Chapter 5
Karrick
Ididn’t know which was worse, the fact that I was stuck in a class I didn’t want to take, or that I was about to find out why Professor Blackwood wanted to see me alone at the end of class. Either way, my first day back at Widdershins was turning into a bit of a nightmare.
As the other students filed out, their whispers and sidelong glances making it clear I was the topic of conversation, I remained seated. My claws dug small crescents into the ancient desk as I waited, the wood’s magical warmth still pulsing beneath my fingertips.
“Mr. Laurent,” Professor Blackwood said once we were alone, “thank you for staying.” She gestured to a chair closer to her desk. “Would you mind coming down here? These acoustics aren’t ideal for conversation.”
I stood reluctantly, my knees grateful to be free from the too-small desk, and made my way down to the front of the room. Up close, I could see the fine lines around her eyes, the silver strands woven through her dark hair. She looked tired in a way I hadn’t noticed from a distance.
“I understand your reluctance to be in this class,” she began, surprising me with her directness. “Your file indicates you believe you have no magical aptitude beyond your Beastkin abilities.”
“Because I don’t,” I said, trying to keep the edge from my voice. “Look, Professor, I appreciate whatever... journey you’ve been on, but I’m here to play football and get my degree in sports medicine. Not to wave my hands around and pretend I can do witch magic.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t condescending like I’d expected. “What did you feel when you closed your eyes earlier, Mr. Laurent?”
The question caught me off guard. “I felt... warmth from the desk. And different energies from the other students.”
“And did that surprise you?”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “I guess. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“That’s because you’ve never been asked to look for it.” She leaned forward, her expression serious. “Karrick… may I call you Karrick?”
I nodded, still wary.
“Karrick, what you experienced today is not common among Beastkin. In fact, it’s quite rare. The ability to sense magical signatures at that level usually indicates latent elemental potential.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “Right. Next, you’ll tell me I’m secretly a witch.”
“No,” she said firmly. “You’re a Beastkin with unusual magical sensitivity. And I’d like to help you explore what that might mean.”
“Why?” The question burst from me with more force than I intended. “Why would you care what I can or can’t do?”
Something flashed across her face, pain, maybe, or regret. “Because I spent too many years dismissing students like you. Assuming that because you weren’t a witch, your magical potential was limited or nonexistent. I was wrong, and I’ve seen the damage that kind of thinking has caused.”
She stood and moved to a cabinet against the wall, pulling out a small wooden box. When she returned, she placed it on the desk between us.
“There have been documented cases of Beastkin with elemental affinities,” she continued, opening the box to reveal a collection of small crystals, each a different color.
“Not many, but enough to establish a pattern. Most often, they manifest as fire or earth connections, given your species’ natural affinity for the wilderness. ”
I stared at the crystals, feeling oddly drawn to them despite my skepticism. “So what, you think I can shoot fireballs or something?”
Professor Blackwood actually laughed at that, a warm sound I wouldn’t have expected from her. “Perhaps not fireballs, no. But there might be other abilities waiting to be discovered.” She selected a reddish-orange crystal and held it out to me. “Would you humor me for a moment?”
I hesitated, then took the crystal. It was warm to the touch, almost uncomfortably so, but not burning. As I held it, the warmth seemed to spread up my arm.
“What am I supposed to be doing with this?” I asked, turning the crystal in my palm.
“Just hold it and tell me what you feel.”
I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the sensation. The crystal’s heat pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, growing slightly warmer with each second.
“It’s getting hotter,” I murmured. When I opened my eyes, I nearly dropped the crystal in shock. It was glowing, a soft orange light emanating from within. “What the hell?”
Professor Blackwood’s eyes widened slightly. “Interesting. That’s a fire resonance crystal. It only reacts that strongly to those with fire elemental potential.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, though the evidence was literally glowing in my hand. “Beastkin don’t have elemental magic.”
“Most don’t,” she agreed. “But you, Karrick, are not most Beastkin.” She took the crystal back, placing it carefully in the box. “Have you ever experienced unexplained heat when you’re emotional? Objects warming near you? Fires burning longer or brighter than they should?”
I thought back to countless campfires with my family that never seemed to die out when I was sitting nearby. The way my skin would feel feverish when I was angry, even beyond normal Beastkin rage responses. I’d always attributed it to my beast nature, never considering it might be something else.
“Maybe,” I admitted reluctantly. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“It means you have potential that deserves exploration,” she interrupted gently.
“I’m not asking you to become a witch or abandon your identity as a Beastkin.
I’m simply suggesting that there might be more to you than you’ve been led to believe.
” She reached in the box, pulling out another crystal, this time a dark green. “Try this one.”
I took the dark green crystal from her hand, surprised by its weight. Unlike the fire crystal, this one felt cool against my palm, almost like holding a smooth river stone that had been sitting in shade all day.
“Nothing’s happening,” I said after a moment, turning it over in my hand. The crystal remained dull, no glow, no warmth, nothing. “See? Maybe the first one was a fluke.”
But then the crystal began to glow softly, and I felt a tightness, like a vine squeezing gently around my hand.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Fascinating,” Professor Blackwood said, taking the crystal. Then she handed me a blue one. “Try this one.”
The blue crystal felt different from the other two. Not warm like the fire crystal or cool like the earth one, but somehow alive in a way that made my skin prickle. I held it for several seconds, waiting for something to happen.
“This one feels weird,” I said, rolling it between my fingers. “Like it’s... moving? It feels like jelly.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, the crystal began to pulse with a soft blue light, and I swear I could feel moisture gathering in the air around my hand. The sensation was so unexpected that I nearly dropped it.
“Water affinity as well,” Professor Blackwood murmured, making notes on a piece of parchment. “This is highly unusual, Karrick. Most elemental practitioners have an affinity for only one element, maybe two if they’re exceptionally gifted.”
I handed the crystal back to her, my mind reeling. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. This has to be some kind of mistake.”
She placed the blue crystal carefully back in the box and selected a pale yellow one. “One more, if you don’t mind.”
I took it reluctantly, half-expecting it to explode in my hand at this point. The yellow crystal felt light, almost weightless, and as I held it, I felt a strange sensation like a breeze moving through my mind.
The crystal began to glow with a soft golden light, and suddenly I felt like I could sense the air currents in the room, feel the way they moved around objects and through the space between us.
It was disorienting and exhilarating at the same time.
When I looked down again, the crystal was no longer touching my hand but floating an inch or two above it.
“Air,” Professor Blackwood said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Four elements, Karrick. You have resonance with all four primary elements.”
I snatched the crystal and slapped it down on her desk more forcefully than necessary. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game this is, but I’m not buying it. Maybe your crystals are broken or something.”
“These crystals have been tested on hundreds of students over the years,” she said firmly.
“They don’t lie, and they don’t make mistakes.
” She closed the box and looked at me directly.
“What you’ve just demonstrated is extraordinarily rare.
I’ve never seen anyone, witch or otherwise, resonate with all four elements. ”
The weight of what she was saying settled over me like a heavy blanket.
I’d come to Widdershins to play football and get my degree.
I’d already survived one attack that nearly killed me.
The last thing I needed was to discover I was some kind of magical freak on top of being a Beastkin. It was all too fucking much.
“What does this mean?” I asked, my voice coming out smaller than I intended.
“It means you have choices to make,” Professor Blackwood said gently. “You can ignore this discovery, attend the minimum three classes required to drop, and go back to your original plan. Or you can explore this gift and see what you’re truly capable of.”
I thought about Atlas and Caden, about the magical war they’d described to me. About the power they’d gained and the responsibilities that came with it. Did I want that kind of complication in my life?
“I need time to think about this,” I said finally.
Professor Blackwood nodded, as if she’d expected that response.
“Of course. But Karrick, I want you to understand something.” She leaned forward, her expression serious.
“Power like this doesn’t just disappear because you ignore it.
If anything, suppressing elemental abilities can make them more volatile, more dangerous. ”
The word dangerous hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d already hurt people during my attack, lost control of my beast form in ways that still haunted me. The idea that I might have even more ways to accidentally harm someone made my stomach clench.
“What kind of dangerous?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Emotional outbursts could trigger elemental responses,” she explained. “Fires starting when you’re angry, objects freezing when you’re upset, that sort of thing. The elements respond to strong emotions, especially in untrained practitioners.”
I thought about my temper, the rage that had always been my biggest weakness as a Beastkin. Adding elemental magic to that mix sounded like a recipe for disaster.
“So, my options are learn to control it or potentially burn down the school,” I said flatly.
“That’s a rather dramatic way to put it, but... yes, essentially.” She softened her tone. “But Karrick, this could also be an incredible gift. Imagine being able to help people, to protect those you care about in ways you never thought possible.”
I stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the stone floor. “I should get going. I have practice this afternoon.”
“Of course,” she said, rising as well. “But please, think about what we’ve discussed. And if you experience any unusual incidents over the next few days, don’t hesitate to come see me.”
I was already halfway to the door when she called out again.
“Karrick? For what it’s worth, I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. What happened to you last year... most people wouldn’t have survived that, let alone come back to face it.”
I paused with my hand on the doorframe, her words hitting something deep in my chest. Without turning around, I said, “Thanks, Professor. I’ll... I’ll think about it.”
The hallway outside felt cooler than it should have, and I realized I was sweating despite the autumn chill. My hands were trembling slightly as I shouldered my bag, and I couldn’t tell if it was from stress or something else entirely.
As I walked across campus toward the athletic complex, my mind kept replaying the sensation of those crystals in my hands.
The way they’d responded to my touch, glowing and floating like they’d been waiting for me their whole existence.
It should have been impossible. I was a Beastkin, a creature of instinct and physical power, not some mystical elemental mage.
But the evidence was hard to ignore. The crystals hadn’t lied, and Professor Blackwood’s reformed attitude seemed genuine, even if I wasn’t ready to fully trust it yet. The question was whether I wanted to complicate my life further by exploring whatever the hell was happening to me.
I was so lost in thought that I almost walked straight into someone coming around the corner of the library. I stopped short, my enhanced reflexes kicking in just in time to avoid a collision.
“Sorry, I wasn’t—” I started to apologize, then looked up to see who I’d nearly bowled over.
The words died in my throat.
Standing in front of me was a young man about my age with amber-orange eyes that I’d recognize anywhere, even after eight years.
His dark hair was still short and messy, framing a face that had lost its boyish softness but retained the same sharp intelligence I remembered.
He was taller than he’d been at ten, lean where I was broad, but there was no mistaking him.
Phoenix Emberwood. My childhood best friend. The witch boy who’d disappeared from my life without warning when his family moved away, leaving me heartbroken and confused.