomi took a step back.

“Trying to prevent you from destroying a very expensive article of clothing. What is that look?”

“Nothing! Just wondering why you started taking your clothes off out of nowhere.” Esar was wearing an undershirt, and Naomi’s moment of panic was replaced by embarrassment at her overreaction.

“Just an overtunic, which I am pretty sure I’ve taken off in your presence several times in hotel rooms.”

“Everyone else was there, then. Sorry, I just—it was weird, okay? I didn’t know what you were doing.”

Esar kept staring at her with what might have been pity or concern. “What is your world like?” he asked.

“It’s just different. I’m sorry, what did you want to teach me?”

“I was going to ask you to try to melt my hand,” Esar said in a deadpan tone. “If I may remove my overtunic without you going into a panic?”

“It’s fine!” Why couldn’t he drop it already? “Take off your pants while you’re at it, see if I care!” She immediately wished she hadn’t said that, and her cheeks burned hotter than ever. Fortunately, Esar didn’t respond to it, just folded his tunic neatly and set it down on the grass several steps away.

He returned to the center of the clearing and extended a hand. “Try to melt my hand like it’s a rock.”