Azura groaned as his mind slowly approached wakefulness. He had woken up in worse condition than this often enough not to be surprised that his body ached a little. He had been waking up in bad condition a lot lately actually, he should probably start being a bit more careful.
He didn’t let his slight soreness stop him from quickly scanning his surroundings. He immediately recognized the room. It was the same one he had slept in yest… Well what he hoped was yesterday. He got out of the bed, and was mildly surprised to see himself in the same clothes he was in when he passed out. His outfits looked the same, but the magic in each one was subtly different. Mostly for exactly this purpose so he would know if his clothes were changed.
He felt relatively safe in assuming it hadn’t been a day since they had found the panthers. He sighed, all things considered he hadn’t had to use too much of the powerful magic stored in his grimoire, but far more than he had ever expected one person to make him use, even less someone his own age. Lily really was startlingly powerful.
He stretched, hoping to alleviate some of the soreness from his body. Given that he didn’t really have a headache it was safe to say he hadn’t overdone it with the magic, which was a relief. The grimoire was a powerful tool, but it came with lots of ways for him to injure himself.
He heard a soft knock on his door, and then felt a slight presence in his mind. “Oh good you’re awake. We were starting to get worried.” The sound in his head was gentler than usual, he assumed she was just checking for lucidity and didn’t want to disturb him if he had still been asleep.
He opened the door and was greeted with the concerned faces of Cynthia, and Luna. “How’s Lily doing? She was in far worse condition than me when we passed out.” The half-truth slipped out as easily as the rest of his words.
They gave him dubious looks, but Luna responded without commenting on their suspicion. “Lily’s ok, but she’s still sleeping. I don’t know exactly what happened to her, but the town's healer said she had mana exhaustion, and that her body showed signs of extreme duress.”
That was about what he expected, her past trauma was undoubtedly playing through her head on loop. “Unique magic doesn’t just go out of control, it takes a lot to make it go out of control.” It rarely ended well either, he had to focus on keeping some of his own memories buried at the thought.
“You speak from experience.” He didn’t like how that wasn’t a question, but she wasn’t wrong.
He debated on whether to directly address that or not, Luna had clearly heard it too, but it wasn’t something he wanted to answer right now. That would still answer the question, but it wouldn’t leave any room for follow up. “What about the rest of the party? Where are they?”
Thankfully other than a skeptical look neither one called him on his blatant subject change. “They stayed back to gather all the materials, you didn’t sleep for long. It’s only been a little over 2 hours, so they're probably still working on getting everything into manageable bits.” He noticed Cynthia turn a little green as Luna said it.
“I was only out for 2 hours? That’s a new record, if this keeps up maybe I won’t even pass out after a few more super dangerous events.” His attempt to lighten the mood had worked better than he had hoped and both of them laughed a little at the mock pride he had put in the statement.
“Somehow I can’t picture a dramatic fight where you don’t pass out in the end.” He rolled his eyes at them as Cynthia's silent laughter renewed.
“Hey now, I wouldn’t go that far. I didn’t pass out after my fight with Gareth!” Somehow that just made them laugh harder. He pouted a little, he didn’t pass out that much… Did he?
“I feel like that’s kind of the exception that proves the rule.” He was tempted to bring up the elemental, but neither of them were there for that. He unfortunately didn’t really have anything else to counter with though, so he just grumbled under his breath. Which unfortunately just seemed to set them off more.
“Whatever, not like you have any right to make fun of me for it. You’ve passed out at least as much as I have!” He pointed at Luna who stopped laughing abruptly as her face turned red. Cynthia started shaking with silent mirth. “And you may have only passed out once, but I would say being cocooned in spider web is just as bad!” It was Cynthia’s turn to go red as Luna smirked in retribution.
He turned towards Luna again after she coughed into her hand. “Jokes aside.” Her face lost all traces of humor. When she spoke next he could tell she wasn’t going to let this one slide like the others. “What happened in the cove? Those flames weren’t something normal magic would have dealt with, and I know you didn’t have time to set something up to deal with them.”
He held back a wince, she was right he didn’t have enough time to set anything up. Not even a good cover story unfortunately. He couldn’t tell them about the grimoire, not just because the headmistress told him not to tell anyone, but also because if he was caught with it anyone who knew would certainly get in trouble for keeping it secret. But he also couldn’t give them another non-answer. He sighed wearily and prepared himself to wing it. “Her fire was eating magic, to continue itself. Not just hers, but the natural mana and any other source it could find too.”
Their eyes widened, and he couldn’t blame them for being shocked. Being magic resistant was one thing, but something that devoured magic like that. He shivered, the memory making him distinctly uncomfortable. “How do you stop something like that? If it eats magic then any spell you cast would just fuel it right?”
This was where the lie got difficult. If he told the truth, but left out the grimoire then it would be an absurd feat of magic, so he needed something else. Something plausible enough that he might be able to replicate it if pressed. “Well enchantment magic is in of itself a way to affect the natural mana of the world, so I made an enchantment that drew all the magic in the area to it to suffocate the flames.”
He could probably do that if he had to. Not now, but given a few days to make an array like that he could probably cast it relatively quickly. Hopefully they didn’t know enough about enchantment to ask him why he had something like that prepared. He bit back his sigh of relief when they seemed to accept his answer, and were only a little impressed.
“So Like an antimagic type 3?” He thought about it. Now that she said it, a field that drew all the magic in the area to it might actually be a good idea. Risky depending on the circumstance, but undoubtedly useful.
“Kind of the opposite actually, an extreme magic field if anything. Since the mana in the area would become incredibly dense, being inside it would probably be a death sentence.” A pretty grizzly way to die, but the idea had some merit. He’d look into it. He had to make the stupid spell anyway, might as well find some actual use for it.
“It’s a good thing that worked,... Those flames were awful.” Luna looked even more haunted by them than he was, and he supposed that made sense. Her clairvoyance spell wouldn’t even be able to see the flames as the magic she had a tight reign on got burned away. She probably felt it, and yet she couldn’t see it with her spell, it’s not really surprising how disconcerting that was for her.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I don’t think I was as affected as you two, but even I could feel that there was something unnatural about them.” He had left a lot out, part of practicing enchantment was that he was more in tune with the spirit realm than most, even without an active spirit contract. Feeling those flames was the first time he had ever regretted it. If Luna’s curse was a poison slowly trying to corrupt her spirit, then Lily’s flames were a curse that would devour the spirit entirely, and worse he didn’t think they would stop on their own. Not until everything that could be considered living was rendered to ash.
Whatever those flames were, he was confident they weren’t simply unique magic. There was something else to them, and unfortunately he got the feeling that Lily didn’t even understand what they truly were. Frankly he wasn’t even sure he did, and that was terrifying. He had felt them, more than anyone else had. He had overridden their magic and taken control, just the memory of it forced him to stifle a gag. His companions would probably be needlessly worried if he just started throwing up.
Luna chuckled darkly. “A little more than unnatural. They felt disgusting to me, but oddly familiar somehow.” He was more relieved than he would like to admit that she hadn’t linked up the feeling with her curse yet, that would bring up far too many questions he didn’t want to answer.
***
Lily struggled desperately against some invisible binding. She saw a shadow panther going for her mother again. She had been seeing it over and over since when? She wasn’t sure, but even her unique magic hadn’t been enough. She remembered unleashing it, she wanted the panther(s?) dead. it(they?) was trying to kill her mother(friends?). Even her flames weren’t enough though.
It had worked at first slowly burning the panther that was trying to attack, but then she felt something else take control. She had let the flames run wild to attack her hated enemies, but something had taken control of her magic? Was it really her magic, it had been burning her up too hadn’t it? She didn’t know, her mind was hazy. Somehow her(?) flames had been extinguished.
She hadn’t known that was possible, but without her flames she was once more relegated to watching her mother being torn apart by a shadow panther. She wanted to scream, but the invisible binds prevented even that release. All she could do was suffer through it over and over and over again. Why was she so useless? Even with the power of the purple flames she still couldn’t save anyone.
“You misunderstand, child.” Her eyes widened, but when she tried to find the source of the voice she found the binding didn’t allow her to even turn her head. “The power is there, you just have to sacrifice more of yourself to the flames.” Sacrifice more to the flames? What more did she even have to give?
“I don’t have anything left.” Truly she was a fool for ever thinking she had any value to begin with. Hasn't everyone been right about her? She’s just a monster, her unique magic proved that more than anything. Some part of her deep down was repulsed by it, that was why she never used it.
“There is always more to burn. Give yourself to me, I will take all your pain and turn it into power.” Maybe the rebounding voice had a point, she really didn’t want to hurt anymore. Her team should have just left her to die when she lost control. She blinked, her team? What team, why did that strike her as something important. “There is no reason to think anymore, give yourself to me!”
The voice was louder, but the haze around her head was starting to clear. She hadn’t given up yet, why would she. She had decided a long time ago that she wouldn’t sit by and let the world make decisions for her anymore. “Leave me alone! I don’t need to give anything to you, I can be better on my own.” She wasn’t a little girl anymore(?). She didn’t need her unique magic to be a powerful mage.
She heard the booming voice growl menacingly. “Very well, but be warned. You will seek this power, no one can avoid it forever. For every beginning there must be an end. Creation can not exist without destruction in turn. You seek the origin, but you will always be the end. No matter how you fight your fate, you were born to destroy.”
***
Lily woke with a gasp. Her body shooting up right, as she frantically looked around. Her head throbbed painfully, and she could feel her nausea threatening to overwhelm her. Her body didn’t feel any better, but her mind settled a little upon seeing the empty hotel room. She vaguely recalled having a nightmare, but its actual contents escaped her.
She heard a knock on the door. She felt way too crappy to get up, and her throat felt raw as if she had been screaming nonstop for hours. She hoped that was caused by the same thing as the nausea and the headache, and not that she had been screaming in her sleep. She struggled to get the words out, but managed to get out a gravelly come in, barely above a whisper.
They must've heard it though, because the door opened. “Hey… You ok?” Lily didn’t know who she had been expecting, but she certainly hadn’t expected Katy.
Voice still rough from her sore throat she tried to keep her responses as short as possible. “Not really.” Katy chuckled a little, surprised by the blunt response.
“Yeah, that's understandable, Azura didn’t think you would wake until tomorrow. We’ve been taking turns coming to check on you.” Lily felt a little warmed at that. It was nice that her friends cared about her, even Luna with her ridiculous physical fitness, that she might still be a little peeved at. Just a little. Really, it didn’t bother her ‘that’ much.
“Thanks.” Part of her wanted to ask about the request, but most of her was just tired and sore. She really didn’t want to talk any more than she had to.
“I’ll tell the others that you woke up, but you look like you need to try and get some more sleep. We’ll check back in with you tomorrow, ok?” She was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. She hadn’t just been dead weight in this mission, she had even become an obstacle at the end. Yet they were still treating her so kindly, it wasn’t anything like how the people from her homeland treated her. She would repay them somehow, she wasn’t a monster. No matter what they said.
She didn’t have the strength to speak anymore, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. She nodded, and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
***
Azura was relieved. They had evidence of far more panther kills than he had expected. He was worried, given that he saw at least 6 of them completely disintegrated in Lily’s flames. The memory of them still gave him the creeps. Still they had 18 confirmed kills, so that was the equivalent of 11 gold they would receive. Less than 2 gold a piece wasn’t a ton, but the materials he had to work with would more than make up for it.
It would be nice if Haden accepted the ashes as proof, leaving them with an even 14 gold coins, but he doubted it. Lily had apparently woken, though she decided to go right back to sleep after. Not that he could blame her. Something was seriously wrong with those flames, and he had no idea what it was. Even with his grimoire he had barely been able to take control of it. The entire time he felt the flames trying to eat his magic, and it took far more focus than he expected to not let that happen.
He sighed. One way or another he was going to have to talk to Lily about that magic of hers, he got an odd feeling from it. Not just about how disgusting it felt, but almost… Familiar maybe? He wasn’t sure, but he felt like he should recognize it somehow. His head began to ache, just like it had every other time he thought too deeply about those flames.
“You ok? You look like something is bothering you.” He and Roran were currently heading to the bell tower to turn in their quest to Haden. Roran had been unusually quiet so far, which he was absurdly grateful for. He wasn’t really surprised Roran had asked him that, but the question wasn’t entirely welcome.
He considered how to answer that. He could outright lie, but Roran was no fool he would see through that pretty quickly. Half truth it was then. “I’m ok, it’s just something about those flames really makes me uneasy, but I’m not sure what.” Not untrue, but not all of it either.
Roran seemed to accept that answer easy enough though. “Yeah I can understand that, they really were nasty. I felt them eat my magic, it was very disconcerting. It felt like if I wasn’t careful they would follow my spell back to me so they could devour my magic whole.” He shivered violently. Roran’s magic control was probably even higher than Luna’s so it wasn’t all that surprising he was so badly affected by the whole thing.
“Frankly, I think I’ll be glad to leave this place behind us. Though you know it’s kind of exciting.”
Roran looked at him strangely. “What is?”
“Well this trial is all done, so we only have one left to go.”