A deep rumbling chuckle emanated from Gordon, followed swiftly by a cough as he thumped on his chest. “If you think archery isnae challenging, then you’ve never loosed a single arrow.”
“Not since my youth, but I do know that just having magic burns through energy at twice the rate of a normal man and using it can easily increase that to thrice again. Even then, it could cause a spellster to drop unconscious in their tracks if the strength is not controlled.”
“I dinnae ken you could grow tired from using magic,” Hamish said. There were plenty of childhood stories cautioning those who tried to take the easy route, often with the people in the tales always coming a cropper after taking that advice of some suspiciously-helpful spellster, but such tales had rung false to him once he deduced that the person with magic always seemed to win out. “Or that it caused that much of a toll on the body.” Magic had an air of effortlessness about it.
“How else do you think we were capable of anything beyond the mundane? The power has to come from somewhere, but there is only so much magic a person can do at any one time. No matter how much people try to prove it wrong, magic is not an infinite source. It comes from inside us, as innate as your ability to breathe.”
“But nae as natural,” Gordon pointed out. “Or it wouldnae be difficult.”
“And your breathing has never become laboured?”
His brother grinned. “Only when I’ve pushed meself well beyond me limits.”
“Then you will understand when I say that magic is, in essence, a constant battle to remain within one’s limits. It takes its toll. Severely, at times. Recuperation is required if used to excess. Your people are familiar with healing, correct? That is all your spellsters are allowed?”
Gordon nodded, clearly waiting for Darshan to reach his point. He likely recalled the exhaustion of their younger sister, Caitlyn, far better than Hamish could, being the first to find them in the charred undergrowth.
“Healing is simultaneously one of the most simplistic and difficult magics. Easy to begin, but hard to direct. Harder still to stop without training. In its natural state, it can tear the body apart whilst attempting to repair itself. Learning is not recommended for those weak in magic.”
Hamish frowned. According to his younger sister, every spellster within the cloister was expected to learn how to heal others, for occasions where their talents might be needed. Did they also know the limits?
“Fire, ice, shields…” Darshan continued. “These are generally one of the first to be attempted by a young spellster. Their application is easy, but they take from within before using any means from without.”
“How so?” Hamish queried.
“Fire.” His lover held out a hand. The thin tongue of a flame danced on his palm. That hazel gaze remained focused on his conjuring, curious like he held a living thing. “It is a simple process, requiring heat, fuel and air. Any novice can do it. But the initial spark of that heat is generally from within themselves rather than the safer method of manipulating outside forces. Offering too much body heat can freeze a spellster where they stand.”
Hamish rubbed at the scar hidden beneath the coils of his hair, recollecting the first time he had witnessed his younger sister using her gift. It had all been so fast. They’d been alone in the forests below the castle when ambushed. He had tried to protect them, but he’d been so young and their attackers were many. One had struck from behind, or maybe he had turned, then…
Fire. His memory was patchy in places afterwards, but he remembered flames pouring from his sister’s hands like the breath of a demon and the men running in their wake. And cold. Caitlyn collapsed not long after the flames went out. He had crawled to her side, too dizzy to move any other way. Her skin had been deathly cold, as if she’d spent a winter buried in the snow. He hadn’t ever considered she would’ve died had Gordon not stumbled upon them soon after.
“Ice is a little different,” Darshan continued. “But it requires minimal effort to crystallise the water in the air.” He held up his other hand and a thin veneer of frost coated his fingers. “It is rather similar to how nature forms such things.” He shook his head and the frost melted away. “There are other, more complicated, forms of magic, but those three are widely considered as the basics.”
“You never explained shields,” Hamish pointed out before taking another swallow of water.
“Well, they are not something that is taught. The appearance is considered an instinctual reflex to danger but…” His eyes became unfocused for a breath. A shimmer of a filmy purple sheet of light surrounded him like a blanket. “It starts close to the skin and can, depending on the spellster’s strength, be extended further to encompass a great deal to protect others as well as ourselves.” The filmy barrier spread from Darshan’s body, growing distorted until it had become a sphere. And still, it grew. The tingling edge slunk over them until everyone sat within. “However, the former is as much as a newborn can manage and all most rely on.”
“A bairn?” Sean blurted, spraying food. “You mean a spellster new to this world can do that?” He waved a hand at Darshan’s shield.
“Only in reaction to a pain stimulus. It is how we test for the ability in noble bloodlines.”
Gordon’s face darkened, a smouldering anger lighting his eyes. “You inflict pain on a newborn? Just to see if the bairn has magic in their blood?”
Darshan held up
