The Truth Over The Wall

Chapter 18

"Dominic?" Amara said raising her bare foot over the water, "I think, I'd like to skate now."

"You'd like to what?" Dominic asked incredulously, turning to her, "How would that even be possible?"

"Like this," she told him simply and touched her foot to the still surface of the lake. As soon as Amara's skin made contact with the water, it turned to solid ice, and the ice spread so that in a matter of minutes, the entire lake had frozen.

Repressing a shiver, Amara slid out of Dominic's cloak and onto the ice. She walked to the centre before turning to him with a smile.

Clasping her hands behind her back, she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet as she declared, "I also think, you'd like to skate as well."

"No, Amara," Dominic said crossing his arms, "I don't."

"Oh, Dominic," Amara said waving a hand dismissively in his direction, "You don't know it yet, but really, you do."

"No, really, I don't," Dominic said stubbornly and then added with a helpless shrug, "Besides which, we don't even have skates."

"Oh, no," Amara gasped, cupping her face with both hands before rolling her eyes at him.

"Lucky for you," Amara told him over her shoulder as she lifted one of her feet, pointed over the ice, "I now know what they're supposed to look like."

Waving her hands over her foot, Amara summoned a dark brown mist from the air that slowly swallowed her foot like a shoe; she maneuvered it so that the sole grew a pointed blade.

By the time she had covered both her feet with skates, Dominic looked down in surprise to see his own feet surrounded by the same mist.

Before he could do more than wave it away, it vanished, leaving behind a set of skates over his boots as well.

"Oh," Amara said, surprised as she began to wobble over the ice, "This is a lot harder then I imagined."

"Really?" Dominic asked her mockingly, resting his chin on his fist, "Do tell?"

"You could help," Amara told him as she continued to flap her arms about, terrified.

"I could," Dominic agreed with a nod and cocked his head to the side expectantly.

Amara slipped and fell for the first - but not last - time that night. Groaning, she lifted herself back up; and even as she brushed her dress off she began to slip across the ice once more.

"Please?" she managed to squeak, before she started to go down once more, just as Dominic caught her arm.

"Now, was that so hard?" Dominic grinned, steadying her on her feet.

To his surprise, Amara gave him a smug smile in return as she said, "Convincing you to join me? Not at all." Dominic stared at her, stunned.

"Will you teach me how to skate, already? Please?" she added at the look he was giving her.

With a resigned shake of his head, he took her hand and started to guide her across the ice in a circle.

"What you have to remember is," Dominic told her as they moved across the frozen surface, "The blades are sharpened to a deadly edge on purpose: the bite of the blades equals the bite of the ice.

"Think of them as riding in a much smaller sled," Dominic explained, "You only need to guide it, once you've pushed it off a height. Except, you need to push on the skates just a little more often than with a sled and you have to navigate them at the same time."