Chapter 28 Taming the Inner Fire
twenty-eight
Taming the Inner Fire
“So eager to learn from me,” he says as he tucks a pink strand behind my ear.
“Well, if I’m going to go from baby mage to badass mage in a few days, I’ll need a good tutor,” I say.
His face takes on a prideful smirk.
“She’s back at home, but I suppose you’ll do,” I say, teasing him.
He only grins wider, exposing his fangs as he leans down into my space. “Trust me, Firecracker, some things, only I can teach you.”
Oooh, don’t I know it.
A shiver travels the full length of my body and curls my toes. A satisfied rumble vibrates in his chest as he grips the back of my neck.
“Your filthy thoughts will have to wait,” he says, his lips hovering above mine. “I’m going to teach you how to handle my fireballs.”
I can’t help but chuckle. He smiles, and kisses me, hoarding my joy against his lips. When he releases his hold on me, he changes. The laughter I saw in his eyes hardens like a switch has been flipped.
“Wielding fire is dangerous. You must be precise and controlled, or you will cause far more destruction than you intend.”
I grimace. “Definitely don’t want to burn the café down.”
“No, you do not,” he says sternly.
He takes a deep breath and the ground trembles. A few feet away, an obsidian pillar rises from below the glass. It grows until it’s just taller than Rhazan, then the trembling stops and the ground settles.
“Are you going to teach me to do that?” I ask.
“This is for target practice. Something that won’t catch fire and burn my bar down. Moving and shaping the stone is likely beyond your capacity for now. It takes a lot of effort.”
I think back to how infusing the cookies with magic drained me so much I passed out. I can only imagine what something like moving and shaping lava glass would do to me.
“And the fire?” I ask.
“It will take a toll, but I think we’ll get several good shots in before you need a rest. Of note,” he says as he begins to pace in front of me.
“There will be something that charges your own magic. Mine flows through you freely and it’s powered by pain.
When you bit yourself over the brand, it was a very intense jolt of power.
Any pain you endure can strengthen my magical reserves inside you.
“However, you have a fuel that is unique to you. Discovering it will not be essential for your plan, but if you want to grow into a badass mage, you will need to figure that out.”
“I think I already know what it is,” I say. “Martial arts. The flow of sets and my body in motion. It settles me. Grounds me.”
He nods a few times. “Show me.”
Suddenly, I feel very self-conscious. I haven’t done sets for anyone in years, and the last person who saw was…
my mom. It was the routine I was going to perform at the annual kung fu celebration at the wuguan.
Dozens of studio owners from all over the state and beyond were going to come and participate.
Regret crystalizes over my body like a winter frost.
Rhazan grabs my arm and cups my cheek, grounding me back in this moment with him.
“If you have this much agony surrounding it, there’s no wonder your powers have not grown. What is happening in your mind right now, Jiahui?”
His palm is warm against my face. It melts the icy armor I’ve built to protect myself.
“I was supposed to be at the studio that night, practicing,” I murmur, the words flowing out of me. “But I was with my boyfriend. He asked me to stay the night, but I told him no—I just wasn’t ready for…that.
“When I got home, the wuguan had been raided. It was in shambles, and there was a magical essence in the air of someone strong, stronger than me. My parents were gone. A few days later, Zhao Shang came to our house and told me about my parents’ debt.
He took them away to China to pay it off, and he told me that I could help pay it faster. ”
I realize now he meant not in money, but in my magical services. He must’ve known I was different. He must’ve seen the way I glared at Lei, some part of me aware of his innate magic and its connection to what I felt in the wuguan that night.
“I didn’t know how much Baba owed Shang, but I knew that if I didn’t work as hard as I possibly could, he would take Zixin, and me, too.
So, I dropped out of school and started working, but there weren’t a lot of jobs for a seventeen-year-old girl.
Not any that paid enough to keep a mob boss happy. ”
I take a steadying breath. Rhazan remains silent, gazing down at me without judgement or pity. It’s the strength I need to keep going.
“The wuguan was in a trust, and Shang was a partial owner, so there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t run it on my own, anyway. I wasn’t a master. And we needed the money.
“It was easier than I thought to turn to crime. Little stuff first. On my eighteenth birthday I bought all the scratch cards with only the highest payout. It didn’t feel like stealing, not really. But stealing wasn’t going to let me keep my family together.
“Zixin helped me make fake pay stubs for a fake job I didn’t have so when the courts challenged my ability to take care of him, I had some evidence to show I could. The deposits matched on two months of stubs, and they didn’t question deeper than that.
“We moved into Nai Nai’s apartment because I couldn’t afford the house payment. We couldn’t sell it because the loan was in my parents’ names, and they were gone without having declared me power of attorney. I would’ve been a minor when they were taken, anyway.”
I let out another deep sigh as the last of the hurt from the past half decade pours out of me.
“You are so much stronger than you believe yourself to be.”
His words hit my chest like a hammer, and my ribcage rings with, “Lies, lies, lies. You could’ve done more. You could’ve been better.”
“Jiahui,” Rhazan says with a powerful force that draws my gaze up to his.
The embers in his eyes burn so brightly they look golden. His skin is alight with how much magic flows in his veins.
“You have survived, and kept your brother safe, where many others would’ve surrendered.”
But you cheated to survive. You swindled and stole. Thief.
Rhazan’s grip tightens on my neck and he turns my head up, making our eyes stay locked together.
“The moral judgement you lay upon yourself is far more severe than is necessary. Did you hurt people?”
I think back to times I’d stolen from individuals. Like Stink-eye at the gambling table in Shang’s bar. There were other instances of it, too. I wasn’t a saint, but I did try my best not to hurt anyone.
“Some people.”
“Did you like it?”
I swallow the knot in my throat and shake my head.
“Have you done it since you left your survival situation?”
I shake my head again, tears burning my eyes from the intensity of his stare.
“This shame does not serve you, or suit you. You’re my Firecracker, bright, and hot, and loud, and full of sparks that can set the whole world aflame.”
My bottom lip wobbles. I suck it into my mouth and bite down as a warm tear carves down my cheek. His thumb slides up my jaw and captures it, smearing it away.
“You’ve earned a rest from the fears that haunt you. You’ve earned this place of peace and comfort.”
I huff a laugh. “I’m pretty sure Zixin hacked the giveaway so Nai Nai would win.”
He smiles. “Then we’ll have to thank Zixin.”
“Yeah.”
I sniffle back the last of my tears and sigh one last time. The newfound freedom for my lungs has me breathing deeper. It feels good to fill them all the way.
“Are you ready to show me now?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah, I think I am.”
He leans down and plants a gentle kiss on my forehead. His lips are soft, and hot, branding my skin with tenderness I’ve never known. I want to give him this same comfort. I want to be this kind of shelter for him.
He releases me and takes several steps back. “Begin.”
I blow out my breath and take first stance: a Shaolin salute.
The moves come back to me easily and before I know it, I’m flowing. My arms are the wind, my legs are water, and my core is the trunk of a mighty oak. Strength pushes out from my center and down my limbs, igniting my body with power.
I never felt my meridians before, but I do now. I sense the energy move down my hand in an open palm strike. Like lightning trapped in a bottle, qi crackles along my spine. I move faster, with more grace and power than ever before.
My pulse quickens, and qi flows up my Du Mai. I exhale hard and take cat stance, cycling my qi down my Ren Mai. The tightness in my Heart Meridian opens, and I suck down a breath that feels like life itself. Fire floods my system and my body comes alive, unblocked for the first time in years.
I breathe into my fists, and they glow ember-bright from within. I plant my front foot and high kick with the back. Qi flows down my leg and explodes from my heel in a burst of fire that scorches the air.
I gasp, staggering back, and the energy flow stops.
Rhazan smiles, his eyes full of wonder and excitement.
“There’s your power, Firecracker.”