54. Ahmina
AHMINA
The sun had long left the sky, and the stars sparkled outside the castle window as Ahmina sat alone in the library.
She thought back to the first time she had stood in awe of its grandeur and beauty. Strange how, somewhere along the way, it had become a smothering chamber—a reminder of everything she could be but wasn’t. Not yet.
She had been in the library so long, the only movement came from the torches as their flames danced in the moonlight. She was utterly alone. Only hours before, Loveleena had questioned her about magic, and for some reason her own words stuck with her.
Kuna la tandra. Only a fool believes they know everything.
What Ahmina hadn’t told Loveleena was that she was fluent in old Jarrian; she had taught herself how to read it through the ancient texts in Central Jarrah Library.
When Loveleena brought up the Soul Snatcher, it reminded her of something she had almost completely forgotten amidst the stress of the Academy.
Don’t go.
That’s what the Soul Snatcher had said into her mind the day before Initiation. But it wasn’t her only peculiar interaction with a creature. She had also had an odd encounter during the shadow sessions. One she chalked up to nothing but her own stupidity, until now.
Her mind traced Jarrian phrase: Teka cura lateena farre.
Which roughly translated to, “the truth is often simple, and yet, unbelievable.” When she was younger, she used to pine over that phrase, turning over possible meanings in her mind.
Now, as if a cloud had cleared and the sun shone down clear as day, she understood.
When the Venom Viper bit her, the burning was so intense she couldn’t feel anything else. When battling the Slyfoxes, an energy hung in the air, and she disregarded it as creature magic. But when she faced the Blood Bear, she felt an internal shift: an electric current.
Barrow said that the Blood Bears could only make you empathize toward them.
Yet Lennox seemed increasingly affected by her suffering as well.
Sure, he had shown concern for her before, but this kind of open compassion was unlike him.
It was not unlikely that he was being affected by something.
It was almost as if the magic had jumped from the Blood Bear and attached itself to her instead.
And then the bear just… died. But how?
Teka cura lateena farre.
It was just adrenaline, she told herself. But she knew deep down it wasn’t. Something inside her had shifted.
Ahmina sprinted up to the fourth floor, fingers grazing along shelves as she went.
She pulled out several books before slipping them back into their places.
She should be using her time to study traditional sparring moves, Alchemy techniques, or psychological strategy but she couldn’t focus on that now.
Not when she was on the precipice of something life changing.
The story of human magic wasn’t one she would find in textbooks. But growing up in a library had taught Ahmina to look for answers in unlikely places. Eventually, she found what she had been searching for and pulled it out onto the closest table.
She flipped through the worn pages of the anthology that held a vast collection of ancient love stories.
She breezed through a few, her heart breaking at the endings.
It had been a long time since she had read a romance, and she relished in the secret magic and lustful affairs.
Still, that wasn't why she'd taken the book from the shelf.
Finally, she found a story she had read years ago about a prince and a princess who acquired magic after fighting a deadly Firebringer.
It’s overlapping black scales, jewel green eyes, and breath of fire crashed down on them as the Firebringer flew above.
The princess begged the Firebringer to show them empathy and grace, but the creature was relentless, turning its wrath solely on her.
Panicking, the prince begged the Moon Goddess to spare the princess’s life—to protect her, as the Firebringer so often did for its own kind.
A beam of light shot from his hands, wrapping the princess in a glowing shell, shielding her from the breath of fire.
He had siphoned the Firebringer’s magic.
Ahmina snapped the book shut.
She made her way back down to the first floor but froze in her tracks at an unusual sound coming from below. Quickening her pace, she arrived at the bottom of the staircase to find the library empty.
She shivered, clutching her arms as she scurried back to her dorm. It wasn’t until she crawled safely under the covers that she let the truth of what she’d just discovered sink in.
The Blood Bear didn’t make Lennox empathetic.
It was her.