Derin smiled faintly. However, there was little time for his dread when facing large groups of people to appear. Suddenly, all he saw was the starless night sky above. Even that disappeared from view as his eyes closed.
Rorick knelt down as the rest of the Red Tide ran towards him.
“This is bad. The space is rejecting him. If you don’t get him out of here now, there won’t be anything left of him to bring back!” Alora exclaimed, panicked.
“What are you waiting for, Rorick? Get him out of here!” A boy about the same age as Derin yelled.
“Alright, I’ll take him to get some rest at the Rambling Geist,” Rorick said, “but, uh…”
“But what?” Another new voice from the crowd.
“I don’t have the money on me to pay for it…”
The entirety of Shadowsun echoed with the sound of the entire group facepalming in unison.
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Derin’s eyes fluttered open. “...Huh? That’s weird.” He said, rolling over in his unusually comfortable bed. “How could I ever sleep on something this soft?”
“Derin,” a familiar voice said from behind him, “is there something you aren’t telling us?”
“Not telling you?” He was confused. Rorick was clearly suspicious of something, but what? The last thing Derin remembered was losing consciousness outside of the Red Tide’s base.
“The only time Shadowsun rejects anyone is when their very presence threatens the spatial fabric that allows it to exist. Someone needs to have more ambient magic power floating around them than Alora has been pouring into the system for years in order for this to happen.
There’s no way a mage who just had their Awakening is suddenly this powerful.”
“I, uh, don’t know what to say. This is all news to me, I’ve never even had enough power to damage a tree stump without calling an element to it.”
“Calling an element to it?” Rorick asked. It was strange - wasn’t calling an element to accompany magic power so it could have an effect on the real world absolutely basic?
“Yeah, I just take magic and then call, say, wind into it. The wind follows the shape of the magic. That’s how you make a spell, right?”
Rorick did not respond. The silence was uncomfortable, and he couldn’t tell just why the man had gone so quiet.
“Well, anyway, the others wanted me to tell you that we’re glad to have you on the team. It’s sudden, but since you can’t live with us in Shadowsun until you’re a bit more capable with that absurd power, and the next session starts too soon for us to delay, I’ll have to take you to the Magic Academy of Neria.”
“But why couldn’t you have just teleported us there from Shadowsun?”
“I can enter Shadowsun from anywhere, but the only place to come out of it is through its link to the physical world. There’s no human who can use spatial magic on a scale large enough to abridge the days of travel ahead.”
“What day is it today?”
“Ruundas.”
“I mean, the date. And how long until I have to be there?”
“It’s the 23rd of Last Light, we have until the 25th. The journey will take 3 days at best, by carriage.”
“And we’ll get there on time… how?”
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“And why are we on top of a bell tower?” Derin had to shout over the sound of the wind around him.
“Flying is faster than carriages!” Rorick responded, a wild grin on his face.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“And if someone sees us?” Derin questioned, but he received no answer. Already, Rorick had dove off of the roof. Derin ran to the edge and looked over it for Rorick, only to see him levitating back up.
“What are you waiting for?” He asked. “We haven’t got much time.”
Derin took a deep breath to calm his beating heart. He had done this dozens of times before, what was different now? He didn’t know what was wrong, but he felt… off. As if he had eaten bread made from months-old flour, or breathed in too much smoke.
“Well, here goes nothing…” He said. The tiles rang like chimes as he stepped back to the other end of the roof, and again when he began his running start. Each footstep was like a clock counting down.
6… The sky above him suddenly seemed that much higher.
5… The bustle of the marketplace below went silent.
4… All he could hear was his heart beating in time with his gait.
3… He was already off of the roof. His steps had been too large. He panicked as he searched for the roof, but it was no longer below his feet. He wrapped himself in magic power and pulled wind to it, but the sound of it rushing by his body was deafening. He shot into the sky, wind whipping around him with the force of a hurricane.
“Derin!” Rorick’s voice was lost in the howl of the wind. He struggled to stay stable as the wind buffeted him and blasted him away, and Derin rocketed ever further into the sky.
The town below was little more than the size of Derin’s palm. He was beset upon by freezing air that seemed to bite into his skin with sharp, icy fangs.
“What’s going on?” Derin asked, panicked. His voice diffused into the endless sky around him as he pierced through the clouds.
“Goodness. And here the geezer was telling me you’d have excellent control. He must be going senile.” A deep voice, almost growling, boomed between Derin’s ears. It echoed in his head, as if bouncing off of the walls of his skull.
“Who said that?!” Derin whipped about, looking for the source of the voice, but couldn’t find it.
“I guess you wouldn’t know. All you need to know for now is that I am the source of the ocean of power within you that the pudgy mage down there was so suspicious of.
To wield power properly, one needs a calm mind. Yours is like a firestorm, not just of panic but of repressed fear, anger, and sadness.
Hold onto those emotions, but do not let them control you. Until you learn to harness them, though…” The voice paused, as if silently sighing. “You cannot use magic.”
Cannot use magic? Those three words rang like tolling bells in Derin’s mind.
“For now, I will be taking these powers back.” Suddenly, the whipping winds that rent miles of clouds into ribbons stopped. The sky was stagnant, silent, and peaceful. Derin could even hear his own breathing before the wind picked up again - only this time, it was because he was falling.
“This is it. This is how I die.” He resigned as he watched the ground grow larger and larger at an alarming pace.
“And that makes 2!” Rorick yelled. As he did, he started to slow, reaching Rorick’s hands just a few seconds later.
“I guess it does,” Derin laughed. The whole thing didn’t seem real. He thought he was either dead or going to wake up in a few moments in his bed in Betton, as bored as he always had been.
“What happened up there, kid?” More than confused, Rorick seemed genuinely concerned.
“I… don’t know. I tried flying up, but I lost control.”
“Well, don’t worry too much about it. It’d be best not to try and use magic for a while. Here, I’ll carry you.
“Excuse you?”
“With my magic. What did you think I meant?”
When the two set off, the sun was still in the middle of the sky. As they tore through the air, chasing after the sun as it slowly descended toward the horizon, they passed countless small towns and villages. On the roads below, men and women driving carriages full of produce between towns made for some enjoyable distractions for Derin, as he tried to guess what food each barrel and crate contained.
Miles of hills, meadows, and forests broke only momentarily to make way for broad fields of grain. The dense woods stretched out into the horizon, where they were blanketed by dark grey clouds.
Hours passed, Derin silently watching the world pass below. The dark clouds that barely tinged the horizon had now grown to envelop most of the sky. All around them, it was as dark as night, save for scarce light in the distant sky piercing through the heavy cloud cover.
“We’re here.” Rorick grumbled as icy rain began to fall from the sky.
“Here? Where is ‘here?’ All I see is woods and storm clou- ...oh.” Derin’s question was interrupted as they descended to the ground. Where it seemed like there was nothing, a broad open field stretched across the countryside. Surrounded by tall stone walls, the many massive buildings within towered over the plains. Even as rain poured from the stormclouds above, the rain did not seem to affect the dry ground below.
From the front gate stepped a man. In front of the grand scale of the walls, he seemed tiny and insignificant, but even the inexperienced Derin was able to tell that insignificant was the last word one would use to describe him.
A dark scar traveled from his hairline across his face, even down into his neck. His white hair stood on end, as if charged with static electricity, and his bright blue eyes shone with a million lightning bolts trapped within. His eyebrows were low and his face wrinkled, trapped in a permanent serious and seemingly furious expression.
“We have been waiting. Follow me.” He said, his authoritative voice booming like thunder, before walking the two towards the front gate.