Chapter 2
Aknock rattles the thin door to my tiny room. It’s been several years since I moved in with Sully, but he still insists on waking me at the crack of dawn for training.
“Can’t you let me sleep in for one cursed day?” I groan, dragging the pillow over my head.
“I’ll let you sleep in when you can beat me in sparring,” he teases, opening the door. Which I promptly blow shut with air magic, using manipulation magic to twist the lock into place.
“Alright, alright. I’m up,” I grouse.
It turns out the quiet, burly blacksmith of our hidden village was an Ellian Knight before being granted his request for early retirement.
So, naturally, our schedule is a bloody military routine.
Mornings consist of hand-to-hand combat followed by physics.
And if working at the forge wasn’t sweaty enough, it’s now accompanied by a grilling on battle strategy and tactics.
Weekends serve no reprieve—covering the art of healing, review of magical creatures, and training courses to hone my agility and coordination.
Even when we hunt, he has me reviewing monsters that lurk in the corrupted Blackwood, along with their weaknesses.
Yet I wouldn’t change my time with Sully for anything in the world.
He’s planted my withered shell of a body in warmth, cultivating me with unconditional love, patience, and safety—all while letting me be unapologetically me.
My body has transformed from that of a feral, starving creature to a weapon to be wielded.
He’s sharpened my confidence while also softening me, bit by tiny bit, over the years with his honey-laden kindness.
He has grown and nurtured light in the endless abyss of my darkness.
Coaxing nebula orchids to bloom under rays of pastel starlight.
As we jog to the clearing before the Mysticwoods for sparring, he harps on his favorite topic: the balance of magic. The guiding force of the magical world. The more powerful the magical item you seek, the more difficult it is to obtain.
“You never take from nature without consent, for then you tread the path of the Wuvon.”
The Wuvon are Fae corrupted by the same dark source mutating the Mysticwoods into the infectious Blackwood. Black and crimson vines mar their skin, branding their use of black magic: the forbidden art of grinding up pieces of magical creatures and beings without their consent.
Power corrupts them, driving a hunger to consume any wild magic for their gain.
Their bloodshed mirrored in their garnet eyes as they cast, controlling Blackwood and the monsters lurking within.
To escape, countless creatures evolved wings, fleeing the spreading plague of Blackwood—rot and nightmares devouring the whimsical lands of Cascara.
Our greatest defense is the Golden Legion and their heroic Ellian Knights, working endlessly to keep the blight at bay.
I plummet from my thoughts, the world tilting off axis from the force sweeping against my ankles, knocking me on my face with a perturbed gasp.
“You need to be aware of your surroundings always, little dragon.” Sully laughs, bending down to give me a hand up.
“Cheater!” I snarl, grabbing his arm, levering my weight to pull him off balance as I spring up, landing a cheeky sucker punch into his ribs.
“Good,” he wheezes. “You need to expect the unexpected. Life doesn’t play by the rules.” He feigns catching his breath, only to throw a sly swing at me as he whirls around.
I block, my forearms groaning under the impact as I attempt to dodge his next blow.
But I’m too slow. Searing pain erupts across my abdomen, a knee smashing into my stomach.
Nausea and hot bile claw up my throat—I’m not entirely sure my guts aren’t lodged up right alongside them—as I stumble back, desperate to create distance and catch my breath.
“Get your mental shields back up, block out the pain, focus your air magic around your muscles to make your movements quicker. It’s the only way you will outmaneuver my brute strength,” he commands. Ever the strategist and always annoyingly fucking right.
The golden light shields rise, casting a protective dome over my mind.
Locking my emotions on the outside, sealed behind a mosaic-star window.
A numbness I know all too well seeps out between my ribs from my glacial heart palace.
Frost permeating deep into the crevices of my marrow, leaving nothing but jagged ice.
My mind clears as the chaos of feelings become distant echoes beneath an icy tundra of quiet, cold, sharp precision. Turns out…
Shattered ice bites just as deep as steel.
First, I heed Sully’s advice, bending air to quicken my strikes, which fails to yield the desired result.
Failure will not best me, for I am her tamer, her master.
All my past defeats and victories whip into a mental blizzard, crystalline structures of angling strategies.
A frozen scheme unfolds, which I pluck from my mind, brandishing it like a dagger in my palm.
Air magic whirls through me, wielding me like a jagged icicle, whipping along a frozen gale. Each strike is more precise than the last. Swifter. Brisker. Until I’m no more than a frenzied fury of striking gusts, pummeling muscle before landing a lashing uppercut.
Sully staggers back, panting, but not before flicking a powerful wall of fire right at me.
The clever fiend uses my choice of elemental magic against me.
The air billowing around me rapidly stokes his honey-colored flames into a roaring blaze, Emberhell-bent on devouring my flesh like kindling to a dry season wildfire.
“You’re an ass,” I growl through gritted teeth as I utterly drench myself in water magic, just barely avoiding crisping into a molten, roasted mellow.
Which is great, since I’m sure I’d make a mockery of the delicious campfire treat; instead of gooey insides melting into sweetness, my bitter, sticky mess of broken bits would mince your tongue and cut you apart from the inside out. I am not made to be savored.
“Again.” Sully’s words lash me from my spiraling metaphors.
“Until you learn to expect the unexpected.” His words, the order of a commanding warrior.
So much for his early retirement. He’s ceaselessly persistent when it comes to our lessons.
Likely because my stubborn nature often leaves me learning the hard way.
After slipping on conjured ice and tripping over the ground he breaks beneath my feet, anger simmers along my golden mental shields, threatening to liquify them into a molten muss.
I let the strategic mind blizzard free once more, the pattern to his movements forming a crystalline map, allowing me to predict his next use of magic.
The way he’s twisting his fingers tells me a slew of ice daggers are going to be slashing my way.
Flames lick up my body, forming a physical shield, melting his ice as I lunge right, faking him out with a punch I never intend to land.
My flame shields vanish, switching to water, pooling at his feet before freezing into perfectly slick black ice.
He slips, adjusting his still-moving body further to dodge my mock punch, sending him perfectly spiraling onto his ass.
A smug smirk hooks up at the corner of my mouth, proud of my victory as I watch him wobble, trying to stand up before melting the ice with honey flames, but the sound of rustling leaves nicks my attention.
“Like I said, you’re an ass.” I swing my small crossbow off my back before I load a bolt.
I cast two simple illusions of wooden objects landing in front of a fleeing pheasant.
His long tail feathers twirl like purple ribbons as he changes directions, allowing me to land a devastating crossbolt through his heart.
I pull the arrow from our dinner, grasping it by the feet.
Sully chuckles, dusting himself off. “You’re a natural with your elemental magic!
Even the way you used your minor magic to distract the pheasant was instinctual, demonstrating your close connection with the power welling inside of you.
I can’t wait to see what you do when you come into your Celestial Gift. ”
My shoulders stiffen. I’d come into my elemental magic quite young.
All Elarian Fae have access to elemental and minor magic for the mental manipulation of objects, simple illusions, and Sangre healing powers.
We also have innately superior sight, smell, strength, and speed.
However, all Fae receive the blessing of a Celestial Gift, a magic unique to them.
The strength varies, from the ability to see in the dark to being able to wield plasma, the very energy of the sun.
I sigh, releasing the tension between my shoulder blades. My Celestial Gift will come to me, eventually. Late is better than never.
“Race you back to the forge, big bear!” I shout over my shoulder with a head start, changing the subject.
I utterly loathe things I have no control over, and manifesting my Celestial Gift is out of my hands.
Fucking Celestials Blessings and all that—maybe curseborne don’t get gifts.
I shake my head and pick up the pace, adrenaline melting my irrational worries away.
Sully curses under his breath as he lumbers after me.
The sun is already nesting well past the horizon as we sit by the embers of the dwindling forge, enjoying roasted pheasant.
Yet there is an unspoken weight in my chest, building up like tumbling boulder trolls.
A dream I’ve hoarded away like a dragon, in fear Sully may reject the notion, given his resolute refusal to speak about his time in the Golden Legion.
Between bites, I muster my dragon courage, spewing words out like vomiting flames. “I want to go to Gildorea Universitás of War. And be an Ellian Knight like you.”
Sully sits in silence, hard lines rolling through his jaw as his brow twists into knots with an almost… sadness.