Hidden Spirit

Chapter Nineteen: Growing Stronger.. The Informal Way

"On your mark...."

She anxiously looked over at him, her fingertips barely touching the ground.

"Go!"

They bolted forward, blurs of silver and black at each of their sides.

Amelia pushed her legs as fast as they could launch to and from the ground, the breath in her lungs already hard to grasp and her heart thundering as if they'd been racing all day -- which was not false.

Her chosen spirit, Larsa, shot far before them, neck-and-neck with Grey. Amelia spared a glance at her side to see Feren barely coming up in front. She gasped and put another burst into her step. He glanced at her in turn and flashed a smile he likely knew would make her falter.

Just before the finish where the spirits waited, turning back to eagerly jump into the casters when close enough, Amelia managed to find a hairsbredth of a lead. The spirits defined the finish.

"Ha!" she gasped in one final breath, breaking the sprint before leaning over to find the air again.

A loud groan came from behind her and then the sound of his collapse onto the ground. "Fine. Though you are still only now only one in five."

She straightened back as elegantly as she was trained, sauntered over to him, then dropped down just as abruptly as he. "What's next?"

Rather than answer, he rose and reached up for the sturdiest branch.

"Begin with the weakest, stop when you've run out. If you've run out."

She nodded and stood up off the ground with a silent grumble. After selecting a branch that would support her and jumping up to grab it, she signaled for him to go. His arms curled, the muscles there pressing against his sleeves as he pulled his chin up over the branch with little effort and called the smallest spirit in his pool. A grasshopper.

Amelia pulled herself up, the muscles in her arms whining in somewhat-fresh soreness from the constant efforts of the last many days, and called the counterpart to his. She left the spirit to sit on the ground as she lowered herself again. Feren, who was quicker than she, was already up in his second rise and had another spirit sit below him.

Already at the third Amelia's arms felt weak, making her wonder how many more she would take, though she had many, many more spirits to call. She continued.

Tivarka was the tenth for her and Demois, the foreign-looking horse, was his.

She got to twenty-four and felt both the shaking in her arms and the exhaustion of her magical energy. At twenty-five, the name of Leyofor was a gasp, and she dropped to the ground surrounded by the ghostly forms of her summons around her. Feren's group was larger and stronger than hers. He pushed himself further until he could not form a name as hard as he tried; he didn't know yet what the next strongest was.

When he dropped, shaking his arms to be rid of the feeling Amelia knew she felt in her own arms, she gave an unsure laugh.

"Do you realize how sad forty-five is?"

"Aye, and what did you get?" he asked, sharp and not-completely annoyed.

"Twenty-five!"

He let out a sharp laughing-hiss of a breath, shaking his head and turning to walk through his group of spirits.

"And you know what?" she asked him.

"What is that?"

"I've finally filled in every gap between the smallest spirit and Leyofor. I am prouder than I would be if I'd jumped ahead of him."