Chapter 17
I wouldn’t have stayed around if Fig hadn’t asked me to. I’d never feared Dion before, but the last minutes had changed that. The thoughtless way he’d shoved me away left a painful, open wound in my chest.
“Yes. You pushed me, and I fell.” Keeping a safe distance from Dion, I looked at him and furrowed my brow.
“And now you’re scared of me. Hurt and afraid.” His voice sounded bitter, and the amount of self-loathing in his expression momentarily shocked me. Safe to say, that wasn’t the Dion I knew.
“Yes.”
“I…apologize. Please let me make it up to you.”
I’d never seen him like this. Anguish, hope, anger, and so much more mixed together and radiated from him in waves, and it was obvious if I said no, I could break something forever.
“If you promise not to murder anyone from this travel group, then I’ll try,” I said and held Dion’s gaze as I forced myself to smooth my features and relax my stance. Antas nodded approvingly at me.
“I vow on my honor—you have my word.” Dion sounded rough, and he approached me slowly. This time, I managed not to flinch, not even when he carefully took my hurt wrist in his big hands. “Let me wrap that up. Afterward, if you want, I’ll explain what Fig meant earlier.”
I nodded, buried the uneasy feeling that I couldn’t shake, and followed Dion. He led me out of earshot of Fig and Antas, but we stayed in sight. He looked very young—broken, in a way. My fear slowly morphed into compassion, although I couldn’t quite explain why.
He guided me to a fallen log, and after I’d been seated, he crouched down in front of me. Instead of fetching bandages, he tore a strip from his tunic’s hemline and began gently wrapping my sprained wrist.
I swallowed a comment about him kneeling before me, but it almost bubbled out. Luckily, I stopped myself just in time. As much as I enjoyed teasing Dion, this wasn’t the time or the place.
I allowed him to finish his self-imposed task in silence and carefully tested moving my wrist. It felt stable enough, and I nodded to Dion. “Like new.”
“Don’t lie to make me feel better. That’s beneath you, Naya.”
“Come on, sit with me. You’ve agreed to explain things to me.” Changing the subject, I patted the empty space next to me on the log.
Dion accepted the invitation, and as usual, he didn’t leave much space between us.
I didn’t have the impression he realized that he grabbed my good hand and enveloped it in his own.
Mine felt tiny compared to his, and though I’d have preferred some distance between us, he possibly needed me close to keep him grounded.
How had I become Dion’s pacifier? And when?
“I’ll give you a brief explanation first and then dive deeper, all right Jama?”
“As long as you tell me what all of this means without losing your mind, I’m fine with that.”
“I’ll try.”
“You have my full attention.”
“So, you’ve learned that magic exists and that it comes in different elemental forms. What I didn’t tell you—because I thought it was inconsequential—is that there are a few individuals who have a magical predisposition but can’t wield magic themselves.
They’re called Amplifier because that’s basically what they do.
A Wielder can access the passive magical energy called Potential in an Amplifier to boost their own wielding magic.
The Amplifier’s predisposition has to match the Wielder’s element to be compatible.
” Dion paused but raised his hand, stopping me from asking questions.
“So yes, the others think you’re an Amplifier and that you have such a predisposition.
And if Th—he accessed your Potential earlier today, it would mean that it’s fire type,” Dion sighed.
His anger had given way to deep fatigue; at least that’s how I interpreted his slumped shoulders and weary expression.
It was so unlike him I even forgot to mull over what he’d just told me.
“I—”
“Amplifier became increasingly rare and are very coveted among Wielder,” Dion said, and his conclusion dragged my thoughts back from examining him to the topic at hand.
It sounded like a fantasy to me. But if I took everything he’d told me at face value, Dion’s earlier reaction would have been perfectly normal for him. He must be jealous of Thain and of his access to my presumed Potential.
There was a hint of sadness in me when I realized that if I truly possessed such Potential, it’d be fire.
Although I had no problems with Thain or knew of any other Fire Wielder, Dion and I had developed a surprisingly good relationship after our rocky start—even if there had been a few hiccups from time to time, like the one earlier—and I believed we had the compatibility to work together harmoniously.
“Maybe he was mistaken. I don’t feel anything magical inside of me.”
“No, I don’t believe he’s wrong. Don’t forget, we found you because of Antas’ dream, without having a single clue what your role in all of this could be—it makes only sense there’s a significance to you.”
“You mentioned Amplifier have become rare. Was that different at some point? And why did it change?”
“Jama, do you really want to get a history lesson now? There’s a lot you don’t know, and what I’ve told you so far was already too much for you to safely digest, according to the frown lines on your forehead.
I don’t know if you can cope with it if I tell you more or if it wouldn’t be wiser to wait a day or two,” Dion said, and he was completely calm at last, much to my relief.
Obviously, lecturing me distracted him from his anger and misery.
My mind did indeed swirl in circles, but my curiosity burned with a hunger that yearned to be satisfied. “I can cope. Just answer my questions.”
Dion hesitated, then acknowledged my wish with a curt nod.
“Amplifier were much more common two centuries ago when Ivreia and Galanta were still connected by portals. But those travel gateways had been closed during the Ivreian-Galantan War, and the Ivreian leadership did everything in their power to erase the knowledge of magic and the existence of Galanta and its inhabitants. It was an enormous shift for the magical community as well as—”
“Wait, wait—what?” I gaped at Dion with my mouth hanging open and had no regrets that I‘d interrupted him, even though he hated it with a passion when someone cut him short—but I couldn’t care less about his unnecessary sensitivities when he’d just dropped such a bomb on me.
“Half of what you’ve said doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’ve never heard of a place called Galanta or that Ivreia as a whole was involved in a war.
Individual countries fighting each other, yes, but the entire world? ”
“You’ve already accepted that the Ivreian royalty did their best to change and erase history.
The war I’ve mentioned was the catalyst for that.
Nowadays, you only hear about Galanta in odd legends and rare folktales,” Dion said, displaying more patience than he was normally capable of.
“You could think of Galanta as an identical twin world to Ivreia. Its shape and the location of countries, landmarks, and capitals are the same. Mountains and rivers are almost identical, yet both worlds aren’t on the same plane of existence.
This phenomenon has been called mirror worlds by experts and scholars, even though, strictly speaking, nothing is mirrored but duplicated.
Anyway, flora and fauna are different, as are the dominating species.
Ivreia is ruled by humans, while Galanta is inhabited by fae, a species akin to humans but not alike.
So don’t be mistaken, even though there are a lot of similarities between the two, you’d never confuse a human for a fae based on their physical appearance alone. ”
“Oh, I heard that term in an old children’s story that my grandmother read to me ages ago.
” The surprise in my voice was evident. Dion spoke with such conviction that I caught myself believing every word he said.
If it would bite me in the ass later, the joke was on me, but I didn’t care.
My skin tingled all over as one of my biggest dreams came true—discovering what happened to all the history that had been lost.
“Yes, no matter how hard someone tries to erase the truth, there are always some who are dedicated to preserving the knowledge. Fewer and fewer people in Ivreia know what’s true with each passing winter, and only the magical community of Ivreia is trying to keep the knowledge alive—and that’s nearly extinct as well.
I believe in another two centuries at the latest—much less, probably—no one will know of all this anymore, and magic will be dead as well. That is, if nothing changes.”
“And you’re absolutely sure all of this is true?”
“Yes, I am,” Dion said, and I believed him. Rewi would laugh herself silly if she knew—Nayana, the eternal skeptic, reformed.
“That’s…unbelievable.”
“I can just guess how it feels to find out that you’ve been lied to all this time. However, there are still books. As I said, a few people always commit their lives to preventing the complete eradication of knowledge. Maybe we can get our hands on something written for you.”
“I’d like that. But if not, you can tell me everything you know, can’t you?”
“There’s more I can tell you, of course. But not now, or you’ll keel over from mental overload.”
In the light of all the revelations, I’d totally forgotten how Dion had pushed me away earlier. Another world and another species, the same and yet alien. It was so much more than I’d ever believed.
My mind drifted back to Rewi and her conspiracy theories. With shame, I had to admit to myself that not all of what she believed was too far off if Dion was telling me the truth.