Chapter 12 #2
…attuned to the prime thread of the island…
No, wait… A prime thread? Here? That didn’t make any sense. Prime threads were theoretical really, more folklore than science, lines of thaumaturgical power in the land itself, and yes, there were stories of them in places of great importance but…
‘An archaic theory,’ her professor of magical history had told her, long ago, when she had first arrived at the Academy and had been forced to sit through his tedious ramblings as every new student was, ‘but imagine that the land itself is a living entity. Like all of you, it had magic running through its veins, some greater, some lesser. And those veins run through the world. Our forebears believed that they could be drawn up and used, that there were certain beings born with a connection to them, who could manipulate and use such power. One of the theories of dragons was that they could sense those threads and follow them, that they gathered them together and their stronghold in Elanholm was a source of such threads and therefore the greatest source of magic. But alas, such knowledge has been lost to us. Or more likely these stories are but myths.’
Old wives’ tales said moonflowers grew best along prime threads. But the island wasn’t important enough for that. It wasn’t powerful. Not like legendary Elanholm or the Academy in Tesh, or any number of places where great works of magic had been performed. It was just home.
And yet, moonflower grew here in abundance.
The magic came from the land itself. From the island.
She tried to turn the page to check if he had written more on the other side but it was stiff and unresponsive, almost as if… as if it didn’t want her to move on.
That was when she realised that it wasn’t just one page.
There were two, stuck together. Carefully, Portia tried to peel them apart, even going as far as expending a little of her magic to encourage them.
And if that didn’t work she was perfectly prepared to fetch a bit of the balm.
If it could separate a dragon from its magical connection then…
The pages opened. She thought she heard the echo of a laugh in the noise they made and the shiver of an enchantment falling away rippled over her skin, leaving her breathless.
Inside, there was a map.
Portia made the ball of witchlight she was using to read by brighter and opened the page out completely.
It was a map of the island. She knew the shape of it by heart, from the harbour to the castle, from the woodlands to the rocky beaches.
Every pathway, every building, every square foot of her home.
It was meticulously drawn, so much so that she was certain it had to be a work of magic itself.
Art had been powerful, everyone always said that, but this kind of thing… this would have chafed against the nature of his magic. He was chaotic, like Seb. The spell to seal the map away might feel like his work but not the map itself.
And the precise annotations, the delicate name tags, even the tiny waves… she knew that hand.
Her father had drawn this map.
Portia’s hands shook as she tried to smooth it out, to study it.
The island was depicted in perfect detail, but there was more.
Much more. Lines threaded through the landscape.
They almost seemed to move across the paper, coiling and unfurling like living things.
They all concentrated in the centre of the island, somewhere deep inside the rock on which it all stood, far beneath the castle somewhere.
And from there they radiated out. She followed them, each one, and realised that one ran through this very room, spiralling up towards the snuggery.
Except… except, Portia had always been able to feel the presence of magic like that, wild, natural magic that threaded through the world. And there was nothing of the sort here now.
Had there been? Had she somehow severed it when she made her potion?
No, that wasn’t possible, was it? There had never been a prime thread running through her rooms, had there? She would know.
She traced the line back to its source, and then tried to plan how one would get there on foot. Outside the castle, somewhere in the forest to the back of it, buried underground. There might be a way to it through the cellars, but that didn’t seem likely. It was further down than that.
There were caves in the forest, weren’t there?
She remembered exploring them as a child, herself and August here on a family visit, daring each other to venture further and further into the unknown.
Their mother had found them and she’d been furious at the risks they had taken. But Portia remembered them.
The caves, where the moonflowers grew.
Something Milo had said came back to her. That wild magic was best left alone. They all knew that. Better to use the tempered kind, filtered through the soul of the magician, moulded by the Academy, and made safe by long years of training and manipulation.
Great Wenn, what if she had tapped into something else?
Or what if… what if she could do that for the teacup dragons now missing their own vital link to magic? What if…
Portia grabbed a spare sheet of paper and pressed it down on the map.
She whispered the words so familiar to any student of the Academy and released the spell, drawing the image up from one page to another.
A useful thing in a library full of restricted texts, that spell, passed around like contraband among the students, and still used by those who had graduated.
Wenn help them if anyone found them using it, but all the senior staff knew it as well. It was the worst kept secret in Tesh.
Her copy made, she pulled on her coat and boots before heading out into the night.