Chapter Twenty-Six: Elar

Ash woke when a probing, insistent thought of hunger gnawed at his mind.

He rolled in his bed roll, trying to ignore the thought. He just wanted five more minutes.

More probing, more hunger.

He sighed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and crawled out of his bed roll.

Lilith arched her back, wings stretched outward, tail straight. She yawned, and a puff of smoke blew out of her mouth.

She regarded him with very green eyes, and that thought pushed at his mind again.

Hunger

“Let's eat, and then we must leave.”

Amalia was already up, clothed in her black robes, white staff in hand. She produced bread, and jerked meat.

It wasn't a lot, and Lilith sniffed at it before calmly knocking it to the floor.

Amalia sighed,

“I thought she would do as much. Very well.”

She produced a cooked bird out of nothing, or so it seemed to Ash, and tossed it to his dragon.

She snapped it up with a happy squeak.

Ash, did not receive cooked meat, and instead had to be content with his jerked meat and bread.

After they ate, Amalia tapped her staff.

She spoke the same word she'd used for their arrival here.

There came a flash of color, and as suddenly as that, they stood in the ashen ruins of Drakosia once more.

“That was less involved then before,” Ash stated.

“You have already passed this trial, and there is no need to make you go through another just yet.”

Ash frowned,

“I don't like those words. ‘This trial’ and ‘another just yet.’ How about no more trials?”

“Life is an endless trial, Master Lorcan. Rise to it.”

With that she began to walk.

Ash followed, with Lilith bounding along beside him, tail and wings flopping.

______

Near evening, they stopped. Ashe prepped the fire while Amalia readied the food to be cooked.

“After tonight, we will reach the road. Lilith will need to travel in her human form. We cannot afford the attention she might draw in this form.”

Ash nodded, looking at Lilith, who flicked a tail in acknowledgment of the request.

After they ate, Amalia spoke up.

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“It is time you try once more to access your elar. You shouldn't encounter any trouble, now that you have the bond.”

He had never had much trouble finding his elan before. It was getting across the chasm and drawing upon it that had been the problem.

The chilly orb appeared before him easily, and yet this time was different.

Over the chasm was a bridge formed of shadow and motes of smoldering violet light. His mental hand reached towards the orb of frost blue and pale silver, and this time he succeeded in drawing it.

Ash sucked in breath as tendrils of the orb shot over the bridge, traveling throughout his body.

Indescribable euphoria coursed through him, his mind and sense flaring up. He could hear the bugs crawling over the ground, the steady heartbeat of Amalia, and the rhythm of Lilith’s breathing.

Leaves swaying sounded like distant booms of thunder. All of that noise, that awareness, engulfed him as if he had just put his face in his pillow.

He clasped his hands over his ears, closing his eyes.

“It's too much! Too much!”

Desperately, he cut it mind off from his elan, the elar within him drying up as if he had just put a dam over his elan.

He breathed deeply. In and out.

“What was that? It was all so much, and yet it…felt so good. You're telling me Rosalia, Will and Nick have control of this?”

“To a degree,” Amalia said, eating a bit of bread before elaborating,

“As a dragon lord, you’re going to have more power than most, more than you know. Magic has a cost, however. Your bond means that you will experience the effects of drawing elar at double what others would experience. It also means your techniques will use even more elar.”

Ash looked at Lilith who was attacking a small rock. She glanced up at him, cocking her head, snorted a puff of smoke, and went back to her battle with the rock.

“I wonder who’s winning,” Ash mused.

He shook his head, turning his attention back to the storyteller,

“Everything will be twice as hard. Got it. Because I can never catch a break.”

Amalia did not reply.

Ash dove back in, drawing elar once more. He knew what to expect, and even then the assault of pleasure and tide of sensory information nearly made him pass out.

He did not cut off the connection. Rather, he tried to embrace it.

That was a mistake.

Ash was nearly consumed by the combination of sensation, euphoria, and chill.

He was forced to cut the connection before his mind was frozen, then shattered into pieces.

“Any help here?”

His supposed teacher shrugged.

“How one deals with elar is different for everyone.”

“Why?”

“You will learn it at the academy,” Amalia replied. She bit into her bread again, chewing slowly.

Ash threw up his hands,

“I want to know now. How am I supposed to improve if I don’t know how to do so?”

“You could try using your mind.”

“Har har. Come on, you’re the teacher here. Teach!”

Amalia lifted an eyebrow,

“I’m a teacher now, am I? I don’t remember taking on such a role.”

Ash gaped at her, then gestured to the sword by his side,

“What have you been doing then, the last few weeks?”

“I taught you enough to survive, and perhaps pass the academy’s entrance exam. That’s all. It doesn’t obligate me to teach you everything.”

‘So you’re just going to let me wallow in my ignorance?”

“Indeed. Or, you can figure it out yourself. You should have had enough clues to put it together by now.”

He gave her a scowl, which she showed no reaction to, closed his eyes and made another attempt.

This time, he tried to look for these clues.

All he saw was that frozen blue and pale silver white orb. His elar suffused him with cold, euphoria and increased senses followed.

He was forced to cut off from his elan once again. He growled and thought Why can’t I get this?

It was like a winter storm inside of him, but along with the cold, came everything else. He liked feeling the pleasure, and it would have been outright addicting if the senses part of it wasn’t so unpleasant. Every time he failed, he wondered what these clues could be. What answers he could uncover that would lead him to success.

Rosalia, Will, and Nick were well ahead of him in this. They were ready to learn next steps.

If he couldn’t get this down, he never would be. He gritted his teeth, scrunching his eyes shut even harder. He would succeed. He had magic now, and he would use it.

Ash kept trying well into the night, when he finally had to admit he was going to get no farther.

He fell asleep as he had the night before, but this time, he did dream.

Of him standing alone in the darkest night, and battling a raging winter storm, seeking its heart with a mental blade.