One Word Prompts

Spell - A Kind Word

She lay on the cathedral floor, starring up at the magic lit dome above her. It was long after evensong and night lay heavy over the complex.

She lay in the central aisle, just before the raised dais. Around her, she'd drawn a circle, filled with runes and sigils. Books hovered beneath mage lights around the edges, each open to different reference materials of relevance, each light illuminating little beyond the ancient pages of their respective tomes.

However, for all her determination, for all her study, for all her toil, the spell she inscribed was still incomplete. She'd been sure that moving her circle would have provided the element she was missing. That placing it in the most dangerous place for a mage, the center of the greatest cathedral in the kingdom, it would spark what was missed. But the result was no different than when she'd done it in the basement of her dorm or a clearing in the nearby forest. Location was not the missing piece it would seem.

So, what could she be missing, she wondered. The cherubs on the ceiling offered no answer.

"How did you make your wings?" she asked them.

But, of course, there was no reply.

Wings were what she wanted. To fly. To fly away from this awful place and this awful life.

It was said, the angels of old knew a spell to create wings from magic. That they could soar high through the skies and travel to worlds unknown. She had thought, if she could just recreate that spell, she'd be free.

It was foolish. Wings would not feed her. They would not shelter her. They would not protect her from arrows or accusations of witch craft. Still, she longed for them, as a fish for a water or a bird for open skies. And after all, the open sky was the only place she had left to run.

She rolled herself off her back and pushed herself from the ground. There was much to clean up and put away before morning mass. It would not do for someone to find the occult floating in the center of the most holy of all places. It would do even less for her to be found here with it.

She took a deep breath and centered herself, standing tall.

"Feel the energy around you," she muttered to herself, letting her mind extend beyond her physical body, breathing out. Many strings of magic lay about the room. Each ran across the center of her circle, where she now stood. These she had laid out, earlier as she had drawn up the shape and placed her books and lights where she wanted them.

"Pull with your soul," her master's voice whispered in her ear. She no longer needed the reminder, but his memory was all she had left of the old man. All she had left of that oasis of peace. Breathing in, with him in her thoughts, she pulled the strings. Around her the books and lights from around the room floated back to her feet, the books alighting in neat piles, the lights winking out of existence one by one as she breathed out again.

Now all that remained was the chalk circle. She picked up one stack of books and headed for the door. She'd leave them by the well when she drew up water to clean the floor and bring the rest out with her when she went to return the bucket.

Or that was the plan.

Instead she walked directly into a shadow hiding in the door way.

"What the!" The top book of her pile toppled from the stack in her surprise.

It fell to the ground, opening to the title page reading: "On Runes and Sigils: A Sorcerer's Guide".

"Ah, I got it!" She tried to bend down and get it, before her face or the title could be read, and simultaneously not dropping the rest of her forbidden books. But the other figure was faster and less encumbered.

"No, its fine," they said, placing it on top of her stack. It was a young woman, maybe two or three years younger than the amateur spellcaster herself. She helped her stand without dropping more of her books, without a comment on the contents of the book, or a question on what a lower priestess was doing in the cathedral in the middle of the night, or why she carried a stack of books banned long ago.

No, instead the younger girl looked up at her, her eyes wide. "That was amazing!"

The spellcaster took a step back. "What?"

"You did all that, right? The glowing and the floating and the magic..." The girl looked away suddenly, biting her lip. "I mean. I guess, you shouldn't? Or... But you're already a priestess..."

The rouge priestess only then noticed the girl's robes, the plain white of an initiate. This girl had no more place here at this time of night than she did.

"... So, if you were doing it, it couldn't have been magic? But it looked like magic. But you're a priestess..." The girl descended into more and more circling questions asked more to herself than to her senior.

The spellcaster took a hesitant step around the younger girl. Perhaps she was sufficiently confused, she could escape? It wasn't like the initiate could really tell on her. The girl wasn't supposed to be out here either. She chose to ignore the obvious disparity in the crimes.

However, the motion brought the initiate back to the moment. Immediately, she asked, "Will you show me how you did that?"

The spellcaster jumped. "What?"

"Magic!"

"What magic?" She played willfully dumb, hoping the girl was actually dumber.

"In there! With the floating books!" The girl grinned like a fool.

"Are you actually here to become a priestess of the Forgotten Chimes?" There was no way an initiate of the church which burned witches at the stake for less wanted to be taught magic. Then again, there shouldn't have been someone practicing magic already in their ranks.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, we're not supposed to do magic, huh?" The girl frowned. "But then, you do it."

The girl's words weren't an accusation, they were just a statement of fact.

She bit her lip. What could she say? That she had married hide from a father who'd hurt her? That she fled home and joined the church to escape a husband who beat her? That she hid who she was with in the walls of the church because no one would hurt her here as long as no one knew who she was? That she was safe as long as she was just another face among a sea of habits?

"It... it's complicated," she said finally.

"Are you hurting anyone?" the girl asked, suddenly serious.

"What?" Again, the spellcaster found herself at a lose for words. "N-no. Why would you"—

The girl shrugged and said, "Then it doesn't matter."

She looked at the girl, still uncertain what was happening.

"I want to see more of that magic stuff," the girl said. "If you show me, I won't tell anyone else, as long as you don't hurt anybody or anything. Can you promise?"

The spellcaster frowned, cocking her head to its side, her brow furrowed. "Are you serious? You think a mage would keep a promise to you?"

"Can you promise?" the girl repeated, more emphatically this time, ignoring her skepticism.

The spellcaster shook her head, but said, "Yes, jeez, not that my word means anything, but yes, I promise."

The girl looked up at her, directly into her eyes. The spellcaster's frown didn't waver. This was stupid, the girl was going to tell. By tomorrow night she'd be on the bonfire. That was a weird comfort. Death was a strange kind of escape from all this.

But the girl nodded. "Okay."

"Okay?" the spellcaster asked.

"I believe you."