Twisted Choices

Chapter 17

"Lesson one, charms."

Darryl poured Hero some tea before sitting down and adjusting his robes.

"Do you know how I manage to not sweat underneath all these robes?"

Hero looked up from his tea before cocking his head and shrugging. Darryl smiled as he untied his robes and pulled it out to show Hero the inside of his robes. The younger boy leaned over and noticed the intricate patterns in circles littering the inside of Darryl's robes. He raised an eyebrow as he leaned in further to try and guess what it was made from. He was guessing chalk or dye, but both are pretty hard to get.

Darryl pointed to one red circle with a flame-like pattern inside of it.

"That's a cooling charm. It keeps me warm in the cold, and cool in the hot days."

Hero nodded before raising his head to meet Darryl's eyes as he asked, "What do you use to draw it?"

Darryl stood up abruptly to go to his makeshift desk made out of old planks and took a few big seashells. He went back to sit next to Hero and opened all of the shells before settling them in front of them on the ragged carpet. Hero looked at the array of powders in the shells, all different in colors and texture.

"It's not really about the material, because you can use any type of powder. What I have here are ashes, sawdust, wet sand and crushed berries."

The color changes are based on your... Power core."

Hero stared at him in a puzzled manner. Darryl sighed before he started to explain, "Power cores are little balls of flames that hover close to your soul. My power core is red, so the powder changes to red."

Hero asked, "What's my power core color? Can you even see them?"

"All born wizards can see them. I can see mine and I can see yours. Yours is a light blue shade, like your eyes perhaps, " he answered.

Darryl's eyes slid to Hero's giant power core hovering over his heart and it shook as if it heard him talk about it. Darryl swore it looked bigger than the previous day.

"Okay, how do you activate them? You said it wasn't because of the material."

"May I have your cloak? To demonstrate."

Hero hesitated for a minute but with Darryl's reassuring look, he handed over his brown cloak. Darryl set it out straight on the ragged carpet and turned it inside out. He got the shell of crushed berries, and instructed Hero to dip his finger in it. He showed the charm on the inside of his robes and told the younger boy to try and copy it on his own robes.

Darryl watched with a smile as the boy drew on the charm effortlessly. He had a steady hand, that was good. And maybe he had a small art skill. The crushed berries ink was still it's dark purple color so Hero raised his head for more instructions.

Darryl carefully took Hero's ink stained fingers and guided him to place his middle and pointer finger on one side of the charm, and his thumb in the opposite side.

"Now, jerk your fingers two to three inches left or right to activate the charm. But they must stay on the drawn line. If it ventures in or out, it won't work."

Hero bit his tongue as he focused on his finger movement. He counted himself down from five to one and jerked his fingers. The boy took a large intake of breath as he felt small jolts travel from his fingers to his wrist as the deep purple stain glowed a calm light shade of blue. When he leaned in closer, he saw tiny spots of white, like stars as they blinked at him.

Darryl just sat there, with wide eyes as he stared at the charm. Hero took his hand back, afraid he did something wrong and terrible. Darryl just slowly started chuckling.