Born of Magic (Channeler Series) Read online

  “I think the magic is alive—it responds when I ask it to do something, I think.”

  “I’ve never heard magic described in such a way. You say it responds to your will?” Tevon asked. He stared off into the distance, probably still in shock over what had happened.

  “I think so.”

  “For such a little girl you certainly are full of surprises,” he said. His voice sounded shaky and his eyes darted around, avoiding contact with mine.

  I wanted to ask him what had made him become uneasy but I was beginning to understand. Between the unusual results in my entry test and the new revelations of the true nature of my ability, I was a threat—too powerful and too uncertain. At any point I could cut off magic from anyone and use it against them. If I were to grow to be a powerful fighter as well, I could become unstoppable. That lust for power was once again wreaking havoc on my thoughts. Even I grew nervous of what I may become.

  “Tevon, do people here trust me?”

  He shook his head for a moment. “Jas, you’re a very powerful mage, with great potential. They’re concerned with your future, and the test left us with many questions.” He played with his beard, twirling his fingers through its scraggily ends. “They just need to get to know you better.” He then walked over and gave me a hug. “Let’s take a walk.”

  I was tired from training, but a walk sounded strangely relieving to me—nothing but nature, Tevon’s warming presence, and no pending issues. I stood up in agreement and we headed further into the forest.

  “What do you think about me?” I asked, continuing my unusual behavior of being direct with my questions.

  “What do you mean, Jas?”

  A large part of me shuddered at the possible answers that might follow, but I needed to know. “Do you think I can be trusted?”

  “Of course, Jas.” I had expected a very reassuring response from Tevon, and while his words were, his tone was not.

  His response showed me that while they did care for me to some extent, I could not put all of my trust in them either. At least not Tevon, but Helendra was always honest towards me, I thought. She would be one that I could still turn to with this. The remainder of the hike I was silent, intent on discussing my concerns with Helendra tonight when I reached my home.

  The sun cast an orange haze across the sky, painting the forest with a yellow tint that made the world feel alien to me. “I’m supposed to meet with the archery instructor soon. He’s helping me catch up.”

  Without a word Tevon veered off path and in a different direction, one that I assumed led us back towards the castle. We barely made it back to the archery field in time, but the instructor was already there. At a steady gate he returned from far down the field, where he had setup two targets. He must not have been here that long as he had just finished setting them up.

  He threw his thumb over his shoulder, pointing towards the targets. “By the time we’re done, you’ll be hitting those.”

  I sized up the distance to cover in disbelief. The targets were farther down the range than any had been during the class earlier today, even the more advanced students’ targets had been only half as far away. “I can’t shoot anywhere near that far.”

  With a confident smile and a flashing of his pearly white teeth he said, “You will.”

  We stood next to each other as we took up our bows, taking aim at our separate targets. I shot first, and while my arrow made it much farther than I had managed earlier, it still only covered a quarter of the distance.

  He grinned and drew back his bow, then released it. The arrow glided through the air. It was a very straight shot, and he did not arc it upward like he had trained us to do. The arrow traveled pristinely through the air, its feathers thrown back by its speed. It was about to hit the ground when his eyes grew wide. A narrow gust of wind came whooshing by us and caught the arrow in its path, and seemed to increase its speed at least five fold. The arrow hit the center of the target and passed through it, leaving a gaping hole in the center.

  With a feral smile he turned back to me and slung his bow over his shoulder. “I have a bit of an advantage there.”

  “Can you do that again?”

  With pride and pleasure, he pulled another arrow and drew his bow once more. The moment he released it, I watched as magic formed within him. I called it over to me and stored it within me. A puzzled look struck his face as he tried to use his magic. He came up short at first, and the arrow was about to hit the ground just before he had built up enough magic again to send it screaming down the field.

  “That was weird,” he said, sounding a little ashamed.

  “My turn,” I said, eager to try another power.

  I took an arrow into my hand and drew my bow, aiming a little high, just to be safe. I took a deep breath and started to release the air slowly. At the end of my exhalation, I unhooked my fingers from the tightly pulled string. It snapped forward and launched the arrow away. I focused the magic I had stolen from him, summoning a concentrated gust of wind to pick up the arrow and rain it down onto the target. While it did not hit as well as his had, I had made my point.

  Expecting congratulations on my well-placed shot, I turned to him. His face wore nothing but a look of concern. “You took my magic,” he said with a stuttering murmur. “Your eyes, they turned black, darker than a moonless night.”

  Ashamed at another concerned response, I turned and ran off, leaving our training session. I was not followed as I hurried to my home, if I could still call it that for long with the welcome I had been receiving today. It was relieving to find it empty. I curled into my bed and pulled the blanket over my face.

  “Are you there?” I asked.

  “As always,” Helendra replied. There was an obvious bit of uncertainty laced in her voice.

  “Is there something wrong with me?” I was sure the answer was yes. Every time I demonstrated my potential, others grew afraid of me. I could see it in their eyes. I was not considered a friend or student, I was a dangerous weapon that could not be trusted but could not be left alone either. They needed to watch over me.

  “Not as far as I am concerned. There is just apprehension over how much power you have for your age. That and—” Her pause confirmed my beliefs--they’re afraid of what had happened with the test. I needed to gain their trust just as they had gained mine.

  “What can I do? I want them to trust me. I want to be treated like a student, not a weapon.” I questioned my usage of the word weapon, but it was too late, I had revealed that I knew what I could become.

  “Jasminis, you are no weapon. You are going to save millions if you can help end this war. That makes you the opposite of any weapon.”

  Helendra had always been there, watching over me, keeping her faith in me, never shifting in her own opinion. She could feel my emotions at any time. She knew me well and she placed her trust in me. I could not betray that trust.

  I was about to finish my conversation with Helendra when a pressing question reappeared in my mind. “Helendra, those stones I had helped Aton get, what do they really do?”

  “When the stones are combined and.... embedded into the wielder, it draws magic into them. With them, he wouldn’t have needed you, at least not as much.”

  “Why didn’t the academy ever use them for themselves?”

  “You remember what had happened to Aeden when you channeled more magic to him? The use of magic can be tiring, and the way the stones are placed into the wielder, it leaves a constant large stream of magic going to them. After some time, that much magic changes someone. It corrupts them.”

  “Is that why they are so concerned about my future?”

  “Mostly.”

  While knowing the reason for the others' mistrust in me was good, I was still bothered by their lack of faith in my ability to control my power. I would have to prove my restraint. I would have to keep the magic from corrupting me.

  “What of Aton? He doesn’t need that many more to complete his quest.”


  “We have taken the last three stones and placed them somewhere very safe, so he will never find them.”

  I replied with a cold tone in my voice, “He’s still a threat to others.”

  “He will be found in time. We have people looking for him.”

  Our conversation ended there and spent the rest of the night staring at the roof of my hut.

  ~9~

  I awoke to find myself surrounded by chaos. Blasts shook the ground from every direction. I thrashed the sheets off of me, stumbled out of bed, and pulled aside the blanket covering my doorway. A wall of heat came rushing in and burned my face. Everything was ablaze. Flames danced off the trees, turning them to burnt sticks covered in ash. Students came from every direction, scattered and frightened. They ran around in a panic as the onslaught closed in from every direction.

  Mages encompassed the academy, their eyes glowing white like a ring of stars around us. Each spat out their own fury of magic at the helpless students. I created a bubble around myself as fast as I could, so no magic could reach me. I watched in horror from my safety as all the other students were picked off one by one. There was no sign of Tevon or Helendra, coming to help—they must have been taken out first. The castle was torn apart by a thunderous clash of boulders that had been sent tumbling through the air.

  Within minutes there was no one around me, save for a circle of unsettling starry eyes beaming at me. They formed an inescapable barrier around me and stood in silence. The sea of fire became a distant haze as my eyes caught the sight of a young woman in a hood that approached me. She passed through my bubble and walked right up to me. I was defenseless, and there was no hope for any other possible action than my surrender.

  The woman lifted her hood, her eyes empty voids from which no light could escape. I stared at my demonic self in horror, my black eyes staring back at me.

  I awoke that morning drenched in sweat. My palms were pale and shaking. I released my clenched fists and sat up in my bed. My hair draped the sides of my face like a veil as I hung my head from my shoulders. I stared at the floor as drops of sweat trickled down my cheeks and plummeted to the ground, forming a small pattern of dots in the dry earth. My breath was heavy and my heart beat rapidly.

  It was just a dream, I told myself over and over again. It took a few minutes of repeating this until I was able to pull myself out of bed.

  After that my day was off to a slow pace. Tevon took me to a couple classes, including the archery class, where the instructor ignored me. He also entered me into a self-defense class that I did find enjoyable—it was a good way to release the festering ball of anxiety that I had welling up in me. The class was held just outside of the castle on a patch of surprisingly soft and thick grass. Tevon probably had grown that specifically for this class. It softened the blow of being knocked to the ground, which happened a lot to me.

  The instructor for the self-defense class was much older than I had expected for someone who would be teaching such a subject. While her face revealed minor signs of aging, her eyes gleamed with years of knowledge and wisdom. I could tell that she was even older than she looked.

  As the class went on, she paired the students up in groups of two. My heart fluttered when I found out that the only other student with a black uniform had been assigned as my training partner. The coincidence was even more astounding as I had not yet received my uniform, so the instructor likely did not know I was assigned the same color.

  Her long black hair sank down to her elbows and was tied into a ponytail that slunk behind her like a snake. She must have been very quiet for most of the class, as I hadn’t noticed her until now. I shot her a brief smile but she didn’t return it. Her expression remained the same: cold and distant—I could tell she was an outcast. It was probably because before now, she was the only student assigned black. Maybe the announcement of my color assignment would help alienate her a little less.

  We were paired together to do what the teacher called sparring, where we were to fight one another without trying to actually inflict any pain on the other. I was the newest student to this class and at a great disadvantage, which is probably why the teacher paired me with this girl. We were first instructed to attack with a right hook, followed by a leg swipe.

  When it was my turn to try the move against the girl, she barely blocked the right hook in time. I waited a second for her to recover then swiped my leg at hers. She didn’t respond fast enough and my leg caught her feet and knocked them from underneath her. She fell back and landed firmly on her butt.

  She shook it off and sprung back up to her feet. Now it was her turn to be on the attack. I was quicker to react, but I too was not fast enough and her punch whooshed by my cheek, and her leg swipe caught my left ankle. It threw me off balance, but I managed to catch myself.

  She smiled—it was probably the closest she had come to successfully performing that move. The teacher saw the smile from the corner of her eye and walked over to us. “Well done, but perhaps you two should spend some time after class practicing a bit more. With enough practice your skills will improve greatly and you will catch up this way.”

  I found the way the instructor spoke endearing. She hid a demand in her request, making it appear as though it was a suggestion, rather than an instruction, but we knew it was. We both nodded and she left.

  “I’m Jasminis.” I extended my hand towards her.

  She seemed hesitant at first but then gave me an eager handshake. “I’m Maaryn,” she said with a giddy grin. Her voice was quiet, yet full of glee. In that moment she revealed more character than I had ever imagined she possessed.

  “Let’s meet up tonight back here. We can practice when everyone is asleep so we don’t have to worry about being seen messing up.”

  She accepted the proposal with a smile. We finished the class in relative silence, only breaking it to compliment one another on our still poorly executed moves.

  After class, Tevon was waiting for me. I ran over to him and he held out a handful of clothes folded in a perfect stack. It was my uniform. I saw Maaryn passing by and held my uniform up to her. She looked at me with a wide smile of complete shock stuck on her face as she walked off. A part of me was suddenly glad to be an outcast as well—it made me feel closer to her.

  “Glad to see you made a new friend,” Tevon said as we made our way into the castle. He continued to hold my uniform for me. “We’re going to see Felinon for a minute; he wants to check in with you.”

  Any joy that I had managed to feel quickly poured out of me, replaced by fear and worry. I tried to hide my discomfort as we walked, but apparently wasn’t that great at it. Tevon placed a hand on my head, not looking at me as he spoke. “You’ll be fine,” he said cheerfully, as though my concerns were ridiculous. With that, he opened the door to Felinon’s office and nudged me inside, not following me in as he closed the door behind me.

  Felinon sat at his desk, which was directly across from the door. His eyes scanned me with a puzzled expression. He waved an arm towards the chair across from his desk and let out a long sigh, as though I should have known to sit there already. I walked over to the rickety brown chair and sat down. The chair let out a long creek that echoed throughout the room, refusing to let the awkward tension die.

  “We will solve this riddle,” he declared, raising his arms in one rapid motion to pull back his sleeves. He stood up and walked over to me, sitting on his desk in front of me now. “Give me your hands, please.” He spoke with a sharp burst of words. His authority was exerted with the swiftness of his tongue.

  I placed my hands in his opened palms and he wrapped his long fingers around my wrists, holding them in place. In an instant I was whisked away to the top of a volcano, lava shooting up from the mouth. Gusts of heat slapped my face, reawakening horrid memories of Caspere’s factory. The sword that was now in my hand grew red-hot as its metal soaked up the heat like a sponge, even the hilt was painful to wield.

  The pain became too much. I was abo
ut to throw the sword to the ground when Aton came charging at me with his—I hadn’t noticed him until now. I could see in his eyes that he was determined to kill me, so I held my sword before me and our blades met inches from my face. How did I manage to block such a strike? He pushed his sword down towards me, the sharp blade inching its way towards my cheek.

  His blade sang as it neared me. I summoned what strength I had and pushed him back, and while he was off guard, I swung at his sword with a fierce thrust, knocking it from his hand. A look of astonishment was on his face as I held my blade to his neck. I had never held a sword before, and my ability to do so with such ease and proficiency reminded me this was a test by Felinon. The intention of which was still not clear to me, nor did I know what to do next.

  With a feral grin Aton winked, and then disappeared. I should have been more prepared for him to pull that trick on me—he hated fighting fair. Unable to see where he was, I created a giant void of any magic around me. I could see Aton again, just as he grabbed his sword and lunged at me again. I wouldn’t be able to both keep the bubble up, and fend him off. My head grew light and dizzy as I struggled to parry and dodge his violent strikes.

  “You can’t keep this up forever,” he shouted at me.

  Our swords met time and time again. With each blow it weakened me. I could feel my strength fading—if I was going to defeat him, I would have to do something soon. In a desperate move I dropped the bubble and the flood of magic overwhelmed Aton. With one frantic swing I knocked his sword from his hand and then swept his feet from under him. He fell back and tumbled towards the mouth of the volcano. One of his hands caught the ledge.

  Chaotic tendrils of heat reached up and singed his feet as he struggled to climb up. He swung his other arm up and managed to grab on. Both of his hands clung to the stone cliff before me—desperate and vulnerable, just as I had once been. He dug his fingers into the dirt and gravel and cried for help. While I tried to assure myself this was only an illusion, his blood curdling screams sent chills down my back.