Chapter 10
Flying is magical. There’s no better way to put it.
Zan soars into the sky, and I match his movement with my kata, dancing on his back with the wind, creating my own gravitational pull towards him.
I have never felt like such a primal magical force in my life.
I am one with the wind, soaring wild through the sky.
My feet never miss their footing, always unerringly returning to Zan, with whom I’m welcome.
My magic my center, as the world stretches out around me, endless in its possibilities.
I have never felt so free or so powerful, and my joy—and my wrath—is fierce.
This is how I could be.
Too soon, Zan’s voice sounds in my mind. ?Having fun??
“So much.” After he first asked me if I was okay and I just laughed back at him in utter delight, I know he can hear me even if I don’t shout.
Now I feel him smile, somehow, more than I hear it. ?Shall I take another spin around before we land??
“We’re already here?”
?Yes. There’s a ledge here wide enough for both of us.?
I can have flying and ice cream.
“Okay yes, one more circle, please,” I say.
?As you wish.?
Another exhilarating spin, and then Zan’s wings pump differently, slowing his descent.
I can’t see for the flurry of snow his wings send sailing into the air.
But when I can feel him go still, I slide off of him to the ground.
And promptly slip and fall on my butt.
The ground is ice. Right.
I blink up at Zan, dazed.
?Are you all right?? he asks.
“That was the best thing I have ever done in my entire life,” I tell him fervently.
Once again I feel more than see his pleasure at that statement—wild joy but also smugness.
My smile is going to break my face.
He liked flying with me, too.
So we should do that again as soon as possible, which means getting what we came here for.
I get to my feet more carefully.
There’s plenty of ice around all right.
“Okay, so how do we carry this down?” I ask.
Zan doesn’t answer.
I look at him when I feel sheepishness coming through his telepathic communication.
“Zan?”
?I was so excited about flying with you that I didn’t think about that,? he grumbles.
I burst out laughing.
But it’s also built on the growing realization—
He wants this as much as I do.
Once I’ve gotten a hold of myself, we get to work, taking turns using our magic to blast the ice in ever more creative ways.
The first challenge is not blasting it so hard that it just melts—or damages the mountain. (Oops.)
But once we’ve calibrated a little better, we work on carving away a great big chunk that Zan assures me won’t be too heavy to carry in his claws.
Then I use my wrath to keep his claws warm without him having to actually heat them with his inner fire, which would melt the ice.
That cast, I mount up again, and we take off.
This time, now that he’s not worried about distracting me and making me fall off, Zan is chattier.
He performs dips and whirls that have me laughing with delight.
He points out what we can see from this height.
There’s the lake he wants to take me to—not a long walk from our cottage at all, though we need to take the ice back before we can dive in.
Another time.
Another dream.
Another hope.
What if every day could be this wondrous?
I’m afraid to even dare to want that.
But that just means it’s worth it, doesn’t it?
Worth trying.
Worth doing.
Worth moving.
Back at the cottage, we blast the ice into smaller chunks and get it stored away.
Zan transforms back into his human form, and I watch him keenly for any signs of distress.
But he just looks back at me challengingly, and with an effort, because I want to meet every challenge he offers, I let it go.
His magic does feel lower than it did before, but Zan says he knows his limits, and I’m trusting him.
I’m trusting that he wants to be here, too, which is the scarier side.
Inside, Zan goes into one of the cupboards and brings out a gorgeous tome.
“This is where sages recorded what they’d learned and wanted to pass down for future generations,” Zan tells me. “It’s for you, now.”
Cautiously, reverently, I approach it.
It begins with a grocery list.
Instructions for baking bread.
Then questions—Kovan’s?—What do you need to live?
As I flip through the book, the attempt to answer is on every page.
Katas for future sages.
Tips for painting a room to make it your own space.
And I still when I get to a recipe for ice cream.
My eyes are blurry with tears.
All these people who came after me and before me, paving the way so it would be easier for the rest of us.
This is the real gift of the sanctuary.
I don’t have to start by myself, after all.
I let the tears fall. Movement is better than stifling.
And these, I will let power me.
Clarity, and a touch of focused Wrath:
I will not let all these sages’ efforts be in vain.
I leave the tome open on the table and grab the ice cream maker, adding the ice to the outer compartment.
Then I attend to the recipe.
It’s past time to make this life my own.
Zan helps me measure and cook the blackberries in sugar, then cook milk and cream and more sugar together, and then combine the two.
The recipe also calls for lemon juice and vanilla, and to my wonder we have both—both are standard cooking ingredients in this era.
We strain the blackberries and mix their sweet juice with the cream until it turns a bright, delicious purple.
And then I personally escort it to the ice house and wait impatiently as it chills, doing my katas and poking it to see if it’s cold yet how-about-now while Zan does the dishes.
Then it’s time.
The ice cream mixture goes in the inner bucket, the ice, with salt added—to suck the heat out of the cream, or something? I don’t understand the recipe’s explanation, but apparently it’s necessary—in the outer bucket, and then I work the crank.
It’s... super easy?
I look at Zan skeptically, unsure if this is working, but he can only shrug—he’s never made ice cream before either.
“Sometimes it takes a while for a sauce to thicken, and nothing seems to be happening and then it happens all at once,” he says as doubtfully as I feel. “Maybe it’s like that?”
Well, I’m not going to give up yet.
I was powering up my katas for a reason, after all, and I’m taking my built-up power out on this ice cream.
I churn the handle as fast as I can.
After a few minutes, it starts getting harder.
My body didn’t atrophy in stasis, so at first I’m surprised I’m tiring so easily. Then I realize— “Is it actually thicker now? Is it just me?”
“Let me try,” Zan offers.
I shift over to make room for him.
Side by side, we peer intently into the bucket.
“Definitely thicker,” he announces, then shoots me an amused look.
Ohh, that’s innuendo too, isn’t it?
Then he says, “It’s becoming solid. So you’re doing it right, but I think that means it’s going to keep getting harder to turn.”
I narrow my eyes, my wrath kindling. “Move over. I will not be defeated by ice cream.”
Zan’s eyebrows shoot up as he duly makes room. But he clearly recognizes the look in my eyes because he says, “Yora, maybe don’t determine your self-worth on the first thing you are trying, for fun—”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t care about either,” I remind him.
“You haven’t used your muscles in five centuries!”
“Then I’m overdue for a workout, aren’t I?” My eyes glow magenta as I crack my knuckles. “Watch this, mighty dishwasher.”
And then I let loose.
No matter how much harder the churning gets, I don’t slow down.
At one point the crank starts creaking and I have to pull back so that my power doesn’t break the ice cream maker and it’s this, with my combined focus and scowl and righteous fury that sets Zan shaking with laughter.
But then—
Then it’s done.
I stare into the bucket wonderingly.
A spoon appears in front of my face. “Are you ready?”
Maybe, for once, the answer is yes.
I take a bite of the blackberry ice cream.
Ice cream that I made.
And it’s so, so good.
“Can I try, too?” Zan asks.
Unable to speak, I nod vigorously.
He dips his spoon in, too, and tries a bite, his eyes closing in pleasure.
When he opens them, he smiles at me. “You did it.”
I did.
We did.
In this moment, anything and everything seems possible.
But then Zan’s smile freezes, and an instant later, I feel why.
People are closing in on our location.
People with magic that I can sense.
And that means the Order has arrived.