The Lores of Lyra - Burning Star [Book III]

Chapter 8 - Rogues

Chapter 8 – Rogues

Amelia never considered how much time it took to make a perfect swirl. With the orchid, it was fairly easy to draw the outlines as no flower was alike another. However, for this project she had to get it perfect. If she made just one wrong swirl, or misplaced a dot by just an inch, it wouldn’t work.

Drawing was hard work, and Amelia never had much patience when it came to lines. She found them to be stupid. It wouldn’t even work until she managed to place them together.

“You’re slacking,” Orianna said. “The swirl ends in a longer bow.”

The oracle spent most of her time watching over Amelia, even though Amelia didn’t know how. Her eyes were freaky, and Orianna had explained that the cost for her powers were her eyesight. The little girl could see more of the world than any other person could see through their eyes, yet Orianna was blind to her surroundings.

“I’m trying,” Amelia defended herself. “It’s not easy to recreate all of these.”

Orianna smiled. “I never said it would be easy.”

The answer made Amelia grumpy. When they asked her to do this, she hadn’t predicted the manifesting and rewriting of a book to be this difficult; she hadn’t counted on any of this being so hard. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t be an easy task. If it were easy in any way, then they wouldn’t need her. But this—this was idiotic. She had a book filled with symbols she had to memorize in order to manifest the book, and she’d been practicing for over 30 hours already with no results. Amelia was behind on her sleep schedule. The darkness prevented her from guessing the time, and Thomas was a heavy sleeper who snores like a chainsaw.

“Amelia,” Orianna said, interrupting her train of thoughts. “Look at my hand.”

Turning her head, Amelia obliged. The oracle reached out a thin, pale and fragile hand, her index finger extended. She made a small circle, keeping her hand steady.

“You need to see the symbol; you can’t count on the papers, to always be there in front of you, whenever you need them.” Orianna’s hand moved from the circle and up in a long swirl. “Envision the form, and make it.”

A sense of stubbornness rose within Amelia. If a blind little girl could do it, then she could too. She closed her mouth shut, keeping her lips in a firm line and concentrated. She was practicing the centrum, a simple circle, which spread out as a flower. It was almost like the core of an orchid. This shouldn’t be too hard; the hardest part would be to put all of the symbols together to form the book.

She stared at the symbol one last time, then closed her eyes, trying to envision the form in her mind. Her finger followed the lines, and she made sure to breathe steadily all through the drawing. She couldn’t make any mistakes. When she finished the last swirl, she opened her eyes to see a crystal form dropping to the ground. It landed in her lap, and Amelia reached out to inspect it.

“You did it!” Orianna said. “The form was perfect.”

Amelia stared at the little crystal. “B-but how? Why is it a crystal?”

Orianna shrugged. “It’s not an actual thing. It’s only a part of the product, and even with your touch, it won’t keep its solid form. It turns to crystal.”

“Why crystal?” Amelia frowned. The first time her orchid turned to crystal, she’d been wondering why.

“I can’t tell you that.” Orianna turned her head away. “But Thomas can.”

“Thomas?”

“Yes. He was once a guardian of magic, you know.” Orianna grinned. “Not like your friends, in any way. He was a scholar whom the Stars sought for help. He knows about things that I do not.”