Page 26 of The Mage on the Hill
“Besidesthe fact that if your lips were just a little redder, we could call you Snow White? Though the badger stripe you have going on is cool.”
“Um, thanks. I think.”I guess we’re going out into nature. Toby pulled on his shoes, wondering if he should worry about mosquitoes. Were they out this early? Or ticks. Eeew. “No, I’m not much on the whole hiking, camping, fishing triad.”
“No big deal. Pick a stick. Grab a hat. I’ll make sure you don’t get sunstroke or fall in a ravine. Teach, you coming?”
Darius just stomped into his sneakers and pulled on his jacket.
“Yeah, of course you are.” Elias flashed a little smile. “Safety first.”
When Toby picked a hat with a unicorn off the rack by the door, Elias switched it out for a dragon hat with a muttered “I’m the unicorn.” Finally satisfied that his guests were properly equipped, Elias led them off at a meandering pace into the woods. The path started out wide and well used, though Toby had to watch his step around erosion gullies here and there, but Elias soon had them heading uphill onto paths that Toby thought maybe small animals used.
Maybe that was just him getting tangled in branches and root systems, but he was soon grateful for his walking stick. Darius fell behind quickly, since the rocks along their route were obviously more interesting than conversation with humans.
Elias stopped on a rock ledge and cast a fond look behind them. “That hasn’t changed, at least. Him and his rocks.”
“He can move them. Shape them. I’ve known other Earth mages, but not like him.” Toby wrenched his gaze back around so he was watching the path.
“Earth-Metal goes together really well, and Valstad? He’s powerful. Sometimes I think the guildmasters were jealous of just how powerful.”
“You have Metal, right? Can you do things like he does?”
The answering bark of laughter made Toby flush in embarrassment. Gods, how shelteredhadhe been with his family?
“No. Without a Major Arcanum, I can’t pull a lot of power. But that’s all right. I leave the big things to folks like our professor. I do little things.” Elias stopped to run his fingers along the edge of a crack in a ledge beside them. The crack smoothed under his touch, the rock shelf healing. “Most of the mountain here is sandstone and quartzite, which is one of the reasons I was drawn here. Silica in the rock and carbon in the shale and the plants satisfies my Crystallogen need. There’s enough iron intrusions in the rock for my Metal and enough limestone for the Alkaline. I fix little things. A plant stem here. A broken bird leg there. I don’t need to feel the earth move under my feet.”
“Show me,” Toby whispered, an answering whisper echoing inside him.Is that my magic? Please gods….
Elias searched his face before he answered softly, “All right. C’mere.”
They leaned together over a patch of delicate white flowers with yellow centers. One of the flowers listed to the side, its stem broken. Elias touched the damaged plant with the tip of his forefinger and the break began to close as if someone were pulling up a zipper tooth by tooth. It didn’t glow exactly, not like magic in movies did, but the light changed around the progress of Elias’s finger, breaking into prismatic bits.
Breath held, Toby reached out carefully until his fingertips brushed that light anomaly. A hum just under the skin, anitch, that’s what it was. He wanted to get closer to it, to bury his hands in it. There was something so close… so close….
Toby froze and stared at his hands in horror—his tingling hands. “Darius!Darius!”
The thud of heavy boots drummed up the hill, Darius moving faster than Toby had ever seen before. “How bad?”
“It’s… it’s like I’m covered in bees,” Toby whispered.
Darius seized his wrist and pulled him halfway down the hill to a small clearing in the trees. He dropped to his knees and pulled Toby down with him, clutching both his hands tightly. “Trust me.”
The tone was desperate and pleading, though Toby couldn’t think clearly enough to parse out if it was a question. He answered with a jackhammer nod, then cried out as Darius plunged their joined hands into the dirt, not just into the loose top layer, butintothe hard-packed earth and stone that gave way before his magic as if it were suddenly liquid.
“What the fuck are you doing, Dar? Gods’ sakes!” Elias yelled from farther up the hill.
“Stay there!” Darius bellowed. “Get down!”
He stopped liquefying the ground when their arms were buried above the elbows and raised his head, eye full of wild anguish.
“Hold on, Toby,” he rasped out. “Hold tight. Don’t let go.”
A nervous laugh leaped out. “Where the hell do you think I’m gonna go?”
Still, he wrapped his fingers through Darius’s and clung for all he was worth. The buzzing under his skin vibrated through his bones and he knew what was coming next—he’d felt it enough times by now—except now Darius was hanging on to him and the explosion was imminent.Dammit, this is crazy.
“It’ll kill you,” Toby forced out.
“No.” Darius’s hair, half out of its ponytail, flew around his head as he shook it violently. “No. I’ve got you. Earth has you. Concentrate.”
