Polarized

Under the Sea and Stars

After she arrived at her house in Maplesprings, Skye took Noi's scroll out of her bag and opened it. Then she scanned through the words on the scroll, which were inked on the stained brown paper in a neat and flowing script:

Creator, know your end is nigh

Because the North star of the sky

Its shine much needed, come and quell

The darkness from your rule, dispel

You'll wander down a twisted path

Fighting to keep your reign intact

Alas, your fate is marked by ice

Long is the wait for your demise

So the "Creator" is Blanche and the "North Star" is Polaris? Skye thought. Makes sense. This is actually quite straightforward compared to other prophecies I've read about in fiction. But the North Star prophecy never says when Blanche is going to die... wait, but it does say "Long is the wait for your demise" at the end. How old is this prophecy? Is it due for fulfillment anytime soon? It never specifies a time frame, nor does it mention how Blanche is going to die, or if she will die at all for that matter— never mind, it does have the words "demise" and "end," and both words strongly imply death. So I'm probably gonna have to kill Blanche sooner or later, although with prophecies like these, you never know. Even if it were to explicitly state the words "death" or "die," they could mean something entirely different in this context!

Suddenly Skye heard a knocking on her door, so she put away the scroll and opened the door. "Ivan?"

"Have you found a way to fix my aura yet?" Ivan asked.

"I don't know," Skye replied.

"You don't know?"

"I did find something for your aura, but I don't know how useful it is."

Ivan entered Skye's room. "Show me what you found," he said.

Skye rummaged through her backpack and retrieved a teal bottle. "This is gonna sound crazy, but your friend grows auralilies in the school garden."

Ivan shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not surprised," he remarked. "Growing illegal substances in the school garden sounds exactly like something Luka would do."

"Auralily nectar isn't illegal in Avriya, though," Skye clarified. "Socially acceptable? Probably not, but you said you were looking for a way to strengthen your aura and this is what I found. I don't know if it will work though. When I tried taking auralily nectar today, it did not go well."

"What happened when you took the nectar?" Ivan asked.

Skye sighed. "When I tried taking it, everything went horribly wrong," she lamented. "First I lost control of my aura, and then my right arm started shaking involuntarily, and then a blast of ice shot out of my hand and broke my classmate's water structure, and then I got my arm stuck in a block of ice, and then I slipped and fell on the floor, and then my foot made a huge pillar of ice that went almost all the way up to the ceiling. Auralilies don't improve your magic skills, they just intensify your existing magic, which means that if you can't control your aura, auralilies will only make your mistakes bigger."

"I'm sorry that happened. That must've been rough," Ivan responded. "But I don't think I'll have the same problem as you because I'm able to control my aura just fine. My only issue with it is that it's too weak. Back when I tried out the mage course, I couldn't make any progress because of my weak magic, and eventually quit my training because of it. My classmates were all leveling up while I remained stuck in the beginner's class, wondering what was wrong with me and why my aura never behaved as it should. It was embarrassing."