“So then it was all for nothing!” I heard my father yell, waking me from my slumber. Rubbing my eyes and clearing my head, I turned to the window and saw that it was pitch black out. Father’s outbursts were rare. He was a man that hid his emotions well, not letting even his wife know what was truly going on in his head when he could help it. I knew this meant something truly terrible had happened. Something akin to his first outburst three years ago, back when I first opened the barrier to my magic. I still was unsure what triggered it, but I wanted to learn.
“Aaron! Please! Sean is asleep,” I heard Mother say in a harsh whisper, her footsteps slowly getting closer to my room.
I quickly fell back onto my pillow, feigning sleep. I didn’t want them to know that I was awake. Whatever they were talking about was something they wouldn’t share with me even if I asked, and my curiosity and worry had grown too high to stop listening now. I didn’t blame them though. After all, who would discuss serious topics with a four year old present? I heard my mother open the door to my room slightly, checking if I was still awake. A long, audible sigh came from her, and she slowly closed the door behind her, returning to my father.
“Cori, what was the point? Everything that happened… All of it. Was it all pointless? Were my brothers… pointless?” I could hear Father holding back tears.
“Aaron. I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Everything’s changing so quickly. The church… I barely recognize it. All of it’s terrifying.”
“It’s all because of that coward!” My father’s voice began to raise again, “He gave us up! Surrendered after everything we went through! Some King!”
“Don’t talk like that! He’s of the chosen lineage! God chose him to rule!” There was a long pause, then Mother continued, “What would you do if you were him? What if they killed me?”
Again, silence filled the air for a long time. I wanted to see the expressions they were making, but even moreso, I wanted to know what they were talking about. Surrendering? To whom? What King, and what God? I wish I could go outside. I wanted to learn these things. I wanted to learn about this world. I wondered if there was a school somewhere in Corvin that I could go too. My train of thought was quickly interrupted by my father’s reply.
“I would avenge you. If they took you away from me, I would fight until I died. No, I wouldn’t die. Not until they had first. I’d make sure of it. I wouldn’t be a coward. I wouldn’t be like the King.”
Mother was quick to respond, “And if they threatened Sean with death like the King’s children? Then what?”
“I… I don’t know. I would find a way to protect him. I would. I would never surrender. I didn’t,” his voice was shaking as he spoke.
“I believe you, but I trust the King, and even more, God. One day he will take what was promised. God will not forsake us.”
“You know I don’t believe in any of that, Cori.”
“That just means I have to believe twice as hard then,” she responded with a small giggle.
It was a nervous laugh. One she was trying to use to break the tension and seriousness of their conversation. The silence that followed told me that it didn’t work.
Father finally spoke again, “They surrendered most of the plains Cori. The land is still Visteria’s Kingdom, but soon, Aishyan’s will start settling here. I can’t… I can’t live with that. I can’t bear to see them, Cori. I can’t have them coming in and invading my home.”
“We don’t have to stay. I know you didn’t want to come back here in the first place. It holds too many memories.”
“Where would we go? Your parents? We already tried that. They didn’t take kindly to me, or your pregnancy.”
So much information was running through my mind while Mother thought of a reply. Visteria? Aishyans? It was all so much to put together. So much that I would have to ask about in the future, step by step. I hate that I couldn’t go outside. Overhearing this conversation made me more and more curious, as well as filled with worry for my parents. Their past was still a giant mystery to me. I knew something awful had happened, given Father’s scars, but all of it was getting more and more complicated. I hadn’t even given any thought to my grandparents, or uncle’s, remembering my father mentioned his brothers. I wondered where they were now.
“You remember Baird, right? From up north, deep into the Endevis Mountains.”
“Yeah, but we haven’t spoken in years. Not since we left the River of Division.”
“I think he said he was from the city of Dousin,” Mother spoke again, finally coming up with an idea, “He would help us. You were both great friends back then. I’m sure if we traveled there, he could find you a job. Probably as a city guard. They do like accepting veterans as guards, and we’d be far from the border with Aishya. As far as we possibly can be.”
“It’s not the worst idea. Better than staying. I can’t stay. I’ll send him a letter. It’s about a two week journey, so we should have a response by the end of spring, seeing if Baird is still alive, and in Dousin. If not, then I don’t know what else we can do.”
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“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there. For now, Baird is our only option. Come now, it’s late. I hate seeing you this worked up. Let’s go to bed.”
“I’ll come in soon. I need some time… to process. I need to be alone right now.”
As my father said that, I could almost hear the frown that likely came across my mother’s face. That was her least favorite sentence that came from Father, but she knew there was nothing she could do at that point. I heard her walk into her room and shut the door behind her. It seemed I wasn’t going to get any more information out of either of them tonight. I laid back down in my bed, my mind racing trying to connect the dots to all the information I’d just received. It was all scattered and out of place, some of it about my family's past while the rest about whatever conflict that was occurring between what I assumed to be the King of Vistaria, my king, I guess, and the Aishyans.
Not only that, but it seemed that my parents wanted to move far away, meaning I would have to face my fears sooner rather than later. I had made many attempts to travel out into the world over the past few years, all unsuccessful. My drive to see the world had only grown, but I felt my confidence quickly wane as the years went by. It seemed impossible. The barrier was just too strong. I couldn’t remember what had happened to me that caused this fear, but I could feel it. The tightening of my chest as I stepped outside. The inability to breathe as my lungs just stop working. The best way to describe it is I have a panic attack every time I try to go outside, but much worse. It wasn’t just panic, it hurt, and I was scared that if I took too many steps, I would die. Even so, I had to push myself when the time came. I would have to leave the house someday, and us moving was the perfect excuse to be forced out of my comfort zone. I was excited and terrified at the same time.
I rested my head on my pillow, trying to fall back asleep. My thoughts were running wild, trying to piece everything together. I sat back up, the realization that sleep would not come to me tonight, not after what I had heard. So instead, I did what would usually calm me and wash away all my other thoughts. I started practicing my magic.
It took a few months before I was finally able to move my Soul after removing the barrier, but actually applying that ability to use magic took a lot longer to discover. From what I could gather, my Soul was like a tool, one that I used to manipulate the elements around me. The energy would fill me like I was a battery, allowing me to move things with my Soul. There were limitations, however. It seemed I was only capable of manipulating water. I had tried to move a rock once, but instantly the heavier, oil-like energy began to fill me, causing me to feel like hundreds of sharp knives were cutting me all over. Water was the only element that felt natural, and didn’t cause any pain. I examined the cup of water that I had set beside my bed, and then allowed the energy to flow into me.
Once again I felt invigorated as it rushed into me, a strength unlike anything else coming over me. I became more aware of the water in the cup after that. I obviously knew it was in there, I was the one that filled it earlier that day, but now I could feel it. I was aware of its presence in more ways than just seeing or knowing about it. It was like the water was a part of me, rather than a separate entity. I learned that this feeling had a radius. Only water that was close to me was like this. I couldn’t feel the lakes and rivers around me, let alone the ocean, but the water near me was different. It was like it was mine to control.
With the energy filling me, I could now move my Soul. My Soul was like an extension of my body, or rather, a completely different body than my own that wasn’t visible. It was more like a force, one that I was the master of. Now that there were no restrictions on the amount of energy that I could draw in, I could move my Soul with a lot less effort. It was hard to measure how much I was moving at once. It was less a physical amount of Soul and more how much energy I was expending to move and shape the world around me. I started to push my Soul towards the cup, an almost instantaneous move that occurred with little effort. The hard part was actually shaping the water into my own image.
Water was hard to control. It flowed freely in every direction, not staying still as long as it had a minor slope or any way of breaking out of whatever contained it. It wasn’t something that was meant to be controlled. My Soul, in many ways, was just like that. Forcing and molding my Soul into a cup like shape was extremely difficult. It took the initial shape I wanted almost instantly, the problem was keeping it like that. It wanted to move, to shift around and be free of my control. It was exhausting to hold it in a solid state, and it took much of my own physical exertion, and lots of the energy I was slowly drawing into myself from around me. With that being said, I was still able to pull it off.
With my Soul in a solid state around the water in the cup, I quickly raised it out of the cup and into the air. A small sphere of water shifted and moved around my room, all under my control. I could feel it as a part of me. I was ecstatic. I had done something like this before, of course, but each time filled me with such joy. I was doing magic. I had learned something that I would have never known existed if I hadn’t been reincarnated. I remembered back to how I felt when first setting my eyes upon this world. The terrifying fact that the modern tech that I knew so well wasn’t here. The unyielding boredom that came with being an infant. All of it had been pushed away with this single thing, magic. I laughed a little, the memories of that first year seeming so distant now.
Memories were a mystery to me. I had received three small, short visions of my previous life, each leaving me feeling sad and alone. It made me not want to know more, and now that I had found a loving family and made new memories with them, it only reinforced how much I didn’t want to remember my past. I was happy here. My mother was kind, caring, and did everything she could to accommodate my fears. My father looked terrifying, but had a goofy and playful personality, his only issues coming from his past, ones that he was good at hiding from me. Now, I also had magic. Things were finally looking up after a rough four years.
With that being said, there was still one final thing I had to do. I had to go outside. I had to keep trying, to keep moving forward. If I truly wanted to learn more about this world, and more importantly, about magic, I had to leave the comfort of this home and explore. I could feel my throat tightening at the thought of it, but I refused to be controlled by a past I didn’t even remember. The scars I had developed back then would no longer keep me afraid. Based on my parents' conversation, we would be leaving in a month's time. I had to break out of my shell when the time came.
It was at this point that I realized how long I had been floating the water ball around my room. I had run out of the energy that was filling my Soul, causing the water to splash onto the floor. The activity had exhausted my body, leaving me covered in sweat and with aches all over. I fell back against my pillow, my tiredness overcoming my overactive brain, causing me to fall asleep.