The choppy waters of the open ocean stretched out beneath the clear, robin-egg-blue sky as far as the eye could see. It was an ideal sailing day, with nary a wispy cloud in sight. Except maybe one.
Laina Aary was... she was ... she was absolutely infuriating, Joel decided. Beautiful, certainly. But also stubborn, opinionated, confusing, and a huge pain in Joel's ...
Trying to help her discover her magical aptitudes was like getting in the ring to wrestle a Nainamsat devil. He had wanted to toss her overboard on more than one occasion, and this was only the afternoon of the first full day on a five-day sail.
Will Aary, on the other hand, was much more amenable. He seemed friendly and capable, if a little overeager to please — and show off for — the aloof Valkyrie, Sky.
***
Joel had dedicated day one of the trip to kinetics and sword training. He'd set up the perfect training course by casting a duplicate raw material spell over and over and over again; wooden deck boards had unfolded out of the boat on either side as if thrusts had been tucked underneath, giving them ample space to work with. The single mast stood tall and proud in the middle of The Lady Nerthus, the yellow crows' nest at the top, the white sails and rope ladders draped off the yardarm of what was now a strange looking boat.
"How did you —?" Will asked, clearly amazed at the show of magic. Laina's jaw had dropped before she quickly rearranged it into an expression of nonchalance.
"Where does the wood come from?" Laina asked. She cast a disparaging look at Joel's haphazard boat construction techniques.
He ignored the look because he was perplexed, and drawn in by her big stormy blue eyes, which were glinting with curiosity. "I ... hmm ... I hadn't really thought of it like that. I learn the spell, I do the spell. I tell the wood to duplicate and ta da! So if I'm honest, I'm not really sure where the wood comes from."
"It's like copy and paste," Will suggested to Laina.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, but more importantly how? Did you steal it from somewhere? Is there a ship out there missing wood from its deck?"
"No. It's the exact same board that I create each time." His shoulders came up in a shrug as Will stepped over the gunnels onto a part of the new addition and inspected the wood for all the same flaws and markings as the original board.
"So then ..." Laina pointed to two of the Winnifreds who were manning the ship, "is that how...?"
Joel laughed, surprised. He was expecting a prompt "hells no" of protest from the little ladies, but they seemed buried in concentration as they guided their magic to move the ship along.
"No, no. They came into the world as duplicates," he answered grinning. "I don't think I could do that with a human being ... unless it was an illusion. Except maybe if I —." Then Joel's brain was whirring and whizzing as he thought of all the ways he could attempt such a feat. He cut his own train of thought off, realizing that he had other urgent matters to attend. This was a rabbit hole he couldn't afford to go down right now.
Joel called out to the Winnifreds: "Can you handle her like this?" The boat looked as if it had strange straight mahogany wings sticking out at the sides, and it was going to make her a trickier vessel to navigate.
Fred was at the helm, captaining the ship and grappling with a wheel almost as big as she was. Joel thought she was likely giving the other girls directions telepathically. Frederica was at the stern, directing wind into the sails and Winnie was up at the bow, coaxing the current of the water. Sky was supervising, which really meant she was admiring their obvious skills. All three tweenagers had stopped for a fraction of a second to give Joel their most 'unimpressed' expressions.
"Obviously!" came the chorus back. Then they were lost once again to the soothing patterns and routines of sailing.
The girls had grown up on the water with their father. Joel had only been able to convince the School for the COTR — Children of the Revolution — to let them out of classes for the week because they didn't get to visit their father in Mittgura very often. Joel was thankful; there was no better crew than the Winnifreds. It would have been grueling manning the boat alone. He had needed the assistance so he could focus his attention on the Aarys.
First things first, they needed to learn how to defend themselves; Joel had to assess their skills with a sword. He went to fetch three weapons from the hold and handed one to Will and one to Laina.
Will had taken up a ready stance immediately and Laina simply stood there, letting the sword dangle upside down, holding it away from her body awkwardly.
"It's sharp," Laina said.
Joel was dumbfounded. Of course, it was sharp. It was a sword.
"Shouldn't we begin training with something a little duller and safer?"
It took Joel a few seconds to piece it together. "Wait. You mean ... the two of you have never even held a sword? Never practiced before? Don't you swordfight on Earth?"
Will shook his head. "No, not since the Middle Ages. Now we have shooting weapons called guns mostly. Really deadly."
Joel looked at them, aghast. "Swords are really deadly." Though he was now suspecting perhaps they wouldn't be, in the twins' hands. Contemplating the uphill battle that they had ahead of them, Joel felt momentarily discouraged. How would Will and Laina be able to help in this war if they didn't know any magic or how to sword fight?
So Joel had taken on the task. He taught them how to hold the weapons properly, rearranging their grips and perfecting their stances. Instead of any thanks from Laina, he'd received a dirty look that conveyed her belief this was all some sort of ploy to get closer to her. Though he had noticed that her hair smelled pleasantly of coconut, he was particularly cautious of touching her anywhere but her hands. If she wanted his hands all over her, Laina was going to have to ask him ... preferably nicely — if that was possible for her. And maybe with baked goods. Or just cleavage. That would work, too.
Joel taught Laina and Will how to lunge and stab, how to block and parry, how to riposte, attack, feign, flick and beat. He led them in a routine, one against the other, as if they were mirroring each other with a flowing movement of actions and reactions.
A few minutes into training and it had become clear that the kid, Will, had kinetic magic. It was also clear that Laina did not. It wasn't a fair fight. When you were kinetic — and particularly gifted at that, if this display was anything to go by — you were stronger and faster than the average person. Will seemed to be much stronger and much faster. He had Laina flat on her back and pinned to the boards in less than five seconds, then he would let her up again and smack her with the flat of the blade on her calf or shoulder. He'd start again, feinting and faking jabs, until she was winded and back down in no time. She was fake-dead at least ten times in under five minutes.
"Stop!" Joel called out, and Will let Laina up for the last time.
Joel decided to end the exercise because even Laina didn't deserve such brutal punishment. She looked frustrated.
"Laina, you go practice the moves I taught you by yourself. Don't worry, it's just that Will clearly has a kinetic aptitude. You look good with a sword in your hand." Both Will and Laina were giving him a funny look.
"That's my sister, Joel," Will said, a teasing eyebrow hovering on his brow.
"No! No!" Joel protested. "I didn't mean it like that. This time. Seriously!"
Laina had an amused look on her face. "Uh huh. Sure."
"Really. I just meant you aren't terrible with a sword for someone with no training and no kinetic aptitude. And that you'll get there. I was trying to be encouraging, not ..." He was prevaricating.
"I guess being pervy is just one of your many aptitudes," Laina concluded, but she was grinning. "And I'm only bad at this because the sword is way too big and heavy." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and sashayed to the far thrust of the ship to continue training in solitude.
"These swords are perfectly weighted and fitted to the wielder," Joel mumbled, exasperated, under his breath. "I carved the runes myself." But he let it go; letting the words wash against deaf ears as he stared at her back, her head of long blonde ringlets falling to her waist.
Joel called Will over and they started to spar.
Will swiped towards Joel's left side, pirouetted around him and swept under Joel's feet with the sword, quick as a sphinx. Joel only managed to jump high enough for the attack to miss his shins by a hair.
Will lacked finesse, but he was fast, and, as he came down with an overhead swing, Joel blocked the blow, straining. It became clear that Will was incredibly strong, too. Joel pushed back on the deadlock, bracing himself. He buckled under the impact but dropped the tension of the locked blades, quickly and unexpectedly. Dodging and rolling to the right, he swept the sword towards Wills midriff only to have him jump back intuitively. Good.
Joel's training and his own kinetic aptitude made him a good match, but Will was still rough and new to swordsmanship. I should be winning by now, Joel thought, as they paced themselves evenly, step by step, stroke by slash. The raw talent and potential in Will was undeniable, brimming under the surface and surging through him relentlessly. With practice, he was going to be a warrior the likes of which Htrae had never seen, except perhaps in his elder sister Rowan. Joel started to sweat as they danced around the mast.
"Watch your left side!" Joel feinted a wide swing, and then thrust forward instead, catching Will by surprise. "Try and read your opponent." Joel called out again, as he noticed that both Laina and Sky were now watching. "And try not to get distracted by the audience!" Though, looking over at Sky seemed to reinvigorate Will, and he surged forward with a hard-hitting three-point attack. Meanwhile, Joel realized he wasn't heeding his own advice and, instead of planning ahead, had glanced over to see if Laina looked impressed. He was being systematically pushed up against the mast. Nelson's balls, Joel thought. He noticed a rope ladder hanging near him so he grabbed it, hopped sideways onto it and used the momentum to swing up behind Will in one quick motion. The rapid switch of direction and the use of the prop caught Will unawares.
"Will! Watch o—," Laina called, but it was too late. Joel held the point of his sword to Will's back.
"And if you can help it, never fight on unfamiliar ground or someone else's home turf. You're at an immediate disadvantage. But I didn't really give you a choice in the matter," Joel smiled in victory.
But he was out of breath and he had had to resort to trickery to win. Will was going to be incredible.
"You're amazing," Joel said, offering his hand. Will shook it good-naturedly. "Just a bit more training and you're going to have me beat. You have more potential as a kinetic than almost anyone else I've ever met ... except possibly Rowan. Once she starts helping you, you're going to be a real warrior. Completely unstoppable. Damn."
Will looked pleased with himself and mentioned that back on Earth, he'd begun to notice that he was capable of pushing himself beyond what should be humanly possible, after his sixteenth birthday. He'd had to stop playing sports, feigning injuries, because he was worried others might notice that something strange was happening to him. He'd been wary of sharing it with anyone, even Laina, in case it was nothing.
Kinetics tended to grow into their powers as they aged into adulthood, so that made sense.
Joel gave Will a few more drills and sparred lightly with Laina. When all three of them had tired themselves out, they sat down for a break.
"How does it all work?" Laina had asked. "The magic, I mean. I get there are different types, but how many? And where does the magic come from?"
"So, think of it this way," Joel said. He grabbed some parchment and a quill, placed it on the deck and sat in front of it, cross-legged. "Every single person has energy inside of them ... or a source of magic." Joel drew a circle in the middle of the parchment. He labelled it source.
"Everyone? Even on Earth? Then why can't everyone perform magic?" Laina enquired.
Joel leveled a look at her. "If you'd just let me explain, I was going to get to that." He sighed. "Everyone is born with a source inside of them, but in order to make magic, they need a bridge or a conduit. We call this an aptitude, which is the way in which you can access the source. No aptitude means no way to tap into your power."
Joel drew five lines going out from the middle of the circle as if it were a rudimentary sun. "It's the process by which you access the source that creates different types of magic. So first, we have kinetic aptitude." He inscribed the first line. "Kinetic magic is physical. It allows you to draw on the source to channel energy into your body, creating magic that increases strength and speed and flow.
"Then there's elemental magic. It allows you to pour your source into manipulating the natural world: water, wind, fire, air, earth." He pointed at one of the Winnifreds who was waving her arms as if she was physically maneuvering the wind to fill the sails of the ship. "Like that," Joel said, adding the word elemental in sloppy handwriting to the diagram.
"Can all elemental mages manipulate all of the elements?" Laina asked, her head tilted slightly. It was actually sort of endearing how inquisitive she was, as if she was too impatient to wait for all the answers when the knowledge was in the cookie jar somewhere too high for her to reach. It was cute and annoying at the same time. However, Joel didn't mind being the one she needed to rely on to get her answers.
"No. Some mages can work with all the elements a little bit, some can do only one well, some can do most of them well, but one not at all. There are different levels of mastery for all of the aptitudes and that's a whole different subject. Fire seems to be the least common of the elemental strains."
"Rowan's really good with fire," Laina said, nodding.
Joel was just going to say that, and was perplexed that somehow Laina had already come by the information. One of the triplets must have told her. Or maybe Sky. He hadn't known it was common knowledge.
"Then there's also runic magic. That aptitude allows some mages to channel their source into symbols on objects or tattoos on people."
"Like Sky's wing tattoos," Laina concluded.
"Exactly!" Joel nodded. "You can imbue a drawing or symbol on something with a command. In the case of Sky's wings it was 'contain.'
"You did that?" Will asked. "That's really cool."
Laina looked begrudgingly impressed.
"It's a rare aptitude these days. But it's important, because it's used for building and making our world run. Once a rune is drawn it can be used until it's destroyed, and it can be turned on or off by just about anyone, but the original magic must be channeled into it by a Runite. Runic magic has laid the foundation of Htrae for thousands of years ... carpenters, smiths, artists ... "
"Architects," Laina continued.
"Right." But Laina had a look on her face Joel couldn't quite place. Hopeful maybe? Or nervous?
"It would be great if one of you is a Runite. We could use a few more in Htrae. And you wouldn't know, because it definitely takes figuring out to work that magic. And studying. We'll try soon."
Laina looked determined and Joel hoped she wouldn't be disappointed. It really was uncommon, and he didn't want to be the one to tell her if she didn't have a runic aptitude. He scratched the word runic onto the parchment and Laina stared at it pointedly as if she thought he was etching a rune into the page.
"There's also arcane magic," Joel continued. "My personal favourite. Those who have the aptitude can channel their source into spells, written and said allowed, like a spoken recipe for what they want to create or have happen. There are a lot of old spells that you can rely on, but you can also experiment with new ones. It takes a lot of study and hard work and rote memorization, but the potential is unlimited. It's creative and can be a strong weapon when used for dueling." He labelled one of the spindles.
"Then there's the psionic aptitude. We call this being 'touched by Wyrd' because it's a literal gift from ..." he glanced to the other side of the boat where Sky was looking to the horizon, "the Norns," he continued. "Sometimes a Wyrd will show up after a birth and bestow a power on a baby to unlock the aptitude. They occasionally do this with destinies also. Psionics allow you to funnel your source into your brain. They're mental powers: telepathic, telekinetic, empathic, divination, clairvoyance, psychic ... reading minds and telling prophecies, that sort of thing."
Laina glared at him as he wrote psionic above the last line.
"And you have?" Will asked.
"Four aptitudes," Joel answered. "Kinetic, elemental, runic, and arcane."
"But you can read minds, too, so that's also psionic?" Laina was still irritated with him. He was going to have to find a way to apologize properly.
"Actually that ... was a spell I've been working on for a while, so no. I don't have a psionic aptitude."
"And four is a lot? Which is why they call you THE wizard?" She still looked skeptical.
"These days most people have one, maybe. Some have none. Two occasionally. Four is ... well ... only me except for one wizard who existed thousands of years ago. But I'm not good at all of them. Pretty bad at kinetic if I'm honest."
He wasn't trying to brag, but Laina had her arms crossed across her chest. Thankfully, Will looked wowed.
"So that's it then? That's all the types of magic?" Laina asked.
"Well..." Joel shifted awkwardly, "those are all the aptitudes."
"Which means?"
"A lot of magical creatures have innate abilities and ..." he hesitated.
"Hell —,"
"Hells," Joel corrected reflexively.
"—no! You don't get to have secrets after you read my mind." Laina called him out.
"Okay, okay. There are only five aptitudes, but there's one other known type of magic that can be accessed by wizards. There have only been a handful of people throughout history who have been able to do it and ... well, lets just hope you're not one of them." He went to get up as if the case were closed, but Laina tugged on his arm and pulled him back down.
"Nope."
"It's not something you need to worry about," Joel protested. "Chances are you don't —"
"Spill." Her piercing pupils drilled a hole into him. "Now."
"Well, see the circle in the middle?" Joel said, pointing at the representation of the font of magic inside everyone. "And you know I said you have to have an aptitude that works as a conduit or bridge to access it? There have been some wizards who can access the source directly." Right underneath the sphere — without a line leading to or from it — Joel wrote the word primal.
"Wouldn't that make the mage incredibly powerful? Why is that a bad thing?" Laina asked, staring at Joel pensively with intelligent blue eyes.
"Yes and no. Someone who can access their source without a conduit is not in control. The magic happens intuitively and responds to their emotions. It's reactive and unplanned. And, incredibly dangerous, often catastrophic. Instead of tapping into the source, the source is tapping in to the mage, which often ends really, really badly. For everyone. Thousands can be slaughtered in a matter of seconds. And it can end up draining the wizard until they're dead or ..."
"Mad," finished Laina. He watched the wheels turn. "Like our mother."
Laina's face crumpled into anguish and a cloud of concern swept in and engulfed her. Joel didn't want her worrying that this might be her lot in life, too. As for Will, he digested the information stoically, but the minute the statement had been said out loud the truth was evident.
Joel hadn't wanted them to find out like this ... or from him. They looked to him for confirmation.
He sighed. "Yes, I'm sorry."
"So that's how ... And you said we probably wouldn't have this magic? But she did. So does that mean that we might be like her, too? That there's a greater chance that we'll have primal magic." Her questions were urgent now, and in that moment, Joel would have done anything to assuage her concerns.
He couldn't.
The lack of an answer — that cautious look on his face — apparently it was enough of one.
Laina got up and paced away from them.
"It's unlikely you have ..." Joel called after her, but she was already disappearing down through the hold to the chambers, the heavy door thumping loudly behind her.
Joel got up to go after her, but Will stopped him.
"I got this," he said. "I'll talk to her." Joel nodded and watched her twin run after her, but he couldn't help but want to fix this, even if he couldn't.
Damn, he thought, as he went to relieve the Winnifreds and take up the first dog watch. Maybe captaining his ship would distract his mind from persistently wandering to Laina down below.
***
Joel was staring at a perfect sunset, the sky an expanse of violent fuchsia and sherbet orange, bleeding into dark crimson as the sun lingered on the horizon. Red sky at night, sailor's delight, he'd heard Will declare, as he'd stood beside the Valkyrie, to admire the view. The kid was right. Sailing conditions would be perfect tomorrow. The sun descended slowly, giving way to whispers of a gray-blue night that was waiting for its chance to populate the heavens with twinkling stars.
Joel was once again multitasking when he finally noticed them. He had one half of his brain on captaining the boat and blowing wind into the sails, and another part — his left ear to be exact — down below, listening to a bedtime story that Laina was telling the Winnifreds. Laina was a good storyteller: she did all these fun voices. This particular tale was filled with machines and technology beyond Joel's wildest dreams. He was trying to use the description she'd given to imagine what a train might look like, which is exactly why he hadn't seen the specks in the distance earlier.
Joel's alarm was instantaneous. He squinted to the north again, just to be sure ...
In a flying vee of nine, hurtling towards The Lady Nerthus at considerable speed, was an Epicurean patrol of soldiers upon a conspiracy of wyverns.
***
Duh, duh, duh! Comment and let me know what you thought. And please vote if you enjoyed the chapter! How do you feel about cliffhangers? Love 'em or hate 'em? And what do you think Joel will do?! Thanks for reading. <3 Emmy