Map of Ember and Moonlight

Chapter 16

He watched her smile appear again, even if it was smaller.

Then she looked at him and it widened into a smirk.

"So," she started, walking toward him. He clenched his hands into fists once before relaxing them. "What exactly are we going to be doing? Or did you not really think this through and we're just going to do whatever?"

Amory couldn't help his own smirk. "I must admit, it's going to be the latter. I already know some of what you can do, but I haven't really see everything or the extent it can go. What's the simplest thing?"

A small rock appeared over her shoulder, levitating in the air. Amory raised a brow when she made it fly past her and hit him in the chest.

"So, you're going to magically throw pebbles at me?"

"You want something bigger?"

One bolder in the outcropping of rocks started to shake and groan. Lyv didn't even break a sweat as it began to lift into the air.

"All right, that's enough," he said with a laugh. The bolder settled softly back into place. "You can levitate things."

"Obviously. I found that out when I was about two. My sister Rhea kept one of my dolls for herself. I wanted it so badly, so with my mind, I just plucked it out of her hands and it came soaring into mine. My father was so shocked he didn't say anything...not until my mother grabbed me up and was about to give me a slap on the backside, yelling that I should have never done that. He stopped her and took me away, still telling me not to do it around people who weren't in our family but didn't give me a whipping."

"Your magic manifested young, then."

Lyv nodded and pulled her dagger from its sheath. "A few months later, I had fallen down the stairs and sliced my head open on the corner of the bottom step. I was screaming when Tulia and my father found me. He used to tell me the story all the time. I was screaming, there was blood everywhere, but when they finally calmed me down enough to wipe my face clean, there wasn't any wound. He'd sent Tulia away to get the healer so she wouldn't see. The gash had taken a little while to heal, but it was gone within a few minutes. But ever since then, it's only gotten faster."

Amory couldn't stop her before she took the dagger and sliced her forearm from wrist to elbow. He yelled, rushing forward to grab her hand and yank the dagger from the other. She didn't stop him, especially when he paused, watching her skin knit together and the blood recede back into her.

"Oh," he breathed.

"Told you it was fast. Showing you was going to be easier, though."

"I didn't tell you to slice yourself up, though."

"But I'm fine."

He let her take her dagger again, only because he wanted to touch where the gash had been. Holding her hand, he traced the invisible line, feeling the magic still working underneath, though the surface wound was completely gone.

Her heart tumbling in her chest was what he heard then, and he looked up to see her staring at him.

"You can heal others as well," he said softly. "I've heard the people in the city going on and on about the princess and her way with healing."

Amory hadn't let go of her hand yet.

She swallowed hard before answering. "It makes me happy to see my people thriving after being sick or injured. I've been doing it so long that I'm able to do so much more – heal broken bones and minor ailments that come from accidents, cure sickness that come with raging fevers, bring people back from the brink of death. The healers at the palace beg me to show them how it do it. I mostly show them the certain bandaging techniques and how to make tonics. I don't think they'd really take to knowing their princess uses magic."

"You never know. Maybe they'd warm up to it when they realize all the good you've done for your people."

Lyv shook her head, pulling her hand from his grasp. He watched as she started walking around the clearing, her mind working as she tried to come up with her next words.

"I know I have the ability to manifest things as well, though I don't really have much training in it. I don't know about wards either. But I've heard of some being able to fade from one place and appear into another at will. I haven't tried it myself. I don't know how far I can go with what I do know I can do, though," she told him, looking back with a smile. "But I guess that's what I've got you for, huh?"

"What about what happened that night with the gypsy gang?" he asked after hesitating a moment. "With the embers..."

"That was not something I knew I could do. My magic...it just erupted from me at that moment and came out as embers, ready to destroy anything in its path."

Amory walked toward her then, slowly since she was standing there like a doe in the line of a hunter's arrow. "That magic...I have never seen anything like it before. I've heard tales, but it was from long ago in the lands of Eld and even farther in Ethran. But you said you had ancestors from Asturia, correct?"

"That I know of, yes."

"Any from Eld? Maybe your father's side?"

She shook her head and shrugged, watching his advance.

"You think you could do it again?"

"I'd rather not burn you to ash. I'm starting to like you."

That made him laugh. Really laugh. The first one in a long time.

"Anything else?" Amory asked, still chuckling. "So far, we have advanced healing of both self and others, levitation, manifestation, and ember manipulation. Maybe creating wards or even fading, but we'll save those to try at a later time."

"Oh, and this," she whispered, holding out her hand. Almost instantly, a pulsing blue orb of light appeared in her palm. In the light of day, it wasn't showing much as to how bright it really was, but at night...

Well, Amory had seen it at night, too.

"Glowing orb of light," he checked off. "How could we forget that?"

The look Lyv gave him then said she was almost regretting telling him she didn't want to burn him to ash.

And with that look, that glowing blue orb turned black, cracking as red and orange embers glowed beneath its surface. Just as soon as she was able to morph it, it disappeared, leaving a wisp of smoke in its place.

"I don't know how I did that," Lyv whispered. "It's...it's never..."

"Magic is controlled by emotion. Happiness, sadness, fear, anger...all of it. That wall you keep up to keep your magic hidden...that crack is going to continue to get wider the more you try to hide. Instead of hiding, its best if you just learn how to control everything you can do, maybe even push yourself to learn even more."

"And you're going to help me."

"As best I can," he nodded. "Now, come on. We're not staying here, not for what we're going to do next. Let's head to the lake and see just how what kind of water magic you have other than healing."