Fenni thrust his senses out. Cold feet, rustling leaves …
“Feel the energy in the core of your being, right down through your feet, connecting with the earth. Sense each tree; the forest as a whole; how everything vibrates with nature’s energy. When you feel that familiar hum of sathir …”
Fenni opened his eyes. He hadn’t ever told anyone, but he’d never felt the hum that everyone talked about.
The wizard cocked a bushy eyebrow at Fenni and stared at him for a long moment before saying, “That doesn’t work for you, does it?”
“Feeling nature’s energy? No, it doesn’t. Never has.”
“You told me you’d mastered it privately. Why in the Egg’s name didn’t you say something earlier?” Master Giddi snapped. “Stretch a hand out.”
Fenni sighed. “With all due respect, Master Giddi, I don’t see how—”
“Quiet.” The master mage’s voice was soft, but, as usual, held power.
Fenni obeyed, holding a hand up, flinching as Master Giddi touched his freezing little finger with his bony forefinger.
“Feel that?”
Fenni’s finger was buzzing. “Yes, I do,” he said. Amazing, it was like a hive of bees in his fingertip.
“And this?”
A vibration traveled down his finger into his hand, making his palm tingle too. “Incredible. How did you do that?”
“Now …” The master mage lifted his finger into the air and Fenni’s finger was pulled up, as if they were attached, until his arm was stretched high. Giddi curled his own fingers into his palm and put them in his cloak pockets.
Lucky for some, keeping their hands warm.
“Now, close your eyes again and sense the forest,” Master Giddi said.
The air around Fenni’s fingers seemed to pulse with life. Weird. Is that what other mages felt? He forced his senses out further, and bit by bit, the hum of the earth vibrated through him. Energy radiated from the strongwood trees, making his skin hum. A creature lumbered through the forest nearby and a surge rushed through him. Fenni snapped his eyes open and let out a whoop. “I can do it. I can feel sathir.”
Master Giddi threw up his hand, motioning him to be quiet.
A chilling snarl rang out. Something crashed through the bushes toward them.
“Tharuks,” hissed Master Giddi. “Hide.”
Fenni scaled the nearest strongwood and pulled his invisibility cloak around him. Not that it would do much good. His footprints in the snow were a dead giveaway.
Master Giddi scrambled up after him, but instead of hiding himself in his cloak among the branches, the master mage stood on a sturdy branch, parting the foliage to get a better look.
Piggy snout twitching, a tharuk lumbered into view. On two legs, its matted fur prevented it from succumbing to the cold. The beast followed Master Giddi’s prints toward the tree, then took a running jump, launching itself at the trunk. Claws sprang from its fingertips in midair. Gripping the bark as it landed, the beast swarmed up the strongwood, the stench of rot wafting over Fenni. His heart pounded.
Invisibility cloak be cursed. Fenni grabbed his bow, nocked an arrow, and fired. The shot thudded into the strongwood’s trunk, next to the tharuk’s hand. Master Giddi flung flames at the beast, but the foliage was in the way. Fenni shot another arrow, hitting the tharuk’s arm. It shook the arrow off like a mosquito. Beady red eyes boring into Fenni, it swung onto his branch, tusks drooling dark saliva.
His flame had to work. Now. Fenni desperately tried to sense nature’s energy. He held up his hand to blast a fireball at the tharuk. Green sparks dribbled from his fingers onto the branch, sputtering out—useless.
A fireball flew past the tharuk’s ear. Master Giddi was aiming at the beast, but the tree trunk was in his way. Master Giddi thudded to the ground, bellowing at the tharuk. The beast ignored Giddi, lunging toward Fenni.
He scrambled further along the branch. Master Giddi shot an arc of green flame toward the tharuk. It ducked, flinging itself onto its stomach, pulling itself along the bough after Fenni.
The branch was getting mighty slender, bowing with their weight. Fenni clambered as far as he dared. He fished his knife out of its sheath and flung it at the tharuk just as a fireball blasted the creature off the branch in a trail of flame and smoke. Fenni’s knife thunked into the branch. The tharuk thudded to the snow.
Heart booming like a drum, Fenni peered down at the dead beast. There was a smoking hole in the side of its torso. The stench of burnt hair and flesh drifted up. He wrinkled his nose and swallowed. That had been a sharding close call—he could’ve been dead meat, like his uncle. “So that’s why mages have to master flame,” he joked shakily.
Master Giddi gave the beast a nudge with his boot, then looked up. “Indeed,” he replied. “And the sooner you do, the better.”
§
Hours later, Fenni was in Giddi’s cabin playing with a tiny green fireball that shot erratically between his fingertips. Surely, now, Master Giddi would be impressed.
Suddenly, the fireball darted at the master mage’s face. Giddi caught it, snapping his fingers shut around it. Face grim, he raised one of those infamous bushy eyebrows at Fenni.
“Ah, sorry, I, um …”
“Not good enough. You think you can kill a tharuk like that? Come on, Fenni, focus. You need drive, precision and more flame. You’ll set half of Great Spanglewood Forest alight if you don’t master this. If you can’t control your own flame, the Wizard Council will never let you loose.”
Face growing hot, Fenni scuffed his boot on the floorboards, not meeting the master wizard’s eye. Shards, he’d been doing so well.
“You got distracted and thought of me, so that’s where your fireball went. That won’t do in battle. Now, go and practice outside in the
