“It is important to understand aurels, girl, but we will cover much of that later. From now, it shall suffice to understand that lower grade aurels have less control and are less direct. Think of them as the hose where your power flows. Lower grades have holes and kinks and wide mouths. But for the purposes of demonstration, this shall suffice.
“Do you feel the kernel? Surely you do, your condition only applies to internal forces. Embrace that, pull it into you, direct it. Go on, pull it up your arm there, up through your chest, and feed it to the other hand. Push it into the charcoal, as much of it as you can, girl. And are you ready? For now we draw rise.”
Madrea held Lucille’s wrist, the one clutching the charcoal, and pulled it along a path in the air. Red light trailed behind it—light that Lucille could feel coming from the kernel, thick and flickering, hovering just in front of them. Lucille was familiar with the rune, but Madrea held her hand stiff, forcing it into an exact shape, leaving no room for error. An arc, two loops, and an arc. As Madrea finished, she whispered in Lucille’s ear.
“Let go, girl, let go. The connection is made, the channel built.”
With her mind, Lucille released the kernel. She had not realized she was squeezing as tight with her thoughts as with her hands, compressing its energy down into the center while pulling a small stream through herself. She let go like she might a tight rope, the braids ripping through her fingers so fast that if she were to clench them it would burn her.
Fire erupted in front of her. Not a stream or ball, but a torrent that exploded out away from the city wall in a river of flame, expanding outward in a cone away from her. It produced a deafening roar, shaking her as she tried to turn away, but Madrea blocked her, holding her tight as the heat washed back over them. For fifty feet it continued, the flames a collection of blues, reds, and oranges as they dissipated at the edge of their range and were replaced by those still flowing from the rune. If she had ever met a dragon, this is what Lucille would have expected its fire to be like, utter destruction to anything in its path, consuming, terrifying.
Her left hand popped, as if she had cracked her knuckle, and immediately the flame sputtered to a stop, the power flowing through Lucille turned off like a faucet. She stared, her pupils contracted from the brightness and stars still filling her vision, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
That had been her. Even without Madrea, if she had to, she could call forth the flame once more.
“You see, girl, anyone who would have tried that with the aurel inside them at your level would have been burnt so badly they would have died, because they would have had to draw the power of the kernel though their own aurel. I would consider it a miracle to recover the body alone. This is how I shall teach you, drawing blind. To know the aurels with your mind, not your heart as the others do. It is dangerous. One mistake, and that fire could have washed over us instead of outward. The rune could have exploded with the energy of a level four kernel. You could have optimized it for ice, rather than fire, and the effects would be unpredictable. For those with an aurel accessible in them, this is not a problem. For you, it is.”
Then Madrea cackled.
“But no magician would try to freedraw a rune that powerful either, so you have that on them! Now come. We practice more charcoal drawing. We learn the detail oriented mindset you will need and the intolerance for error.”
Madrea led Lucille back to the cabin, where she continued to draw, taking on her sketches with a veracity that burned like the fire she had produced. That had been real magic. That was what would astonish her mother and live up to the Falstor name.
“Important for you to know is this, as well,” said Madrea as she leaned on her couch, her eyes shut and chewing the leaf from her plant. “While you cannot adequately reach your inner aurel, others cannot either. To them, from the outside at least, you appear a blur. Tell them what you wish: that I taught you to cloak yourself, that you developed a new technique, whatever you wish. But not that I taught you to freedraw.”
Madrea snorted.
“At least, not yet. I want proper seating to view the beehive of activity in the Tower when they figure that one out. And I’m not ready to be buried just yet, girl.”
Chapter 33: Lucille
Are the Keepers so weak that they would send a mere knotted to hunt me out? Lucille smiled, remembering what Madrea had taught her, watching as the woman completed her rune, her eyes triumphant.
You appear a blur.
A blur, quite easily mistaken for an untrained knotted. And to Lucille’s chagrin, not too far off.
Triumph glinted in the criminal’s eyes as she completed the rune, the oven in the corner surging as it recognized the fire called forth. Heat started to coalesce, liquid fire dripping from the rune in the air, the sides of it fizzling. To the side, Laura screamed, flinging the kneaded dough as the rune immediately set it alight and diving behind counter.
But it wasn’t the fire, nor the creator, that drew Lucille’s attention. Rather, it was the construction of the rune itself. The lines were drawn sloppy and disproportionate, a common mistake for a lower Keeper, and that would create inefficiencies in the kernel’s energy usage. Too much power was put into the rune as well, as if she were forcing it, like writing by slamming a pencil down upon the table and breaking the tip. What’s more, the rune was a level two construction, while the woman’s arms were littered with level three kernels. That would make it unstable, as well. Sure, it would work, but the design would be far more flimsy than a level three rune. With proper drawing, and highly stabilized kernels, it would hold form well, but the woman possessed neither of these.
Of course, had Lucille actually been a knotted, none of this would matter. She could be blasted by a candle flame through the heart and still be wiped out. But Lucille was no knotted. As the woman prepared to release the rune, she reached with her mind to the furnace in the corner of the room.
Runes lined the inside of that furnace—runes for heat and airflow, though none of them were particularly special. Their aurels were of mid quality at best, but the pastry shop was known more for its quirks than for its taste, and the oven wouldn’t need to be specialized. But the runes were not what Lucille was searching for. Instead, she reached past them, to the line of powdered kernels painted in a line on the back of the furnace. Powdered kernels that extended beyond, connecting to the mound powering Downeytown, an immense source of energy underneath the village.
Of course, the source was protected, locked by runes inscribed in the powder, that prevented others from tapping into that source of power. A shielding, a security measure, performed by Keepers on the oven’s installation. A lock.
For Lucille, the lock slid open as if it had never been there, and she tapped the energy within. All low level kernels, their constant thrum answering her call in a flow of energy, a lake of thrumming power at her fingertips. She drew it into herself, channeling it, then released it into the three runes on her water bubble just as the flames from the criminal materialized.
Rune one, rise, which called forth water. Something typically expensive, but with the amount of kernels backing her, she raised a river before her. A level one rune, carefully crafted by her to ensure every line was perfect, tuned to its very purpose of creating as much water as possible. Since the quality did not matter, it came forth sulfurous and dirty, smelling of rotten eggs as it flowed past.
Rune two, the rune that had taken the most of her time, direction. A level three rune, which even as Lock, she was far forbidden from using. From the nature of it, it required hardly any power at all, and she channeled kernel dust from one of her bracelets to activate it. In half a second, the kernels popped, but half a second had been enough for the blast that completely overrode the criminal, her flames sizzling out like a matchstick dropped into a pond. For the amount of water she conjured, Lucille had to use a higher powered rune to control it. Simply flooding energy from low leveled kernels into a level one rune would take too much energy and compr
omise the integrity of the other runes. With anything more than her bracelet powering it, that rune would blast a hole into whoever stood before her, the water in such a pressurized stream the back half of the shop would be missing. One mistake, and it would have pointed back at her, or at Laura. Or worse, the rune itself might explode and damage the rise rune, and with the amount of power flowing through that one, the effects would be catastrophic.
Rune three, excite, was also a level one. To heat or chill items took far more power than simply directing them, and Lucille couldn’t risk carrying enough high leveled kernels with her to raise its level. That meant that it would work slower than optimal. While modifying the temperature of the water, its effects would not be instant, but with the amount of energy at her back, it could more than handle what Lucille had conjured forth.
The water blast sent the criminal flying back, drenched as she slammed against the wall, her hair slapping against stone and sticking there like spokes to a wheel. Already, the third rune had started taking effect, binding her hair to stone as ice crystals started to form, frost covering the strands first where the water concentration was thinnest. She stared ahead, wide eyed and stunned, finding her bearings as Lucille poured more power into the third rune, causing spiderwebs of ice to shoot across the puddle the criminal now sat in. She stirred, and Lucille focused more deeply. Come on, she thought, let’s go. And just as the criminal shook her head, regaining her surroundings, the water turned, flashing into ice, locking her in place as her clothes froze solid. Lucille doused her with water once more, a sputtering more than a stream now that her third level kernel dust was depleted, then flooded power back into the excite rune to freeze on the new layer.
“What in the hells?” demanded the criminal, her voice already chattering, the skin over her cheeks drawn tight with fury. “You can’t do that! You are a knotted!”
“And you are under arrest, by the order of the Keepers. I, Lock of Heaven One, place you under my key.”
“But you’re knotted!” stammered the criminal, trying to break free of the ice. Lucille now drew another rune in front of herself, the light shimmering in the air, aimed directly at the criminal, and the woman froze. Even if she were a higher level, staring into that rune was like looking at the blade of a dagger placed against her heart. From what Lucille could tell, she was using level two magics, nothing too extraordinary, and being under level three, her body wouldn’t have enough augmentations for a strong magical resistance. Without her hands, she was defenseless, unless she had runes on her for protection, but if she were competent at all, she would have used those for defense earlier. No, both of them knew Lucille could end her life at a whim.
“You are mistaken,” Lucille stated before turning to Laura. “Go on, fetch the other Keepers. I need to return to the wall. This isn’t worth my time.”
Laura departed, and the criminal narrowed her eyes at Lucille, speaking rapidly.
“I saw what you did there. That was no low level magic, girl. If they find out about you, you’ll be punished. Killed, even. Don’t think that being their precious Lock will save you.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Lucille retorted. "I’m not the one in danger of being punished right now.”
“Aren’t you?” asked the woman, her voice so sharp it nearly cut through the rune between them. “I wouldn’t be so sure. The moment they don’t need you, why would they keep you around? Especially if you show promise. You’d only be a threat.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lucille asked, refusing to let her guard fall.
“I mean that you’re better off running now before they find you out. Listen here, drop the rune. Free me, and we’ll run together. They’ve hidden so much from you, power and more. And if you find it out, well, they won’t bother just locking you away. As you know, every lock can be picked.”
“You’re just trying to escape,” Lucille said, and the woman shrugged the best she could through the ice.
“Could be. But if you change your mind, we’re watching, and we’re waiting. There’s always a place for talent, and if the Keepers won’t have you, we will. My name’s Valen, Lock, and it would do you well to remember it. Because one day, I’m going to give you Hell.”
When the Keepers arrived, Lucille instructed them to haul the criminal away to be tried by the courts for an assault on a Lock, but not before removing the visible kernels and checking for any others along her body. Those that did remain were largely spent or popped, but as Lucille had expected, they were of third level. Not particularly high, and typically third level thieves were working their way to get into Heaven Four, not return back to Heaven One.
Valen smiled as she departed, her hands bound behind her back.
“See you soon,” she winked as she was pulled out the door, and Lucille shifted. In court, she thought, running her fingers over a fresh pouch of kernels brought to her by one of her Keepers. Then she sighed, alone in the shop after Laura had been removed to care for any injuries and to collect a statement, and opened the bag that Valen had been hiding. She emptied it out on the countertop where Laura had been kneading, the contents tumbling out in a mound.
“What in the hells?” she said, sifting through the mess, poking through with a finger. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to find—maybe a collection of high level kernels, or rarer aurels, or forbidden varieties of runed objects. Certainly, it hadn’t been a few dozen clumps of dirt, held together by root systems that led to rigid stems and petals. Flowers, individual bulbs, all already blooming and very much alive. Accompanied by a small gardening shovel, a small bag of dark fertilizer, and a piece of parchment with two columns of numbers in a list, all crossed out.
“What were you doing, digging up our plants?” Lucille wondered aloud, and she plucked off a petal from one of the flowers, holding it up to her nose. It was red, from what she could tell. The same variety that she had seen high up in the tower growing in patches in the fields surrounding Downeytown. She inhaled, snorting and coughing as scent invaded far deeper into her nostrils than she had intended, her eyes streaming as she pulled away. It had burned her, as if she were sniffing atop a coal itself, and the sparks had traveled down her throat. Blinking away the tears, she set the flower back down, the smell of ash and charcoal still lingering around. Much more pretty than pleasant, she thought, studying it. Four petals curled away from each other, each a deep red in the center and turning yellow at the tips. She’d have to ask the groundskeepers what exactly these were, and why someone might return to Heaven One to harvest them.
Regardless, it was time for her to return to the wall. Stepping outside, she commanded the two Keepers still patrolling the streets to clean out the shop and bag the remaining flowers as evidence, aside from the one she now kept in her hip pouch. The encounter nagged at her as she walked back toward the central lift, turning it over in her mind. The criminal had obviously been trying to protect the flowers, but why? If there were hundreds of them already growing outside Downeytown, what made these special? Hells, why even try to smuggle them? They could likely walk with a few handfuls through broad daylight and not be stopped.
Maybe they were some sort of aurel? But if that were the case, it would be far easier to pick the petals, rather than painstakingly extracting each plant. And if Valen had not acted alone, was there something else going on? Something Lucille was missing?
Lucille chewed her lip, falling into the old habit of avoiding any cracks in the pavement, each step marching in time with one of her breaths. Something was wrong here. Something was off, uneven. But what?
She pulled the paper from her pouch, the list with crossed out numbers, and started reading over them. 11-32, 46-88, and 55-44 were just a few of them, the rest equally as cryptic. But what bothered her were the cross outs. On a list, cross outs meant something was done, completed. It meant whatever Valen had set out to do, she had finished.
After what felt like a blink, she had ridden the lift back to the top of the cl
iffs above Downeytown. Lucille only had one tower left she wanted to check that day, the one on the opposite side of the horseshoe shape, and she skated slowly towards it, still thinking. As Lock, she had the power to lock down Heaven One if she chose, but that could cause a panic, and word would reach the highest Keepers. If something was afoot, it would be the right course of action, but if something was not, she’d be seen as finicky by her soldiers, incapable by her mother, incompetent by the council, and all over a few flower petals found in the bag of some low level thief.
When she arrived at the tower, Lucille was more agitated than before, the mystery refusing to drop from her mind. She called the tower down, stepping inside to the three waiting soldiers, ones that had not yet seen her that day. Then she began her routine from earlier, activating the tower so that it started to rise. The day was nearly finished, the sun setting on the horizon, and after this final check she was headed back to earth.
“When was the last time you checked the kernels?” she asked, staring out the window, her voice harsh but disconnected from her now. There, in the distance, the flowers bloomed, though they seemed more vibrant than before, bright even for Heaven One. Then her nose twitched as she smelled burning, and she turned back to the other soldiers.
“I’ve had a day, and I swear if that smell is your kernels popping, then–”
She froze, the smell of burning growing stronger. Sometimes a popped kernel would smell like burning, but in general, they would smell like the aurel that popped them. But here, in the rising tower, there was no fire magic. Any popped kernels would smell like earth or fresh mountain air. No, the smell had to be coming from somewhere else. Her eyes turned to the pouch holding the flower and the list, the fabric now smoldering as a fiery hole burrowed through it.
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