Page 28 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

Iskra had academic knowledge, that much was clear. She used terms for advanced magic I’d only come across in a few books and hadn’t bothered to research. She was also a hard ass. Marcus, on the other hand, had the hands-on experience, and was as stern and unforgiving as a marshmallow. Half of the frustration I wound up boiling in was from trying to get them to figure out what they were actually going to tell me to do.

Eventually, we sort of figured it out. Angling my hand did help. With my hand laid flat, I pivoted its direction around until the stone’s color went bright, opaque white. According to Iskra, that meant the polarity of the stone was aligned with a ley line. She also told me that once I was aligned properly, it was just a question of throwing myself into the magic.

I had no goddamn clue how to do that.

I spent most of the afternoon trying to will myself into teleporting while the other two watched me and argued. At one point, Marcus raised a hand to stop me, and I gave up on trying to… think myself into magic? I hadn’t even been sure while I was doing it.

“You’re holding back,” he said.

I glared at him. “Think about what happened last time I let loose,” I snapped.

“This isn’t like that,” he promised. “It won’t be. This time, you’re the one in control, but if you spend half your focus on keeping your magic pushed down…”

“It’s not?—”

“The longer you insist on limiting yourself,” Iskra said in icy tones, “the longer my son gets tortured.”

I stared at her, fists clenched. I might as well have tried to stare down a statue. She was a master of the imperious glare.

“I’m just…” Just what? Scared? Unsure? Not used to this? It was all true but not helpful. She was right, I had to push through. “I think it might help if I had something to focus on aside from, you know… focusing.”

Her chin dipped in a minute nod, which I chose to interpret as approval. “Try moving.”

“What?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Marcus said. “Like running with a kite before launching it. If you’re already moving in the direction of the ley line, you may be able to slip into it more easily.”

Great. Sounds super dignified. I decided not to voice that one out loud, because Iskra had more dignity in her pinkie than I’d probably had in my whole life.

I aligned the ring again and started walking, trying to focus on the magic around me. I paced back and forth, parallel to the ley line, and then, for just a second, I felt it. The wild magic was right there, close enough to touch. It startled me so much that I didn’t even think to reach for it, and then the moment passed. But Marcus and Iskra could clearly tell something had been different that time. Iskra was on her feet, and Marcus stared at me with a furrowed brow.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” Marcus asked.

The magic had been so loud and free and… well, wild.

I nodded, speechless.

“Again,” Iskra said.

I did it again.

And again.

And again.

After what must’ve been at least an hour, I finally managed it. When I felt the wild magic around me, I stepped into it and disappeared.

It was like nothing else I’d ever experienced. I thought I might flow along smoothly, but no, I felt like a leaf being blasted down a waterfall just like the one by the mill. I was thrown through the world below the world, buffeted around by swells of magic until I worried I might get lost forever.

Then there was a tug on the ring, and I popped back into the real world. I was in a desert, ankle-deep in an oasis pool. Dazed, I looked around me.

Okay. Not in Eldoria anymore, Toto.

I sloshed forward, trying to find the ley line, then dipped back into it and hurtled through the magic. Time seemed alien to that place, and I had no sense of how long I meandered in that torrent of energy. A blip, and I was on a clifftop. A blip, and I was in a jungle. A blip, and I was in the middle of a crowded city, people around me yelling in a language I didn’t know. I grasped for anything familiar and slid back into the world at the feet of a giant statue. I knew this place. It was outside Eldoria, deep in the woods.

I more or less knew which way the city was from here. I slipped under again, focusing harder, and found myself in one of the parks. Closer. Again, and now I was getting used to this. I could feel the intersections of the ley lines as they sped past me. The crossflow of the other lines buffeted me, but I could hold my own against them now. I pulled myself back up into reality again, certain I was still in Eldoria.

I found myself in a room with tall ceilings and dark wood paneling on the walls. Dozens of huge oil paintings hung on them. They were almost all of the same three people, with bloodless olive skin, sharp bone structure, and dressed in formalwear from across the centuries. Iskra and Roland De Montclair glared down forebodingly from the walls all around me, often with Gabriel trapped between them. Between the family portraits were paintings of huge battles, ships at sea, and the occasional castle on fire.

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