They didn’t stop moving until well after sunset, and they made sure they had a camping spot with great visibility so that they could also cut and run easily if they needed to make another escape. Since they traveled, the weather had shifted and the nights had become cold instead of warm, so Tahir kept his bond with the fire spirit, the girls took to leaning against him like they had for the past couple nights.
The three of them felt too tired to keep watch, so Metilia cast a ritual to create an alarm around the perimeter of the camp. It would wake all of them up if anything crossed it, and even if dispelled by the effects of void corruption, Metilla herself would feel the connection break.
Tahir wanted to ask Theo about what he saw earlier, but she fell asleep not long after leaning against him. He felt certain that she used aura instead of mana, but he’d definitely see her cast a spell to ignite the punice oil. Even if he thought wrong and she threw a bomb or something the first time, he definitely saw orbs of fire hovering above her hands. With a sigh, he consigned himself to waiting until the morning to ask her, bringing his attention back to the fact that he managed to invent a new spell earlier that day.
New to him at least, pretty much every combination of basic spell had been thought of by mages much smarter than him, but he managed to put those pieces together on his own, without any reading, by using the raw knowledge of magic that his spirits gave him. His tier zero spirits rarely felt anything. He almost thought they didn’t have emotions. Today, however, the fire spirit felt pleased at the conflagration they’d created. Tahir shared that content with the spirit until he himself fell asleep.
###
Another aspect of the spirits Tahir discovered with the spirits were that they gave him dreams of their respective element. In the case of the air and fire spirits he continued to bond with through his sleep for the night, his rest was filled with dreams of dust, smoke, and ash.
A more present heat and sounds of a cry from Theo brought him out of his slumber, however. Tahir scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly and blinking back the blurriness of his vision. A bright orange shape drew his attention immediately, and after his vision cleared, he realized it was Theo herself. Smoke rose from her and flames licked along her body, similar to Tahir when he had the fire spirit bound and active, but much more intense. On her knees, she searched through her knapsack for something with a chopping block right next to her. Metila also rummaged through her own pack for something. As he approached, he spotted boiling tears gathering and evaporating into the air as they fell.
“Tahir?” She glanced back to him, while she pulled out what looked to be a tied pouch of herbs. She went to untie the pouch and fumbled it, dumping the contents onto the chopping block. Rather than section out any like she normally would have, she pulled a knife out of the pack and tried with apparent difficulty to start cutting them. “S-sorry. I d-didn’t want you to see this. I m-must have unbalanced myself when we fought the trees. I hadn’t prepared enough-”
He thought back to the vial she drank from just before they fought the first tree. Did she need some kind of medicine? Still, he could tell that she was suffering. Her hands shook so much that preparing her own medicine would take ages for her, and he didn’t have the first clue what she needed, so he sprang into action.
He moved behind her and reached around to grab her wrists, much to her surprise, and sucked air through his teeth at the pain. The heat burned through his aura shields almost immediately, but the heat resistance from the fire spirit reduced likely second or third degree burns down to an incredibly unpleasant and painful heat on his skin. “I’ll keep you steady, do your work.”
Theo paused in utter shock, but went back to her work as fast as her condition allowed. She finely chopped a set of the herbs while Metilia came up and started pulling things out of Theo’s knapsack and backpack, including a mortar and pestle that Theo slid the chopped herbs into so she could grind them down into dust. Metilia cleaned up after her to some degree, putting the uncut herbs back into a bag while Theo poured something from a couple different bottles directly into the mortar. She stirred the mixture with a thin stirring stick, and brought the mortar directly to her lips, drinking deeply.
Tahir moved back as she put down the mortar, and watched as the intense heat coming off of her gradually faded. Tears continued to fall, now streaming down her face as she looked at Tahir’s burned arms and cheek. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me, I didn’t-” She paused when Tahir brought a hand up between them, and reached for his belt to pull something out.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay, I’m alright, see?” He held up the aura recovery potion she’d given him a week earlier. He barely had time to uncork and down it before Theo rushed in to hug him, crying into his chest. He bit back the pain of burns on his chest, under his shirt, but sighed in relief as the healing potion took effect, reducing the area of the burns significantly. Following her instructions from back when she gave him the potion, he cycled his aura throughout his entire body, and felt the potion enhancing the effect of his auric recovery. The burns would heal within the hour.
Metilia came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. I brought a pair of gloves and a thick shirt from my smithy for this situation, but Theo’d been so good about drinking her medicine I didn’t bother keeping them past the bottom of my pack. That glade- those trees startled all of us more than we realized, I think. I didn’t even consider Theo might relapse some time after the fight if she didn’t immediately.”
Tahir gave her a nod, then glanced down at a gradually calming Theo. “I’m owed an explanation, I think. Starting with back there at the ruin. Were you casting spells? I thought you used aura.”
Theo pulled away from him. “I do. Um, give me a second.” She rubbed tears out of her eyes with her hands, then Metilia gave her a towel to use instead. “I have something called a ‘primordial soul.’ It connects me to the elements, it’s like having a bunch of affinities, but they all compete with each other.” She explained. With clear eyes, she handed the towel back to Meltilia. “It’s hard to explain, but if one element gets too dominant, it starts…showing. But I can also cast spells using aura this way. I found that out from some experimentation with the collective they paid me for.”
Her eyes glanced down to Tahir’s still healing burns, and she turned away to start cleaning up her alchemical mess. “People with primordial souls usually don’t make it past childhood, but my parents were friends with master Callipho. It started with him working on potions that affected the elements in my soul to balance them, and I decided to become his apprentice so I could learn to make them myself and improve on them. I’ve gotten them to the point where I can drink one and be good for a few days, but casting spells like that throws me out of balance pretty quickly.”
Finished with her cleaning, she turned back toward Tahir. “Again, I’m sorry about this. For you finding out like this and hiding it from you. I didn’t want-” Her voice hitched, and she struggled to find the words. “-I didn’t want you to worry about me.”
I didn’t want you to think that I’m a volatile burden, more like.Tahir thought to himself. He had his suspicions, but he had no idea Theo struggled with something this serious since he’d known her and long before. “I understand, completely. No need to apologize.” At least he could help her out in her time of need. She felt painful to touch with his fire resistant form under the fire spirit, and her tears evaporated before they hit the ground. He could only imagine how that must have felt for her. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep. I have questions, and ideas, but I’m going to need some more hours to process before I bombard you with them.”
Despite her initial protests, Tahir and Metilia convinced Theo to huddle up with the two of them once more, and the rest of the night passed peacefully.
They wasted no time making their way back to Balrech. Only taking three days, as Theo only stopped to pick herbs when she practically tripped over them. During that time, Tahir asked several questions concerning her primordial soul. How she felt when different elements overpowered the others, and what she had tried in regards to her own tests.
“So casting spells to get rid of the elements doesn’t affect the balance that much?” Tahir asked
“They do.” Theo answered. “But I haven’t been able to cast them when I’m unbalanced. My aura goes crazy and I can’t focus it at all.”
“Do you think that’s a problem with your aura control? You haven’t really used techniques for it, right?”
“Yeah. It’s a little embarrassing to say though. I’ve been able to use aura since I was born, I never needed to unlock it like most people do.” She replied with a sheepish look. “I’ve also been kind of scared that it would make me relapse. I only realized I could cast spells with aura in the past year or so.”
“I think Tahir has the right idea.” Metilia chimed in. “You may be able to get a handle on your aura enough to cast spells while unbalanced if you can focus your aura. On top of being able to balance your soul whenever you wanted, the amount of power when relapsing would be-.” She paused, and shared a look between Tahir. The magic she used when she wasn’t unbalanced compared to Tahir with a spirit bound. At the edge of basic and nearing the intermediate tier.
If she actually used that rampaging elemental power she displayed and released it in the form of a spell with any measure of control, it could easily reach above intermediate, and into advanced tier magic. The type of magic that platinum and mithril Redcloud members tossed around.
Once they reached the city, Metilia and Theo made to start heading for the Redcloud building, but Tahir stopped them. “I have another idea, but we should talk about it at Theo’s, I think.”