Chapter 21
Jane
It was our thirteenth session when Seraphyn’s patience finally seemed to end.
“You must reach farther,” Seraphyn commanded. “Focus. Again.”
My hands stretched toward the hourglass, legs aching from hours of standing, but I forced my mind to silence everything else as I spoke the words.
Nothing.
Fifty-three times. Fifty-three times that Seraphyn had flipped the hourglass while I repeated the charm today, over and over. The object had not moved an inch.
The blood exams remained unchanged.
The tutor had kept her face unreadable these past days. But now, for the first time, a real grimace flickered across her features.
Exertion still came from my fruitless concentration, from the hours without pause, from the slow grind of my teeth.
Drawing a long breath, I focused on the sand slipping through the glass and tried again to picture the eagle, to summon the object into my hand.
A faint heat in my stomach was the only stirring I’d felt in days, the barest trace of something lying dormant, as though a warm, slumbering egg rested in my gut.
Visualizing the eagle had become natural and, sometimes, it seemed the familiar had a life of its own in my head.
The bloody bird remained perched on its branch now, tilting its head in a gesture that looked awfully like a person rolling their eyes.
Even the eagle seemed to have lost hope that anything would come from this.
“Perhaps Laerune’s method is the right one after all,” Seraphyn said.
“Which method?” I shifted my weight, wincing in my calves.
“Siphoning mana to you. Perhaps this is what we need to do so you can begin to tap your access.” Seraphyn rubbed at her forehead, where the headscarf concealed her hair, and came to stand between me and the hourglass.
“Siphoning is common during the initiation of Mage Lords and Ladies. It trains the body to endure and command greater flows of mana. But it’s taxing for them, and it will be painful for a person not used to wielding, as you already know.
But in your case, I would say it’s essential. ”
It was both a warning and a rebuke.
“I’m happy to try that,” I said.
She took my hands, bridging the gap between us. In an instant, thin veins in her arms glimmered with something other than blood, spilling into my fingers.
A spiral of heat and ice twisted through my limbs, wafting inside me like smoke. Anxiety flared as the rush morphed into plumes of heat, intensifying into a searing burn.
My breaths turned ragged, struggling to keep pace with my heart, which thudded feverishly through every vein.
“Is it resonating anywhere?” Seraphyn asked. “Search for your access.”
I tried, but the ringing in my ears demanded all my attention. And the heat… Gods.
“It burns…everywhere,” I breathed out.
“Search for where the burning is strongest,” she commanded.
My lungs strained. Sweat beaded down my back, pooling beneath my arms, my knees.
She could not harm me—the rune scar on my thigh protected me—but the pressure of siphoning throughout my entire body, the ringing, the heat inside…it felt like fire.
My knees buckled and hit the mat.
Seraphyn stepped back as I balanced, feeling the remnants of her mana course through me and fade away.
“I…didn’t…find it.”
“Do you wish to try again?” she asked.
My chest heaved.
Whilst Laerune’s siphoning felt like a strong headache, Seraphyn’s was like suffocating heat. My body throbbed where her power had gushed, thawing more than blood. It was hotter than a fever, maybe worse even than the petals of divination.
But this was the thirteenth day. I rose on unsteady legs.
“Yes.” I drew in a slow, grounding breath. “Again.”