Page 132 of Death of a Mortal

“Great, you hold this.” He handed me the flicker, a smooth metal cylinder with a small stone on top, and I closed my eyes. “Now, the first thing I want you to do is place a hand over your heart, and I want you to envision your heart under your palm. Feel its beat and rhythm.”

I did as he instructed and immediately felt the thump of my heart. It was much slower than it had been as a mortal, taking me back to Noxie’s explanation of magic. It was a fae heart indeed.

Come to think of it, had I everactuallybeen mortal? There were still so many unknowns. How? Who? Why? I hoped the Arcanums held some answers.

“Okay, now what?” I asked, bringing myself back to the lesson.

“Now, keep focusing on the beating of your heart and picture your power as a box around your heart that beats with it, containing the magic within and giving it space to expand and take shape.”

In my mind’s eye, I pictured what he said, and suddenly the box expanded and contracted with each slow beat of my heart. I smiled at the control I felt so far.

“Good, good. Keep the image of that box in your mind at all times during these trials, okay?”

I nodded.

“Alright, so with fire, think of the box heating and glowing red. Think of controlled orange flames flowing out with each beat—in then out, flames igniting then extinguishing.Smallflames.”

I concentrated on the image he’d painted and felt a light, pleasant heat surge through my veins. Nothing like the excruciating burn of my shadowy fire. This felt comfortable, familiar even, as if it had been there the whole time, dormant.

I opened my eyes to find the striker lit with a small, flickering orange flame and Bramick beaming in front of me.

“Excellent, well, that one was a given.”

“I controlled it!” I was ecstatic.

“Well…yeah, you did. Not to burst your bubble, but these trial tools won’t really allow for magic to be unleashed. They’re dampened some and, well…you did great with it.” He clearly saw my face fall. It had been exciting to make something happen, but it still wasn’t under control.

But I was determined to get there.

“So which trial is next, then?” I pressed on quickly.

He set the flicker down and picked up a jar of clear liquid with a glythyr drawn on one side. “We’ll try ice next.”

Ice made me think of Varyn, and I hoped I didn’t have it. I didn’t want commonality with him. Memories of flesh on flesh threatened to surface, but I pushed them away.

Bramick guided me through similar instructions to those in the fire trial, but centered this time on sharp, cold, and blue thoughts. I assume that if I had ice, the water would have frozen, but it didn’t. Nothing happened. Thankfully, I did not have the ice element.

We moved on and did similar exercises with water (two small cups, trying to move water from one to the other), air (a cylindrical tube that would generate a vortex), and earth (a small pot full of soil and a grass seed that would grow), all of which ended with me not controlling the element.

Bramick had said having multiple elements was rare, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at not having another one.

“Don’t sweat it. Almost no one here has two elements. We just had to make sure we’re not neglecting some of your abilities by not testing for them. I don’t expect you to have another one.”

We kept going, and I flinched when he handed me the orb of lightning. I felt my heart rate pick up under my palm still pressed to my chest as we walked through the exercise, but I could not split the lone, tiny bolt, and I was relieved not to have that element in common with Aemilia.

“Last one is light, then we can jump back into practicing control with the fire.”

He had me hold a plain gray stone with a glowing white glythyr and went through the same internal thought process, this time imagining the box fading from existence as I pictured the stone in my hand doing the same.

When I opened my eyes, the stone remained, but the glythyr had turned black and was smoking.

“It did something!” Excitement was an understatement. “I know the rock didn’t disappear, but it changed. That means something, right?”

He stared at the rock in my palm as a crack grew down the center and expanded until it broke in two and the blackened glythyr faded out completely.

He looked deeply concerned before meeting my eyes.

“Does this mean I have the element of light?” I asked eagerly, ignoring the dark gloom that passed over his face.