Anna waited in silence for over a minute as Sol thought over her question. They were in his office, and he’d just finished assessing her progress in practicing magic. Now he was examining her like a puzzle, and she squirmed under his gaze. Finally, he shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s still too early to tell,” he said.

“I’ve been practicing!” Anna insisted. “Surely there’s something I can learn that’s useful!”

“You’ve learned plenty of useful things, and you’ve discovered your particular talent,” Sol said. “But spellbreakers are usually not useful in combat. You survived it once, by sheer force of beginners luck. But, as you saw in Nuidia, catching a mage’s spell before he casts is almost impossible anyway.”

“Which is why I want to know a spell I can use to defend the others,” Anna said. “I don’t want to rely on luck. I doubt I have much left.”

Sol nodded in sympathy. “I understand that. You’re good at weaving the spells, but you’re not fast enough to do it when it’s urgent. Combat spells, at least for now, are out of the question.”

Anna crossed her arms. She hadn’t expected Sol to teach her the spell for rocketing earth around or even wind blades like the pirate mage. But she’d hoped there might be something she could do. “There has to be something,” Anna said. “I could cast the spells ahead of time! No… I couldn’t predict them, could I?”

But Sol was examining her again. A grin spread across his face. “That’s not a bad idea, actually… The closest kind of magic to spellbreaking is enchantment. We haven’t tried that. It’s complex, more so than most other magics. By complexity isn’t your issue.”

“What kind of enchantment could I make for fighting?” Anna asked. She tried imagining having a gem that would precast spells for her, such as shooting fire whenever she touched it. Somehow, that didn’t feel right to her. “I’ve never seen a combat enchantment.”

Sol shook his head. “You probably have. The captain of the guard in Prohr, and likely many of the soldiers in Nuidia, would have had enchanted weapons and armor. They would be sturdier than most equipment, and resistant to some forms of magic.”

Anna felt her heart jump. “So it is defensive magic!” Anna said. “I can work with that! How’s it done.”

“Depends on the enchantment you want,” Sol said. “The more you want an enchantment to do, the more complicated it gets, and by rather a lot. Sort of like how the lynxes in the crimson wood are only about five times the size of a house cat, but their nearly fifty times the weight.” As he spoke, he walked over to one of the shelves and pulled a book off for Anna.

“This book goes over the theory of defensive enchantments and gives a few simple examples.

Anna took the book and scanned its table of contents. “They look like they’d be rather limited.”

“Combat spells have their own limitations. Most of the mage’s you’ve fought so far have exclusively used variations of one spell. It’s much simpler, and usually safer, to be good at one spell you can fight with. It becomes your sword.”

“Wouldn’t my enchantments only protect against one sort of spell?” Anna asked.

Sol shook his head. “It will be complicated, but the beauty of enchanting is that you have as much time as you need to make it more complicated, to make it able to resist more than one kind of thing. There are well known, stable enchantments that can serve a person just as well as a full suite of armor, and against as many kinds of attacks. You also have the advantage, of as many as many enchantments as you can think of being active, as opposed to other magicians, who are limited by their focus.”

Sol continued for a while, describing a few more details of the enchanting, and he provided her with two very small gems she could use to practice with. As he spoke, Peter arrived at the door. “Duty calls,” he said.

Anna nodded. She stood, then suddenly remembered the other question she was wanting to ask. She turned back to Sol. “Any updates on the High Elf book?”

Sol shook his head. “No word yet,” he replied.

“We haven’t gotten any research done since sending it,” Anna said.

Again, Sol nodded. “You and I haven’t, but the monks will, never fear. It’s only been a few weeks. Give it time.”

“Right,” Anna nodded. She clutched the spell book Sol had given her closer, then left with Peter.

“What’s the book?” Peter asked.

“I want be some help the next time we encounter a mage,” Anna explained. “Sol thought learning how to make enchantments might help.”

“Ooh!” Peter said, looking at the book with more interest. “That requires a gemstone, right? Think you could enchant my sword?” he asked.

“I don’t think the Wisp living in it would be very happy about that,” Anna said.

Peter frowned. “How are you going to make enchantments, then?” he asked.

“Sol gave me these two gems to practice with,” Anna said, showing him. “I won’t be using the Wisps’ gem.”

Peter nodded. “Fair enough. Can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

They met with Andrew just outside the throne room. Inside, the King and Queen were waiting for them, along with their mother and Chancelor Daniel. The three knelt. When they rose, Anna realized there was some tension between the four of them. “We are at your service,” Andrew said, and Anna could tell he’d noticed as well.

“There is another gathering of Wisps that has just started to the south,” Queen Emily said. “We would like you to go and investigate it.”

“We think the Wisp Stealers will probably try and take advantage of it,” King Henry added. “Try and catch one of them.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Your majesty, I think that would be unwise,” Daniel said. “We still don’t know enough about this group, and we don’t want another misunderstanding.”

“Surely your endorsement will help prevent that,” Andrew said.

The Chancelor shook his head. “On Grealish soil, it might,” he muttered.

“We’re leaving the country again?” Peter asked.

“Yes,” said Lady Thalia. “And we can’t afford a repeat of Nuidia with Selasem. So we expect you to be discrete.”

Anna blinked. “The Tiger’s Pass,” she said. “That’s where they’re gathering this time?”

All four nodded. “It’s close to the border,” King Henry said. “You shouldn’t have any issues just flying there and leaving before there’s any issue.”

“And if the Wisp Stealers or Selasi spot us?” Andrew asked. “Or if the Steelers are pretending to be Selasi?”

“An excellent point,” Chancelor Daniel said. “It would be better for us to send an official envoy to Selasem first. Establish common cause on this front before sending our Wisp Seekers.”

The King and Queen both shook their heads. “No. This group needs to be dealt with. We’ll lose them if we just ignore any Wisp activity that’s barely half a kilometer across the border.” Queen Emily turned to the Wisp Seekers. “Daniel has a point, though. We should establish common cause with the other nations. We’ve sent a letter to Ryukyuu already, thanks to you. If you are able, after checking on the ruins of Tiger’s Pass, you should seek out the Queen of Selasem to offer such an alliance regarding the Wisps.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Daniel said, “That would be better. At least, the offer.” He turned to the others. “We may wish to send a more… specialized envoy for the real negotiations.”

“That’s a good idea. Do you think you can draft a formal letter for the Selasi Queen, Daniel?” Queen Emily asked.

“I can have something drawn up in about an hour or so,” the Chancelor replied.

“Yes,” Lady Thalia said. “In the meantime, ensuring that you intercept Zech or whoever is working with him is your main priority. Capture him if you can.”

Anna blinked. She almost opened her mouth to object that they weren’t ready to deal with a serious mage, but the king and queen were both nodding agreement with their mother.

Andrew bowed. “We’ll leave as soon as we have the letter for the queen,” Andrew said.

Within a few hours, they were flying south. Tiger’s pass was a little more than two days away by flight. They stopped by the river in the evening. Jarnvaror left the group to go hunting while they made camp. Anna opened her spell book and began trying to memorize the enchantments it described. Even at a glance, she could tell most of them were far more complicated than any of the nets she’d worked with before. She tried to place the simplest one she could find onto one of the gem’s Sol had given her. All it would do was make the gem glow like a candle.

The spell didn’t take. The net she’d formed would just seem to unravel, and the gem would shudder in her hands. She took a breath, trying to focus. But she couldn’t. She just saw, in her mind, the smiling face of Zech, and hooded Elf woman from the Crimson Wood. She knew she wasn’t ready to deal with them. She could memorize every enchantment in this book, and she wouldn’t be ready.

The opal in her bracelet brushed her wrist, and she felt Halcyon waiting for her there. His calming influence flowed into her. She reached over and cupped the bracelet. “Thanks,” she muttered. “But that doesn’t make me ready.”

Still, she accepted the Wisp’s help, which made it far easier to focus on the task at hand. Half an hour later, the little gemstone was glowing white in her palm.

“You got one of the enchantments?” Peter asked.

Anna nodded. “Just a basic one,” Anna said. “I wanted to practice the knots that made the spell stick. I should take it off and try again, but…” she trailed off, looking up at the stars overhead. “It’s probably too late for that.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked. “Now you can see in the dark! You could study all night and sleep while we fly.”

“Tempting,” Anna said, though the memory of their flight to the Green Vale made her very certain she didn’t want to do that.

“Either way, we could stand to stay up for a bit as you practice,” Andrew said. “What other enchantments are in the book?”

Anna started to flip through the pages, holding up the little glowing gemstone for light. “There’s one for strengthening metal. If done right, it makes weapons and armor almost indestructible. I’d like to get that for you guys. Then there’s this one: it creates a bubble around the anchor that interferes with specific common weaves of magic, giving a lot of resistance to spells.” Anna shivered. “But both of them are really complicated. It would take hours to cast them properly, even if I knew how, and we don’t have the gem’s to anchor them.”

“Sound’s like your work is cut out for you,” Andrew said. “Hopefully we’ll miss the Wisp stealers this time. They might not even know about this gathering across the border.” Anna gave him an incredulous look, and Peter just laughed. “I didn’t say it was likely!” he defended himself. “Only that it was… What’s that?”

Anna felt it just before Andrew saw it. She looked at the gem glowing in her hand. The bracelet was right next to it, but she saw blue mist streaming from the opal into the little glowing gem. A moment later, a Wisp appeared hovering over her hand, with tendrils of light wrapping around both stones.

It wasn’t Halcyon. She could still feel the blue Wisp in her bracelet. She wasn’t at all able to tell the others apart, though. At the moment, this Wisp had a little green mixed into his blue light, and its influence felt like a sort of grim determination. Before she could do anything, it flowed into the little crystal.

“What’s it doing?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know,” Anna said, watching the enchanted light flicker. For a moment it seemed to almost disappear completely. Then it blazed back to blinding life. Anna dropped it and had to look away.

“Why’s it doing that?” Peter asked.

“I don’t know!” said Anna. She could feel panic starting to rise up. Halcyon’s influence got a little stronger. He emerged from her bracelet as well, but didn’t move toward the little gem at all. He just hovered by her head, calming her. She could almost hear the words, “it’s okay,” coming from him.

She reached down and picked up the radiant crystal. “I think that other Wisp just wanted to make the spell stronger. He was trying to help.”

“By blinding us?” Peter asked.

“They don’t know why I made the enchantment, only that I did,” Anna said.

“Didn’t you say they wouldn’t like being used for magic, though?” Peter said.

Anna nodded. “I… yeah, I don’t know. They’ve helped me with a few spells before, but not like this.”

“Maybe it’s a sort of residue left over in that one from serving someone else?” Andrew suggested. “If it’s one of Ironhill’s or the Sakir’s I mean.”

Anna shook her head. “Maybe. I just… don’t know.”

There was a rush of wind as Jarnvaror landed by them. He rumbled something, to which Peter replied. “We’re trying to figure that out too, Jarn.” He explained for the apparently concerned dragon that, no they weren’t under attack, the Wisps were just being strange again. The dragon huffed and said he wouldn’t leave them till the little creatures calmed down.

Anna looked at the little gemstone. “I don’t know how they’ll react if I start undoing the enchantment,” she said.

“Can you have Halcyon tell them its fine?” Peter asked.

Anna tried to convey her desires to Halcyon. She could tell he was listening. There was something in his influence that made it clear he was attentive. But she had no idea if he understood. She decided the best thing for it would be to start, and to keep trying to calm them as she went. She picked up the little gem and began unwinding the enchantment.

As soon as she began interfering with the spell, the Wisp that had gone into it came out again. It bobbed once, then returned to her bracelet as she unwound her enchantment. The glowing ended, leaving the group standing in the glowing of the night.

“Well, seems like they listened,” Peter said.

“I hope its safe for you to keep practicing those enchantments,” Andrew said.

Anna nodded. But her mind had been taken elsewhere. They seemed eager to help. But she couldn’t make sense of why. Did they know she was trying to help them? Was this gratitude or still instinct. And did this mean they could understand her now, even if she couldn’t understand them? Could she talk with them now? As she fell asleep, she brushed the Wisps’ gemstone with her finger.