Chapter 16 #5
She had forgotten, for a few moments, of her raw attraction to him in the wake of this fast-paced duel.
But now that they were standing still next to each other, there it was—that magnetism again, his raw appeal, and the way that he cared for her by giving her his entire attention.
It just made her feel overcome by a sense of belonging.
She wanted Cassian. How could she tell him that?
How could she let him know without explicitly saying it?
She was not equipped with the vocabulary of romance.
She hadn’t even had a boyfriend before, and so her thoughts distracted her.
Even though Cassian was giving her some great information on alchemy in the background, she did not focus on his words, but on the way in which his lips moved, and how sweat had formed perfect diamond-like beads on his forehead, and how his shirt was clinging to his body like a second skin, pronouncing his abs, pronouncing his chest, making his muscles seem more full and more taut.
“Lesya,” Cassian said, snapping his fingers in front of her.
“My eyes are somewhere up here.” He chuckled, and she blushed, and it was an awkward moment that he glossed over almost immediately by saying, “Alchemical sympathy is supposed to be an even slower form of magic. So say the books. I disagree. When the alchemy professor burned those logs of wood in front of you, didn’t he do so instantaneously? ”
Lesya remembered how all the logs of wood in the class had burned at the same time.
“Yes, he did,” she said.
“Then let’s try that, but not with wood, because if we do that, we might set fire to this whole forest and the shack. I don’t want that to happen. I am quite fond of that shack.”
Lesya just focused on the study that she had conducted on this matter with the books that were assigned to her. Alchemy was basically telling her to manipulate one unit of matter, and then translating that manipulation to other units.
“Can we do it with air?” she asked Cassian. “So suppose I’m having a duel with Barrowhane, and I somehow petrify him in place by controlling the air around him.”
Cassian was deep in thought, scratching his chin. A slight stubble had appeared on his face on account of this being the weekend, Lesya presumed, but she liked this rougher look on him.
After much thought, he said, “If you manipulate the air around him, you might stop him from breathing, and that’s something we can’t have.
How about you manipulate the gravity around him?
How about you reverse its polarity so that instead of going down, he goes up?
It’s the same principle as flying, except we are now weaponizing that principle. Do you want to try it?”
She had another idea, but this time she did not share it with Cassian. She wanted to try it on him. After all, where would be the fun in telling him everything?
And so, as the second duel began, Cassian charged at her, and Lesya cast her alchemical sympathy at him by changing the gravity.
Except she did not reverse the polarity of the gravity; she turned it into a push, so that instead of coming from up to down, the gravity was affecting him from front to back, and she did not alter all of gravity; she just altered a little bit in front of her, and Cassian was thrown back in the air, slamming against the same oak that he had been reclining against.
“Ouch!” he screamed.
She forgot the lesson and this great breakthrough that she had come across in the wake of seeing Cassian being flung so violently. She raced up to him.
“Are you okay?” she asked, kneeling against him. She knew some of the spells that Trisha had taught her and applied some of them to his back and his legs. But there was nothing broken. He had somehow broken his fall.
“That was fucking impressive,” Cassian groaned. “How the fuck did you do that?”
“Well, I used my own brain for a change,” she said.
“I want to see something. Can you also take this?” he said, handing her a leaf. “Can you make this leaf float, and in doing so, all the other fallen leaves in this clearing? The same principle of reversing the gravity’s polarization.”
“Okay,” she said, focusing on the leaf. She wanted it to fly. She spoke toward matter. She nudged it, and in doing so, she reversed the hold of gravity upon it. The leaf slowly rose into the air, and as it did, all of the hundreds of fallen leaves in the clearing slowly rose with it.
Lesya gasped.
“I did it,” she said.
But Cassian was not looking at the leaves. He was looking at this bright mage who was so gifted at alchemy that she had learned its principles in just a single day.
“You’re the most wonderful acolyte I have ever witnessed in all my years at Umbrveyl,” Cassian said.
She looked at him. All the leaves in free fall around her.
“You’re the only one who’s sincerely nice to me,” she said.
And now they were so close. Their shoulders brushing against each other, their faces mere inches away.
“There’s something more about you than meets the eye, Lesya.
Tell me, what are you hiding?” It was not a question, but more of a statement that he put forth.
“I would like to know all about you,” he said, leaning closer, no longer against the trunk of the oak, but his body pressed against Lesya.
“Would you give me the honor of knowing more about you? Would you give me that privilege?”
“Are you asking me out?” Lesya whispered, falteringly so.
Cassian smiled, but the intensity in his gaze never left.
“Only if you’re comfortable,” he said.
“Comfort was never my thing. I’m scared,” Lesya said, “and it’s a good kind of scared.”
“Good,” Cassian said, and leaned closer, kissing her for the first time, slowly, tentatively on her lips.
It was as if her entire body had flared up with a new sensation for which there existed no words nor descriptions.
His kiss, his lips upon her lips, awoke something in Lesya, and now it was her who was leading the kiss, wrapping her arms around Cassian, climbing on top of him, deepening the kiss, feeling this massive wave of sexual energy hitting her, but not knowing what to do with it.
She wanted to have him, but they weren’t there yet.
She needed to know him, but he was still a stranger, and so she only kissed him in that moment, in that quiet clearing in the forest, and he held her gently, and they stayed there until the sun disappeared.
That was the memory of the day when Lesya and Cassian had officially professed their feelings to each other, not by way of words, but by dance and duel.
The next Monday, when Lesya appeared in Professor Barrowhane’s class, he called her out first.
“You, Lesya. Didn’t I warn you about not going to the infirmary? Where are your bruises, your badges of honor?”
“They are not badges of honor,” Lesya said boldly, “if they come from a coward.”
“Did you just call me a coward?” Professor Barrowhane smiled.
There was malice in his eyes. He slammed his staff on the ground as he walked toward her, but she was not going to suffer him any longer.
The part of her that she wanted to hide was now well hid.
This was the new Lesya, who had learned how to duel, and in doing so, had unearthed the mysteries of alchemical sympathy.
“Are you gonna keep talking, old man, or are we going to have a duel? I hear just about anybody can beat you, even ghosts,” she said.
“All right then,” he said. “Let’s put your money where your mouth is. Clear the arena!” he screamed, and all the students cleared the dueling platform.
“This is going to be one of the most historic lessons of this class,” Professor Barrowhane said, “not because of anything that she is going to do, but because I am going to set an example in front of all of you for years to come, what happens when somebody misbehaves with me.”