by DM Fike
Calm.
Azar’s words about fire rang through my head.
Fire allows for few emotions.
I had to stay calm, focus my fire pith in a gentle cycle, or it would consume me. But how? I lived my life by embracing my darker emotions, using them as fuel to push me forward. All my muscles clenched in rage as I struggled with how to let go.
Then Vincent slumped over, weakened by the smoke. His face slumped against mine, his lips accidentally brushing my brow.
Peace.
No matter how upset I’d been with Vincent these past few days, I never forgot sitting on his futon, his hair tousled from a recent shower. We had inched toward each other, inevitable as a force of nature. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be soaked up by his warmth, his spirit, his life.
And as he clung to me now, his consciousness fading, it suddenly didn’t matter that he had an ex with benefits. It didn’t matter if he’d lied to me. All that mattered was that one moment we’d almost shared together, how it had felt just right, like the world had finally aligned the way it was always meant to.
For a split second, it gave me peace.
And that’s all the calm I needed. Fire pith flowed into my body, then out again, my pithways a giant cleansing fan. A white-hot glow illuminated my skin, the kind I’d seen on other shepherds as they deftly stood in the flames.
I could take the heat.
As gently as a mother lifting her newborn child into her arms, I embraced the flames crackling around me. I soaked them up my fingertips, through one arm, into my heart, and down the opposite limb, behind us. Sparks of fire redirected themselves out of our path of freedom, bursting behind us, in the past.
I’d created a way out.
I continued to redirect fire as I aided Vincent forward. He stumbled beside me, clinging onto me for dear life. He kept his head buried somewhere underneath my chin, so I had no idea if he knew we were escaping or not. I didn’t care. It only mattered that I had everything under control.
That I could keep him safe.
We waded out into unburned territory. I no longer needed to redirect the fire as we walked outside of the immediate danger zone, but I continued to escort Vincent. He stopped coughing, his breath becoming more even, but his footing remained sluggish, his mind not 100% comprehending that we’d made it through.
We’d just broken through the trees into view of the highway when he collapsed to the ground, too weak from smoke inhalation to go farther. Not far down the road, his silver car was parked askance on the shoulder, the driver’s side door still ajar. He’d rushed out so quickly, he’d forgotten to shut it.
“Ina,” he gasped as I lowered his head gently down.
The unmistakable sound of sirens penetrated the air. Red flashing lights spun toward us from down the road. From where he lay prone, Vincent would be found immediately.
But I couldn’t be seen.
“Everything’s okay now,” I whispered to him.
He tried to cinch onto my hoodie sleeve with his free hand. “Ina,” he pleaded again.
But I didn’t have time to talk. I pulled away from him, fleeing across the road and into the woods, out of sight.
I stuck around to watch the ambulance screech to a halt after noticing an injured man on the side of the road. An EMT hopped out to inspect Vincent, who had already gotten himself into a sitting position and was attempting to stand. When Vincent lurched vaguely toward me, I flinched with regret. He apparently hoped to catch up to me. But the EMT insisted he go toward the back of the ambulance instead.
I don’t know how I managed with almost no water pith, but tears stung the corners of my eyes. I dabbed them away as I fled, trying desperately to hold onto that sense of peace that allowed me to control fire.
EPILOGUE
I SNUCK BACK onto the homestead without anyone noticing. I spent a quiet evening soaking in the hot spring, running only into Sipho on the way back to the lodge. She promised me she was crafting a new lightning charm prototype, but it wasn’t up to her standards yet. I told her to take her time, then excused myself. With the world’s heaviest eyelids, I went to bed much earlier than I ever do, the sun still streaking into the sky.
Guntram surprised me by waking us both bright and early the next morning. He looked a little tired but more or less acted like his normal self. He offered no apology, nor did he mention our previous fight. It should have irritated me, all these secrets, but given everything I’d been through the last twenty-four hours, I now had secrets of my own.
We were even.
Guntram returned us to our regularly scheduled training. After water warm-up, he decided to try my hand at some fire sigil work. I blew him away by showing him I could stand in fire, no problem. He accepted my simple explanation that Azar had given me some pointers. I doubt he would have appreciated knowing I’d learned through a trial and error test that almost got me killed. He would have liked it even less knowing I relied on bittersweet memories of Vincent to execute it.
“Well, with water mastery and now fire,” he huffed into his beard. “I suppose you have just earth and air left. And lightning too, if we can manage.”
I openly groaned. At this rate, I’d be an eyas well past Guntram’s age.
But that was the least of my problems. Rafe’s bracelet remained on my arm, hidden from view underneath my hoodie sleeve, but I could constantly sense the stirring of strange magic it contained. It hummed in my head long after the headache from the vaettur pith finally receded two days later. I eventually had to take it off and hide it, since Guntram seemed to catch whiffs of the fire charm’s energy now and again when we trained. More than anything, I wanted it gone.
But finding an opportunity to slip away without Guntram’s notice was easier said than done. His twitchy crows had their eyes on me constantly. Every time I stepped close to the homestead boundary, a caw would remind me to stay put. I had no way to leave.
Which is why I felt so stupid when I finally remembered I had the power to sneak away whenever I wanted. I waited until after midnight, when Guntram had fallen fast asleep, before stealing into the lodge kitchen. There, I stood on the counter and extracted the kembar stone from where I’d left it in the highest cupboard.
This time when I appeared in the tiny motel bathtub, I climbed out gracefully. I found Rafe in the upholstered chair, fingers folded in his lap as if he’d been waiting the entire time.
“I heard all about how the mysterious wildfire ‘blew itself out.’” A confident smile spread across his face. “I knew you could do it.”
I already had the bracelet in my hand. I shoved it toward him. “I came to give you this.”
He unlatched the thin metal slat with the fire symbol and pocketed that particular charm. But he declined the rest of his bracelet with a polite raise of his hand. “I’m not ready for them. Not yet.”
Startled, I asked, “What do you mean?”
He leaned forward, slapping his hands together in a prayer-like fashion in front of him. “You’ve only scratched the surface of the things I can teach you about shepherds. Wouldn’t you like to learn more?”
I hesitated. Every waking (and most sleeping) moments, I’d been consumed with a nagging worry. How much should I trust the outside world? I already doubted my connection with Vincent. I didn’t need that kind of vulnerability in my life. And Rafe? I didn’t know what to think of him yet.
Rafe touched my knee softly. “It’s okay to hesitate. I waited for a long while too, until I finally had a moment of pure clarity and found my purpose.”
Clarity? I snorted. “That must be nice.”
“It is. Give me a chance to pass it on to you. Let me teach you. And if you ever feel uncomfortable,” he added quickly as I opened my mouth to protest, “you can always leave.”
“How can I trust you?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because you have all the power in this relationship, Ina. You are the shepherd. I only have little tricks, a sideshow attraction, compa
red to what you can do.”
“I want to believe you—” I began.
“I do believe in you,” he interrupted. “Give me the same courtesy. Believe in me.”
I pushed all lingering doubt aside.
“Okay,” I said, reattaching Rafe’s bracelet to my arm. “Tell me what you know.”
WANT MORE INA?
If you enjoyed this Magic of Nasci book, read the next in the series:
SHATTERING EARTH
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DM Fike worked in the video game industry for over a decade, starting out as a project manager and eventually becoming a story writer for characters, plots, and missions. Born in Idaho’s Magic Valley (you can’t make this stuff up), DM Fike lived in Japan teaching English before calling Oregon home. She loves family, fantasy, and food (mostly in that order) and is on the constant look out for new co-op board games to play.
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Appendix: Names and Terms
This section contains a glossary of Nasci-specific terms and characters with pronunciations, presented in alphabetical order.
Augur (AW-ger): The second highest mastery in the shepherd hierarchy. Augurs have complete control over one element, have a special link to their kidama species, and can train eyas-level shepherds.
Azar (uh-ZAHR): A talented fire shepherd.
Banish (BAN-ish): To send a vaettur back to Letum using magical means.
Baot (bout): A water shepherd who spends most of his time in the Pacific Ocean.
Bitai Wilds (bee-TAHY wahylds): The ecological region of desert encompassing the American West and Mexico that is overseen by a specific sect of shepherds.
Bound (bound): To seal a shepherd’s pithways so that they can no longer access their magic.
Breach (breech): The interdimensional portal vaetturs create to travel from Letum to our world.
Charm (chahrm): An object that stores pith or recreates the properties of a sigil.
Cleft (kleft): An opening in the earth where vitae spills.
Cockatrice (KAH-kuh-tris): A dragon and rooster hybrid vaettur with a Medusa gaze.
Darby (DAHR-bee): A rookie shepherd with a talent for earth magic.
Dryant (DRAHY-ant): An animal with magical powers that guards others of its kind or territory. A dryant used to be a normal animal until it was blessed with Nasci’s essence.
Etching (ECH-ing): A symbol that is marked on a specific object to give it pith or the properties of a sigil.
Eyas (AHY-uhs): A rookie (and the lowest level) shepherd.
Fechin (FE-chin): Guntram’s favorite raven kidama.
Forger (FORJ-er): A follower of Nasci who can sense the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water) and redirect them into objects.
Golem (GOH-luhm): A creature made of pure pith.
Guntram (GOON-trahm): Ina’s mentor and master air augur. Ina sometimes calls him Jichan (JEE-chahn), which means “Gramps” in Japanese.
Haggard (HAG-erd): A derogatory term for a shepherd that began training after puberty.
Homestead (HOHM-sted): A secret base with farms and other resources that shepherds visit to rejuvenate themselves and gather supplies.
Ina (EE-nah): A rookie shepherd with mysterious lightning powers. Her real name is Imogene Nakamori (IM-uh-jeen Nah-KAH-moh-ree).
Jortur (JOR-ter): One of Tabitha’s favorite black-tailed deer kidama.
Kappa (KAHP-pah): An aquatic humanoid frog vaettur.
Kembar stones (KEM-bahr stohns): Two stones that are linked like wisp channels.
Ken (ken): Magical sight granted by Nasci that allows a person to sense pith and see vaetturs and dryants.
Khalkotauroi (kal-koh-TOU-roi): A fiery bull vaettur.
Kidama (kee-DAH-mah): A species of animals that augurs can communicate with telepathically and give orders to.
Letum (LE-tuhm): The realm where the vaetturs originate.
Mishipeshu (mi-shee-PE-shoo): An aquatic feline vaettur with mysterious powers.
Nasci (NAHS-kee): The goddess that lives in the center of the Earth who grants elemental powers to her followers.
Onyara Wilds (ohn-YAHR-ah wahylds): The ecological region of temperate deciduous forests of the Eastern United States that is overseen by a specific sect of shepherds.
Oracle (OR-uh-kuhl): The highest level of shepherd who leads all shepherds within a Wilds territory.
Pith (pith): The essence of fire, earth, air, or water that can be converted into magical energy.
Pithways (PITH-weys): A magical system that shepherds have inside their bodies to redirect and store pith.
Rafe (reyf): A mysterious stranger who shows up in the woods.
Ronan (ROH-nuhn): An antlered harbor seal dryant that lives on the Oregon coast.
Shepherd (SHEP-erd): A follower of Nasci who can store the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water) in their bodies and cast them using sigils. Also the third highest mastery of shepherd, just above an eyas.
Shepherd Trial (SHEP-erd TRAY-uhl): A rite of passage an eyas takes before becoming a full-fledged shepherd.
Sigil (SIJ-il): A symbol drawn in the air by shepherds to convert their pith into a specific magical spell.
Sipho (SI-foh): The forger of the southern Talol Wilds homestead.
Sova (SOH-vah): A northern spotted owl dryant with metallic mauve streaks in her wings.
Tabitha (TAB-i-thuh): Darby’s mentor and master earth augur.
Talol Wilds (tah-LOL wahylds): The ecological region of temperate rainforests stretching from British Columbia to northern California that is overseen by a specific sect of shepherds.
Vaettur (VEY-ter): A predatory creature from Letum that enters our world to devour pith via animals and dryants.
Vincent Garcia (VIN-suhnt gahr-SEE-uh): A game warden for the Oregon State Police.
Vitae (VEE-tahy): The lifeblood of Nasci used to create new dryants.
Wisp channel (wisp CHAN-el): Glowing lights that shepherds use to teleport large distances.
Yoi (YOH-ee): The Oracle of the Talol Wilds.
Zibel (ZAHY-bel): A shepherd who spends most of his time in the Oregon Dunes.
Magic of Nasci
Ina is a rookie nature wizard, learning the ropes of elemental magic—fire, air, earth, and water. She can also wield lightning, setting her apart from the other shepherds of Nasci. This action-packed urban fantasy series takes you on Ina’s adventure to prove herself, deep within the heart of the Pacific Northwest forests, where true power still thrives.
Chasing Lightning
Breathing Water
Running into Fire
Shattering Earth
Soaring in Air
Acknowledgement
Writing a book is one thing, getting it out to the world is another. I'd like to thank those who read early versions of this story, including Jennifer Marshall and Sandra Schiller. You helped shape Ina into the awesome shepherd she has become.
Many talented people gave this book the professional care it deserved. I found my editor Lori Diederich through the 20Booksto50K Facebook group, an invaluable resource for new writers. Sara Smestad modeled for Danan Rolfe so we had plenty of great photos to choose for the cover.
A few final shout-outs. One to my first fan, Samantha Marshall, who believed before anyone else. The last goes to Jacob Fike, who lends both his time and skills to making each of my books better. I couldn’t do this without him.
ke, Running into Fire: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 3)