“It would be a good idea to get used to casting that spell,” Amelia said.
“I can throw a few more,” I said as I turned to face the boulders.
“You have enough Mana?”
“I can already feel it regenerating. It’s almost full again.”
I repeated the procedure of drawing Mana through the flame tattoo and then into the three spears. I summoned the fireballs on my hand again. This time, I didn’t hesitate before I flung them toward the rocks. They whizzed through the air and exploded against the rock face.
“They’re much closer together,” I observed. “It seems like they fly closer together if I cast more quickly. This is brilliant.”
I tried once more, waiting just a couple of seconds with the fireballs in my hand. They spread out, but not as far as the first time.
“I can control how far they spread by timing my cast.”
“That’s amazing,” Amelia said. “You’re learning so much about how to use your Mana so quickly. Normally it takes weeks for Mages to get to this point. I don’t have any personal experience, but I’ve read about apprentice Mages getting all hot and bothered when they can only cast a single spell per day.”
“Well, I need to be even faster. We are likely to face more monsters in these woods, and who knows who else might come for us once they figure out what I can do. If I’m the only Ink Mage in the world, it’s up to me to find out what that means and what I can do. That starts by not getting killed by monsters in my first few days of freedom! I want to get us back to the road, get some supplies from the wagons, and then make our way to somewhere where we can think about the implications of this new power. Yeah, I’m going to need to learn more and faster than any apprentice at Astros.”
“You’re right,” Amelia said. “Let’s see if there’s anything else we can use in my book at the moment.”
She turned to the book again, which she’d laid on the ground behind us while I’d been casting. After turning the pages for a moment, she stopped at a page with symbols etched in cold blue on the parchment. These were Cold spells: icicle symbols, frost blasts, and snowflake symbols of different shapes and sizes.
Amelia looked at this thoughtfully, then reached into her pouch and pulled out a couple of blue Beast Cores. There were the ones we’d taken from the boar we’d fought, the one that had blasted me with frost. “We have these two cold Cores left over from the boar you killed,” she said. “I wonder if you can cast Cold spells as well as Fire spells. Generally, Mages have only one Elemental Affinity and can only cast spells within that affinity— fire, ice, lightning, nature, and wind. But I recall reading that Ink Mages can cast spells from more than one element. If you really are an Ink Mage, perhaps you can do that too?”
“Let’s find out,” I said, sitting down beside her. “What’s the best design for a Cold spell?”
“They’re all here,” Amelia said, indicating the open chapter in the book, “but it’s getting a bit dark to see them properly.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll get a fire going.”
I gathered some branches off the ground and broke them into smaller lengths. Normally, I would need some tinder to strike a spark into, as well as kindling and lighter sticks to carefully build the fire up from a small flame. This time, I had a feeling I wouldn’t need any of that.
I considered using a fireball to light the fire, but I remembered what a mess it had made of a trollman’s torso earlier. I didn’t want to blow up the stack of wood in our faces. Instead, I collected a few small sticks and held them on my hand to light them on fire. I pushed my Mana into the Fire rune on my tattoo, then into the palm of my hand, heating up the leaves and twigs gently, just as I’d heated the ropes to escape earlier.
Within a few seconds, smoke began pouring out, then a bright flame licked up around the twigs. This heat was enough to burn me, and I quickly laid the burning kindling into the hollow I’d made in the mossy ground. That was interesting—I couldn’t be burned by my own spells, but I could still be burned by fires which I’d started. Good to know. I’d need to be careful not to be complacent around fire.
I added more sticks, and the flame quickly caught, crackling greedily up the dry wood.
The glow almost blinded us for a moment as the flames curled and danced in the relative darkness of the deep dusk. Carefully, I added a few bigger pieces. The sappy wood spat and crackled as it caught, letting forth a pleasant, resinous scent.
“Oh, that’s better,” said Amelia. The glow of the firelight played over the shapely contours of her pretty face and danced on her pale skin.
“How far do you think the wagons are from here?” she asked.
“I can’t hear the oxen lowing, so it must still be a bit of a walk, but I recognized the area we were walking through. It can’t be too far. Do you need to eat now? Do you want to find the wagons before trying any more magic?”
“Not at all,” Amelia replied hastily. “I’m too excited to see if you can cast Cold spells. But it will be good to go and get some food soon.”
“There’s plenty of food in the wagons.” I sat down beside her. “We can eat as soon as we find them.”
Amelia nodded, looking pleased, and sat near the fire, flicking through the pages of the Cold spells section until she found what she was looking for. “Here it is,” she said, pointing at the page. “The most basic Cold spell.”
“It’s very similar to the fireball spell,” I noted as
