Chapter 20 Declan #3
It felt like a far more intense version of the breath-sharing órla had done with me at the Path’s base.
One short breath was followed by a long, deep inhale, intoxicating my senses and swelling my chest.
I glanced at my reflection in the glassy floor and found my eyes sparkling with azure light.
I felt somehow whole.
Kelsa barked a laugh before covering her mouth, and I shot her an annoyed glare. She assumed a serious posture and tried to smother her smile.
“It does take getting used to, being magic,” she said.
“You mean having magic?”
“No, I said what I meant. Being magic.” She shifted so we faced each other. “Declan, I know you grew up believing that magic is simply a tool. You were taught that those blessed with its touch have a single Gift—perhaps two if they’re lucky—allowing a person to do very specific, useful things.”
“That’s right. That’s how it works—isn’t it?”
She breathed in deeply. “Magic is diff—well, it’s not like what . . . goodness, you would think after a thousand years I would know how to explain this.”
She stood and stared into the pool, then drew in a breath.
A blanket of mist enveloped her, and, as she spoke, the mist swirling above the opening resolved into images of men and women milling about a large square.
Two men in velvety blue robes cast fire into the air, first into the shape of a dog, then a bird, then a rodent.
A few paces away, a woman wearing a similar robe juggled globes of water, letting one fall to douse a nearby onlooker.
Children gathered about squealed and clapped and cheered.
I gaped. Larinda’s window had been one thing, a way to view what was happening in another place.
The magic of the Well showed . . . another time?
Those in the shimmering image looked and felt as real as my mother standing only a few strides away.
I reached my hand out to grasp one of the balls of water, but the mist scattered at my touch.
The moment I pulled my hand back, it resolved into the juggling Mage once more.
“Are we done playing with my story?” The amusement on Kelsa’s face was echoed in her voice.
“Sorry.” I ducked my head, keeping my eyes locked onto the scene playing out before me. “It’s just so . . . incredible.”
“Kelsa, can you ignore him? I love a good story,” órla chimed in. I hadn’t even noticed her leave the ledge where Kelsa left her to join us by the Well.
Kelsa smiled down at the owl and inclined her head, then began.
“Thousands of years ago, magic permeated the world and everything in it.
There were no Gifts as you know them today, limiting magicians to a certain skill.
People were born a Mage, able to wield its strength in full, or they were not.
Only a few in each generation would receive magic’s touch, and there were rarely more than twenty or thirty Mages living at one time.
“Into their hands was given a terrible gift: the power to shape and grow and heal—and to destroy.”
Kelsa waved a hand, and the fog scattered and reformed, this time showing a man no older than four and twenty wearing the deep blue robe.
A small child lay atop a table before him.
His palm hovered above her chest, the familiar glow of magic flowing from his hand.
A man and woman, likely the girl’s father and mother, stood to the side, watching with anguished expressions.
“Mages were born with equal power. No one Mage wielded enough to dominate the others. That did not guarantee they used their power for good, but it did keep them in a sort of balance. Occasionally, one or two would try to assert their power over the others, but a swift,
collective rebuke from the rest contained them.”
The mist shifted to reveal two dozen men and women draped in the Mages’ cloth.
They sat in rings of mighty thrones, one ring inside the other.
One man, his robe on the marble floor at his feet, stood with his head bowed before his assembled brothers and sisters.
Strands of magic flowed from each Mage gathered, binding the man in place as they discussed his fate.
“The Mages’ Guild was born from this collective will, giving order to chaos, law to the lawless. Even the most willful Mages fell in line, fearing the power of the guild’s communal magic.”
I was trying to stand quietly as a thousand questions tickled my tongue, but my mother paused too long, and my tongue would not remain still. “That sounds great, but why are people limited to a single Gift now?”
“Declan! Don’t interrupt your mother.” órla hopped a few times, mist bouncing around her. When she flapped her small wings, the sparkling fog scattered, then began its slow crawl toward her once more. She snapped her beak, as if chomping a fly.
“That’s magic, not fireflies,” I teased.
“Kelsa, please continue. This is a great story, despite your disrespectful boy.”
Kelsa chuckled and winked at órla.
The mist scattered and reformed, the image of Mages replaced by a tall woman wearing a golden gown and gilded crown.
She was unremarkable in every way. And yet, she was striking.
I found myself riveted in place, unable to look away.
It felt as if the woman had commanded me to stare, and I was helpless to disobey.
“Then came Irina.”