Chapter 25

The days that followed the solstice were ones of rapid growth. Each of the children advanced a stage with the insights they had gotten from the storm, placing Tan at the ninth stage of the initiate’s Realm, Pao at the seventh, and the twins both reached the fifth within hours of each other.

The adults were both most pleased with the progress, and they each continued to challenge the children to collective duels, each employing different strategies. While Wensho continued to avoid or divert their attacks while occasionally dealing out teaching taps of her own to show them where they had made a mistake or where they were open, Tren endured their attacks stoically. He too gave them pointers when they made mistakes, but his pointers were a bit more painful than Wensho’s.

Neither thought that they were being particularly hard on the children. They were teaching them to fight, and fighting was by its nature painful. All of the bruises the children received healed within hours, and they made rapid progress in their teamwork and coordination.

They developed group strategies and attacks, which the adults either cooperated with and helped them perfect, or quickly eliminated if they were impractical or overly elaborate.

Tan, in particular, was surprised at how much he complimented each of the other three children. When cooperating with Pao, he was able to distract his parents with his speed and allow the older boy to get into position to deal a devastating – or it would be devastating against a peer opponent – attack.

He was able to do the same with the twins, but they were each physically weaker than both Pao and Tan, so the tactic was less effective than Tan fighting on his own.

Magically, however, he found that they could combine his wind Qi into their own attacks and amplify their power. The ice shards that Ko produced were sharper and faster when supported by Tan’s wind, and the flames of Won burned hotter and traveled faster.

They each found that they were far stronger supporting the others than they’d ever been individually, and even when they didn’t have the adults around they began pairing up and fighting two on two, or coordinating planned attacks and strategies against imagined opponents.

Safron would watch their antics with amusement, but she was careful not to get too close when the big kids were doing magic. She was older now, she would be five years old in the winter, and that meant that she knew when to be careful.

It also meant that she would be getting her magic soon, she thought with excitement. She brought the subject up one evening around the dinner table.

“When are you going to give me my magic?” she demanded.

“When you turn five,” her father promised. “Although you’ll have to work for it too, just like your brother did when he was that age. I’ll give you a magic stone, and you’ll have to learn to communicate with the spirit inside. Once you can do that, you’ll have to convince the spirit to become one with you, and then --”

“I get to choose what I get, right?” she asked.

Tren paused, then nodded, used to being interrupted by his excitable daughter. “Yes. Have you made up your decision?”

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“I wish that you could give me Zephyr, or a spirit like Zephyr,” she said. “I want to fly.”

Tren shook his head sadly. “There are other air spirits as strong as Zephyr, but all the ones I know about are already bonded to someone.”

“So take them away and give them to me,” Safron demanded.

“No,” Tren said, with a hint of hardness in his voice that surprised his daughter. He softened as he explained. “Safron, when a spirit bonds with a person, it’s for life. You can’t just take it away from them. Not without killing the person, and you don’t want to be responsible for that, do you?”

She pouted, but shook her head. No, killing people was bad and she was old enough to know that.

“I could still find you a wind spirit. I promise that if you’re determined to be like your big brother I’ll find the strongest wild wind spirit I can find for you and help you--”

“If I can’t have wind then I want fire,” the girl declared. “Fire is cool and I want it.”

The adults exchanged looks. Wensho shrugged, and then said “There’s a very strong fire spirit in the ashlands that your father can claim for you. It’s known to be a little stubborn, but it might be a good fit for you, Safron. But this is a very important decision, so we’re going to make sure you take your time. If you still want a fire spirit in two weeks, then your father will set out and claim it for you.”

“You promise?” she demanded.

“Yes. But you have to spend the next two weeks following Ko and Pao around to see them use their magic. Fire is very flashy and impressive, but it’s not any stronger than the other two. Its weaker in some ways, in fact,” Wensho explained.

“Okay. I’m not going to change my mind,” Safron declared.

“It’s okay if you do,” her father said. “Even if we get back from hunting the fire spirit and you suddenly decide that you’d rather have water like your mother, that’s okay. We want you to be happy, so if you change your mind you should let us know instead of being stubborn.”

Tan grumbled something, but the table ignored him. That Safron got to pick her element was a sore spot for him, although he was fairly confident that he would have picked Zephyr even if he’d been given a choice.

“I won’t change my mind. But if I do I won’t be stupid and pretend that I didn’t,” Safron said.

“Okay. Remember, we’ll leave in two weeks time, and you have to follow Ko and Pao around in the meantime,” her father said.

She nodded in agreement.

Two weeks passed very slowly, and she kept her word, following the older kids around. She liked spending time with them, to be honest, and they liked showing off their magic. Ko was a bit more flashy with her magic than she usually was, floating water and ice around her for the little girl to observe.

Pao, meanwhile, broke rocks into sand while she watched in amazement. He was even stronger than she’d realized, and he explained that he could only do that with his magic. If he wasn’t using his magic, then he wasn’t nearly so strong. He was still strong, but it would take him time to break a rock in two, let alone shattering it into little pieces.

But she also followed Won around some, and her brother. While she remained jealous that her brother could fly and she probably never would, she was simply enamored with the idea of shooting fire out of her hand.

Or lightning, as Won slowly mastered the art of making sparks shoot out of his fingers. It left him with very frizzy hair that Safron and Ko both teased him about, causing him to shave his head once more.

After two whole weeks, an eternity, had passed, Safron’s mind remained made up, and she told everybody so every night. One night – Safron had lost track of how many days had passed but it had been fourteen – her father said “Very well. If you’re this certain, then we’ll head out to the Ashlands as soon as we finish the harvest.”

Safron blinked in surprise. Then she smiled.

Before very long at all, she’d be doing magic just like the big kids.

She thought about that a little more, and she realized something that sobered her up.

That meant that she’d have to spend part of every day being boring, too.