Page 97 of Terragnata and the Heir of the Earth

I ran a few paces back to the clearing, to keep some distance from the bubble, and fell to my knees. I balled my fists in the dirt, feeling the call back to me. The Earth responded in an instant, and inside me spread an immense gratitude that whatever spell had prevented me from summoning the element in the final Skøl challenge had dissipated. Cool Earth pooled to the top, snaking up my body, clothing me in a relieving layer of mud. The sting on my skin from flames and bites soothed. My lips—blistered and cracked—reformed. My hair and smoking brows smoothed. I knew I would only stay protected if my Earth armor remained—and that was not permanent. The heat threatened to dry out my cool shroud in moments.

The flames burned so unnaturally, as if under direction. Leiya was right—they must have been spelled. I reached out to the fire, my hands extended, searching for a familiar vibration. It didn’t have the same tingle that came to me from the ground. So, I latched onto the call of the Earth, to the feeling of it being scorched, wilting under an unnatural heat. But instead of continuing to draw the life towards me, I sent my magic towards it—deeper, probing for the root of the fire spell. After a moment, a sharp zinging sensation hit me, an unfamiliar frequency. It was foreign, yes, but it also feltwrong. I pushed my magic harder, a dominating force, attempting to crush that seed of power, the strange spell from which the fire breathed.

If the spell was a stone wall, my magic was a battering ram. I stumbled back upon contact as if I’d collided with it physically. But I held my ground, digging my feet deeper into the mud, and closed my eyes.The Earth ismydomain. Nothing burns here, lest I allow it.I sent my magic out once more, in a thousand tendrils, rather than the battering ram I’d tried the first time. They snaked around the spell’s lifeblood until a web of me covered it. And then I squeezed, visualizing my magic as the living, breathing thing it was.

My threads of power tightened and tightened, though the spell resisted, almost squirming beneath my grip. I gritted my teeth, pushing harder until I felt a single crack.

My magic jumped, and my beautiful, strong threads of power surged through that crack.

The spell shattered.

Air whooshed through me—my power filling the sudden gap, a space of nothing where that writhing spell had been. I dropped my arms, panting from exertion, blinking the sweat from my eyes. I had subdued the fire, which lingered even though I’d destroyed the spell feeding it. By the way the burning swayed,by the way the tips of the fire licked, I suspected I would not be harmed.

I walked amongst the flames, testing my theory. They burned, but curled around me in deference, and I detected a strange residual magic… it wasn’t a spell—no, I’d broken that. The flames were no longer under another’s control, they burned without direction. But an unfamiliar power lingered in that fire—a sorrowful, tortured magic made of pain. I sensed cries of suffering amongst them.

My eyes still stung from the smoke and I looked back at the bubble. Fayzien did what he could from his cocoon, sending the rest of the pond water around them to form a moat. He spelled too, but his water magic could not match the fire that still raged. I did not have such constraints.

I extended my arms outward, flowing my power gently at first, little vibrations leaving my fingertips, exploring the curves of the flames. The fire itself resisted, fighting my control, as if it wished to return to the twisted magic that had created it. But I let my magic continue on its path, coercing the masterless power to follow. Without realizing, it was no longer a gentle vibration that left my palms. I felt every bend and snake of the fire, and I knew I could make it mine.

And then a voice entered my mind, female and unwavering.

Fire cannot be controlled, little one, only starved. Adding magic to a spelled flame is like treating an oil fire with water. You must starve it of its air. Seek to make it yours, and you will lose control—you will only set fire to flame. Deprive it of magic and set it free.

I whipped around, attempting to identify where the voice came from. But I saw nothing amongst the golden surroundings, no movement, nor did I hear a sound. If I was being tricked, I didn’t know, but my gut told me to trust the words.

I raised my arms once more and my power flowed out. But instead of forcing control on the flame, I sought out the magic there, the power that lingered aimlessly in the burn. I pulled on it with swift force, sucking the life from the fire.

And then it came to me. And I saw what had made the fire feel sowrong. The embers of the fire’s magic were shadows of the dead, and their suffering the fuel. I cried out, a guttural noise, for I was absorbing their pain. The fire waned, so I forged on, the bearer of the shadows’ grief. My arms ached as the magic fire galloped toward me in blazing rings of agony. I stood, a beacon to the flames. My flesh remained intact, but I scorched within, an inferno of pain shredding me from the inside out.

I screamed once more, a scream with no sound. I could not stop the tidal wave of residual magic pouring into me, a steady stream that continued to run after the flames wilted. I collapsed, hearing voices, seeing images. Swirling tattoos and shaved heads and contortions of grief on their faces. An infinite weight pressed on my chest, and my vision went blurry.

The flames reduced to embers one ring at a time, rippling away from me at the center. I choked on nothing as I lay there, my hair spread out from me, decorated with white specs of fresh ash. The world grew blurry and the ground shifted at the gentle vibration of footsteps approaching me. What could anyone do to stop the magic I’d willingly absorbed? The strange power was devouring me from the inside out, and I had welcomed it—to starve the fire of its breath.

But when I looked up, it was not someone I recognized. I guessed she was a Fae female by the point of her ears, but she was faceless; only wisps of hair and body shape. She placed her hands on the dirt next to me, whispering unintelligible incantations to it. A moment later, I slowly sank as if in quicksand.

I submitted to the mud coating me, filling each orifice one by one. My ears, my nostrils, my mouth. I should have thrashed at the slow reminder of the spiders I’d faced less than an hour before, but I did not, for the Earth was my lifeblood, my haven. Soon, I was choking on the silky liquid, sputtering on my hands and knees in the clearing I had saved.

I blinked my eyes open, attempting to wipe some of the mud away. The others ran towards me, shocked faces watching me reappear painted in mud from eyelash to toenail. And the flames flickered in a swirling pattern that began with me in the center and extended out. Doing no harm. But my eyes didn’t focus on the Fae that neared me, nor the curious shape in which the fire smoldered. They set on the dark hooded figures that emerged from the shadows of the surrounding wood, descending on the smoldering clearing, scims gleaming in the moonlight.

As if we trained together,the four of us turned our backs inwards to touch, Cobal at the center, peering out from between our legs.

Leiya, Xinlan, and I drew our blades, battle stances ready. Fayzien whispered under his breath, no doubt preparing to form a lethal and complex spell.

“Terra, ye need te spell, now,” Leiya said.

I couldn’t move.

“She has never taken life from a living being, warrior,” Cobal said. “At least not willingly. It will not be easy for her.”

The image of Xinlan’s blade sinking into Jana’s chest flickered in my mind at Cobal’s comment. I said nothing, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block out that thought and the pictures of suffering I saw in the fire. I swallowed my nausea.

“Drakkarians!” Fayzien bellowed with a voice that was older, more robust and commanding than his typical sneering tone. “You have been told you fight for freedom, for a justice you and your people deserve. But you have beenliedto! The magic you have is being wasted on frivolous pursuits. You feel the wells of your power run dry. Those that command you will see you starve. Stand down. Do not attack. Defy the regime and dismantle your true oppressor!”

The cloaked soldiers would have been invisible in the darkness if it weren’t for the strong moon and flickers of a fire that had raged minutes before. Many halted their approach, startled by his commanding address, and exchanged glances. A few did not, but Fayzien’s move found success.

He unleashed a spell. Magic burst out from Fayzien’s fingertips and swept towards our attackers. About a third of the hooded beings paused in their footsteps and dropped their weapons. Their hands clutched their throats, gurgling in pain, choking on an unseen liquid. Still, dozens charged on, Fayzien sagging with exhaustion. “I’m tapped,” he breathed. “At least for the next few minutes.”

“Terra, ef ye dinna spell, now, wewelldie,” Leiya barked out, eyeing Fayzien as he panted. “Me fighten es damn good, but fifteen te one odds are a wee bet much, even fer me.”

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