“I can still see you,” Hathor’s voice was a crack in Elidi’s focus.
She straightened her back against the stone of the Sanctum’s outer wall, pulling the image to the front of her mind. She let it fall around her like the rays of sunshine that cascaded over her to warm her skin. She imagined the abrasive grain of the bricks, the weathered specks of gray, the pattern of them. She traced the lines of mortar between each brick, making that image one with the sunlight around her, but…
“I can’t remember how many lines of mortar I’m covering up,” Elidi admitted as the image in her mind shuddered and burnt away as it turned to sand in her open palms.
Even with her eyes closed, she could not escape the singe of Hathor’s gaze. “You will not always have time to fully memorize your surroundings. So quit being a lazy sand dune and make the mirage work.”
I would rather be stuck in a sand dune, Elidi thought as the homesickness she had worked so hard to snuff out, rekindled in her mind. A week in Ardeat had not been enough time to visit her old haunts, to track down childhood friends, to eat all her favorite meals.
“While the image of your mother’s feast table is the most solid thing you’ve conjured today, it is not convincing given our current location.”
More sand fell into her palms.
She leaned back against the wall and sighed, “I am struggling, Master.”
“This is why I did not want you traveling back to Ardeat,” Hathor said, even as the metallic jingle of the golden bangles dancing around her wrists did nothing to banish the images of home.
Elidi braced for the lecture, was certain Hathor was going to inundate her with some ancient teaching from the previous Vessel, but instead she was surprised to hear the sound of a cup being set in front of her. The aroma of nutmeg, jasmine, and smoke made her mouth instantly start to water.
“If you cannot cast it from your mind, then take me there. Take me back to Ardeat,” Hathor instructed, as her palms came to rest on the small sand dunes in Elidi’s palms and the heat of her own magic coiled up Elidi’s arms. “But I want to believe it.”
“Do I get the cup of coffee if I do?”
“You get to be dismissed for the day,” Hathor offered, her voice suddenly level and devoid of her usual tinge of annoyance. “Now take me to the Myriad.”
Elidi slowed her mind with another inhale. She let the sun consume her in earnest, felt its welcoming heat and found her place in it. A step deeper put her in The Inferno, a rage of sparks and flames and lightning that shifted around her and parted at her presence. She stared into the center of the flames and conjured the Myriad.
The merchant stalls went up around her first with the smells of cardamom and leather and kiln charcoal burning, and the image of the shining glassware, and brightly colored silks, and handmade tapestries. She had just bought a tapestry for her room-
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“Focus!” Hathor insisted.
The backing of clay and stone homes with children’s faces peering out in search of trouble and sweets. There was the hum of the crowd, the conversations that approached and passed, and reminded you that there were other lives playing out around you. The expanse of blue sky above, with the tiled mosaic walkway under foot and the occasional sand drift.
She drifted back into the shell of her body, but kept her eyes closed for fear that if she opened them, her hard work would turn into nothing but grit.
“Open your eyes, Sand Dune,” Hathor urged, her hands squeezing around Elidi’s.
She cautiously cracked open her gaze…and found herself sitting in the Myriad. “Sacred Sun.” There was relief as her mirage held its form.
“It’s not perfect. The faces lack detail, the conversations are senseless, and ironically there is no coffee vendor.” Hathor released Elidi’s hands and leaned back to stare up at the sky. “It also took you entirely too long.”
Elidi steeled herself against the criticism and took the cup of coffee in front of her. “It’s also the biggest mirage I have cast since we started working on this skill.” She took a sip of coffee and felt her soul truly melt into the marrow of her body. “Give me this success, Hathor.”
“No.” Her Master stood and moved to wipe away the mirage before them.
“Don’t!” Elidi raised the cup in supplication. “It might not be perfect, but I would like to stay here a bit longer.”
Hathor let out an exasperated sigh. “It will not always be prudent to conjure home,” she chided as she took the cup. “You are dismissed from our lessons, but I expect you to spend the rest of your day consuming the shadows of Kyrell and the mountains of Elysian.”
“All the mountains look the same and you can’t see anything beyond the dark,” she complained, but nevertheless she resigned herself to spend her evening sprawled out on a bench in the Archives and trying to consume the beauty of the world.
Hathor disappeared beyond the veil of the mirage, but her voice was resounding as she hissed, “This could be the difference between the continuation of your line and the decimation of it.”
Elidi tried to ignore the ancient fear that sparked through her. She felt it wasn’t her own, that it was something from Vessels passed and that her existence could be different. “My precognition is enough to save me now.”
The swish of the saree and the jingling of her bangles grew farther away, but not so much that Elidi did not hear her retort, “You do not see all yet, Sand Dune. And with that mindset…I doubt you ever will.”
Elidi waited until she was certain her Master was well away before muttering, “Very encouraging as always, Hathor.” She slumped back against the wall and enjoyed her illusion regardless of its faults. She envisioned her brother, Azar, walking beside their father while her and her mother dawdled behind them to examine all the goods in the stalls.
Sweet Sunshine, her mother would whisper to her, come what may of your training, you will always be the light of my life. She held the memory dear, refused to recreate it for fear of distorting it. It was her mother’s soft, rose scented hands pressed into her cheeks, the pride in her golden eyes, at her daughter who had been favored by the Sun.
She swallowed her uncertainty, allowing it to stoke the fires of The Inferno. “You were born to this journey,” she assured herself, as she swiped her hand through the air, and let the scene before her melt into a million grains of sand.