It was early morning. The students had already gathered, probably being assigned their daily regimen already. Syndra wasn’t with them. She stood where she had the night before. Unable to sleep. Why? Konigen was wise, but this seemed wrong. She stood outside his door, like the night before. Listening to his rummaging. His absence from the morning rituals was expected. The students had become used to his tardiness. In his absence they were teaching one another.

With a determined stride she had walked to his quarters that morning. But as she stood there in front of his shoji, she had been paralyzed. What now? She had been so determined to ask, to listen. She had been, she was, so confused. Betrayed. But as she stood, she didn’t know what to do. What would she say? What would she do?

She took hold of the sliding door and pushed it aside, clattering against the stops. “Konigen!” What met her was a mentor, deep in meditation. The room littered with small wooden grey statues, some teeming with energy. That same magnetic wood lining the walls and floors. It looked like a carpenter’s workshop. He was clutching a small figure in his hand, a soft red glow emanating from a crystal lodged within the fetish. The man was a husk, the once lively man looking exhausted. Baggy eyes revealing a lack of sleep. He rose to his feet and took a deep breath. The room was artificially darkened by the light-absorbing crystals within each of the wooden sculptures, bearing clear resemblance to the quinlon. Across each of these stones was a deep purple shine.

“Syndra, I am in the middle of meditation. Can it not wait?”

“It cannot!” Syndra tried drawing power, the way she always had, yet in here it seemed impossible. In that moment Konigen winced. An unwilling exertion.

“It is you! Isn’t it?”

Konigen looked weak, defeated.

“It is”

Syndra took a deep breath

“How long?”

“Since you arrived“

The words stung Syndra. To her there was only ever one person who she had truly looked up to, but now… She saw him for the weak manipulative man he was. Syndra exhaled, trying to hold herself in check.

“Why?”

“I thought I could teach you. I thought that you were like the many other students here. Yet you are more chaotic, and more powerful than any one creature I have ever witnessed. You are far beyond my… Beyond anyone’s ability to train. Your powers are unpredictable, chaotic, powerful.”

He gritted his teeth as Syndra’s emotions ran wild. Syndra inhaled. A ragged breath.

“You haven’t been teaching me. You’ve been hampering. You’ve been stealing!”

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“Don’t you see? I have been doing this to protect you. You and the other students. Your powers are dangerous and unpredictable. You are dangerous, unstable, unbalanced. Where they with me…” he gestured to the mess of grey wooden effigies. “…we could do so much good”

Syndra felt robbed, weakened, hampered.

“You sought to be my mentor? You are nothing but a thief, a would-be tyrant. A conquerer using my power! I am mine own sovereign”

“I love you, as I love all my disciples. I would never simply use you. I implore you girl, control yourself!” Konigen was taking a step forward, he opened his mouth, but with the wild unpredictability of the chaotic energy around him. His focus faltered and in that moment the carving in his hand cracked.

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First change felt was smell, the taste of magic became thick. A bitter taste on the soul. The morning light dimmed. The room’s air became polluted with dark energy, coalescing into dark spheres. Heavy were the orbs. Obese with anguish and rage. Again, Syndra could not help herself. She had to let loose their weight. Free herself from the burden, and after that moment, Konigen was no more.

A powerful surge brought her to tears. Her feelings not reduced but amplified by the idol’s crack. And with its tear ripping it apart from the inside. The other statues and icons cracked and popped like fireworks. One by one, and with each, the surge built until it escalated to an unstoppable tide. The roof became rubble, the wooden sliding doors all but dissipated. And with every throe, the power built until Syndra was ready to burst.

She would reduce this prison to dust. She burnt, and the realm of spirits swelled to meet her demand for power. Across all Fae’lor and deep into the sea itself, Ionia shook and morphed. The raw magic she unleashed flooded the island’s ambient magic and washed it away, leaving only charred and singed earth. Nothing would grow for centuries.

The incredible vacuum left by such an outburst had the magical realm in upheaval. Like a hurricane, it swelled to fill the void she had burnt away, with the destruction of the temple and the exposure of the bedrock, the magical realm ascended the rift made, and caught hold of her. She struggled against the forces she had summoned, but the as she burnt the more it intensified, the less control she had. It dragged her down, like an insect caught in a river. Until finally she was fully submerged. With a final yell she pushed against herself, emptying her lungs. The darkness slowly spread from the edge of her vision, until it was all-encompassing, and the exhaustion of her sleepless nights weighed upon her like all the oceans. Her mind awash, darkness crept from the edge of her vision. She fought to keep wake, to keep her mind clear. Her focus slipped further and further from her grasp, until the black finally overtook her.

The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.

Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them away, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over twisting roots. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.

Her face burned with shame and anger. Her mother’s scolding. Her brother’s laughter. She still heard the sound echoing in discordant cacophony.

She stopped and looked around with watery eyes. A feeling of déjà vu overtook her. She pushed the feeling aside and trudged further into the forest.