It also didn’t help that the specific magical ability Pure Magic had gifted me with was extremely powerful.
Life. I could give it and take it away—an ability that not even Fairy Godmothers, or genies when they were around, possessed. Hence the prejudice people like Dillain held toward me. Our headmasters Lady Agnue and Lord Channing had tried to quash some of our classmates’ preoccupations, but gossip died hard and people feared and resented what they didn’t understand.
One way or another, this social uncertainty would be settled in a month. Traditionally carriers of Pure Magic were sent straight to Alderon because of the corruptive nature of their power. However, I was an exception. For one, I had offered the truth about my Pure Magic to Lenore willingly in an effort to save her and the realm. Between the noble intentions behind that, my princess/protagonist status, and my colorful history of using magic for good, I was being given a chance. In two short weeks on Saturday, June 6, all our realm’s ambassadors were meeting for their biannual summer summit in our realm’s capital, Century City. It was at this time that I would be put on trial and my fate would be decided.
Here’s hoping that my jury is more open-minded than Dillain.
“I can’t always bring myself back to life, Dillain,” I said, speaking the truth. “It’s circumstantial. And anyway, it’s not an all-around healing ability. If I dislocated a shoulder or cracked a rib or got an arm chopped off, I wouldn’t be able to hit a re-do button. I am risking plenty out there, same as you.” I stepped back and crossed my arms. “Though considering you got de-saddled before the second half of the match, that may not be true.”
A couple of my teammates snickered.
Gordon cleared his throat. “Anyway . . . it was a good job all around, team. Everyone take a day’s rest, make sure to get plenty of water and protein, and we’ll see you at practice on Tuesday.”
Our team broke apart and Daniel and I headed toward the dugouts where some of our friends were waiting.
“Solid shot at Bardó,” he said.
“Thanks. I don’t appreciate his snide comments, but they’re a good bucket of water in the face to remind me that despite all that,” I gestured around at the grand arena, “once the games and cheering stop, this is my reality. It keeps my head on straight.”
Daniel let out a scoff. “Only you would look at insults from a pretentious pinwheel like Dillain as a positive.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be optimistic.” I glanced ahead and muttered, thinking out loud. “I kind of have to given all the destruction I’ve unleashed.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I replied quickly. Then I waved and smiled at Chance, Kai, Blue, and Jason as we arrived at the dugouts. “Hey guys!”
Blue Dieda and Jason Sharp (younger brother of the title character in Jack & The Beanstalk) were two of my oldest and dearest friends. They, along with our friend SJ, had known me for years. And like Daniel and SJ, they’d been with me through all the major story arcs since I found out about my magic. I honestly didn’t know what I would do without them.
Kai, meanwhile, was a new member of our crew.
She was Daniel’s girlfriend and a Century City native. They’d grown up together and had been a couple for years. I knew how much Daniel loved her and how much he desired to keep her safe—though Kai was hardly the type that needed protecting. The wavy black haired beauty with brown eyes and light olive skin was as fierce a fighter as any of us. I respected her for that. She was brave. She was strong. She was a kick-butt swordfighter and warrior in general. However, there remained a terrible problem where she was concerned.
I mentioned before that Daniel and I had a complex relationship. Well, in a lot of ways, she was the cause. When he and I first met, there was tension between us to put it mildly. We clashed like a cat and a dog in a hot tub. I disliked him because of how easily he could read me and how effortlessly he exposed my insecurities. He carried an intolerance toward me that I didn’t understand until later on. At the end of last semester I learned that Liza had written Daniel a prophecy that foretold I would be a key ally to him and Kai, but I also had the potential to cause her destruction.
And yet, by miracle and hard work, Daniel and I had gotten over our issues with one another and helped each other grow. We’d fought, thrived, and improved together on so many fronts that I was willing to bet each of us would do anything for the other at this point.
On par with that, since Daniel was set on turning the outcome of his story into a version he wanted, which meant ending up with Kai, I’d promised to help him keep her safe and reach the favorable form of his prophecy. True to my word, I’d already risked a lot multiple times to protect Kai. I only wished I didn’t know something else was working against us . . .
“You were fantastic,” Kai said, wrapping her arms around Daniel and planting a kiss on his cheek. “I swear you could go pro.”
“It was an awesome game!” Blue exclaimed, giving me a high five. Her wavy, dark blonde hair was in pigtails today. She grinned at me. Her blue eyes shone brightly and matched the cloak she was nicknamed for, which currently draped across her shoulders over her lavender t-shirt.
“Crisa,” Jason said, his own intense blue eyes shimmering with admiration. “That was by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen you do.”
“That’s saying a lot,” I remarked. “I guess chiz like resurrection and bringing mountains to life is old news, huh?”
“Completely,” he replied with a grin.
I pivoted toward Chance, who was standing on my left. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Mad?” Chance repeated, eyebrows going up in surprise. “You were brilliant.”
“Oh. Good,” I replied, feeling satisfied. We stood facing each other for a second, my friends watching.
Things with Chance and me were weird. Prior to this semester, he’d had a reputation for being a narcissistic tool and self-centered prince charming stereotype. However (and I do mean that in the biggest form of however), he’d changed. The poor guy had fallen for me for some reason, and in his efforts to get me to take him seriously he’d undergone a deep, personal transformation. He was so different today from the boy I used to know that the old him was basically a ghost. This Chance was kind, thoughtful, sincere, and seemed to genuinely care for me. I didn’t know what to do with that.
“So . . .” he said. “Were you being serious up there when I asked you about lunch or were you just trying to keep me off balance?”
“Like you needed my help keeping off balance. You were too easy to mess with up there,” I joked, feeling a little off balance myself. First he had asked me out in the middle of the game, and now he was doing it in front of my friends. I respected the boldness, but I did not care for the awkwardness.
“In all seriousness, I do have plans,” I said. “I have a magic session with Liza and then these two and I have training in the afternoon.” I gestured to Blue and Kai.
“Rain check?” he asked.
Again, I could feel my friends’ eyes on me. My throat felt hot, and not in the good hot cocoa way. “Yeah, sure.” I swallowed and my eyes flicked to the lost equipment area where players could retrieve anything they’d dropped during the match. Chance already had his helmet under his arm, which meant I had an out of this conversation.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get my lacrosse sword and helmet. I’ll see you guys later.” I gave my friends a wave and took off. I wanted some space. It was strange, but sometimes I felt like two people, and trying to balance them both around others was exhausting.
There was the upbeat, sassy version of me who adored having her friends nearby to laugh, bond, and share life’s problems with. Then there was the other, sullen side of me. This was the part that liked to fly solo and be a lone wolf—the introspective girl who could transport from a world of sun to a world of shadow with the snap of a finger.
Since the rest of my Sunday afternoon was fairly booked—continuing to require me to
be a bunch of different things for a bunch of different people—it was nice to take a moment for myself. I picked up my helmet from the lost equipment table. For a second, I stared at my blurred reflection in the hard, smooth metal surface.
I took a lot of things in stride. And I generally was an optimistic person. But lately that element of my personality felt a little vulnerable, like the shell of an egg. While I may not have cared what pretzel-monkeys like Dillain thought, it did bother me that my Pure Magic was all the greater world saw when they looked at me, and it worried me that it was all they’d ever see.
“There goes the girl with the all-powerful abilities not even Fairy Godmothers have.”
“Her bravery doesn’t count because she can resurrect herself.”
“Better not get on her bad side or she might suck the life from you.”
My eyes fell upon my gloved hands.
I hadn’t used my magic in a week. Today’s session with Liza would be the first since my friends and I returned from our last quest. I’d been too affected by what had happened to use it until now.
Over the course of the last few months I had gotten immensely powerful. Through a combination of practice with Liza and real world applications, my Pure Magic had blossomed. But I wasn’t all-powerful. As I’d asserted to Dillain, my power of life wasn’t a full healing ability, so I didn’t think I could survive, say, decapitation. If my abilities were exhausted enough, they simply wouldn’t activate. Properties like Jacobee stone and Stiltdegarth blood were magic inhibitors that had the same counteractive effect on me as they did on other magic wielders. And for all I knew, there were other magic deterrents I wasn’t aware of.
Every realm we visited brought new information. For example, I’d discovered months ago that my magic did not work on Earth because that world had its own form of magic that manifested in the form of emotional energy, and thus rejected attempts at otherworldly powers.
Although part of me was annoyed by these restrictions, another part was grateful for them. My power was profound and the disease that came with it courted darkness heavily. Restrictions meant tighter reigns on my evolving magic, which helped keep me in check. Powerful people needed to be kept in check. Especially given the Malice Line.
Every carrier of Pure Magic had to deal with the Malice Line. It was a conceptual line that one crossed when using Pure Magic abilities to inflict mortal harm. The more one crossed this line, the easier it was for his or her heart to succumb to the corrupting hunger of Pure Magic.
I had crossed the Malice Line several times. It had always been for self-defense, and for the most part I’d only ever used it to kill monsters. But discovering this subset of my ability was a scary thing. Hence why these days I appreciated any limitations on my magic I could bolster.
You see, this past Saturday the Malice Line had become a real threat to my struggle to control my disease. This past Saturday, I’d killed my first person. Parker.
He had been a magic hunter—a loathsome man who’d stalked and attempted to kidnap me multiple times. Last week he’d infiltrated my school and poisoned me, but in my adrenaline-ridden, fear-and-hate-driven reaction, my Pure Magic’s reflexes kicked in and Magic Instinct switched me to autopilot. Magic Instinct was my most dangerous and strongest state of power. It ignited if I was in a life-or-death situation and/or if properly enraged with enough emotion. I was supposed to avoid slipping into Magic Instinct, as it gave control of my actions over to my magic (not me) and thus fed the hungry nature of my power. But in a brief, blood-boiling moment, I’d sucked Parker’s life energy so drastically that he’d died on the spot.
It was terrifying to learn I was that powerful and could lose control to that extent so easily. Worse though, was learning how satisfying it felt to eliminate an enemy . . .
I shook my head. The mere notion set the magic tingling in my veins.
I put my helmet under my arm and grabbed my lacrosse sword, then took a deep breath. I believed I could overcome my Pure Magic Disease, but I didn’t have tons of ammunition for my trial to convince the realm’s ambassadors of that. Killing Parker didn’t help matters. Before that incident, I’d claimed I had neither the power nor the dark emotional capacity to use magic to take human life. Now that argument was out the window. And if they ever found out what I’d done in Century City . . .
“You’re a good kicker.”
I jumped in surprise and whirled around. Girtha—in street clothes—carried her lacrosse sword and a giant bulky sack draped over her shoulder that probably held the pieces of her armor. Despite how much it must’ve weighed, she carried it as though she were hauling pillows.
Girtha was so massive it was crazy. The girl may have been the “little” sister of the famous Hansel & Gretel twins, but she was sturdy like a wall and as tall as a bear. Despite a childhood spent bullying others, this semester she’d become a trusted friend, a good-hearted ally, and a seriously awesome sparring partner.
“You didn’t get hurt, did you?” I asked.
Girtha raised her big eyebrows, her forehead crinkling beneath her brown, choppy bangs. “Really, Crisa?”
“Sorry, dumb question,” I said.
“Not considering how aggressive you are,” Divya said. Her sudden appearance from behind Girtha made me jump—again. The tiny girl, four years my junior, had the spirit of a lion, so it was best not to be fooled by her four-foot-ten frame. There was, after all, a reason she’d beaten out plenty of boys and older students for her spot on a Twenty-Three Skidd team. Tiny plus fierce plus unfathomable speediness made for a deadly combo.
“How is it that you can fight monsters and magic hunters and still be so easily startled?” Girtha asked.
“I’m remarkably inconsistent,” I replied.
Divya had changed too. She held her lacrosse sword in one hand and with the other lugged a sack of armor, which she struggled with a bit. Her long, dark hair was braided and draped over one shoulder. She blinked at me with giant, dark eyes.
“Girtha and I were going to drop our armor off at the Shining Ward. You want to come with and then ride back to Lady Agnue’s together?”
“I still have to change,” I replied. “You guys don’t have to wait for me.”
“Nah, its fine. We don’t mind,” Girtha said.
I studied their faces. “You want to ride Lucky, don’t you?”
They both broke into guilty grins.
“And here I thought you guys just loved spending time with me,” I teased.
“You we see every day,” Girtha replied. “How often do we get to hang with a dragon?”
I shook my head and sighed with a smile. “Fair point. Give me five minutes.”
Girtha and Divya waited in the arena while I went back to the captains’ lounge where the newly added girls’ lockers were. I threw on a pair of leggings and my black combat boots, a simple white t-shirt, and my Seven Suns zip-up jacket. I loved that jacket with our team insignia emblazoned over the right chest.
I took a whiff of it as I rolled up the sleeves.
Ugh. It could use a wash, though.
With my armor gathered in the sack I pulled from the back of my locker, and my lacrosse sword against my shoulder, I made my way back to the field. The net that draped over the arena had been lowered and stored beneath the retractable field. There were still spots of color in the stands where residue classmates congregated. Redwood, Lord Channing’s very aptly named giant groundskeeper, oversaw attendants who removed saddles from Pegasi in the middle of the field. The steeds had their wings hidden and looked like normal horses.
I caught up with Divya and Girtha outside the dugout and the three of us lugged our stuff outside the arena to a nearby metallic shed-like building called the Shining Ward. Inside resided a marvelous compilation of weapons, armor, and more types of polish and oil than you could count. Natural light came in from windows in the ceiling, but there were also cool light fixtures made out of recycled weapons that provided further luminescence.
; The master of the ward, Sir Lowden, was busy at the main table polishing one of many lacrosse swords piled there. He had seven helpers—younger Lord Channing’s students who got class credit for their assistance.
Sir Lowden knew us by now and gave us his version of a greeting—a huff that blew up his whiskey-colored mustache, and a nod signaling where to drop our equipment.
A few of the boys came to take our things. One of them—a younger kid with a backward cap and mischievous eyes—stumbled when he was taking Divya’s armor bag. I was pretty sure he was blushing and she was too. I smiled out of the corner of my eye as I watched them interact. It was adorable—unlike my interaction with the guy who took my armor. He extended his hands drastically to maintain a good two feet between us, not making eye contact like he was afraid of me. He probably was. As noted, people had different reactions to my mixed bag of character identifiers.
A boy with red hair and loads of freckles handed us each a ticket to claim our things the next time we came back. The date stamp on my ticket indicated my armor would be ready tomorrow—Monday, May 25 by 2:00 p.m. It was an impressively fast turnaround given how busy Sir Lowden was. All of the protagonists at Lord Channing’s utilized the Shining Ward to keep their many weapons and suits of armor in good shape.
Divya, Girtha, and I left the ward and returned to the beautiful spring day outside. The candy-blue sky and preciously green grass were stark contrasts to the metallic color scheme we’d just been immersed in.
“So, has Dashyl made a move on you yet?” Girtha asked Divya.
“Oh, hush,” Divya squeaked with embarrassment. She turned her attention to me, her light brown cheeks flushed. “Crisa, will Lucky be able to hear you from here? I haven’t seen him today. He could be on the other side of campus.”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” I said. “Dragons have crazy good hearing. And I think since I’m the one who gave him life, he can kind of sense when I need him. Observe.”
Into the Gray Page 3