Chatoyant College Book 8: From the Earth

Chapter 8: Uncontrolled

As soon as Professor Lal said they could start, Corrie brought her hands together, palms up, and stared into them. It seemed like an odd way to create water, but at least they didn't have to stand up the whole time, as they had during the fire classes. She reached for her magic, and her eyes widened in surprise; it was indeed different. She could find it easily—all the practice she'd done, lighting candles, on Wednesday and Thursday must have helped—but the feel of it had changed. It took her a moment to pinpoint the difference, and then she realized it was the temperature. When she was doing fire magic it had felt quite warm; now it was cool to the mental touch. Like water. Well, that certainly made sense.

She took a deep breath and touched it gently. Almost instantly, her palms dampened, then water appeared to fill them. She let go quickly, almost expecting the water to vanish, but it didn't. She pressed her fingers tightly together so the water wouldn't drip out between them, then looked around the classroom. Professor Lal was several rows away, talking to another student. She didn't want to call out and disrupt the others, especially since it wasn't like she was having a problem, but she still felt proud, and maybe a little embarrassed.

She'd never had a class before that she excelled in—even during the first half of the semester of magic class, she'd had some trouble. It wasn't that she didn't want to do the work, or even that she procrastinated and ended up not reading it as carefully as she should. Having two friends in the class who weren't procrastinators (at least, Dawn wasn't) and wanted to study with her prevented that. It was just that she didn't seem to retain the information, or didn't understand it properly in the first place. She'd done well enough on the quizzes and midterm, but it had never been easy for her. No classwork had ever been easy for her.

Until now. Somehow, she had some inherent ability with magic. It wasn't intellectual. She could just do it.

She was still smiling proudly when Professor Lal finally came over to her, and lifted her cupped hands quickly. "I did it. It was, um, pretty easy."

"Very good, Corrie. Just a moment, let me check it." Professor Lal bent over her hands and looked closely at the water. Corrie wondered what she was looking for. When the professor straightened up, she smiled. "Excellent work indeed. I was not sure how easy of a time you would have it with water magic; people often have an affinity with one or two elements, and have little or no ability to work with their opposites. But you appear to simply have an unusually high amount of magic."

Corrie liked the sound of that... almost. "Unusually high?"

Professor Lal nodded, then shrugged. "Or perhaps it is simply uncontrolled, but in my experience, all new students are uncontrolled with their magic. Others have to coax theirs up; you must damp yours down."

Corrie nodded. That sounded about right, though she still wondered why, exactly, her magic might be unusually high—and whether it was quite natural for her to have so much magic. She was still uncomfortably aware that she was not entirely human. "The way I think of it is, if I grab it too hard, then too much magic comes out. I have to touch it more gently and carefully to do just a little bit, like just lighting the wick of the candle instead of melting all the wax."

"If that is what works for you, then just keep it in mind. Practice with different elements should, over time, allow you to pinpoint the exact amount of magic to use for anything in particular that you wish to do—as well as other kinds of magic, of course. Hmm." Professor Lal stood for a moment, tapping her lips with one finger, then smiled. "You need a challenge now. Why don't you work on vanishing the water from your hands without dropping it? That should be possible at that point in your development."

Corrie looked down at the water. It glistened back at her. "How exactly do I do that?"

"The same way that you created it. Look at it, reach for your magic, and will it to be gone. Good luck." Professor Lal walked away.

Corrie shook her head, still staring at the water. A challenge. And she'd just been so happy about this being easy for once. Well, Professor Lal was probably right. Anyway, if she had the opportunity to get really good at magic, she certainly wanted to try.

Vanish the water. She focused on that, reached into herself, and touched the magic. Instantly, more water welled up in her palms. She gritted her teeth and tried again.