Chapter 12 Winter
~Winter~
My boots crunched on the iced-over rocks as I shifted my weight and fired another stream of my magic across the twenty-foot distance, watching it shoot across the snowy mountaintop of Mordrek Mountains.
Dad stood there, his leather hooded coat flapping in the wind, his own boots entrenched in the snow holding firm as he had both palms held at the ready, his crimson power flaming vibrantly.
But as my magic hit, he snuffed his out.
What the—
He just stood there. My amber power hit him—washed over him—doing nothing.
Nothing at all?
How was—
It didn’t even cause him to step back one little bit.
Not even a flinch.
His gaze snapped to mine, a withering look there. “Really, Win?”
I frowned. “I don’t… you activated that ring?” I asked, gesturing at the gold ring around his thumb. It was a gift from Ketheron that enabled him to briefly invoke Celestial-level power to protect himself in emergency situations.
“No.”
“I don’t—”
“You also should have registered it if I had. It shouldn’t even be a question.”
“Fine, yeah. That’s true. I just don’t understand how you didn’t even feel what I threw down there.”
“I am the Master of Death Magic,” he rumbled, striding toward me, his coat flapping behind him. “The Almighty Necromancer. Do you really think a bolt of necromantic power wielded with barely a lick of conviction can touch me?”
“Barely a lick of conviction? That’s being a little hyperbolic.” I grunted. “And dismissive.”
“Isn’t that how you wish to be? Dismissed? As a true powerhouse? A threat?”
“No. I told you that’s changed with what’s happening.”
“Has it? Because what you’re demonstrating today is the same intent to remain inconsequential.”
I dropped my hands.
“Over the last couple of hours, I’ve already demonstrated that I have superb understanding and command of Soul Track and Undead Domination.”
“Tip of the iceberg and you know it.” He laid his hand on my shoulder, his eyes softening, moving from trainer-mode to dad-mode. “It’s okay. Admit it, son. Let it out—what’s really holding you back now.”
I screwed up my face and turned my head. “Fuck.” I grasped his hand on me and squeezed as it burst out of me, “I can’t, can I? I can’t remain inconsequential! They won’t let me! The world won’t fucking let me, Dad!”
My pain met his. The grief. The unfairness of it all.
I saw it then, through all his efforts, through Pops’, Father’s, Mom’s, all of them trying so hard to make it okay for me, to give me a place in the world that was mine and not… not other people’s versions based on fear or… or… wanting to use me for what I was. I saw his grief that it couldn’t be.
“I know. It’s true. As much as we wish so badly that it wasn’t, that’s where we currently find ourselves. And I know it hurts you—how much it hurts you. But you’re also missing an important part of this.”
“What’s that?” I rasped, so fucking choked up now.
“‘There’s no perfect fairytale version of this. It’s down to what we make it.
’ That’s what I told your grandpa when we were discussing you just after we found out your mom was pregnant.
The world, this latest threat in Ruxnoth, they can want you to be whatever the fuck they like, but you also have a choice.
You get to decide what that actually is—who that actually is.
And by doing this training now, it’ll go a long way to enabling you to do that, to enforce it.
You’ll be empowered, armed with the knowledge and the means to do so.
Without that, if you continue holding back the way you currently are…
you’ll make yourself into the victim of others, somebody who can be subjugated to their whims and will. ”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Sorry?”
“That things didn’t work out the way you wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you, Mom, Pops, and Father couldn’t get the peace you wanted, that you deserve. That having me brought a whole new realm of danger and grief and—”
“Stop. That’s not true.”
“Of course it is.”
He grasped both my shoulders then, holding me gently but firmly. “Don’t you see, my sweet and gentle son? You are our peace.”
I choked at his words. “What?”
“Yeah. What you’ve brought to our lives…
nothing else can compare. I trade in death, Winter.
That was all that I was for so fucking long.
But you? Fuck, you’re a miracle from death itself, something I never thought possible, something I never even dared to dream of.
You coming into our lives… fuck, you’re everything.
Just being who you are. Being you, okay?
Not what others think you are, not what some want you to be.
Just being exactly you.” He squeezed my shoulders.
“The rest? The bullshit out there? It’s just part and parcel of the world we live in.
Nothing more than that. And none of that—absolutely fucking none of that—is on you. It never will be.”
“And… all we can do is… arm ourselves against the rest?”
“Exactly.”
I sank into him, and his arms came around me right away. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too. Forevermore, son.”
I smiled against him. “Forevermore.”
I held him to me for a while, then I lifted my head to see him beaming down at me. “With what’s coming… please don’t, okay? Please, Dad.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t what?”
“Pull an Auctoritas Mortis again.”
He eased back a little. “I vowed to never impact the Valley of the Dead again in that manner.”
“I’m not talking about the actual spell, or the act. I mean the mentality that you employed at the time that led to it—that all-or-nothing approach, that do-whatever-it-takes-regardless-of-your-own-life approach.”
“I see you’re taking Pops’ recounting of that situation over mine.”
“Because you downplayed it. Pops didn’t. He can’t when it’s about your wellbeing.”
“I don’t want to leave any of you. I’ll be careful. Mindful of your concerns.”
Well, that wasn’t a surefire reassurance.
But it was actually something—especially from him, given how he was with this sort of thing. I’d heard stories from so many different sources that he used to be way worse in the past, before I’d been born.
“Okay,” I said.
It would really be okay. Because even if he couldn’t hold true to that, if he was pushed too fucking far—which was the only way I could imagine him doing something like that again and risking his life in such a horrific way—I was here now.
I could change things.
I just… I had to swallow down the grief and fear that was currently getting in the way.
I could do this.
I’d come here today for this first high-level necromantic training session with him prepared to give it all I had.
But once it had come to battling directly against him, I’d panicked.
Because of what it meant to me. The danger of what it meant.
The only other necromancer who’d come close to overpowering my dad was Morien.
That wasn’t exactly an easy thing to brush aside.
But these also weren’t normal circumstances.
A lot was at stake.
And I had to step up. I had to be ready.
I was.
I could.
I would.
I stepped back and put that same twenty-foot distance between us again, moving deeper onto the mountaintop. “Let’s really do this now. I’m ready.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, then.”
He snapped a palm up, his crimson magic sparking. Then I watched in awe as he forged a shimmering circular shield about two feet in diameter, holding it steady opposite me.
“You’re going to strike this shield with a blast fit to send an attacking learned magic-wielder blowing back clear across this mountaintop.
But once you hit, hold it, and gradually increase your power.
Gradually, because otherwise you’ll hurt yourself and it’ll create a scraping sensation through your insides.
The goal here is targeted power escalation suited to different threat levels while maintaining precision and constant magic-streaming without a break in between. ”
I settled into a stable and strong stance, then called my amber power to my right palm. “Ready?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Absolutely.”
“Here it goes,” I murmured to myself.
I hesitated.
Then I shifted my weight again.
Into an even stronger stance.
Or maybe just the same. I wasn’t sure.
And I should be. I mean I—
A shot of crimson magic sailed past me, missing me by just a hair.
“What the hell was that?”
“Necessary motivation. Clearly.”
“What if you’d hit me?”
“If? There’s no ‘if’ with me, and you know it.”
Another bolt flew at me. This time I had to dart out of the way to avoid it.
“I know what you’re trying to—”
Another bolt.
I only just ducked in time to avoid taking a hit in the face.
The fucking face, of all things!
Son of a—
I fired my own power, letting it loose exactly as he’d instructed, enough to send a well-trained magic wielder blowing across the mountaintop.
It hit his shield right in the center. Bullseye!
“Excellent. Now hold it steady. Maintain for a few moments. No flares, no disruptions.”
I held my amber stream stable. Easily, actually.
From the look on his face, he knew it. He was reading my power, I figured.
“You didn’t even feel the effort of the blast, did you?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted. “There was no… weight to it, if that makes sense?”
“It certainly does. You’re releasing—effortlessly—at the level of two intermediate necromancers.”
“Really? Two?”
“Yes. It’s the ‘without any effort’ part you should be proud of. Most would put a massive thrust of force behind a first blast like this, especially one intended to blow an opponent away in a rush of power.”
I smiled to myself. Wow.
“Give me more. Escalate.”
I pushed harder.