Blowing Embers

Chapter 18

            Her quill dotting the last period at the end of the last question on the test, Kallai risked a glance around the classroom. The rest of the Indigos were either frantically writing, their quills blurs, or were staring straight ahead, looks of concentration or panic on their faces. With everyone evenly spaced for the duration of the test, Kallai found herself only a few feet away from Tupiz, who had fallen into the staring off into space category.

            She looked at him out of the corner of her eye for only a moment, before gently flipping the test pages over. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that she’d finished the test in little over half the time they’d been given. Her classmates didn’t need any more reasons to harass her.

            Kallai dipped her quill into her inkwell and began sketching on the back of her test as she so often did, today her short, quick movements starting with a rounded top. As she continued to scratch ink onto the pale yellow of her paper, her mind drifted off into memories of the day before.

            Her lesson with Shuu had gone well, she’d felt. She’d managed to move one of her notebooks from one side of her room to the other. It’d been harder for her than it was for him, but Shuu had admitted that air mages were the best at moving things around, which had made sense to her. She wondered what else he would teach her, what else she’d be capable of. Just the thought of being able to properly do a spatial spell had her smiling.

            But that thought brought her back to something that’d been nagging her. If she had elemental magic, as Shuu seemed to believe, then did that mean it existed along with the more traditional Magi magic? Were there others out there like her, unable to do magic properly simply because their magic didn’t work with how they were being taught?

            And if, with Shuu’s teachings, she was able to get her Magi license, would that reveal elemental magic to everyone else? She knew she’d tell Sevilen, and he’d probably want to make a study of it. But what would happen to their society if elemental magic was introduced to it? Kallai thought that the tech-magic experiments might benefit from it, but wasn’t sure about the rest. Magi were highly regarded by the general population, especially for the work they did with transportation and manufacturing industries. Some people said that with the new invention of trains that Magi would find less work as transporters, but Kallai couldn’t imagine ever trusting a hurtling metal cart to carry people. The potential for danger was far too great. Transport spells were much quicker and safer, if expensive.

            Her quill continued its staccato movements, the end bobbing back and forth as she carefully sketched the dark circle in the centre of the lighter one. She wondered what it was Shuu did when he wasn’t with her. He said he was trying to find information on his home, to figure out how far away he’d been sent, but how much time did that take? And what would happen when he did find out where he was in relation to his own country? Kallai liked having Shuu around, and not just for the magic lessons. She liked having someone to talk to, and while she really did want him to be able to go home, she didn’t want him to leave either. She sighed. However she looked at it, as soon as Shuu found out how, she knew he’d go home. Her only hope was that she’d learn enough magic from him before then that she could pass the exam. She had no hold on him, and there was certainly nothing here he’d be willing to stay for, no matter how much she wanted him to.

            With that dark thought weighing her down, Kallai’s mind went back to a familiar path, one that frightened her more than she really wanted to admit. She knew no one else ever saw Shuu, that no one else ever talked to him. With him disappearing before anyone else could see him, she couldn’t help but worry that he was some kind of hallucination of hers, that she’d finally broken and come up with an imaginary friend because of it. Everything just seemed too crazy to be real. A strange mage trapped in a statue? Where she was the first person he saw, and he stayed with her? One capable of teaching her magic? It was too good to be true, like something out of the stories her nursemaid used to tell her.

            Kallai shook her head to free herself of the clinging darkness. She focused on the present instead, like Sevilen had taught her. There was no use in allowing her fears to consume her. She glanced around the room again. When her eyes accidentally met Tupiz’s for a moment, she immediately looked away, letting her hair fall around her face to hide it. She concentrated on the picture she was drawing, keeping stray thoughts out of her head as she continued her sketch of Shuu’s face.