Soul Fire

3.6

In the living room of the girls' suite, three faeries and four specialists sat quietly with grim expressions on their faces. Bloom's screams and cries of pain echoed throughout the apartment. They had spent the last hour retrieving bins of ice from the kitchen and bringing them up to the suite. The specialists had left the tubs of ice outside the bathroom, not wanting to encroach on Bloom's privacy, where Stella or Flora would grab them and heave the ice into the tub Bloom sat in. Stella and Flora had continued to dump ice into the tub of cold water that Bloom sat in for an hour.

Bloom was still burning. It had taken thirty minutes and countless trips to the kitchen for Bloom to cool down to a point where her temperature stopped boiling the water and melting the ice the instant it was added to the tub. It had taken another thirty for the tub to stop steaming.

The pain was excruciating, it was like Bloom's every nerve was on fire. As her skin felt like it was sizzling, she couldn't help herself as screams and cries escaped from her mouth. The cool water had slowly started to soothe her burning skin.

"What's wrong with her?" Rhonan blurted out after a particularly piercing scream as they sat on the couches in the dark living room. The only light was from a bobbing faerie light in the corner and the courtyard lights through the large glass double doors that led to the balcony. They had been trying to fill the silence with mindless chatter- anything to distract them from the screams that the bathroom doors did little to muffle, but Rhonan couldn't take it anymore. He had to know.

"The first transformation is always the hardest." Flora said softly. "The transformation comes from a faerie reaching the core of their power, and it allows them to connect with their power and use stronger magic. The first time a faerie strikes their core, it can be.... rough."

"I shattered every piece of glass in my entire household when it happened to me." Musa said, shaking her head at the memory. "It was really painful, like every inch of me was pulled apart and re-stitched together."

"And that's what happened to her? She.." Rhonan hesitated, trying to remember the words they had used. "struck... her core? For the first time?"

"No, what happened is that she unleashed such a ridiculous amount of power that she almost burned out." Stella said, leaning against the doorframe to the room. Everyone's heads snapped to her. Stella looked exhausted, her hair was pulled back in a low bun, tendrils of gold escaping around her face. Her dress was completely soaked and even singed in some places. Rhonan even spotted a nasty red burn mark on Stella's upper arm. Somehow, despite all of that, she still looked like she could step onto a runway.

Rhonan felt like the room went cold. Burned out. They've all heard the stories of burnout. When a person unleashes their power too quickly or uses too much at once, it can lead to catastrophic consequences, sometimes even death. It was why the specialists used siphons to regulate their magic. Their magic needed to be stored and channelled, or it would drain quickly. Their siphons allowed them to release magic in small doses, allowing them to control their magic and prevent burnout.

"Everyone's experience with transformation is a bit different." Stella said, "I glowed like a fucking nightlight for a solid week after my first transformation. It was miserable. But burning out..."She trailed off, her eyes darting behind her to the bed that Bloom had passed out into.

"I didn't know faeries could even burn out." Prince Skye said as he leaned forward to rest his tanned elbows on his knees. His tie was undone and hung around his neck. Rhonan had untied and thrown his somewhere between the room and kitchen on one of his ice-runs and doubted he'd ever find it again. Not that he really cared.

"It's possible, technically, but it's incredibly rare." Xenia said.

Stella nodded in agreement. "Faerie magic is extremely regulated. Usually when we get that drained, we just lose access to the core and can't transform, which prevents us from accessing and wielding large doses of magic."