Azura was glad to be leaving the town behind them. The town itself hadn’t been bad per se, but a lot of things happened that he didn’t really understand. Which was enough to make him nervous even if those things didn’t involve a weird blank book he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of, and the most unnatural cursed flames he had ever heard of.
“What do you think the seventh trial is going to be Azura?!” Roran had been talking about their next trial since they left, which was honestly a huge relief, because at first everyone had been a bit hesitant with Lily and the easy topic was really helping to break the ice.
“I don’t know, my father always told me how important the final trial was going to be, but he never told me anything about it since that would be against the rules.” Not to say he didn’t have any theories, but he didn’t really have any evidence to support his guesses.
“Come on, we all know you of all people have some kind of guess why bother holding it back.” Siara was probably the bluntest in the group after she had gotten used to them. He didn’t regret her addition to the team, she had been very helpful throughout this trip, and other than being a little blunt, had a pretty good attitude. Frankly he was kind of glad the reverence she had been acting with at first fell away as she had gotten to know them.
“I mean yeah I have some guesses, but nothing to back them up. They probably won’t do anyone any good.”
Roran rolled his eyes. “Who cares?! It’s just a fun topic… So let’s hear your theories!”
He rolled his eyes. “I mean I guess it’s probably not going to be another team mission.” There wouldn’t be much reason for another team mission, the first trial tested their ability to work with strangers, and the sixth had tested their ability to select a good team and work with them. There wasn’t much else in terms of teamwork that they could really test. “It will probably include combat, but I doubt it will be a main priority, most likely even something you can avoid entirely depending on how you go about it.”
The others appeared to be listening intently, as if anything he said was actually viable information instead of just sheer guesswork and intuition. He shrugged, if they wanted to use his baseless assumptions to prepare that was on them. Well not baseless exactly, he had been paying close attention to the patterns in the trials of course, but not substantiated at the very least.
“We just took a subjugation request, so I doubt it will be anything official. Maybe being placed in a sanctioned hunting ground and having to survive for a certain amount of time without supervision, or they might even place us against a professional and see how long we can evade them for.” They had already had a quest where they were supposed to track down an object after all, it wouldn’t be too odd if they had one where they were the ones with an object to protect.
Katy smirked. “That would be great, I can evade a tracker easy.” He doubted it would be that simple, but in any case stealth and evasion were absolutely her most defining skills.
“I doubt it will be quite so one dimensional, but that might be part of it at least. Also my father placed a lot of importance on exactly how I finished the seventh trial, so I imagine there is some kind of reward based on how well you do, or maybe how well you do is the reward. Like keeping any items you manage to retain throughout the time period.”
“It’s kind of crazy that we aren’t even students yet.” Luna shifted nervously. “Like we’ve gone through all of these crazy situations, but if we mess up this last one it will all have been for nothing.” That would be really awful, for her more than anyone. She got cursed, that wasn’t something that just went away. Maybe if she managed to get a lot of money or find one of the very few curse breakers willing to take a charity case, she might be able to rid herself of the curse itself, but she would never be fully free from the taint it would leave behind.
“Honestly the only one I’m concerned might fail is Cynthia, since they haven’t really adjusted any of these trials for her because she’s a healer, or at least if they did I never heard of it.” The rest of the party glared at him as Cynthia’s gaze met the ground, and a gloomy atmosphere surrounded her. “What?! It’s true, none of the combat trials were different for her, and combat isn’t her specialty so of course she isn’t going to be as skilled a combatant as the people who train to be fighters.”
Cynthia recovered a little bit, but the others continued to glare at him like he had just kicked a puppy. He just shrugged. Glaring at him wouldn’t change the fact Cynthia really wasn’t a combatant. She wasn’t useless by any means, but it was obvious she was training as a field healer. He guessed Cynthia caught them glaring at him and said something, because they all eased up and just started talking with her instead of glaring at him. He rolled his eyes, people could be so dramatic.
“So we didn’t go full tilt on the way to Fire Ward so we had energy in case we had to fight right away, but there shouldn’t be any such issues now right?!” Roran re summoned his enthusiasm for the seventh trial. “We could probably make it there in 2 days if we really push ourselves!”
Lily paled, she was the least physically fit of the group, and with her startling magic power he couldn’t really blame her. Why bother with physical fitness when you could just casually burn everything around you to ashes. Well she may not be the ‘least’ physically fit, her and Cynthia were actually pretty close and he thinks Lily might have slightly better enhancement magic.
“Nah, there’s no need to rush. We won’t get the letter’s until everyones been confirmed pass or fail anyway.” He chuckled a little at how relieved Lily looked. Cynthia wasn’t much more fit, but she was a lot more willing to try, but part of that may be that she didn’t have any issue asking someone to carry her. “Besides, being out in the wild is probably really solid training for whatever the seventh trial is going to be.”
***
Azura was actually a little glad to be back in the team made rock house. The hotel had been nice enough, but there was something satisfying about them making it themselves. He could feel a slight lingering trace of the magic everyone put into setting it up. His and Roran’s mostly, but the others definitely chipped in.
The signing lessons were going well, mostly because after the incident Lily seemed to be a lot more compliant. He still wasn’t quite sure how it had impacted her, but she seemed more settled recently like maybe she didn’t feel the need to prove something to herself anymore? She was a little tricky for him to read compared to most of the others. Roran was definitely harder, but everyone else was actually pretty easy.
Either way he was definitely glad to be done with this trial. He knew it was good practice, he would be taking on requests much harder than that during his time in the academy, and especially after he got his official license, but even so too many things about this mission were weighing on him.
He hadn’t looked through the book that mysteriously appeared in the library again until now, and the section of pages at the very end that suddenly had words in a language he didn’t understand was definitely not helping. He knew instinctively that it was some kind of code using symbols in the spirit language from a specific time, but he wouldn’t have a chance at reading it unless he knew when it was written. Or rather what time the symbols used were from.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It probably wouldn’t have bothered him too much if there hadn’t been an accompanying picture, but the familiar amethyst flames definitely grabbed his attention. It was too much of a coincidence for him to ignore. The book had something to do with her flames, or at the very least her flames had something to do with this book. It was especially odd because on the inside of the back cover rested the same symbol that was on the front of the book. The book was perhaps in reference to some kind of cycle?
He didn’t understand though, nothing would be left in the wake of those flames, not even nutrients for life to begin anew. How could it be part of a cycle, and what did this book know about his friend's power? The book was obviously far older than she was, how could it possibly know anything about her. Magic could do a lot, but it couldn’t tell the future, not really anyway. You could predict how certain events might unfold so long as you had sufficient information, but that was more like a really good guess than actual knowing.
He vaguely felt his head begin to ache. He had cast spell after spell to pull up spirit symbols from different times, but without some kind of clue it was pointless. The odds of him stumbling on the key to the code were infinitesimally small. Still he felt he at least owed it to Lily to try. If this book knew something about the wicked flames, learning from it might be the difference between safety and calamity.
Even just thinking the word left him with some kind of resonance. He shut the book in frustration. The fire had something to do with calamity maybe? That didn’t quite feel right, or maybe it did, but not right enough? He was used to trusting his instincts, given his use of spirit magic, but he had never felt something so frustratingly vague, and yet perhaps too specific.
He debated talking with his friends for a while, it might help him calm down. In the end the choice was taken from him by a knock on the door. He took a deep breath before responding hoping it would ease some of his tension. “Come in.” He relaxed a little when his voice didn’t come out strained.
The door opened, and he wasn’t surprised when Luna walked in. “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but my curse is starting to act up again.” He raised his eyebrow. He had resecured it just a couple of days ago, it shouldn’t be causing problems yet. “I think Lily’s flames affected it somehow, because it’s been throbbing since I felt them.”
That was … decidedly not good. He couldn’t say he was really surprised, but he had really hoped it wouldn’t be the case. “I see, well we better fix it before it really becomes an issue.” He stood and walked over to her. Resecuring the seal was much easier than placing it the first time, he didn’t even have to touch the curse mark, just had to be close enough to have precise control of his mana.
This was not just resecuring the seal. He was shocked to find that the curse seemed to have ‘woken’ a little for lack of a better term and was actively fighting his attempts to lock it down. He grunted, the curse’s sudden harsh response to him almost enough to break his concentration. His eyes glowed as he began wielding much more of his mana against the curse.
The new power in the curse felt familiar, and certainly not in a good way. The feeling that Lily’s flames had given off was not something he would ever forget, and those flames seemed to have lent some power to the curse. Fantastic because those damn flames weren’t bad enough already. It took far more effort than he was initially expecting, and he was left gasping for air as he finally managed to lock the curse up tight again.
He was vaguely aware that Luna was shouting at him even before he had finished, no doubt asking if he was ok. Thankfully even with the slight boost the curse was nowhere near as bad as it had been in the beginning. Luna had been in a positive mindset for a while and it had been dormant for a while, but it had still taken far more out of him than he had expected.
“...Zura… Azu… ok?...Azura?!” He was finally able to catch his breath and thoughts enough to wave Luna off. He wasn’t quite ready to speak, but that seemed to have done the trick and now she just looked relieved. “I’m sorry, that seemed way worse than last time. Have I been too negative maybe? I thought I was doing a pretty good job staying positive, but Lily’s flames did make me feel a little weird.”
He chuckled using her rambling as a chance for him to regain his breath. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m almost positive it was the flames themselves that made that harder than usual.” He regretted it as soon as it slipped out, how was he supposed to justify that without explaining his suspicions. He was extremely grateful when she didn’t ask him to.
She looked relieved. “Oh good, I really don’t mean to be so much of a burden.” It sounded bad, but oddly she didn’t really seem all that upset by it. Strange, typically someone calling themselves a burden would have pretty strong feelings about it if nothing else.
“Honestly I can’t say it’s no trouble, but it’s actually good practice for me. I have never enchanted something that resists it before, it’s actually taught me a lot so it’s not like I don’t get anything out of it. Even not counting the obvious benefit of keeping my friend alive.”
She smiled brightly. “I’m glad something good came of all this at least.” His eyes widened in disbelief and he nearly choked. Only Luna could say that about something so awful, and genuinely mean it. Apparently she noticed his shock. “What? Being bitter about it will only make it worse right? So the more positive things I can attach to it the better!” She was absolutely right, but still that should be easier said than done.
He had sure made an interesting group of friends. “You’re not wrong, but even so your fortitude is impressive. I at the very least certainly wouldn’t be able to look at it so positively if our situations were reversed.”
She flushed. She really must be pretty unused to receiving praise if it always affected her so visibly. “Thank you, but if our situations were reversed you probably wouldn’t have been cursed in the first place. You don’t really strike me as the type to go without a solid plan.” He begrudgingly acknowledged that she had a point. “Even if you did, it would probably just be a copy that got cursed.”
That was true, but his unique magic shouldn’t really count in this context. It wasn’t like it was something she could get by training hard enough or studying for a long time. “Fair enough I suppose, but there aren’t many people with unique magic, much less one as convenient as mine.”
She chuckled. “Yeah autonomous copies are a little unfair, I kind of think that alone should make you stop complaining about how bad your luck is. Mine is definitely way worse, and I don’t even get unique magic to compensate.”
“I’ll admit your day to day luck is definitely worse than mine, but the big stuff it’s a bit harder to tell. Being cursed sucks for sure, but I’d rather that than… Well there are some things I really shouldn’t share.”
She frowned, but thankfully didn’t press him for details. “If you say so, I mean with you keeping it locked up the curse isn’t even all that bad. It hurt a little when I first got it, but now I can almost forget it’s there.” He released a morbid chuckle. Hurt a little? Her body must have been tearing itself apart, she had a fever, and she could barely breathe, and she says it only hurt a little.
“I hope you realize I can never trust you about how much pain you're in again right? There is no way that the initial stages of the curse could be called anything lighter than excruciating.” Honestly her leg injury from the first trial wouldn’t even come close, and yet just having that all hit her at once was enough to make her pass out, the curse would have been an order of magnitude worse. Frankly he’s impressed she didn’t die from shock long before he ever got there.
“It really wasn’t! I passed out so quickly I hardly even remember the pain.” Well her brain blocking out the trauma was probably for the best. He had never personally felt one, but curses taking effect was widely acknowledged as one of the most painful things a person could experience. Even the relatively harmless curse Roran was under probably felt like being held in lava when it was first placed.
He gave her a doubtful look. “I’m sure even the small piece you do remember could definitely be called more than a ‘little’ pain, but it’s probably for the best you don’t remember much of it.”
She grimaced and shook her head briefly. “Yeah you’re probably right. She began to walk to the door, but right before she shut it behind her she turned back. “By the way, we all know that you know more about Lily’s flames than you are letting on, and that there are probably other important things you aren’t sharing. I won’t try and force you to share, but keep in mind if you have enough of them even a feather can topple a dragon.” She closed the door after her piece was said.
He chuckled to his empty room. “I doubt it.” He voiced bitterly. There was no one around to hear it, but even still he felt just a little bit of tension leave his shoulders. He was no dragon, but he couldn’t allow these ‘feathers’ to topple him either.