Adon felt a return to the status quo as soon as he pursued the Golden Eagle into the air.

Even though the eagle was wary, shooting looks in all directions as it rose into the sky, and even though it was wounded, with Adon’s spines sticking out of its body, the butterfly knew he was at a severe disadvantage as he pressed the fight.

He charged in and tackled the eagle with his Mana-reinforced body once again, and bounced off just as before. He tried getting to near point blank range and using his Mana-infused spines, pushed even harder and faster with Telepathy, to break through the defensive barrier around the eagle.

Nothing landed.

Adon tried firing a Mana ball from right behind the Golden Eagle’s head and pushing it to move in faster with Telekinesis. That only succeeded in earning a wild-eyed look in his direction from the bird as the wind around it deflected the orb, but it finally at least noticed that a bright, shining object was attacking it.

The eagle clearly did not see him, though. Its eyes jumped down from looking at him to following the Mana ball as it fell toward ground level.

Then the bird accelerated, and only Adon’s telekinetic hold on its body kept him from falling behind.

The Golden Eagle was flying scared, now, and it was gratifying to see, but the fact remained that nothing Adon had attempted since the bird woke up had done any damage at all.

I could wait until it falls back asleep, he thought.

But the idea of waiting rubbed him the wrong way. It would mean admitting to himself that he could not win a face to face fight.

There were only a couple of moves left in his arsenal. Adon did not think he could kill the eagle with mental magic, so he began preparing himself to use fire magic.

There were several reasons why he had not attempted it yet.

He did not want to burn the eagle to a crisp if he succeeded. He thought fire was no more likely to penetrate a shield of wind than any other attack. And most importantly, fire magic was the other power that would make him visible to the eagle if he used it.

But he would welcome an attack from the eagle anyway. At least that would require the bird to make physical contact with him.

Adon’s body remembered the feeling of turning his Mana into fire from last time. It was a particular type of vibration, like making a spark with tinder. Then it was replicating that vibration across multiple points in the affected portion of Mana. Finally, feeding the flame with more Mana—and any physical objects or air that he happened to be targeting.

It took only a few seconds for him to ignite the flames once more.

At the same moment that he succeeded, the bird of prey turned back and glared at him with its intense eyes. They were at such close range, only a few feet away, that Adon realized the eyes were not quite the orange color he had thought at first glance. They were more tawny.

The eagle let out a loud cry that jerked Adon out of staring into its eyes.

Right. You can see me now.

Or at least it could see the magic.

From the Golden Eagle’s perspective, it would have looked as if a butterfly shaped halo of fire simply appeared in midair.

Adon felt giddy as he saw the great bird’s eyes widen. This was what he wanted.

Let’s do this, he thought. Let’s go!

The bird began to turn in the air, moving so that it was perpendicular to Adon.

What’s he doing?

Adon would not let the eagle perform whatever attack it had in mind. He pushed a wave of fire forward from his body—and the eagle flapped its wing, closest to Adon, once. Hard.

A gale surged up in the wake of the eagle’s wing, and Adon felt his flames pushed backward.

He recognized that the force was too strong for him to press his way through, pulled his flames back, and pivoted out of the way of the gust.

Then he blasted his flames at the Golden Eagle again.

This time, the great bird of prey flapped both wings, and the winds that followed moved more quickly and were twice as intense.

The flames around Adon’s body flickered out, while his body itself was tossed around in the turbulent air.

The only positive thing about the flames going out was that the eagle, which rushed in after the gust of wind, still could not see Adon as he spiraled toward the ground, caught in what felt like a small-scale tornado.

Remind me why I wanted a fair fight again, Adon thought as he finally managed to get control of himself. This thing is tough…

He reoriented his body to face back up toward the sky so that he could better see what the Golden Eagle was doing.

It was circling above, eyes glaring down, trying to locate what had just attacked it.

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I need to get more creative, Adon thought. Need to find a weak moment to attack it—no, a way to hide the fire. It was really scared there. That was a lot of effort to keep the fire from getting near its body. And now it’s trying to figure out where I fell. The eagle wouldn’t be so fixated on me now if it didn’t feel threatened. So fire isn’t harmless to it. How do I do it? How do I get past its defenses?

Adon quickly devised a plan.

He fluttered back up to where the eagle was, and he began focusing harder than he had ever focused in his life. He intended to use two different types of magic at once this time. He did not know if it was possible, but he would give it his best and find out in the best way: through experience.

Adon settled himself underneath the eagle’s body and latched on to its feet with Telekinesis. Then he started channeling Mana into his brain and in a halo around his body at the same time. And he activated Telepathy. Somewhere in the process of performing all of these tasks at once, his head started throbbing with the effort.

He took a moment to breathe and decide if he could push through.

But he didn’t feel as if this was something he couldn’t do—the key question—only that it would be very difficult and a bit painful.

He pressed on.

Have to synchronize them, he thought.

He didn’t want to waste too much Mana. He was at about the halfway point, now, in terms of Mana reserves. If this attack did not work, he would not be far from the point where he might need to give up for his own safety. He knew he could not endure a close up fight without Mana to reinforce him.

Finally, Adon felt that he was ready.

The Mana around his body was vibrating in that familiar way, almost ready to ignite.

He simultaneously activated the mental magic that he had been charging inside his brain and sparked the fire magic that was waiting to be unleashed.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Adon let loose a horrendous psychic scream in the Golden Eagle’s direction at the same moment that the flames around Adon’s body ignited.

The eagle’s body writhed in sudden shock—and probably pain—and Adon forced a blast of fire up from his body, straight at the eagle’s lower half.

The flames hit the area next to the bird.

But even with the eagle seemingly paralyzed from Adon’s mental attack, and the bird unable to flap its wings and defend itself, the wind shield had not gone away.

The flames struck the wall of air, and Adon could have sworn he heard a slight sizzle. Then he felt a wall of force, as the wind blew him and the eagle in opposite directions.

Damn it! What do I have to do to this bird to get through?

That was the only thought running through Adon’s frustrated mind as he spun through the air, watching the eagle spiraling in the other direction.

The butterfly righted himself first, deactivated Telepathy, and stopped conjuring both flames and mental magic. The pounding in his head had grown more intense, but now he felt it begin to dissipate alongside the aura all around his body.

He fluttered after the eagle, invisible again, and the bird finally flapped its wings and reversed its downward direction of travel.

Adon saw a thin stream of smoke rising from some scorched tail feathers as the eagle turned to look wildly around in Adon’s direction.

All that effort, just to barely cook the ends of a few feathers…

The eagle glanced around once more—and Adon was certain he saw fear in its eyes and in the way it fluffed up the feathers—then turned and started flying as quickly as it could back toward the mountain.

This was almost diving speed, and Adon knew instantly that the bird was trying desperately to escape him.

He locked Telekinesis back on and let it keep him from being left behind, and he simply hung on while trying to come up with his plan to finish the eagle once and for all.

What would Rosslyn do? She was a much more experienced magical combatant. Fire was the only thing that had gotten through its defenses so far, and it was her weapon. He wished he had seen her use it more often, but it had only been a couple of times…

Wait a minute. That first time…

She had not just used fire magic, but also Telekinesis. Maybe he had been going about this the wrong way.

If she could set the ants on fire at a distance, why couldn’t he do the same to the eagle? Maybe he could bypass the defenses entirely.

I don’t know quite how she did that with Telekinesis. But he had a guess as to the only way that could work. If he simply moved a bunch of fire, it would be no different than when he shot flames at the eagle directly.

I have to surround it with Mana, and hopefully that can move through the shield.

Adon pulled Mana from his body and imagined a second telekinetic hand, in addition to the one that secured him to the eagle, gathering it up in its palm.

A clump of Mana formed in the invisible hand. Then it grew. With Adon focusing all of his energy and attention on this, it grew quickly.

Which was important, because the mountain was also growing. It was rapidly moving closer and closer as the eagle completed its desperate journey home.

Adon thought he had enough Mana—he was almost completely drained now, so this would have to be enough—and he closed the invisible hand around it to protect it from the wind.

Then Adon pushed the hand enclosing the Mana toward the eagle’s body. He got it very close—it passed through the wind shield!—and then he stretched the hand out, reshaped it so that the skin of it wrapped around the eagle’s entire body.

At that point, there was nothing between the Mana and the eagle’s body.

Adon reached out to his distant Mana and began moving it in the familiar way, trying to vibrate it until it sparked into a flame. It was more difficult.

It felt like his Mana did not want to obey him, or perhaps it was having trouble sensing what its owner wanted. The distance made communication more difficult. The Mana slowly bubbled and gradually increased the intensity of its movements.

Faster, faster…

Adon could see they were getting closer and closer to the mountainside. It was happening too slowly.

He pushed harder. The Mana began to vibrate more quickly.

The mountain loomed up, the eagle cried out triumphantly—Adon thought again that he might not make it—and the Mana finally ignited.

All around the eagle’s body, flames appeared. The windshield suddenly acted, and it looked to Adon’s eyes as if the eagle was engulfed in a sudden, bird-shaped tornado of flames.

The eagle flapped its wings once more, in what looked like a last, reflexive spasm of its usual defensive gesture.

Then the bird’s body tumbled from the sky.

I did it, Adon thought, exhaustion hitting him all at once.

The butterfly stopped moving his wings, let everything go, and finally fell out of the air himself, following in the same direction as the eagle.