Journey onto the Storm (BOOK 2)

Chapter 50

ADARA

"You should talk to him, Yuven."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Sazaka," Yuven grunted when they walked through the damp, dim streets, "Fenrer prefers an avoid and evade tactic when it comes to his problems. It is bad habit of his. I am to assume he was asleep?"

A light drizzle caressed down her cheeks as she sighed and nodded. Firelamps swung in the wind roaring off the ocean, where the waves intensified and spread foam across the rocks at the base of the distant cliffs with the crash of erosion. Gulls quieted in the skies. Thunder rumbled over the expanse and the clouds of rainy rage crept closer with their waterfall of mist. Shivered ice prickled her skin into gooseflesh, and she kept her shawl tight around her shoulders. "He was, so I left him there."

"Good."

"Also." Adara raised a hand to her brow to wipe the wet haze off her bangs. "Are you sure it's a good idea to train in this weather?"

"Best time, I think," Yuven mumbled and wound his way through the streets. "It will teach you control, and we will not have to worry about you setting fire to Sivaport."

Small aqueducts caught the water to push it through metal grates. Water sloshed and bubbled when it slipped through. Cyan runes purred to life, and the collected water swirled along the inner tunnel. Adara sped her pace, careful not to slip on the smooth, cobbled streets to stand underneath one last lamp with Yuven. He pointed to where the wall ended. Several square houses built against and alongside it, a stepping stone to the cliff path leading outside the city and to the distant pebbled beach, whose steep slope slid into the gulf. Fields waved with the spray of the sea, where larger houses with scaled roofs and wide trellis' protected small gardens. "We will train near there." Yuven indicated to the wall.

"Aren't people living there?"

"Those aren't houses, they're reinforced storage in case of a flood or tsunami." Yuven raised an eyebrow. "You forget, Sivaport is on the coast of a gulf. Derelicts attack from land, and the sea reminds them that they're not quite safe." He folded his arms. "It keeps them on their toes, as they should be."

Adara faltered. "Oh."

Out of the thick alleys and into the open air, she shuddered at the blast of wind unimpeded by buildings built around the elements, to stand strong against them. Light squeezed out of the blinds of houses they passed, a flickering hearth of warmth with them out in the damp cold. Boots squished the gravel paths taking them to Yuven's chosen training grounds. "The sun disappeared quickly in the evening..."

Yuven didn't take her attempt at conversation.

In the shadows of the strange storage blocks alongside the limestone wall, she waited while Yuven examined the area. Barrels tucked underneath awnings, and through one of the windows, boxes piled on shelves and on top of each other. Small ladders went upwards into the landings, straight to the flattened rooftops, connected together as one cohesive whole. On the outside, smaller staircases wound around, and she twisted to check on the precarious cliff path.

"Well?" she mused.

Yuven shook out his head and sent droplets off the tips of his grey feathers. "Am I to also assume you didn't study?"

"I did." Yuven folded his arms, and she took his silence as an indication to prove it, "Glyphs are a magickae's signature on the flow. In primordial uses, the focal points connect in the center matrix for a focused expression of the flow." Adara copied his stature then said, "How about that?"

"It is the basics," Yuven admitted, but whisked his hand outwards. Palm up, white flames bubbled and formed underneath ice as focal icicles collected the intensifying rainwater. Droplets hovered over each point, then drained into the glyph. He sent it upwards, and she gasped when the rain burst into flecks of snow. "I could've made it hail, but I know you'd complain. Your turn. Focus on the flow — on the fire inside you, and as Fenrer told you before, let it ignite."