Trusting the Devil

Chapter 8: Sage

Sage

I woke up at four in the morning and started training. Anything to keep me from thinking about last night. The tears. The pain in his eyes. The truth about everything... It was a lot. It coiled around me, suffocating me. It grew roots in my stomach and made it its home. It was a pain like no other. Like removing a flower from its soil, unforgiving. The kind that does not get better over time. But I promised myself to act normal. I had to. People thought I couldn't handle the truth. I had to prove them wrong. I went down to the arena and stepped onto the Phoenix platform.

Now I knew.

It represented the Phoenix Princess. Me.

I closed my eyes.

Darkness surrounded me.

Coldness.

Nothing.

I concentrated, a crease forming between my eyebrows.

A flicker of a small heartbeat.

There it was.

The fire burning inside me. It started to fill me, warming me to my fingertips.

I extended my hands and opened my eyes.

The light was burning in my palms and I looked at the target that emerged in front of me.

Breathe in.

Breath out.

In one swift move, the light exterminated the dummy in the center of the arena.

A smile formed at the corner of my lips. I was beginning to have more control over my powers.

Someone entered the arena.

I looked over at the white double doors.

Choufu.

When he saw me, he stopped in his tracks.

"Good morning, Phoenix Princess."

"Good morning. I was just practicing before everyone woke up."

He looked at the leftovers of the burning dummy and chuckled. "Well, I see you're making great progress. If you don't mind, can I train with you?"

"I would love that. I wanted to try and practice stopping time and attacking faster."

He nodded to himself a couple of times.

"You need to be more in tune with your magic to be faster. You have to keep your flame burning–"

"How did you know what I felt was a flame burning inside me?"

He seemed to have caught himself before saying, "I'm an old man with many secrets. Let's try and make you act on instinct."

"What do you mea–"

I couldn't finish my sentence as he charged toward me.

Panic crawled on my skin but so did my magic. I dismissed the fear and focused on directing my magic toward Choufu. I didn't want to hurt him; my magic seemed to understand that. I extended my hands and instantly, Choufu was in a bubble of light, paralyzed.

"Wow."

I walked over to him and all he managed to do was smile. I smiled back warmly and put my hand on the bubble which immediately evaporated.

"I see you and your magic are starting to get along."

I laughed, "Yeah, we don't want to create an apocalypse." Just as I said that my hands started firing on their own, maybe my magic did want to cause an apocalypse.