by K Kazul Wolf
He narrows his eyes. “Your dragon? Didn’t you say he died, too?”
He talks about death like it’s nothing. Like losing someone forever is meaningless. “I thought he was dead; people told me there was no way he could have made it. I could be wrong.”
“So you didn’t leave your mom because you thought it was the wrong choice?”
“No.” I keep his eyes, dare him to check my heart for a lie. “I’m going back. I’m going to master this, whether you help me or not.”
He shifts his footing. “And not go back to this rebellion you were so vehement about me joining before? They should be expecting your return by now, I’d think. What about all your talk of running and avoiding?”
“When I’m done here, I’ll go back.” The guilt of having been away from my work for so long is barely a pang in my chest. But I have to do this first.
“Why? What if he’s dead? Wouldn’t you rather not know and keep fighting your battle?”
That thought chokes me. Even after all the indecision, using other people’s words as excuses, the unfiltered idea of turning back and never knowing crushes my chest. “Because knowing if he’s okay is more to me than fear. He’s more to me than time and petty revenge.”
He smiles a dragon’s smile. “You’ve changed a little, serpent. I thought that trip might help.”
“Then you’ll teach me?” I glare at him, at that smile. It may not make my case, but it makes me feel better.
“Yes, serpent. I’ll teach you.”
26
The Elements
Maur can’t give in that easily.
Can he?
He struts away and I scramble after him yet again.
“Really?” I ask when I’m finally keeping stride with him, shimmering walls forming and fading at a rate I swear is faster than before.
“You wanted more of a fight?” He eyes me.
“You just… After that speech about my father…” It doesn’t seem a very Maur-like decision. There should be at least a few more hoops to jump through.
He keeps walking. Right as I’m about to give up hope of an answer, he says, “Consider this a favor to that moronic illusionist you remind me of. Maybe not all of our arguments were his fault.”
The sand breaks open in front of us, light streaming in. I raise my hands, stumbling forward to where I feel more than see where Maur is.
“Now, serpent, do you know why we cast illusions?”
I shake my head. It always just was, and there have always been greater mysteries to worry about, like how the crystal worked, how my father made those wings, what crazy project he was working on then, and why Vito could never turn back. It’s almost a disappointment to realize how easily I could answer those ‘great’ questions now.
“We need water.” Maur waves as my vision clears, motioning to the water in front of us. “Like everything living needs air to fill their lungs, we need water to run through our veins. Our souls, if you will, our beings need it to survive. It’s a deeper part of us that needs it, craves it. I’ve never been able to deduce the why from my research. But the water is drawn to us, too. An endless dance, in and out and through us, in and out and through the sky. It’s why it snaps toward us with pain.”
“So…pain isn’t a focus then?” That’s why he wanted me to let it go?
“No, no. The water reacts to the pull of us. The more we need it, the more it reacts. It’s how you feel dragons and other illusionists, if they don’t keep a check on the water around them.”
That’s how Carita did it. I can feel the water move around me, something that’s become almost habit since Maur showed me, but I can’t feel what I’m doing to any of it.
“If you learn to listen to them, listen to the flow and the dance of the elements around you, you can learn how they move, how they work, how to feel them like water. But water will always be your strength.
“Now,” he sits on the beach, motioning for me to follow suit, “you’ve been to Azelain, and you’ve seen others with the markings I’m covered in, yes?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“That was my doing. They were hidden in those ruins I walked you through. I managed to translate some of it over a period of time.”
“What do they do?”
He sighs. “I’ll explain, if you don’t interrupt.”
I press my lips together. So is that why he’s been here for so long, studying the ruins?
“The markings do nothing, they mean nothing. Well, other than what they mean to you. They’re reminders.” He traces a mark on the back of his hand, a character in a language I’ve never seen. “The design of my soul.”
I barely hold back a snort. “Your soul is made of words?”
“And much more, yes.” He holds out his hand, and it takes a solid second before I realize I’m supposed to take it. His hand is rough against mine, skin a little cooler than you would think with the desert heat.
“Tell me, what can say more than a word? It can show you pictures and emotions and meanings in merely a few syllables. Like right here…” He traces along my arm with his finger, tickling my skin. In its wake, a word curves in a pigment darker than my natural skin tone, calligraphy carved into my skin. It feels like it’s being drawn up, like it’s always been there, hidden in my blood.
And I know this word.
It’s one of the words from my dad’s books. It was in that first song I sang to Vito. It means nostalgia, longing for something once loved and lost.
Maur’s right, though I don’t want to say it. That one word brings up so much more than anything else could, this single stain across my skin. Tears choke in my throat. Truly, my soul brought to the surface.
He draws his finger away. “You've stared at the ocean for a while now. You know how the tide rises and falls, how the waves some days are larger than others? You're the same on the inside—we all have a tide, a unique push and pull that governs who we are and the choices we make. It's how we control elements, by reaching deep into that tide and pulling out an understanding of how our tide flows, the core of who we are as beings on this earth. You don’t need to use something so primal as pain to focus when the tide is already a part of you.”
“Now,” he says, leaning back. “I want you to try. You bring yourself to the surface. Before you can understand the world around you, you have to understand yourself.”
I stare at the word on my arm, my mind blank. Is there more than this one word? I can’t feel anything. Am I anything else?
“There are more words?”
He raises an eyebrow and lifts his arm to display the complex twining of life written on his skin.
I scowl, looking at my one word. “Must be easier for dragons.”
He laughs softly. “No, it’s not easier for anyone, not that I’ve seen. Though with everything you’ve had to conquer in your journey already, it may be a faster process for you.”
It’s an oddly comforting fact. I’m not slow or stupid in this one thing, I’m just…me. I let the relaxation spread to my mind, let my thoughts wander like I would let my senses spread as Maur was teaching me how to feel and see without skin or eyes.
Another word tugs on my mind, presses against my skin. Am I imagining it? Thinking too hard?
Maur sighs. “Stop.”
I look up. “What?”
“You’re not ready.”
For one moment, I can’t think. “What?”
“I believe you heard what I said.” He stands up, brushing off his trousers.
I open my mouth, then shut it. I open it again. “Didn’t you just say it would be easier for me to master this than it would be for others?”
“Easier isn’t easy, serpent.” He turns, looking out and squinting at the ocean. “You still haven’t mastered the basics of illusions yet. I let myself forget that.”
“But I—”
He raises a hand and the sand beneath me shifts.
I still. Are we really back to these dumb games?
“No arguments.�
�� He grins. “Do you want to know what the pool has to show you or not?”
I narrow my eyes. This is a man who could claim the title of grandfather, but instead spends his time making power plays like a toddler. I bite back my retorts, though. The dark, reflective surface of the water rises up in my mind, washing away the anger and leaving something else, something hollow and afraid to hope the reflection might show something different when I come back to it. “Yes. I want to learn.”
He nods. “Good. Now, you are able to feel the shape of illusions, the current of the water around us, yes? But as I’ve said, we’re connected to more than that. Everything is tied together, all the elements.”
Oh! “So that’s how my mother controlled and moved fire?”
“Moved fire?” He blinks, grin gone. “Not just created it?”
I shake my head. “She lifted a bonfire above her head. It dried out the entire area and destroyed the mirage I was holding.”
“Well, considering how weak you are, that’s no surprise.” He taps his chin, but keeps talking before I can strangle him. “I can’t believe she’s managed that. An illusionist, too. I suppose I still have more to learn.”
A small fire starts to prick under my skin. It would be nice for him to just get to the point sometimes. “Yeah, it’s really amazing. Something that had to take many, many years to master. Years I don’t have.”
His eyes flick to me, golden irises almost red in the light of the early day. “It took her years to get to where she is, yes. But you don’t need to get to where she is. You need to get to where you are.”
I have the distinct need to hit my head against something, but I don’t think the sand would make a satisfying surface. Vito could be killed at any second if the dragons find no more use for him. That is, if he’s alive at all. I can’t assume. I won’t.
He holds a hand out in front of him and starts to move it in a lazy, circular motion. “Let’s start with the easiest basic outside of your knowledge. Water and air aren’t as different as you’d think.” The sand underneath his hand starts to scatter, blow up in a sort of a cone shape. “They both have currents, both are loose, free. They exist everywhere. You cannot survive without either.”
It grows around him, the wind and the sand nearly obscuring the dragon.
Gusting around…just like it had when the Azelain found me.
Everyone knows how to do these things except me. All of them had all the time in the world. How am I going to learn in time to save Vito, if he’s even alive?
“Considering they aren’t much different, quite a few people have trouble with understanding it.”
It starts moving toward me. I scramble back, spreading my wings—
A gust of wind catches in my feathers, flinging me back into the chaos of the wind. It pulls at me, drops me, tears at my limbs, grates in my eyes, chokes my lungs.
Then it drops me.
I land face-first on the sand, pushing myself up and spitting out the grit, rubbing the tears from my eyes as my insides burn. If I could see him, I’d punch him. “What the hell was that for?”
“It’s easier for you to learn by doing, not just listening.” His voice comes from somewhere beyond a wall of wind and sand, and I can just tell there’s a smile in it.
Easy for him to say. He’s not the one getting thrown onto spikes, sucked through walls and ceilings, and tossed into a windstorm.
“Okay, fine.” I push myself into a sitting position. “But I need to know what you want me to do.”
“Move the current.” He says it simply, as if stopping a storm wasn’t something only dragons could do. “Just like you pull water from its own. Except, of course, it’s a little different.”
Of course. I sigh, closing my eyes and spreading out my awareness like Maur had taught me before, sensing the current of the water around me. Everything spraying off the ocean is getting sucked into the cyclone, spinning lightning fast around me. I try to grab on to the droplets, but they’re too fast. They slip out of my grip like a fish squirming from my hands.
I squeeze my hands into fists. With a deep breath, I snap out, latch onto the water and pull, dragging against the current Maur creates with everything I’ve got.
I open my eyes.
It’s still spinning around me.
“This is not just like water!” I yell at the wind.
“You’re right. Because it is water.” Maur’s voice teases somewhere out of sight. “When water becomes warm enough, it becomes air. Did you know that? Some humans call us magicians, but I’d argue that the water is what’s really magic.
“When an average illusionist grips onto the water in the air, they attempt to control it the same as they would water running through a stream, or falling through the sky. But, in fact, it isn’t. It’s lighter, freer, and forcing it to move will create a weaker reaction.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m supposed to move it by not moving it? You’re making no sense.”
“Like I said, it’s easier to learn by doing.”
I bite my tongue on a few choice retorts and grimace at the sand. This is ridiculous. Even the dragons I knew in Caelum couldn’t control anything other than water. They could do more than I could with it for sure: control the weather system, create vicious storms, form ice. But they can’t control air. They can’t throw around fire.
If I didn’t just see Maur start this thing, if I hadn’t seen my mom hold a blazing mass above her head, I’d say that this was crazy.
I guess the only one who’s crazy is me, thinking I can do this.
Thinking that there’s anything left to fight for.
27
The Training
I open my eyes, squinting. I thought it had gotten dark but it’s light again. And I remember dreaming. Running across the surface of dark water. The beating of dragons’ wings echoed loudly behind me, in pace with my heart. In the distance, I would catch glimmers of scales, pale brown reflecting in the little light there was. I never got closer, though. Carita’s voice echoed around me, telling me it was pointless to run. I should stay and fight, help them win against the dragons at my tail. And I knew I should. I knew the scales in the distance were probably an illusion. Each step felt more and more pointless. But if I stopped chasing him, he’d disappear into the black abyss surrounding us.
So I kept running.
I keep running.
“If you were that bored, you should have said something.”
Maur sits beside me. The wind still rages around us.
I take a deep breath, eyeing him as I sit up. “And what would you have done if I said I was bored?”
“Made things more interesting, of course.” He has a small smile on his lips.
I’m happy I said nothing. Not that there was much to say, sitting there with my eyes closed, trying and failing to move the air swirling around me.
“Aren’t you going to try again?” He motions broadly to the cyclone around us.
I clench my fists, trying to hold back my agitation, which seems even more impossible than usual with the grogginess of having just woken up. “I obviously don’t know how to do it. I don’t see the point.”
He looks at me, smile gone. “Did you forget the entire reason you came back to see me?”
Letting out a sigh, I reach up a hand to rub my forehead. Of course I haven’t forgotten. If I go back to Carita without having learned anything, I’ll be useless to her, useless to the memory of Vito. Or maybe there’s more than just a memory, which is just another reason to learn as fast as I can. But being groggy and frustrated doesn’t really make Maur’s slithering out of everything easier to take.
“For being the easiest one to get down,” Maur says, slowly, “your mother had trouble with this one, too.”
I eye him. “Don’t you hate her?”
He tilts his head. “Well, hate is a strong word. That has nothing to do with this, though. She never wanted another loved one taken from her. She wanted to be strong enough to steal and protect your
father one day. So.” He stands up, brushing off his pants. “She first had to be strong enough to let go.”
Letting go. What do I have left to cling to? I have a mother who’s imprisoned, but who knows what the Azelain will do to her? I guess I have the insane dragon next to me, too.
Still, it’s not what I used to have.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m too hung up on what I don’t have. My family may be shattered, but there are pieces to pick up still. But I can’t grab anything new, anything important, if my hands are full of the ashes of what was.
I pry away the mental fingers around what I’ve been clinging to. Because my mother might be in trouble, but maybe I can help if I can get this damned thing down. And Maur may be ridiculous, but he has taught me so much when he could’ve ignored me, and he’s listened when I’ve asked.
Even if his answers are more ridiculous than he is.
A small smile flits across my face. I can’t cling to the past with such a unique future beyond the horizon.
I let my awareness drift away from me, let it swirl into the current of the wind. It’s dizzying, my empty stomach churning until I find the pattern of it. Like the tide pulls in and out, the air also follows a path. Pulling it off the current like I was trying to do didn’t work. It was like trying to stick my hand into a wave to make it stop moving. I get it now. If something insists on stubbornly staying inside a path, make a new path for it. Let go of control and move with the current.
I tug the wind off its path, the bits of water inside the wind much more receptive to the redirection than the pulling and yanking I was trying before. It runs out of the tunnel Maur created and…dissipates. The ocean shines in front of me, the sun much higher than I expected.
“See?” Maur says, placing his hands on his hips. “Easy.”
“It might have been easy if you had actually told me what to do,” I mutter, getting to my feet and attempting to rub the sand out of my scalp.
He arches an eyebrow. “Would you really have been able to listen right away?”