Addie hit the floor with a loud thunk, but her body was so tired and numb she didn’t even feel it. It sure sounded bad, though. She tried to push herself up off the floor, it was already morning and she wanted to do well in her lessons today. Addie didn’t want to break the promise she had made to herself. Though, it shouldn’t have been this hard to get out of bed this morning. Her arms struggled against the floor for a moment, then gave out as Addie hit the unyielding wooden planks a second time. It wasn’t just her body that was weak, either. Her spatial sense seemed oddly distorted and fuzzy like her magic wasn’t quite responding correctly.
“Oh goodness,” Christena hustled over, “What is the matter with you, today?” Christena touched Addie’s shoulder and gasped.
“By the binary! You are burning up!” Christena quickly scooped Addie up and put her back into bed. Addie didn’t even have the strength to reply.
Passively, she let Christena tuck her back into bed and then closed her eyes.
The next time she woke up, Christena was sitting on a chair, reading next to Addie’s bed. Addie could feel something damp and cool on her forehead.
Idly reaching up, Addie pushed her hand out of the blankets, which was more effort than it should have been, and then touched the wet thing on her head. It seemed like Christena had put a wet towel on her forehead to help cool down Addie’s scalding temperature.
“Ugg,” Addie groaned, long and sickeningly. Her mouth was dry.
“Water,” Addie’s hoarse voice came out.
Christena gently placed the book on her lap, face down, and then grabbed the cup on Addie’s nightstand, passing it to her.
The water hurt on the way down, her sore throat fighting the liquid. She managed to gulp it down, anyway. Addie was too thirsty not to.
“How are you feeling?” Christena asked.
“My head hurts,” Addie replied, “I feel pretty bad.”
Christena placed the book down at the foot of Addie’s bed and stood up. She walked a few steps and bent over to pick up the cloth from Addie’s head. She wiped some of Addie’s sweat off. Addie couldn’t see over the edge of the bed, but Christena wrung the rag out over the side making a dripping sound that Addie knew meant there was a bucket of water. Christena re-wet the cloth and then placed it back onto Addie’s head. It was refreshingly cool.
“After I saw you collapse this morning, and with the scare we had with Nettal, Fluffy and I examined your soul. Addie, I’m not sure how, but you’ve suffered soul damage.”
That didn’t make any sense. This didn’t feel anything like the time she overused her magic. Her soul didn’t feel cracked or overused.
“I don’t feel soul damage. I just feel sick,” Addie said with confusion on her face.
“It’s a minor thing, but it almost seems like the outer core of your soul has been singed.”
Flashes of purple ghostly flame rose up at the edges of Addie’s vision. A flashback from her nightmare yesterday.
“You’re still learning, so it might not be so obvious to you, yet. Not to mention I haven’t taught you any soul practices, yet. We were supposed to start those today, but not with your soul in this state. It will have to wait until after you’ve healed.” Christena smiled down at Addie.
“Is Nettal doing better?” A stab of worry flashed through Addie as she asked the question. She still blamed herself for getting Nettal hurt. The regret-filled Addie up until there wasn’t any room for any other emotions.
“She’s still in bed, asleep. She hasn’t woken up yet.” Christena’s face suddenly became hard.
Addie was wrong, there was still more room for disappointment to run through her, too.
“Was her soul singed, too?”
“Addie, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but her soul has been damaged a lot more seriously than yours is. I..” Christena trailed off, difficulty warring across her face.
“Listen, Addie, do you remember what exactly hurt your soul?” Though Christena asked the question softly, Addie had never seen her face so intense.
The first thing that flashed through Addie’s mind was the green pig creature she came face to face within Realmspace. After all, it was that creature that must have hurt Nettal.
Addie recounted her experience to Christena again. She described how she and Nettal had gone into Realmspace to explore and ran into the ugly green pig-thing. Christena should already know the story, though. She had told Christena last night, after all.
Hearing the story again, Christena’s face fell into deep thought, her mouth and eyebrows scrunched and her eyes stared off into the distance. Then, she stood up, her face decided.
“Addie, it’s not just you and Nettal. There have been a few reports in town of children with symptoms like yours and Nettal’s. We think someone or something is targeting children of bonding age within these two Areas.”
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That didn’t sound good. Addie was still trying to figure out what to say when Christena spoke up again.
“Ok, Addie. I’m going to talk with Ms. Lomain, now. How about you try and get some more rest?”
Christena left the room and gently closed the door behind her. The curtains were drawn across the windows, but regardless, the room was still quite bright from the daylight. It didn’t matter though. Squishy walked over from the foot of the bed and got closer to Addie as he curled up against her side. He huffed out and relaxed. His warmth seeped into Addie, and she felt content. She fell back asleep shortly after.
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Addie slept on and off for much of the day, with Christena checking in on her throughout. The day passed like this, and most of the following night, as well. At the normal meal times, Christena brought in some clear broth or porridge, but Addie didn’t eat much.
Like that, the night went by and the next morning came.
Addie felt a bit better the next morning, but there wasn’t a lot of change overall. Addie was just staring up at the ceiling of the room, observing the shadows the binary cast through the window curtains when Christena came into the room to check in on her again.
With a small squeak, the door opened slowly, and Christena carefully entered into the room with a bowl of porridge. She walked over to the bed and sat the porridge on the nightstand.
“Where’s Auntie?” Addie croaked out. Auntie hadn’t come to visit her once.
“She’s busy trying to track down whoever caused the soul damage,” Christena answered.
That wouldn’t help, Addie knew. Only Addie could get into Realmspace.
Seeing Addie’s roll of the eyes, Christena gave some more context, “Your Auntie and I think whoever is responsible is still somewhere in the Area, either this one or the bordering one, my father’s.”
That made Addie frustrated. The Pigling obviously wouldn’t be in reality.
Picking up on Addie’s frustration, Christena added, “Ms. Lomain and I both believe your story, Addie.”
That mollified Addie, a bit.
“But, if you can travel between here and ‘Realmspace’ as you call it, we believe there’s no reason that pig-like creature you described can’t also do the same thing.”
That made sense, Addie guessed.
“Regardless, I’m not here to talk about that.” Christena pulled up a chair and sat down next to Addie’s bed, “We need to start teaching you how to defend your soul. The events of the last couple of days have made that very clear to me.” Christena pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
“But I’m sick,” Addie never had to go to lessons when she was sick.
“I know, Addie. But you need to start today. I won’t risk you getting even more injured. Besides, this will actually help you recover faster.” Christena sounded worried and her words felt urgent.
Well, Addie did want to get better soon. “What do I do?”
“Start by closing your eyes and focusing on your soul bond with Squishy. He will need to help with this part, too.” Christena sat up straight as she instructed Addie.
That made Addie start thinking, “Since we are bonded, how come Squishy isn’t feeling sick, too?”
“Right now I want you to try and focus on the lessons, ok?” Christena said gently, “But I will give you a quick answer, I suppose. You two are connected at the soul, but you still have two distinct souls. Your soul bond itself looks perfectly intact, which is probably what you are most familiar with sensing.”
Addie was following the explanation so far.
“When you strained your soul bond by overusing your magic, this is the part of your soul that hurt, and the same part that started ‘cracking’ as you described it to me. Today, we are going to focus on your soul, and specifically just your soul. Once you become adept at this, we’ll work on some gentle applications of the transcendent loop to help the burns on the outer shell of your soul.
“Be sure not to activate any of your magic. Using magic right now improperly will just hurt your soul more. Close your eyes, and follow my voice,” Christena instructed, “Simply observe the connection you have with Squishy.”
Christena waited a moment as Addie focused. Addie could feel the connection she shared with Squishy, just one prod away from activating magic. Through the bond, she could sense Squishy’s emotions and thoughts. Right now, she could tell he was just as focused on the exercise as Addie was.
“Can you feel it?” Christena asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good, now follow that connection backward. Go up the link until your focus is as far away from Squishy’s soul as you can.”
It felt so dark, this far away from Squishy. Like, Addie was in a bubble, all alone, with Squishy’s distant light reaching out to her from far away. Focusing on just her soul like this, Addie could almost start making out the edges— the round shell containing her very being.
The room, the bed, any sounds being made in the room, that all fell away, and Addie was left with just.. herself. A giant empty ball of pure essence, the color of Addie.
Still in the trance, somehow, Addie was able to make out Christena’s voice, though it sounded almost hollow, distant.
“You are doing a good job, Addie,” came Christena’s ethereal voice, “I want you to focus on the outer shell of your soul. The container holding you inside.”
Addie moved her perspective as Christena instructed, focusing on the hard boundary of her soul.
“Now, just observe the outer parts of your soul. Let me know when you can find the burns.”
Even though she was trying sincerely to focus, it was hard not to get distracted. A stray thought, here or there threatened to break the trance. Despite her wandering mind, Addie managed to slowly map out the outer parts of her soul through observation. One step at a time, she moved a trickle of her awareness throughout the outside, noticing small patches of damage occasionally. Those must have been the burns Christena was talking about.
“Very carefully, I would like you to channel some of your magic to those burns. Squishy will help you. Take a small amount of the magic from your soul-bond and start applying it to those burns. Move only a small bit of magic if you can, Addie.”
A tiny tendril of magic extended out from Squishy and reached into Addie’s soul. Once there, Addie grabbed a hold of it and broke off as little of a piece as she could manage. Then, she pushed it up and up until it hit the top of her soul-shell. She moved it around and spread it out to a few of the burns. The magic slowly but surely wove into the damage, and started to mend it. It wasn’t a lot, but Addie felt as though a few of the burns had healed much faster. It was quite interesting, the magic just needed to be directed to the right location, and her soul knew what to do instinctively. It gathered up the magic Addie supplied, and transformed it into new soul-shell, minutely reversing the damage from the burns.
That was all that Addie had the concentration for, though. As she lost ahold of her focus, the bedroom started coming back into view, with Christena still sitting on the chair near her bed.
“Excellent work, Addie.” Christena praised.
Squishy, too, seemed quite proud.
“I’m going to leave you to rest up a bit more, Addie. When you can, try to work on repairing your soul. Squishy will be practicing, as well.”
“Though, since he doesn’t have any damage to his soul, it will be more of a training exercise for him.”
“Thanks, Christena. I’m already feeling a lot better,” Addie said.
Now that she could feel her soul-shell, it was hard not to notice the discomfort from the burns. It made her antsy and want to get back to healing. She would work hard until she felt better.