The wind rattled the blurry yellow and orange treetops overhead. From the crunch of leaves underfoot and the pungent stench of decaying foliage, autumn was quickly taking hold of the land. Rasp sat wrapped in a warm blanket, enjoying a rare patch of sunshine that filtered down from the intertwined boughs above. The moment would have been more enjoyable if he wasn’t expected to be doing something else right now.

“Are you ready?” Whisper called to him. The echo of their voice indicated they were a reasonable distance away. On the edge of their makeshift camp, likely.

Rasp rolled his head back, muttering under his breath. “As much as I ever will be.”

“So, not at all then?”

“Precisely.”

“If we could move your self loathing along a tad faster, little bird,” Whisper said, “there are other things I wish to do today.”

Rasp supposed there was no harm in getting it over with. Maybe he would get lucky and Whisper would call it quits after a few failed tries, allowing him to spend the rest of the afternoon basking in the sun like the lazy, well fed housecat he sorely wished to be. “As long as you’ve accepted that it’s not going to work, then fine. I’m ready.”

After traveling throughout the night, they finally called it quits around dawn. Rasp slept soundly for several uninterrupted hours and awoke to a hot meal of ground corn cakes and dandelion tea. All things considered, it was a rather pleasant start to his day. It was a shame Whisper had to go ruin it with more training. And not the easy stuff either, like lift this rock into the air, make the wind blow, stop setting the trees on fire. Nope, long gone were the days of the easy-peasy shit. After finally glimpsing Rasp’s untapped potential, Whisper insisted it was high time they explored the depths of his magic-sensitivity.

Considering what happened the last time he did so, Rasp was perfectly content to keep barely scratching the surface. Which was probably why, other than languidly raising his hand, he didn’t put much effort into the exercise.

“Anything?” Whisper asked from afar.

“Nope.”

The wind blustered overhead with more intensity than before, stirring dried leaves into the crisp air around him. It was Whisper’s doing undoubtedly, employing one of their lesser spells to try and spark Rasp’s magic-sensitivity. Of course he didn’t need to rely on his powers to know that.

“How about now?” his mentor said.

“The hairs on my arm lifted.” That could just have easily been attributed to the frigid wind as it could the presence of magic, but who was he to look a ‘it’s something’ horse in the mouth?

“Dig deeper, little bird. You manifested magical auras once before. You can do it again.”

Manifestation was the official term for it, according to Hop’s incredibly long and confusing summary. Whisper, fortunately, was able to break it down into something more digestible. Essentially, Rasp’s powers had adapted to compensate for his impaired vision. His mind was taking the information gathered from his magic-sensitivity and projecting over the top of his otherwise hazy world, creating, essentially, a form of phantom vision.

It only applied to magic, however, which was probably the reason Rasp was not in any particular hurry to master his new talent. That, and also because the last time he tapped into said power, he had the sudden, irresistible urge to eat everyone. He wasn’t eager to make that mistake twice.

“Try again,” Whisper called.

Rasp waved his hand back and forth in front of his face to emphasize that he was definitely trying very, very hard and not just sitting on his ass.

Unfortunately, Rasp’s mentor was not nearly as much of an idiot as he was. “I understand the hesitation, but I assure you, you’re not going to awaken the darkness. Conditions are ideal. You’re fed, rested, no one is actively trying to kill you, and I am here in the event something goes wrong. I am not expecting you to get it right straight away. I am simply asking that you try.”

“You see my hand, don’t you?” Rasp waved it more vigorously.

Whisper issued a long, dreary sigh before reconsidering tactics. “I will give you another corn cake.”

Finally some motivation he could get behind! Naturally, he couldn’t simply accept Whisper’s offer without trying to sweeten the pot first. “Two.”

“One,” Whisper countered.

“One and a half.”

“Half.”

“Now you’re going the wrong way!”

“A fistful of pine needles.”

Rasp threw his hands into the air. “Nobody wants that!”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“Worm jam spread over a single corn cake.”

“Are you saying ‘warm’ or ‘worm’?”

Although he could not see his mentor’s expression, Rasp was one hundred percent certain Whisper had a predatory smile stretched across their scaled face. “Excellent question, little bird. Are you daring enough to find out?”

“No,” Rasp grumbled, adding, “You’re a terrible negotiator, by the way.”

“I believe this qualifies me as an excellent negotiator, actually. One corn cake, final offer.”

It was better than a fistful of dried pine needles, Rasp supposed. “Deal.”

With the promise of a slightly less empty belly looming tantalizingly closer, he sat straight and focused his breathing. Next, Rasp filled his lungs with air and held it. The drum of his heartbeat slowed as he released the breath. He repeated the process three times before his surroundings slowly started to shift. It was a slight change, barely noticeable at first. He could still feel the crisp breeze on his bare skin; his nose identified the nearby smells of smoldering coals and forest rot; and the ever quaking rustle of the treetops never ceased. But each sense was fainter now, as if the world around him was situated on the other side of a thick glass window.

Guided by instinct, he opened his eyes to find the same blurry world from before. Only now there was a new addition. It started as a faint blue glow, flickering far beyond the usual constraints of his poor vision. The more he focused on it, the brighter the light became, until it grew three times in size, like a beacon, pulsing with a life of its own. Rasp blinked the strain from his eyes and was surprised to find the phantom aura still there when he opened them again.

“...I see…blue?”

“Where?”

Rasp pointed in the appropriate direction. The pulsing light shifted smaller and then zipped into the air. It moved so swiftly Rasp nearly lost track of it. His finger followed the phantom glow as it flittered overhead several seconds before touching back down again and returning to its previous size.

“You were big, and then you were small, and then flying all over the place and…” Rasp attempted to make sense of what he’d just witnessed. “That was you shifting forms, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Regardless of what shape I take, you should always be able to track my magical signature.”

Well that could come in handy. For what, Rasp had no idea. The important thing was that he hadn’t fucked it up. He had manifested Whisper’s magic aura as plain as day and his mouth hadn’t even salivated once with the insatiable desire to eat his mentor.

Wait, what? Why did he just think that?

The wayward thought caused Rasp’s concentration to slip. Whisper’s dazzling blue glow faded, shrinking in size as the shadowy dark closed in around it. “Shit!” Rasp said, clenching his hands as he scrambled to regain his control. “Sorry! I didn’t mean that. I’m not going to eat anybody. That’s just what happened last time and...”

The more he spoke, the more the phantom image slipped like water from between tightly clenched fingers. Across from him, the blurry dark descended, snuffing out the last spark of glowing light.

“Dammit!” Rasp threw his head back with a groan. “I had it. I fucking had it!”

Whisper’s soft footsteps crunched across a sea of dry leaves towards him. “There is no reason to be upset, little bird. I warned that you would not get it straight away and yet you were able to glimpse my aura on your first try. That should be reason to celebrate.”

The disappointment churning the inside of Rasp’s stomach to molten acid slithered up his throat and flooded his mouth. He stewed in his feelings for a few annoying seconds, allowing his temper to simmer, before swallowing it back down. “Celebrate?” he said, after a deep breath ensured the vitriol would not spew forth from his gullet once more. “Like with more corn cakes?”

Whisper stood before him, nothing more than a vague, pokey-looking shadow. “If only all of mortal-kind was so easily influenced by their stomachs as you.”

“Sounds like a ‘yes, Rasp. Stuff your face with as many corn cakes as you like’ to me.”

“You get one.”

“Fine.” Rasp extended his hand expectantly. “Pay up.”

“After you have completed your lesson in full.”

Life, yet again, proved to Rasp how utterly unfair it was. He slumped onto the leafy ground and spread out, slowly, like cold syrup across the breakfast table. The response that slid from between his tightly clenched teeth wasn’t so much words as it was a series of disgruntled sounds strung together.

“It’s going to be one of these days, I see,” Whispered muttered. “Fortunately for me, my portion of this lesson is concluded.”

Rasp lifted his head from the ground. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I will be spending the rest of the afternoon scouting the area for the settlement. Your father will be accompanying me so that we may cover twice the ground.”

Whisper and dad were leaving? Together? With no one left to keep him from curling into a ball in the sunshine and napping the rest of the day away? It seemed his luck had turned. Fate had finally looked down upon him and smiled.

“You will stay here and resume the rest of your training with the artificer.” Whisper did nothing to hide the amusement in their voice. “You will be relieved to hear that he was positively enthusiastic to be given the opportunity. Already has an entire lesson planned and went on and on in profuse detail about plans for future assignments.”

And just like that, Rasp’s visions of a relaxing afternoon turned to dust. “Why can’t I go with you instead? Don’t you need me to translate dad for you?”

“Your father’s mind is not an easy one to meld with, but I am steadily making progress. We will make do without you. You will be more useful to me here, working on your training.”

Again, Rasp substituted a disgruntled sound in lieu of an intelligible response. It was probably better, for Whisper at least. After all, a single afternoon with Father would provide enough exposure to colorful expletives to last anyone a lifetime.

“There, there.” Whisper patted the top of Rasp’s head. The fact that Rasp was still facedown in the dirt meant the fae had either stooped to his level or, the more likely scenario, was using their foot. “I think you may actually get something out of this one.”

“A headache doesn't count!”

“You’re forgetting the corn cake.”

The original luster of the promised corn cake had started to lose some of its shine. “I would feel better if it was two.”

“I would feel better if you would stop acting like you were two, but here we are.” Whisper’s soft footsteps padded away in the distance as they called over their shoulder. “Try to have a good day. I expect a glowing report upon my return.”