“There it is,” I said. “I can control it with my Mana!”
I leaned forward again and made a few more inky pin pricks in her skin, but instead of trying to finish the design in this way, I pushed the tiniest bit of Mana into my fingertip and placed it against Amelia’s skin, near the ink.
Her skin was warm to the touch. The ink started to flow toward my finger. I drew my finger back along the tattoo outline, pulling the ink behind me. It soaked under the skin, filling out the design until it was nearly complete.
Amelia gasped. “That’s incredible! That must be how you manage to make such neat tattoos so quickly—you’re controlling the ink directly with your Mana! That’s what makes you a true Ink Mage!”
Veronica was leaning forward too, her eyes wide. She didn’t even seem to remember that she was meant to be turned off by seeing a tattoo.
“I had no idea I could control ink like this,” I said. “This will allow me to draw far more intricate tattoos, and more quickly.”
The blade of the rune was a sharp point with a simple straight handle and no hilt, obviously meant just for throwing. I pricked some ink under Amelia’s skin with the dagger, then used my Mana to draw the ink through to the last point in the design. As it was completed, the whole tattoo flickered, then flashed bright blue.
Veronica gasped, and I looked up at her.
“You liked that?” I asked.
“Uh, well, it was well crafted,” Veronica stammered.
I smiled in satisfaction. The flash of blue when a tattoo was completed was impressive, and I hoped it might have some influence on Veronica’s opinion of the process.
I released the Mana which I’d been using to manipulate the ink, and it all flowed back into my pool.
Amelia sat staring at her new tattoo. “It’s beautiful.”
“As far as tattoos go, it’s quite well done,” Veronica agreed.
“You sure you don’t want one?” I smiled at her. “While I have my knife out?”
Veronica gave a curt shake of her head.
“Well, go on, try out your new power!” I said to Amelia.
Amelia took the book from Veronica and laid it back on top of my pack. We all got to our feet.
“Stand back a bit,” I said to Veronica. “Never hurts to give some distance when testing a new rune.”
“I was always taught the same principle during my training,” she said as she shuffled back.
“Make sure you don’t activate the spear in the middle of your Cold rune,” I said to Amelia. “Just move the Mana through the central tattoo and straight into the blade augmentation.”
Amelia nodded. “How exactly should I activate the Cold rune?”
“Like you did before, when you helped me freeze that stream.”
“You froze a stream?” Veronica asked.
“Well, not a whole stream,” I said. “We just coated part of the surface with ice.”
“Still, that’s remarkable power,” Veronica whispered.
Amelia straightened her shoulders and extended her left arm. She still had a little bit less practice manipulating her Mana than I did, but she was learning quickly.
The first time she pushed the Mana into her hand prematurely. She simply formed a lump of wet ice. She tipped her hand, and the lump landed on the ground with a slosh.
She furrowed her brow and tried again. I could see the snowflake tattoo light up, then the blade tattoo.
“That’s it!” I said encouragingly to Amelia.
Veronica drew in a sharp breath. She was leaning forward, her eyes intently focused on Amelia.
I heard the crackling of ice starting to form. A smooth handle appeared in Amelia’s hand, and she closed her fingers to grip it. As the ice crystals grew, they formed a thin, sharp blade.
“Unbelievable,” Veronica whispered. I could have sworn she looked jealous. I said nothing. I didn’t want to spoil the moment by asking her yet again if she’d like a tattoo.
Amelia held up the blade for a moment, and the last rays of the setting sun glittered on the glass-like surface.
“I want to see if I can cast it as a projectile as well,” Amelia said. “How do I get rid of this blade?”
“You can’t just drop it?” I asked.
“It’s stuck to my hand.” She opened and closed her hand, but the knife remained stuck to her palm.
“Useful in combat,” Veronica said. “It would prevent you from being disarmed.”
“I’m not in combat right now,” Amelia said, “and I’d much prefer not having to wait until the thing melts.”
“Try just withdrawing your Mana from the spell,” I suggested. “That’s what I do when I want to stop a flame on my hand.”
“Withdrawing the Mana from the spell,” Amelia repeated. She had not done this before, and I saw her concentrate hard for a moment. Then, as smoothly as it had appeared, the blade seemed to melt back into the skin of her hand. The tattoo flickered again for a moment, then went dark.
“Now to try it as a projectile,” Amelia said, and concentrated again, summoning Mana into her tattoos. The runes on her right arm lit up blue again, and the ice blade started to form on her palm. As she pushed Mana into the blade rune, the ice knife took shape once more.
Amelia shook her head. “It’s too late now. I forgot to put Mana into the projectile rune first. Let me try that again.”
This time, the snowflake rune lit up again, then the blade rune, then the spear rune. We waited a moment, Veronica and I both watching Amelia in silence. Then, faster than we could see, the ice blade swelled into shape on Amelia’s hand and shot forward. With a whoosh, it flew past us and smashed into a tree nearby. The shards exploded against the trunk of the tree. All that was left was some ice crystals and some scratches in the bark.
Veronica gasped. “I thought the
