Page 88 of The Sundered Realms

Rather than trying to invent a spell of her own on the spot, she asked Vhannor to use a spell to summon the boat back to them without their un-ritually cleansed selves polluting the lake. He took a turn to rest while Liris worked out the spell patterns.

Then her new pen stopped working.

“It’s registering as out of ink,” she said in outrage to Vhannor. “I bought it yesterday.”

He valiantly fought back a smirk. “It’ll still work. Try switching to a different color.”

She scowled down at her disorganized mess of sparkling inks but managed to work out everything quickly—except for one written language that stumped her. Liris took several deep breaths until she was sure she wasn’t about to cry out of sheer frustration and marched over to admit defeat to Vhannor.

He looked surprised by that, which was gratifying, and then his face twisted with distaste when he saw the language she was missing.

“Monkey language.” He rolled his eyes, pulling out his own pad and beginning to translate.

“...What.”

“Oh, you know what people are like.”

She emphatically did not.

“At some point every spellcraft student inevitably asks, why can only humans perform magic? So they teach monkeys a human language and how to write, but that’s not enough—monkeys need to be able to invent their own language conveying monkey concepts. And it’s not very sophisticated, so it only really works as a layer of complexity no one can decode, unlike, say, math, like a person who is not inherently obnoxious. So about this time they run into trouble justifying their funding, and then ethics questions arise as to whether it’s even acceptable to force monkeys to learn all this in order to perform magic to satisfy humans, since monkeys don’t otherwise cast spells unless forced, but how would monkeys know if they wanted to—yes, yes, laugh it up.”

Her snickering faded rapidly as Vhannor finished sketching out the final piece and she incorporated it into her own plan for dispelling.

Gods, he had so much more experience than her, to be able to recognize even a bit of ridiculousness like this.

She didn’t expect to be the most knowledgeable at everything, but losing at her chosen field? That was new, and not in a happy way.

“Liris?”

“Is my dispelling plan fine?”

Vhannor searched her gaze. “Yes. What are you worrying about? Liris, don’t jump in that boat without answering—Liris.”

“It’s not like I can get past you without answering on the way back,” Liris said as she traced the circle. “I’m just going to dispel the demon portal first.”

“Fine.” Vhannor turned away from the dock, leaving her alone in the too-blue lake.

At least he could trust her to do this much on her own.

Liris closed her eyes and breathed. Could she ever use a spell-trance right now.

She entered the spell and cleared her mind to focus on the task at hand. This was how she’d gotten through all those years in Serenthuar: any brainpower that went to worrying could be better spent funneled into work, so she did, culling any distracting thoughts relentlessly.

She was good at this. She didn’t need help. She could stand on her own in the world she’d chosen.

Liris dispersed the spell, closed her eyes, and breathed.

When she opened them, Vhannor was sitting on the edge of the dock, knitting—knitting!—a spell pattern without looking at it, because he was keeping his eyes on her.

Liris’ equanimity evaporated. “You watched me?”

“Of course I watched. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I didn’t need your help,” Liris grated.

“I’m aware,” Vhannor said coolly. “Not only is it my job to oversee your spellcraft on missions, it’s a pleasure to watch you work. Should I apologize for that?”

He wouldn’t distract her that easily. “So you weren’t planning to critique my performance? Jump in if I stepped wrong?”

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