My Last Hope (Truth Series 4)

25: Magic Lessons

A/N: It's nearly the end of April! I wasn't going to upload anything until next week but I decided to post early! This is mainly because yesterday I reached my goal of writing 25000 words for camp nanowrimo in the month of April! (There will be another chapter posted tomorrow! Then uploading will be back to it's regular schedule!)

Star's Point of View

"So, why are we here again?" I ask as I follow Ridge to wherever the heck we are. He's lead me to a giant freaking mountain in the middle of freaking nowhere in the freaking Aether.

"It's a spiritual mountain. It will help you learn to control your powers."

"So we came all this way for a magic mountain."

"Yes." He replies exasperated. "The magic mountain is going to help us."

"How?"

"It's going to come to life and speak to us. Maybe it'll grow arms and legs and beat the crap out of Brine for us too." Annoyed sarcasm clearly present in Ridge's voice.

"No need to get all sassy," I tell him mocking his annoyed voice and adding a bit of my own sass.

He rolls his eyes. "Let's get this done and over with."

He leads me through a cave hidden behind a waterfall that cascades down the mountain. The cave leads to a huge cavern and I mean huge. It looks as if the inside of the mountain has been hollowed out. Inside the cavern is a good sized pool of water and a few plants and apple trees. Magic balls of light float around lighting the whole place up. If someone decided to live in here they could survive for quite a while without ever leaving the confines of the mountain.

"Woah." My voice echoes throughout the cavern bouncing of its steep walls.

"Let's get started." Ridge and I spend hours on end in the cavern. He teaches me how to control my magic abilities and how to perform certain tricks. I seem to be able to control the air. I can make it strong and compact and use it as a sort of destruction ball like the one I accidentally fired in Notch's throne room. I can also blast strong gusts of wind that act like a knockback spell like what happened when I sent Brine crashing into a wall. I may be able to control the wind and air but I have yet to figure out how to fly. Maybe I can't fly. Who knows? Not me. Anyway I do know that I can use wind magic to slow or speed up my decent if I am falling from something. So that's useful. Another thing I can do is use telekinesis and telepathy. They're fun to use but I'm really tired afterwards. That and telepathy isn't as fun as it sounds. It's actually really hard especially when you can't control it and you end up hearing the thoughts of every living thing around you. Although the squirrel's thoughts were pretty funny. He just wanted to find his nuts.

Anyways, Ridge and I are inside the mountain for a long while. I'm not sure how long as it's hard to tell time when you can't see the sky and don't have a clock. We keep on practicing and improving. We take breaks every so often in which we eat or take a nap. Sometimes both. I think we may have been in here for a few days now. You know what!? Instead of all this guessing, I'm just gonna ask Ridge!

"Hey, Ridge!" I call out from where I sit on the ground. I hold an apple in my hand. We stopped training for a bit to eat but I don't have much of an appetite. Ridge doesn't seem to have one either as he hasn't eaten anything and is currently kneeled down by the pool of water washing his face.

"Yes?" He calls back as he stands up and dries his face using part of his trench coat.

"How long have we been here?"

"A while."

"Nah, really?" I ask sarcastically. "I meant how many days or hours or minutes even!"

"Not sure." He replies casually. "Notch said he'd come and get us when he felt you had enough time to learn to control your magic or until he found something out about how or why you even have this power."

"Oh. Is it really that strange for me to have this power?" I ask glancing at my darker skinned hand. I haven't switched out of my human since I first switched to it however long ago that was.

"It's not weird for people to have magic power. It's actually pretty common. But you are the first were-lion to ever have magic abilities."

"Oh."

Ridge doesn't say anything else so neither do I. Instead I return to staring at my apple. Finally I decide that I need to eat something and take a bite out of the apple. It tastes pretty good considering it's cave grown. How do the apple trees grow in here anyway? Don't they need sunlight to grow? Maybe it has something to do with the magic lights. I continue to ponder this thought as I eat the rest of the apple until nothing is left but the core. Then I stand up and toss the apple core onto the ground near the small collection of apple trees. It magically seeps into the ground and disappears. We are in a magic mountain after all. Hey! Maybe that's why the trees can grow in here! I mentally face palm. I can't believe that only occurred to me just now. Suddenly a figure appears in front of me. I scream in surprise and take a few steps away from the figure only to trip over my own feet. I fall to the group landing on my back. Ow! That hurts a lot more than it should.

"Are you alright?" Notch asks giving me a confused look. He's acting innocent. That jerk.

"Don't scare me like that!" I shout partly relieved partly annoyed.

"My bad." He smiles.

I sit up slowly wincing as I do. I gently rub my left shoulder trying to quell the now throbbing pain. I sigh. "And it was just starting to heal."

"What?" Notch questions.

"Nothing!" I stammer and stand up quickly. I bite my lip to prevent myself from crying out as pain shoots through my shoulder. I can stop myself from saying anything but I can't stop the tears that well up in my eyes.

"What was just starting to heal?" Ridgedog grills me for information.

"Nothing." I repeat much quieter than last time.

"Jennifer." I flinch at Notch's tone of voice.

I sigh and give in. "I bruised my shoulder blade."

"You mean to tell me that you've been injured this whole time!?" Ridge demands.

"Yes." I reply staring at the ground guilty.

"How'd you get hurt?" Ridge asks gently.

"As I said the other day, a lot of crap happened at that place." I mumble.

"Oh my." Notch gasps. I don't think he fully understands the terror his brother can inflict.

"How bad is it? Your injury I mean." Ridge walks over to me and stands behind me. He places his hand on my back right on my bruised shoulder blade. Ow! That does not feel good. I hold back my wince of pain and tense up as he runs his hand over my shoulder. "Let me know if I'm hurting you." A little late for that. It doesn't matter anyways. I am all too used to feeling pain. "Jen." Ridge says quietly after examining my shoulder for a minute.

"Yeah?" I ask. My voice is small and quiet as I hide the pain I'm feeling.

"I think you should get a professional to look at your back." He tells me.

"Why?"

"I think it's more than just bruised. A good part of your back is swollen."

"Alright. I'll see about getting it checked out." I agree. Then I turn to Notch. "What did you come here for?"

"I found something that might explain your powers and I also have an idea of why the kidnapping started all those years ago." He replies.

"Okay. By the way, how long have I been gone? Like not just now but before? When Brine kidnapped me?"

"Ten years." Ridge tells me. There's a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Ten years?" That's longer than I thought it was. "So, I'm eighteen?" Technically that means I'm an adult. So no one has an excuse for treating me like a child.

"Yes."

"Sweet." I redirect the conversation again. "What did you find out?" I ask Notch.

"Let's go back to the castle first." The god instructs. "Everyone is waiting for us there."