Blowing Embers

Chapter 25

            Phantom pain ran across the partially healed bruises that speckled Kallai’s torso and legs, as her body remembered that last time Azaz had smiled at her like that. She swallowed hard, feeling a tremor run through her body and trying to ignore it. “Please,” she whispered. “Please leave me alone.”

            He laughed, the others joining in only a beat behind. “Will you listen to that,” he said, smirking. “Spellless is actually speaking back tonight. What’s gotten into you, Spellless? That’s not like you.”

            She flinched at the tone and wasn’t able to keep herself from glancing at Shuu. Azaz followed her gaze, his eyebrows rising. “Oh?” he said, shifting over and craning his neck in an attempt to see into the shadows behind her. “Are you not alone? Is that why you’ve suddenly decided to get mouthy with us?”

            Kallai had just started shaking her head when Shuu strolled out to stand beside her. His smile was still there, in a face full of mischief, as his eyes ran over Kallai’s five classmates. His gaze found hers after a moment and he snorted. “These Magi, you do fear?”

            None of them could mistake the scorn and disbelief in his voice for anything else. The other five flushed, before their eyes snapped into glares and their hands clenched into fists, their attention locked onto the stranger. “Who in the name of all symbols are you?” Azaz growled, jaw tight. “And why are you hanging around Spellless? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that she explodes every spell she tries?”

            “Because more talent and magic than all of you together put, she has,” Shuu replied, blue eyes steady as they met the darker shade of Azaz’s. “Magi, and doubly so for Magi children, weak are. Simple trust is, the louder the bark of the dog is, the weaker its bite is.”

            Kallai, her eyes wide, made a shushing noise, her hands fluttering up near Shuu’s shoulder. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t. You’re going to make it worse.”

            He snorted again. “How? Petty, ignorant children they are. Even your power, to see they are unable. How such weakness can me injure? You, too, strong stand, and they you not can touch.”

            Azaz, struck momentarily dumb by Shuu’s easy dismissal of him and the others, took a step forward, a growl in his throat. The four behind him moved up as well, anger darkening their expressions, hardening their eyes, and sharpening their resolve. “You,” he said, voice tight with anger. “You, I’m going to blast into the ground. I should have known anyone willing to be seen with Spellless in public would have to be crazy. Too bad for you, you picked the wrong people to mouth off to. Prepare to eat magic until your teeth break.”

            Shuu laughed. “Scary yourself to be you do believe? Like kitten, its fangs at me baring. My power you not know. All of you, right here, right now, I could kill. Little effort required. For her sake,” he said, nodding at Kallai. “And because I not to bully the weak like, I not do. You keep talking, and my decision change may.”

            Kallai flushed, then paled, then flushed again. Her body shook and she bit her lip. She couldn’t stop Shuu, not when her mastery of magic was only in its first days, but she also knew she couldn’t just let him hurt the others, even if they did deserve it. They’d tell the school, the school would come hunting for someone to punish, and Shuu would suffer for it. She edged closer to her friend and laid a hand on his arm. “Please, don’t fight them,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

            He only rolled his eyes, completely ignoring the way the five facing him were closing ranks. “No danger here is. Only the overconfidence of children. But do relax. I them not kill. Maybe a little hurt, but not kill. Even if death what they deserve is. An attack against myself, without action against I not can let pass.”

            “Hey, Freak,” Azaz called, eyes glittering as he stared at Shuu. “Call me a child one more time, and I’ll cut your cursed mouth right off your ugly face after I rip your tongue out.”

            Shuu looked up slowly, a smile tugging at his lips as he met the other boy’s gaze. “It do try, child.”

            Azaz growled, fists white-knuckled, before he began to chant.