CHAPTER NINETEEN #4
Deckard found the poem playing behind his closed eyes.
A ball of fire erupted, flickering cheerily and radiating through the darkness like daylight.
He imagined a wave as if from the sea, sweeping up to crash over the flames, smothering them into ash, leaving a shadow of the deepest night in its wake.
He could almost feel the wind, soft at first, then a fierce gale, whirling round and round the hardened ball of terrae, creating time itself.
All of it passed before his mind’s eye, isolated and suspended in the infinity of space.
The scene played itself through his head, over and over.
As Ilain recited, so Deckard’s imagination followed.
He could feel his brow furrowing, his body tense with concentration.
A wash of warmth spread over his skin. Light erupted beyond his closed eyes, golden yellow on the left and ruby red on the right.
Heat crept up his spine, seeping into his muscles. It felt as though the warmth was trying to fill him, pushing its way in. His hands flexed subconsciously. He didn’t know whether he wanted to grab hold of this feeling or shove it away. It prodded him, urging him to do . . . something.
Deckard’s head pulsed painfully, an eerie whisper thrumming at the back of his skull.
It was too much. The vision of the resources swirled before him, again and again.
A ball of flame. A flash of light. The surge of water.
A looming shadow. A spiral of wind. A stretching eon.
A cooling land. The vastness of the Heavens.
And with it all, a buzzing tingled across his neck and into his ears as the indistinct whisper grew louder.
He grimaced, his mind overly full from the vision and the sound. They tugged at him, each and every resource, as though testing him, asking him, “Are you worthy of my power?”
It grew too strong, the push and pull. He wanted to jerk away and grasp on all at the same time. Fire. Day. Water. Night. Power surged through him, begging for him to take hold. Wind. Time. Terrae. Space. It pressed in, a heavy burden, a potent responsibility waiting for him to don its mantle.
It was too much. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t find the connection, couldn’t control the power. He feared that Auden was right, and it would erupt out of him in a dangerous outburst, desperate for relief.
Then, beside him, Deckard sensed the smallest thread of stillness. He reached for it, grasping urgently.
Evylin gasped, and beyond the world of his mind, Deckard realized that his hand had shot out, latching onto her forearm.
He could feel his fingers clinging to her.
At any other time, he would have worried he’d grabbed her too tightly or forcefully.
But in the instant that his palm met her arm, clarity shot through his mind.
The focus came, the heat on his skin coating him, tight like leather armor. The vision of the resources slowed, and the buzzing became a whisper. He heard the call, the gentle prodding on his soul, claiming him like a second self, a half he hadn’t known was missing.
And he heeded, reaching internally for the one source that was closest to him.
“The resources have spoken,” Auden said from beyond Deckard’s concentrated thoughts. It startled him enough to remind him of the world beyond, of reality.
His eyes flew open, finding his one hand still tight on Evylin while he held the other raised, a blaze of light shining brightly before him.
Deckard blinked away the lingering lure of his imagination. The whisper was gone, leaving the world in an abrupt silence. His vision shifted as he stared at his hand. He turned the palm to face him, and the light moved with it.
A flare of white-yellow Day lit the camp as though the sun shone down on them all.
The Calder siblings exchanged a look.
“We have another Existential Mage,” Auden said with awe.
“Ah, well.” Ilain sighed good-naturedly. “I never was much of a teacher anyway.”
Deckard frowned, curling his fingers into a fist. The light extinguished within his grasp.
The revelation felt anti-climactic and empty.
A small part of him had held out hope that they were wrong, that he was no Mage.
Without any proof of his abilities, he could deny it, pretending the Relics could make mistakes.
This put an end to every doubt in his mind.
He was an Existential Mage. And he’d liked it.
The warmth and clarity. The release of power.
The connection and control. He finally understood what made Auden and Ilain so enthusiastic about their magic.
He felt an inexplicable desire to summon forth that flare of light again, just so he could feel that burgeoning, brilliant energy once more.
Deckard’s gaze flickered past the Calders, past Thom, Rafferty, and Ethenn, past the trees, and to the shadow hovering in the darkness. This revelation came with another horrifying truth.
Yes, he was an Existential Mage. He felt it with more confidence than anything in his life. Because he knew now that he’d been the one to summon Hewitt’s ghost. Day magic represented life, and Night, as its mirror, represented death.
No matter Ilain’s protestations earlier, Deckard knew the truth.
He was a Night Mage, burdened with unholy power.