The Avatar's Flames (Through the Fire Book 1)

by Benjamin Medrano

  Zaria’s presence was soothing, her thoughts cool in a way that Ruethwyn hadn’t felt before. Emotions became less potent and she was able to approach problems from a more distant, analytical perspective, which was interesting. It was through that approach that she could see the flaws in not only the summoning circle but also in her own mastery of ice magic. Despite the sense of distance, she wasn’t emotionless, though, and her surprise at that had amused Zaria.

  The elemental was distant, but also playful in some ways, given to teasing Ruethwyn for her hesitation to speak to others. Zaria found Korima’s obsession with fire magic both amusing and incomprehensible, and if given her choice, she’d tease all the other students mercilessly. It was almost fortunate that Ruethwyn couldn’t channel Zaria for more than an hour a day and still have mana for anything else, or the elemental would do her best to stay constantly.

  “Alright, I’m done. How does it look, Rue?” Sella asked, standing up again and smudging a line in the process.

  “Hmm, well, if you’re wanting the elemental to not be contained, you’re on the right track,” Ruethwyn replied calmly, stepping closer as she pointed at the line, the trails of blue light on her skin showing that she was channeling Zaria. “At the end, you broke that line while standing, which would’ve shattered the circle even if everything else was perfect, which it most certainly wasn’t. Look at the third, tenth, seventeenth, and twenty-second glyphs, Sella.”

  Sella stared at the circle for a moment, then slumped as she murmured, “Crap. I thought I got it right, but I’ll look at those. Give me a second, Rue.”

  “Aren’t you being a little harsh?” Tadrick asked, frowning as he looked at the circle. “I mean, you could’ve told her they were wrong as she wrote them, right? Or told her what was wrong with them.”

  “I could have, but I’m trying to teach her to see the errors, Tadrick,” Ruethwyn said precisely, glancing at the young man and resisting the urge to shake her head. Zaria’s interest in him was quite at odds with her own feelings, which amused the fey still more. Zaria thought her lack of attraction to men was entertaining, as it highlighted the differences between them. “Summoning can be incredibly dangerous, even if you’re only trying to summon first rank elementals. A poor containment circle is almost worse than no circle at all.”

  “Why’s that?” Korima asked, her ears halfway flattened in discomfort, likely from the sound of the chalk rubbing against stone.

  “If you have a containment circle that doesn’t work, but which you think works, you’re going to be caught off guard when the elemental breaks free. That moment of surprise could very well be the difference between life and death, Korima,” Ruethwyn said, watching Sella look over the runes, rubbing her nose and leaving chalk marks behind on her skin. “I’d rather she learned to analyze her circles for errors properly.”

  “She’s doing better than Yalline, though. Did you hear how Master Mara tore her circle apart?” Delvin asked, nodding behind them. “He wasn’t happy.”

  “She’ll get it, or she won’t. It took me two weeks to learn summoning circles correctly, so I’m not surprised that anyone is making errors after only a week,” Ruethwyn said, glancing at him. “Why do you and Dana look so confident, though?”

  “Ah, Dana?” Delvin asked, raising an eyebrow at his sister, who sighed heavily.

  “Ritual magic of any form is a particular strength of ours.” Dana’s voice was calm, her arms crossed in front of her. “We each have a nearly perfect memory for symbols, glyphs, and diagrams, which is particularly useful in a merchant house. It’s something of a family trait, in fact. We’re modestly skilled with magic generally, but ritual magic… that we’re better at.”

  “A very useful skill. I suspect that if it weren’t for my head start over the rest of you, even if I hadn’t been injured, I wouldn’t be very exceptional in the class. I’d probably be closer to average,” Ruethwyn replied, nodding and smiling in admiration of their talent.

  “I don’t know… look at Lissa. She seems a little… slow to me,” Tadrick said, frowning in the quiet woman’s direction. “I’m surprised she managed to get into the academy.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Ruethwyn said, looking at Lissa warily.

  She hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary about Lissa, but that had been before channeling Zaria. The elemental had immediately picked up something that Ruethwyn hadn’t noticed—a deep, smoldering power buried within the unassuming, mousy young woman. It seemed to be linked to her talent with fire magic, which explained why it concerned Zaria.

  “Why?” Tadrick asked curiously.

  “I’m not sure, but Zaria senses a lot more power in her, something that she doesn’t appear to have tapped into yet. It puts me slightly on edge, so I think whoever sent her here has a much better idea of her powers than we do,” Ruethwyn said, shaking her head as she added, “I think she worries me far more than any other classmates now.”

  “Huh. I wouldn’t have thought that she was dangerous. Maybe Barthel…” Tadrick mused, everyone looking at Lissa, now.

  “Okay, Rue… I think I figured out what was wrong with the glyphs and re-drew them,” Sella interrupted, looking up from her circle. “What do you think?”

  “Let’s see…” Ruethwyn said, taking a step forward again and studying the circle intently. At first glance, it looked correct, but she went over each glyph and curve intently, considering them for a long moment before nodding, Zaria giving her grudging approval as well. “Much as Zaria told me, the runes and symbols could use some work, but they’re more than sufficient for the strength of elemental you’re looking to summon. Just be careful in the future, too.”

  “Of course!” Sella said, looking quite a bit happier and relieved. “Does that mean I can summon one now?”

  “Go ahead. Everyone, try not to interrupt her,” Ruethwyn told the others, taking a step back again.

  As Sella pulled out the focus Tadrick had bought her, a small piece of vine that was continually renewing itself, forming an eternal ring of greenery that she could’ve worn, Tadrick murmured. “I wonder what she’ll summon?”

  “I don’t know. Life elementals… I never really studied them a lot,” Ruethwyn admitted, to Zaria’s amusement. “I know angels are often light or life elementals, but it wasn’t a focus of mine.”

  Sella began her incantation, and most of the others fell quiet. Ruethwyn glanced back over at the group on the opposite end of the summoning room to see that Yalline was in the middle of re-drawing her circle under Master Mara’s close supervision. The room was mostly quiet aside from Sella’s chanting, and Ruethwyn turned her attention back to her friend, hoping that she’d get the ritual right.

  It took a minute, much less than Ruethwyn’s ritual had, and the circle began to glow, this time with a soft golden light. The light coalesced inside the circle, pooling together like liquid gold, extending into a longer form, then the light began to flake off to reveal the scales of the creature, and a gold-scaled snake appeared within the circle, flicking its tongue as it extended its hood, looking around in curiosity. It wasn’t a huge snake, though three feet was quite long enough for Ruethwyn. The golden scales… Ruethwyn shuddered at the memory of the last time she saw gold scales, but these ones were pure gold, rather than black with a golden wash.

  “Um, what’s this?” Sella asked, looking confused. “I got a snake? I didn’t think animals were life elementals…”

  “Did you accidentally summon a nature elemental? I could see the focus counting for that,” Korima offered, sniffing the snake as she added, “It smells weird, too.”

  Zaria’s amusement was obvious, but seeing as none of the others looked like they knew, Ruethwyn sighed and mentally asked the elemental what she could tell her. Zaria simply shared the information, and Ruethwyn blinked in surprise before speaking.

  “Interesting. I didn’t know, so I asked Zaria, and she tells me it’s a type of snake called a poison eater,” Ruethwyn explained, steppin
g forward to look more closely at the snake. “They’re pretty harmless unless you’re poisonous or venomous, in which case they’re somewhat aggressive. If you’ve been poisoned, they’ll bite you and suck the poison out to eat it. The problem is that the more potent the poison or venom, the longer it takes them to digest, and they can only deal with one poison at a time. If they’re digesting a poison, they have a line of black scales along their back.”

  “Really? That’s kind of neat!” Sella said, her eyes brightening. “I thought I’d summoned something that wasn’t correct, but if it’s a life elemental, that’s reassuring. I’ve never heard of one like this.”

  “It’s kind of a niche summon, but one that could be incredibly useful at times,” Delvin said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “The number of times I’ve heard of someone dying to a poison because they didn’t have the antidote within distance to get it to them… well, being able to summon one of these to save their lives? That’d be really handy.”

  “Oh, Sella managed to summon something?” Master Mara interrupted, approaching and raising his eyebrows. “A poison eater? That’s a bit unusual, but better than some of the other life elementals I’ve seen. Life sprites can be quite obnoxious. Well done, Sella.”

  “Thank you, Master Mara,” Sella said, smiling bashfully. “I can’t say I did it without corrections, though.”

  “Of course not. Now, while I imagine you’d love to keep it around longer, it’s best to let your classmates try their own hand at things,” Master Mara said, smiling and nodding. “Banish it back and let the snake go about its business, since I don’t think anyone here is poisoned.”

  “Right! One moment…” Sella said, turning back and beginning the incantation to send the snake back to its own plane. As she finished the short incantation, the snake dissolved in flakes of golden light, the last thing Ruethwyn saw of it was its tongue flicking out again.

  “Okay, you next, Tadrick. You’re curious about things, so let’s see how you do,” Ruethwyn said firmly, wincing as she flicked her fingers through a spell, mana surging painfully as she sent a spray of water across the circle to wipe it away, water which vanished moments later.

  “Fine… I hoped to watch other people a bit more first, but let’s see how I do,” Tadrick said, taking a deep breath and stepping forward.

  “Good luck!” Korima exclaimed, then nodded to Sella, her voice bright. “Good job! I hope I do as well as you.”

  “Thanks, Korima. I hope you do well, too,” Sella said, settling in to watch Tadrick as he drew his circle… and promptly smudged it.

  Ruethwyn sighed, certain that this would be a long day.

  Tadrick didn’t take as long as Ruethwyn had been afraid he would, though he’d needed two rounds of corrections before he’d managed to get the circle right. He’d ended up summoning a minor water elemental, one which was nothing more than a rolling ball of water that burbled and splashed around the circle.

  Korima had taken longer so far, but she was coming along well, Ruethwyn thought. She wasn’t too worried about Korima’s skill, as the woman was writing down the runes correctly, and soon enough she’d—

  “Gods above!” Barthel’s exclamation was accompanied by a near-deafening blast and the sound of a dragon’s roar, and Ruethwyn’s mind began to roil as panic hit her.

  With a flick of her wrist, the wand was thrust into her hand and Ruethwyn spun to see a column of flame blazing before the other group, even Master Mara staggering back from it, Lissa in the front. Within the column of fire, which sent spasms of panic through Ruethwyn, she could see a long, sinuous, draconic figure. The dragon was uncoiling, its scales blazing with internal fire as it raised its head and bugled, and all thought vanished as Ruethwyn acted on instinct, despite Zaria trying to calm her.

  Her friends were close, and with her current mana, Ruethwyn didn’t have the power to destroy what she was certain was a fifth rank elemental dragon, even if there was nothing she’d rather do. So Ruethwyn threw caution to the wind, hissing in pain as she drew on everything she had, pain lancing through her like a spiderweb of lightning arcing through her veins as she began to cast a spell, the others just starting to look at her in surprise.

  “Ruethwyn, stop! You’re just—no, you’re expending too much!” Zaria’s mental voice was a shock, but Ruethwyn was too far along for her to interrupt.

  “Ruethwyn! What are you doing?” Master Mara demanded, spinning around just as Ruethwyn finished her spell.

  Power surged out of Ruethwyn in a wave, and ice danced across the floor to where the dragon was spreading its wings. Ruethwyn felt her breathing grow more difficult, and she saw the markings on her arms fading as she lost hold of Zaria and her relatively calming presence.

  As Ruethwyn’s vision grew blurry, the pain growing so potent that she found herself swaying in place, the spell took form. A pillar of deep blue ice surrounded the dragon from floor to ceiling, rapidly expanding from only a couple of inches thick to over a foot.

  “Rue!” Sella exclaimed, and Ruethwyn shuddered, staggering forward.

  It felt like something inside her snapped, and Ruethwyn blinked in confusion, looking at Sella as the other woman caught her halfway to the floor, then gasped out. “R-run… dra-gon…”

  Then everything went dark around her.

  Chapter 23

  “…telling you that she can’t afford to do things like that, Emrick!” A woman’s voice was the first thing Ruethwyn heard as she woke, her tone vehement. “That damn near killed her!”

  Ruethwyn certainly felt like she’d been hurt badly. Her skin was throbbing like a swollen toe, and there was a burning sensation all through her right side. Opening her eye, she found herself in a room with whitewashed walls, a bed she was in, and a table beside her with a mug and pitcher atop it. A couple of curtains separated her from the rest of the room, but she could see what looked like natural sunlight beyond them. She was in the infirmary, Ruethwyn realized dully.

  “You’ve got to be joking.” Master Mara’s voice was sonorous, yet also slightly impatient. “She simply overextended herself in casting that spell. I know, it was nearly fifth circle, but—”

  “Emrick, would you shut up and listen to me?” the woman interrupted impatiently.

  For a moment, there was silence, then Master Mara replied reluctantly, “Alright, Cora, I’m listening.”

  “Whoever checked her injuries initially did a piss-poor job of checking over her mana core and veins, Emrick. I’d guess they did a better job of checking her physical injuries, and those were far more obvious, but what they missed was horrifying,” Cora said, her voice a little quieter now, but still audible to Ruethwyn. She was tempted to get up, but also interested and worried about what Cora was saying. “They said that a good number of the mana veins in her right side were damaged or destroyed, along with damage to her mana core. What they didn’t say was that the dragon fire backwashed through her veins and crystallized a good portion of them, along with a large part of her mana core.”

  A chill ran through Ruethwyn at the explanation. It felt similar to what she’d thought had happened to her mana core and veins, but it sounded like this Cora had a better idea of what that meant than Ruethwyn did. Closing her eye, Ruethwyn extended her senses through her body to check over her mana veins, and almost gasped aloud. Her mana veins on her right side felt almost… cracked. Her core also felt a little unsteady, and she swallowed hard in worry.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Master Mara said, sounding more concerned now. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

  “At a guess, she’d started casting a spell, then stopped. The mana was returning to her mana core when she got hit by dragon fire and sucked the fire into her with the mana,” Cora explained. “As to what it does, bad doesn’t begin to cover it. If she channels too much mana at once, her mana veins and core can’t handle it. I’ll be surprised if her core ever grows much beyond its current size. The only chance she’d have of fixing that is to destroy
her core entirely and start over, but that wouldn’t fix her veins and very well might kill her outright. So when I said that the spell she cast nearly killed her, I wasn’t joking, Emrick! The power she expended nearly caused her mana core to explode inside her chest.”

  “Dear gods… I had no idea, Cora.” Master Mara’s voice was almost weary now, Ruethwyn realized, laying in the bed as shock overcame her. She’d known her situation was bad, but it seemed worse than she’d thought. “Is there anything you can do to help her? While I was initially hesitant, Ruethwyn has been a model student, and has helped her classmates a great deal. Even if some of them don’t like her much.”

  “I can’t, and I doubt even the High Priestess can do anything about this kind of damage. It’d take a grandmaster life and energy mage to piece her veins back together, even if we managed to remove the curse she’s under. Even then, I imagine it’d be a project that would take years at best,” Cora told him, and Ruethwyn could hear her feet shifting. “If we could get her somewhere like the Temple of the White Host, or to one of the heartland academies, maybe, but that’s a long trip, Emrick, and can we justify the expense to the Queen?”

  “Hells… well, it is what it is,” Master Mara said philosophically. “When do you think she’ll wake?”

  “It could be hours or weeks,” Cora replied, but Ruethwyn decided that hiding her consciousness would show poor manners, so she interrupted before the woman could continue.

  “I woke a short time ago, actually,” Ruethwyn spoke softly, her voice cracking slightly, and she swallowed, only now realizing how dry her throat was before continuing. “I found the discussion of my present condition… informative. Depressing, but informative.”

  A moment later, the curtain was brushed aside and Master Mara glared down at Ruethwyn, his eyes steely as he spoke. “Ruethwyn Sylaris, it’s not polite to eavesdrop.”