The rainy season is almost upon us. Clouds build in the afternoon afar off to sea, but they have not rolled to shore yet. Soon they will come. I have warned Etricos, and he encourages the builders to make haste, as tents will prove miserable when the torrents begin in earnest.
A salty wind flutters through the grass. Below, on the ocean side of the hill, one of the younger students yelps at sparks of magic that flare much larger than she expected. Aitana jumps to her aid. I refocus my attention elsewhere, self-conscious that the fledgling magicians might expect me to help.
I shouldn’t practice the superlatives against a crowd of novices. My magic is too volatile.
Quiet footsteps tread toward me, my only warning of Demetrios’s approach. I glance up, my confusion mounting as he settles upon the ground next to me.
Did he notice what I was doing? A self-conscious blush starts up the back of my neck. He doesn’t have a spark. He shouldn’t be able to sense my toying experimentation, but I can’t read him at all. He usually keeps his distance when he stands guard over us, ever alert for demon attackers on the far-off plains. Up close, I can observe the afternoon stubble on his jaw. The breeze waffles through his hair as his dark eyes scan the surrounding hills. My mind registers the straight line of his nose and the disciplined manner in which he carries himself.
“Why do you not teach the younger students?” he asks.
I jerk my attention from his profile with the embarrassing realization that I was staring. “Teaching brings better understanding,” I say. I draw my knees to my chest and rest my arms on them, trying to quell my instinctive nerves.
He tips a questioning glance towards me.
I fidget. “When you teach others, you absorb the principles more fully. Teaching becomes a form of learning. Thus, as the more advanced teach the less, all progress together.”
My magic tutors once attempted this method with me, but it backfired. When I was twelve, I taught fundamentals to children half my age, and those children immediately surpassed me. It was a magnificent means of destroying my last shreds of hope.
Demetrios leans back on his elbows and regards me fully now. I train my gaze upon the ocean and mentally recite the first superlative. What is he trying to do?
“Cosi told me to get close to you, to gain your favor and influence you back into submission to him,” he says.
I turn, wide-eyed, every defensive nerve on alert. One corner of his mouth pulls upward in the merest hint of a smile. He enjoys my discomfiture, that wry expression says.
My treacherous heart flip-flops, but I douse it with a measure of cold, forced wrath. “And you think telling me this will help your cause?”
He shrugs, his attention sliding again toward the students on the hillside. “It is Cosi’s cause, not mine.”
“And yet, here you are.”
The smile grows somber. “My brother is persistent. If I refuse, he’ll give the charge to someone else. Perhaps he might undertake it himself. Don’t you prefer that I pretend the part and warn you of his intentions, Goddess Anjeni?”
Abruptly I stand. He looks up in mild inquiry and I glare down upon him, my heart thudding in my chest as a thousand scattered thoughts flurry through my head like a flock of butterflies.
“What do you gain by disclosing your brother’s plans to me? He is your brother. Do you turn traitor to him?”
Demetrios maintains his calm. “You and he are not enemies. How can I turn traitor?”
“We are at odds. What do you gain by pretending a greater allegiance to me?” I can well believe that Etricos has instructed his brother to flatter and flirt with me—it’s exactly the sort of scheming a politician undertakes to bring a contrary underling back into line—but for Demetrios to tell me as much strikes me as even more manipulative. What does he expect me to do? Does he seek to undermine Etricos? Is this a play for greater power on his part?
He remains maddeningly unmoved. “What greater allegiance do I pretend? If I wish to gain your favor, is not honesty the best method?”
The scheming cad. My fingers itch to hit him, but I clench them into fists to control the urge. He obeys his brother’s command by divulging his instructions? He’s playing both sides, and the worst part is that it works: I do prefer his honesty to any false flattery.
“What do you seek to gain?” I ask.
The corner of his mouth tips upward again as he observes my flustered state. “Your favor, of course. That is what Cosi told me to do.”
I glance toward the encampment on the opposite hill, toward the watchtowers and the stretches of wall that are going up between them. Discontent writhes within me. “You should let Etricos do his own dirty work.”
“I don’t want him to,” says Demetrios, drawing my startled attention back to him. He has caught hold of the hem on my right pant leg, pinching it between thumb and forefinger as though it is a curiosity he has just discovered. I could jerk it from his grasp, but for the moment I remain fixed in place. A studious frown pulls at his brows as he toys with the hem. His hand brushes against the top of my bare foot. “If Cosi seeks your favor, he will get it, eventually. And what will become of Tora in the meantime?”
A half-dozen implications bounce through my head. “You seek to protect Tora, then?”
He flips my hem away and looks up. “She is like a sister to me. Should I not protect her?”
“And what of Aitana?”
His gaze flits downhill, to the magic students and their main instructor. “What of her?”
“Do you not protect her as well?”
To my heart’s delight and my mind’s utter horror, he favors me with an intoxicating smile. “I protect all among the Helenai. That includes you, Goddess Anjeni.”
“I don’t need your help,” I reply, my spine stiff.
He scoffs. “Those who do not know their own limits always need help.”
My face burns with chagrin. I crouch beside him, my arms resting on my knees as I meet his stare. “Shall we test my limits, then?” I ask, a dangerous note in my voice.
His broad smile returns. “Certainly. It’s good exercise for me to carry you around after you faint.”
Does he have a retort for everything? “That’s happened once.”
“Twice. It was tricky the first time. The injuries on your back were so dire that I had to carry you like a child tucked against my chest. We marveled that so much power could come from one so small and slight of frame.”
My embarrassment magnifies tenfold, though I contain it as best I can. Like a child, small and slight of frame—the description throws my heart into turmoil. If he truly views me as a child, I should be safe from any amorous advances.
And yet, I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with me. Even worse, I half revel in it.
He catches my hem again, a casual movement. I cannot jerk away in my crouched position. “Why do we not spar, Goddess? We can test your limits, as you say.”
My thundering emotions need bridling. Much as I might enjoy our verbal encounters, I can’t let them get out of hand. I rise from my squat to look down upon him. “We do not spar because I do not use your weapons and you do not use mine. One of us would die.”
My words fail to impress him. He tugs on my hem as though inviting me to sit again. I pull it from his grasp in a backward step.
The move offends him: his expression shifts from charming to distant. “Is your control over your power so poor?”
I’m done playing games for today. “Yes, it is.”
“Then you should practice more.”
If only it were that easy. My brand of magic is too volatile. I can practice the fundamentals, certainly, but the intermediates involve attacks and the superlatives combine offense and defense. Safe practice would require a partner of equal strength to keep me in check, or else a battle where no one worries about casualties.
As a warrior, he should know as much.
“You have a strange way of currying favor,” I say.
“The Helen
ai need you, Goddess,” he replies. “You alone stand between us and complete destruction. Cosi is correct in that regard: we cannot survive without you.”
How am I supposed to answer that? The safety of an entire nation rests upon my shoulders alone?
I don’t think so.
“You will have to learn to survive without me. One day I will leave the same way I came, through the God’s Arch.”
He sits up, genuine displeasure on his face. “When?”
“When the Gate opens again. I will pass through it to another realm. I was not meant to remain here forever.”
The muscles along his jaw tighten as he looks to the cluster of spark-bearers further down the hill.
“I will see Helenia established as a nation, and Etricos as its first ruler,” I say, my gaze following his. “He must be elected by the people, though. Winning their favor is his task, not mine, to accomplish.”
“And what will you see me become, Goddess?” he inquires, his face in profile to me.
A philanderer. A faithless lover. The man who will render me a tragic figure for centuries to come. But I cannot tell him any of that. I hope to avoid the full brunt of it, even if the stories remain.
“Your destiny is of your own choosing. It is none of my concern.”
From below, Aitana looks to us. She has finished her instruction, and the spark-bearers spread out across the hillside for free practice.
“My own choosing?” Demetrios echoes. He rises from the ground to stand beside me.
“Yes,” I say. “Choose wisely.” I leave to walk among my students. He remains at the top of the hill, his gaze following my every step.
Demetrios maintains his higher ground for the rest of the day. He doesn’t dog my footsteps when I make my daily commute to the ocean and back, but stands guard near the cluster of spark-bearers on the hillside. I focus anywhere but him, and yet I’m aware of the constant sentinel.
The sun hangs low in the western sky, almost kissing the spot on the distant horizon where sea meets land. My younger students have returned to their families. Aitana, Ria, and Ineri remain, practicing their fundamentals and intermediates with one another. I might abandon them for the comfort and quiet of my tent, but they’re at that stage where practice can become dangerous. As the only one present who knows any superlatives, I have to keep their powers in check should something get out of balance.
Up on the hilltop, Etricos has joined his younger brother and they are deep in conversation. I turn my back on them.
Aitana separates from her fellow learners and approaches me with caution, her attention flitting nervously past me to the top of the hill.
“Do you have a question about your studies?” I ask her.
She ducks her head. “Forgive me, Goddess. It is my studies, but it is not. I am grateful for your teaching, but I am worried. I do not progress quickly.”
Is she crazy? She bounced through the first fundamentals within a few days. She’s well into the intermediates after only a month. Granted, she practices for ten hours a day instead of the one or two that my sister and I had growing up, but her pace is still accelerated.
However, she also has no one to measure her practice against. She is the most advanced of the spark-bearers.
“What makes you think you don’t progress?”
Again she ducks her head. “The difference in our powers, Goddess. I am nowhere near your ability. I worry that I will never approach it.”
I hold back a scoff. Part of me wants to squash her presumption that she could ever approach the power of a goddess, but I’m not actually a goddess and she may well surpass me one day. Her greed to rival me drives this thorn of resentment even deeper into my heart.
“If you pass too quickly through the intermediates and beyond, your power will be out of balance.”
Her mouth pulls to one side and her attention darts up the hill again. I deign to glance that direction. Etricos has a hand on his brother’s shoulder, drawing him closer as he speaks. The orange sunset creeps across the sky beyond, casting deep shadows around them.
“I must become strong for the Helenai, Goddess,” says Aitana, still looking upward to the pair.
I itch to tell her that everyone has to become strong for the Helenai. She’s not a one-man army. I get the impression that she wants me to fish for more information, though, so I keep my mouth shut and wait.
(Because I’m insolent like that.)
Sure enough, she blurts what plagues her mind. “They have protected me since I was a child. When my spark emerged, my people sent me away, fearful that the Bulokai would attack them to eliminate me. The Helenai took me in. They kept me hidden and safe. I must become strong for them.”
She doesn’t resemble the other members of the Helenai with her ash blond hair and pale eyes, but I had never thought to question why. So she’s a transplant into their community. I take the liberty of my divine status to study her. A deep blush rises on her cheeks and she looks again to the top of the hill.
“Dima has always guarded me,” she murmurs.
Against my better senses, I perk in interest. She twists her fingers together as she continues.
“I was nine when I came to the Helenai. He was only thirteen but already well into his warrior training. He became my guard, my shadow, always there to keep me safe, always near my side, until—” Her voice falters as she favors me with a telltale glance. She swallows the rest of her sentence.
Not that I need her to speak it aloud: Demetrios guarded her until a goddess appeared in their midst. He stayed at her side until there was someone more powerful to protect.
I have supplanted her, in other words.
And she’s trying to send me on a guilt trip for it. My resentment wells.
“Demetrios guards you still,” I say, my voice tighter than I would like. “He guards all the spark-bearers in this settlement.”
“He was my constant companion in times past, Goddess, the one person I could rely upon.”
She maintains an innocent tone, but I recognize her motives. She’s laying subtle claim to him, appealing to my sense of pity to warn me away.
Unbeknownst to her, I have no sense of pity. I also have no desire to get tangled between her and Demetrios, but I’m willing to push a few buttons.
“You think he has become unreliable?”
Her eyes widen. “No. I only meant—”
“You want him to guard you alone? I can give him such an order.”
He probably won’t obey it, but that’s beside the point. I am on a different plane than Aitana and Demetrios both, and the sooner she recognizes that, the better.
She fidgets, discontent flashing across her face as she glances again to the brothers on the hilltop. “I need to become strong enough that I don’t require a guard.”
I suppress a derisive laugh. “Among the Helenai, it seems the stronger you are, the more they insist upon guarding you.”
She considers this with a frown. “I must become stronger,” she says at last.
It has been a long day. I’m tired and frustrated and restless, and I don’t have the patience to extract her true intent through subtlety. “What would you have me do, Aitana?”
Whether the tip of her head is from appreciation for my bluntness or from self-important conceit I cannot discern. “I have been practicing,” she says. “I practice on my own—late into the night sometimes. I think I have mastered the attack you used to save the Terasanai—the attack itself, not to your degree of strength, of course.”
“You think you’ve mastered the seventh intermediate?” I have not taught her this principle yet. She lingers between the third and fourth.
“May I show you?” she asks.
“It requires a target,” I reply, still skeptical. Even if she’s some kind of magical genius, manifesting the seventh intermediate without knowing the principle itself is a risky endeavor.
Her expression turns innocent—a ploy that, I am quickly learning, masks when she is being
sly. “I thought, perhaps, that you and I might—”
“Spar?” I interject. Disbelief snakes through me. “You want to spar with me?”
“We use the same weapon,” she replies, childlike simplicity in her voice.
My earlier conversation with Demetrios floods through my mind. She has spoken to him, perhaps while I trekked to and from the beach. Do they conspire against me?
“You are not strong enough,” I tell her flatly.
“I cannot become stronger if you refuse to teach me, Goddess.”
The beast within me has begun to pace its cage. “I am teaching you. You are not yet strong enough for the upper intermediates. Certainly not the seventh.”
The warning in my voice should cue her to drop the subject, but she presses it instead. “How can you know unless you test me?”
“I have seen you work the earlier intermediates. I know.”
Her restraint breaks. “You wander on your own and pay scant heed to our progress. We do not learn as swiftly as we might, were you more attentive.”
The beast snarls in my ear. I rub away the phantom noise. “You have no idea how swiftly you learn because it comes too easily for you. If anything, I should be forcing you to slow down, to build up each principle to perfection before you move on to the next.”
Her eyes flash. “I have mastered all you have taught me.”
A scoff cuts from my throat. I studied the principles of magic for a dozen years and more, memorized them from beginning to end, pored over theses and academic essays in the hopes that it would somehow trigger my supposed spark. Yet even now, with ready magic at my fingertips to answer the theories crammed into my brain, I would not claim to have mastered it.
“Your ignorance has bred false confidence, Aitana. Until you can manifest each principle across the full spectrum of its application, you have mastered nothing.”
Our argument has drawn attention from Ria and Ineri further down the hill, and from Etricos and Demetrios at its top. A restive silence curls upon the breeze around us in the falling dusk. Aitana tips her chin at a haughty angle and I simply wait, a volcano biding its time.
“I am stronger than you think,” she says, backing away step by step.
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