“Even if you picked out the impurities, it would do little good. For there is still essence there that doesn’t bear the right qualities of air. No, you must summon it forth. And to do so, you must know air, understand it. This comes from your knowledge, and this is where you are most disadvantaged.
“For most, there is an inherent understanding of their own internal aurel. Similar to how some are naturals at learning to read, or to swim, their aurel is their internal intuition. This is why when they draw their own aurel, they are safe—they flourish in that environment. To mistake their aurel is akin to mispronouncing a word in their own tongue, or forgetting how to walk.
“This is what you were born without, and so it is what you must learn through study and experimentation. With no connection with your inner self, you must compensate to compete. So take that powder, and close your eyes. Feel what it means to be air, experience it in your mind as you drift above the highest mountain top, as you flow under the wings of a bird, as you kiss skin on a frigid winter morning. Call that feeling forth, and push it forward, out of you and into that powder. Into the aurel. Tempt it with its own essence to form. Create a resonance it cannot ignore.”
Lucille closed her eyes, and Madrea took her hands, spreading them out over the aurel. The powder was not gritty like salt, but rather like the finest of flours, a silt that threatened to dissipate into the air if she moved too quickly.
“Be the wind,” Madrea whispered in her ear, and in her mind Lucille was flying above the city, whirling about the Tower, in an endless chase of freedom.
“Feel its power,” Madrea continued as Lucille rushed into the clouds. Her hair stood on edge as electricity crackled at the edges, her spirit soared as she rushed back to earth and forced it to bend beneath her will.
“Know its strength.” Madrea finished, and Lucille was rushing in and out of lungs, fueling them with her spirit. She whipped up dust with a brush of her essence, and she shaped the ocean waves with another.
She was that which was invisible, yet caused so much change in this world.
Then she inhaled sharply, crashing back to her body in Madrea’s cabin, her eyes snapping open. Beneath her fingers ripples had started to form in the powder, creating mounds and valleys within it to form a shape. A rune.
Severance.
And between the ridges, the powder was slightly discolored, a little darker, more speckled, less airlike. Madrea placed a cup on the table, then a small spoon for Lucille, instructing.
“The first pass always produces the most waste,” she said. “This was a particularly poor aurel, so there will be plenty of impurities. Clear those away, and what remains can be used as a stronger version.”
“So this is now pure air aurel?” Lucille breathed as her hands began to work, scooping out anything that had not formed itself into a rune.
“Pure? As pure as cheap whiskey! No, this is more pure. To have something of value, you need to repeat this process. For someone of your skill, I would say a hundred times, before it could be used for a third order kernel.”
“A hundred times!” exclaimed Lucille, “That would take forever!”
“Aha!” said Madrea, straightening up. “So you would rather be like the other Keepers! Rush ahead, with no thoughts of refinement. Ignorant to the fact that their very advancement holds them back.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” said Lucille, crossing her arms in defense.
“Then refine. I’ll be back for you in three hours. Remember, Lucille, the most impressive feats are those requiring preparation. When you see great magic, it is rare, oh so rare, that it is conjured on the spot. Often, it takes weeks to produce.”
Lucille nodded, and when Madrea departed, she resumed the exercise. Each time, when she finished there was a separation of the powders, the pure and the impure. Then she would scoop out the impure, respread the powder, and begin anew, her mind now traveling down familiar paths as she pressed the image of what air was down onto the tabletop.
With each scoop of impurity, there was satisfaction, but also agitation. One hour into the exercise a little under half the powder remained. By two hours it was less than a quarter, and by three, significantly smaller than an eighth. Roughly a fingernail’s worth when Madrea returned, and Lucille was still picking out pieces with the fine tweezers and tossing them into the waste cup.
“It’s almost gone!” Lucille exclaimed, as Madrea nodded.
“The price for purification. The more you refine, the less you're left with. And while this is significantly more stable, it is still not yet at third order kernel quality. See?” Madrea closed her own eyes, spreading her hands over the table, as that final tiny amount of powder shook and danced under her command. As if a horn sounded next to it, the sound waves pressed it into a pattern. And when Madrea opened her eyes ten seconds later, now almost half the powder had separated out again, which would have taken Lucille a full additional hour at the least.
“That is closer to what you are looking for,” she said, scraping it to the side of the table and into a spice jar, the amount so pityingly small that Lucille would have tossed it away had she found it in the cupboard.
“I don’t even know if that’s enough to draw a rune,” said Lucille, shaking it.
“Oh, it certainly is not. So I suggest you grow better at refining, my dear. If you’re to use external aurels and freedraw, it is essential for you to become a master of it. Impurities for you mean mistakes, mistakes you cannot afford.” Madrea hobbled over to her cupboard, where she retrieved four sticks of air aurel similar to what Lucille had started with. “Your homework. When we meet next, you redraw the runes on those stones. We’ll see how they handle a third order kernel then.”
That night, Lucille had repeated the process over and over, finding if she used too much powder, the purification was slower. Like trying to cook too much of a meal in a small pan. There was a limit to her efficiency, and to her dismay, that appeared at one and a half aurel sticks. Twice the amount of time was then required in the two days before Madrea’s next lesson, and Lucille completed this in between her other obligations, after private classes in maths and letters and Tower history, and she stayed up an hour past her normal bedtime just to finish. Then she rose at dawn to show Madrea her progress. The aurel was already painted on a stone that she held clutched in her hand, and her way was lit by a lantern studded with fifteen cheap first order kernels, providing just enough light for her to find her way.
Usually this early in the morning she encountered no one else on the streets, but today another set of footsteps were behind her—steps that tapped, almost sang upon the stones in a rhythm that demanded to be noticed. Tap, a tap tap, they declared, then again. Closer behind Lucille. Tap, a tap tap. When she turned, Lita pirouetted in her flashing Crystal Dancer uniform, the light from Lucille’s lantern forming rainbows on the ground where it reflected off the glass.
“Reporting in for practice this morning, and who do I see out and about?” Lita sang, her voice matching the rhythm of her feet. “Somebody who hasn’t been at school for the last few months! Where have you been, miss slacker? Think that the daughter of a council Keeper is too good for school?”
“It’s none of your business where I go,” Lucille said, starting to walk away, but Lita tapped her way in front of her to block the road.
“Isn’t it, though?” she said, her hand to her chin as if deep in thought. “We’re both to be Keepers when we’re older. And here I am, in line to be a Crystal Dancer, working to progress my name. Why should I ever have to share a level with you?”
“Well if you’re that good, you should never have to,” retorted Lucille, trying to step past. “I’m not holding back your advancement.”
“Yet rumors are you’re studying with that crazy old bat on the top of the wall. Is that where you’re going now? Private lessons for miss prissy. We both know those aren’t going to make a difference.”
“Then you should have no interest, if they’re worthless,�
� said Lucille, trying again, unsuccessfully, to skirt around Lita. Lita threw up a hand, and trailing after it were sparks—white sparks that diminished Lucille’s lantern light to a low glow.
“That’s right,” said Lita as the sparks faded away and she brandished the new wood lock over her chest. “I’m on my second aurel now! Light, one of the ones required for a true Crystal Dancer. Rare, too. I’ve been ready for advancement since last month, but had to wait until this one came through Heaven Two!”
“Congratulations, then,” said Lucille, all too aware of the knot over her own chest, the afterimage of the light purpling her eyes as she blinked it away.
“So, have you used your first aurel, then? What is it?” asked Lita, pretending not to notice the knot.
“Again, none of your business,” Lucille said as Lita drew another white arc in the air with her left hand, then a brown arc with her other hand, originating from her first earth aurel.
“I think it’s all of my business that you aren’t progressing and are tarnishing the Keeper name. Plus, I don’t even think you know yet,” Lita said, and she finished an earth rune pointed at the cobblestones at Lucille’s feet. They danced, popping up and down like individual pistons to throw Lucille off balance and into the store wall beside her. She braced herself as Lita laughed and the rune disintegrated into the air.
“Lucille, Lucille. A proper Keeper would know how to defend herself!” Lita started drawing with her other hand, trailing a white line. “A proper Keeper would never let this happen. You know, this light aurel can make a flash so bright it can blind people for a day—a proper Keeper would never let that happen. Are you a proper Keeper, Lucille?”
Lita finished the sign, the resulting flash so bright that it seared Lucille’s face at that close of a distance. She squeezed her eyes shut, but even through her eyelid it was enough to shock her retina, and when she opened everything had turned blurry, as Lita’s voice continued.
“A proper Keeper would never let herself be sealed in a wall until someone came to help her, would she?” she said, and Lucille saw the start of a brown rune starting to form. Lucille had heard of this before, to part a stone wall then clamp it back together, leaving only the victim's face showing. They could breathe, but until another Keeper came along, they would be stuck, and they would have to be chiseled free if a Keeper never arrived.
In her hand, Lucille still held the stone painted with the air aurel. In her other hand was the lantern, the power of all ten kernels at the edge of her senses.
An impure aurel likely wouldn’t be able to take that much power, Lucille knew. It would resist the energy, only allowing a portion of it through.
But Lucille had spent hours refining this one.
She connected all ten kernels to the aurel with her mind, a net of conduits that permitted power through their channels. But instead of simply allowing it, Lucille pushed, just as she had with the single kernel raising the stone. She funneled all their power into one surge, calling forth the wind as she revisited her meditations above the mountains, pushing the waves and bending the trees.
One kernel was enough to lift a rock. Five, to shake a window. Ten, to rattle a door on its hinges.
The resulting violent gust threw Lita off her feet, a short blast that knocked her onto her tailbone with a yelp. The brown rune shimmered in midair, unfinished but still powered, and Lucille’s vision cleared just in time to see the ground writhing beneath Lita, pulling her down like quicksand. Lita cut the power to it, and Lucille just barely heard the sound of popping kernels as Lita stopped sinking, an ankle and a thigh caught in liquid rock now solid.
“Don’t you ever try that again, or next time, I’m bringing forth a hurricane,” Lucille shouted above the struggling Lita. Then she turned on her heel, kicking the dust from the ground cobblestones into Lita’s face.
“What in the heavens was that!?” shouted Lita. “Get back here! I don’t have any kernels left, you’re leaving me stuck!”
“A proper Keeper would have carried extra,” Lucille said over her shoulder.
“I can’t be late to the Crystal Dancers! I’ll be cut!”
But Lucille was already climbing the wall steps, Lita’s voice a distant shriek by the time she reached Madrea’s. When she reached the door, Lucille presented the rune-painted rock, bowing her head to Madrea as she inspected it.
“This has already been used,” said Madrea, her fingers running along it. “Recently. I can smell ozone lingering on the surface. Was it for a good purpose?”
“It was,” Lucille said, remembering the feeling of power rushing through her as Lita was blasted back. It gave her less satisfaction than she would have thought, leaving Lita behind like that. No, rather it resembled more of a relief. She no longer defaulted to fear when Lita stalked her. Now she had a chance at fighting back.
“And your lantern looks depleted,” observed Madrea, ushering Lucille into her home. “A shame to see that; it must have been so difficult to light your way that they gave out. Here, take these. Maybe they can find a similar use to the original ten.”
And with a wink, Madrea dropped a bag in front of Lucille: fifty kernels, all first order. Most of Lucille’s classmates would scoff at those. Handling that many kernels seemed a waste when a few second orders would provide the same energy for a quick spell, and that many first orders would be limited through a rune. It was tiring, for an internal aurel, to channel that much energy through at once. Like hauling around a huge bucket of water to quench your thirst when a cup would do.
But for a refined external aurel, they were perfect.
Miro came for revenge on Lucille later that week after she had been scolded for entirely missing the Crystal Dancers practice. He, too, had advanced to his next aurel, and he brought with him an ice that reminded Lucille of the coldest winter mornings, paired with second order kernels. But when he drew his runes, he powered them too quickly, the stronger energies rushing through them quickly deforming their shape, all while he rushed to block the force of fifty first order kernels of wind rushing back at him.
To this day, Miro’s nose still had a slight crook in it, from where a particularly strong wind had slammed him into a brick wall.
Lucille’s mother never spoke directly of the incidents, but at the end of the week, she found three new pieces of jewelry laid upon her bed, a necklace of first order kernels and two bracelets of the same. Her mother’s eyes glinted the first time she spotted Lucille wearing them as they ate dinner together, a meal of specially prepared truffles and elk filets, Lucille’s favorite, which she ate by carefully separating them into components. All while a new fabric lock hung about her neck.
“We are as strong as our name,” Lady Falstor had said, her fingers running along her own jewelry, studded with fourth order kernels, “and no one, no one dares challenge a Falstor.”
Lucille had kept the jewelry gifts, and now, as she returned to her private study after her promotion to second lock, opening the door made specifically for her with a click of the lock around her neck, she saw them hanging from nails in the shelving. Long ago, those kernels had burned out, but she had yet to replace them and she knew that she never would. They shared their space with other trinkets she had collected over the years, as well as bottles of aurels, packed in the same spice containers that Madrea had kept in her cupboard.
After the events of that day, she needed to relax before retiring. And for Lucille, relaxing meant work. Monotonous work, work that would be repeated over and over without original thought. A ritualistic process, a comfort. She pulled her mortar and pestle down from the shelf, then thirty cheap aurel sticks, ones that were easy to buy in bulk, that often were purchased for school or practice. Few that would raise an eyebrow. Ones that her own family produced, through their stake in the far northern mines.
Stone aurels, from deep within the Earth itself, each stick a dark grey in color. She ground them, creating a mass of powder that filled the pestle to the brim, then set to work, her eyes
closed and calling to mind the voice of the Earth. The rocky craigs that defied the ocean waves in a storm. The earthquake that shook cities as the rocks beneath them snapped. Rockslides, and the gnashing sound they made as the stones tumbled together, tearing apart anything in their path like thousands of sharp teeth.
She would need that stone aurel, and soon, she had decided. Sooner than she had anticipated, now that she had caught the council’s eye. But after an hour, exhaustion wore upon her, and she swept her hair out of her eyes, cleaning off her desk. Returning everything to its precise spot, dictated by lines of tape that marked and labeled them, from the aurels, to the box of kernels that she kept ready for experimentation. As a Lock, that was why she was given this room—for her own advancement and study. A study free from the eyes of other Keepers, even those up to two levels higher than her. She’d learned much there, especially from the books that she had pulled from the library and emulated, their descriptions covering how to summon the essence of aurels and how to use them. That was how she had created her waterbubble and air funnels, and there were other items, too. Some far more innocuous: a hair tie that would pull a draft through her hair on hot days, to keep her cool; shoelaces that were supposed to be self tightening, but instead had a tendency to pull themselves apart; a knife that dulled on contact with human skin, but stayed sharp while whittling; some clothing objects—socks, bandannas, a white glove with no pair.
Of course, since these were all runes drawn on materials, they were not classified as free drawing, and she could carry them about as she wished. But most never left the doors of her study, hidden until the day she might need them.
As she blew out her candle, her hand brushed against the jewelry hanging from the shelf. Rarely did she look upon them, her attention drawn instead to the small object that had its own tiny pedestal among her shelves, separated from the rest in the very center, in its place of importance.
A fist-sized rock, painted with an air rune that now looked sloppy to her trained eyes. It still smelled faintly of ozone.
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