Autumn's Fire

Autumn's Fire: Chapter 13

That week, Chriol and I spent three of the seven days curled in each other's embrace in beautiful bliss. The first day was much like the one before it, and we spent our time reading and cuddling at the willow.

The second day, though, we decided to spend in the meadow. I met him there that day and was surprised to find that he had already set everything up. Most notably, he had a spell book in front of him. I sat down across from him on the blanket he had laid out and raised an eyebrow at him as I gestured to the book. Chriol grinned wide, and opened it up to a page he had marked with a red string.

"I'm going to teach you some non-fire magic spells to broaden your magic knowledge and abilities," he explained, wiggling his eyebrows excitedly. "If that's okay with you, that is," he said when I didn't immediately respond.

I chuckled and dismissed his concern with a wave of my hand. "It's okay yeah. That sounds great."

Chriol sighed, relieved, and instantly got to work explaining the spells. We did one spell in each of the other four elements, starting with air. The air spell I tried was simply to cause a light breeze to pick up a feather. Using air magic was certainly different to fire magic, but it felt familiar; and casting the spell only took three tries, which Chriol said was good for something not in my innate individual magic. My first try, I said part of the incantation wrong, and nothing happened. On the second try, I did everything perfectly, but I didn't put enough will power behind it, so all that happened was a small fizzling sound and puff of smoke. The third time was certainly the charm, though, as the moment the incantation left my lips, the brown and white feather Chriol had brought spun up into the air and floated off into the distance.

"Well, I guess I'm not getting that feather back." Chriol joked, and I rolled my eyes.

The next spell was a water spell that lifted a drop of water from my canteen into the air and back down again. I had a lot of trouble with this spell. The first five tries, nothing happened at all, while the next five, a large splash of water flew out of the canteen and onto my lap. It was incredibly frustrating, and I had to stop to take deep breaths several times. Chriol didn't seem to mind, though, as every time I messed up, he gave me a quick kiss; and every time I succeeded, he gave me a deep kiss. The eleventh try was finally the successful one as with a lot of focus and even more willpower, a tiny drop of water lifted from the glass canteen, spun slowly in the air, and dropped back down into the water below. I sighed heavily and slumped against Chriol as the spell succeeded, and just as he did before, he cupped my face in his hands, giving me a long, slow kiss.

The spell up next was a life spell to heal a cut on a lower petal. Chriol had some affinity for this type, so he explained quite well what I had to do. Thanks to this, I was able to do the spell in four tries. The first three were all fizzlers, but the fourth was amazing to watch. As I performed the spell, time seemed to reverse itself on the flower, and the petal bent slowly back into place, healing itself without a trace of there ever having been a cut at all. I stared in awe at the sight of it, but my vision suddenly went sideways. Thankfully, Chriol managed to catch me, and set me back upright.

"How about we take a break for food? Before you pass out for real, that is," he chuckled, clearly worried about me. I agreed, so he pulled out utensils, a meat pie, and a glass bottle of some translucent orange liquid from his basket. "Okay. So, this is Clearcot juice, it's a slightly sweet fruit with an exterior that looks like a rock. They're hard to spot, but they grow continuously, so when we find one, we just put a spout in it so we can juice from it whenever," he explained as he opened the bottle, which fizzed slightly as he popped the cork. "Now as for this," he motioned to the meat pie. "I'll explain about as soon as you try it."

"Okay. Though the way you say that makes me a little concerned to eat it," I said, and hesitantly took a spoonful of pie. As expected it was savory and delicious, but had an unexpected chewiness that actually seemed to add to the flavor. I ate several more spoonsful of it, sighing as the food was already helping me feel better.