A sound made Clíodhna halt, but no one appeared to spy on her indecorous behavior. A bird flitted from one branch to another, chastising her for being too close to its nest. She grinned again. She hadn’t been this giddy with delight since she’d been courting with Oisinne.
There had been several men before him, but none had made her laugh like he did. His stories enchanted her, and she wanted to keep him forever, to entertain her for hours. He did that, she must admit. However, he began staying out hunting longer and longer as the care of the children grew more and more time-consuming. Eventually, he just never came back.
On alternate nights, she’d blamed herself, blamed the children, blamed the Fae, blamed the weather, and of course, blamed Oisinne.
Torn between the desperate need for a nap without children and the burning desire to learn from Adhna, Clíodhna passed her roundhouse and found her perch upon the viewing rock. Her erstwhile teacher hadn’t yet arrived, so she sat in contemplation of her river.
The calming rush of water lulled her into much-needed sleep, and she startled awake when Adhna spoke in her ear. “Are you ready, Clíodhna?”
She jumped up and whirled around, instinctively ready to fight, but the man chuckled. “Fear not, child. Remember my vow; I will not harm you.”
Her heart pounded within her chest, and her temper flared. “Those may be the words of your vow but frightening me into falling off a rock isn’t directly harming me. I’ll be just as dead on the rocks below, though.”
He cocked his head, still with a half-smile on his face. “I wish to help you, Clíodhna. This will go much easier if you accept that basic truism. If not, this lesson might well be wasted.”
Setting her jaw, Clíodhna forced herself to calm down. Being prickly would just make more trouble at this point. With deliberate silence, she sat cross-legged, folded her hands, and waited.
He blinked twice. “Wonderful. Now, the first lesson is to tell you about the power you’ve been pulling on. You may already be aware it’s part of the land itself. You can draw upon the essence, the life-force of the land. It can be refreshed, and changed, depending on the will and strength of the person manipulating it. You’ve been pulling it in and then just letting it dissipate. While this isn’t harmful to the land, it can fray your own soul if you do it too much without purpose.”
Fray. What a wonderfully descriptive word.
“Now, this energy isn’t limitless in fact, but for your purposes, and the purposes of any human, it is. Only a god or goddess could drain even a portion of this energy from the land. A Faerie Queen has less power but could still damage the land if she so chooses. I can’t think of a reason they might do so, unless they went quite mad, but it’s a possibility.”
Clíodhna shivered. Faerie Queens featured in many of Oisinne’s tales, and rarely did any human come out the better for encountering them. A traveler might gain some great ability—such as the gift of song or power over the waves—but they lost something precious. A child, their voice, a leg, their sanity… or their life. She had no wish to make such a gamble.
“When you pull the power up through the land, how do you do that?”
She considered her answer for a few moments. “I see it, like a blue-white light, threading up through my contact with the ground. It’s like delicate tendrils from a growing vine. It caresses my bones and my muscles, spreading warmth and energy. But it feels… odd. Like I’m pushing something through a barrier that resists my efforts.”
“Excellent description! The barrier is because it’s earth magic. You’re more tuned to air magic, I think. And then you just stop?”
“My mother taught me, but she never said I should do anything with it. She said to always remember to honor the dawn and the dusk with my rituals. Earth and air magic?”
“As well she should. They are worthy of honor, as is the land. Many humans, Fae, and gods cultivate that power to keep the land healthy, as the land’s health reflects our own. As the land dies, so do we. That is true of any creature. I want to continue to teach you earth magic. We shall move to air magic once you have a solid grounding in the earth.”
The words seemed right to her. Truer than the words of the monk yesterday. This maxim Clíodhna understood within her being.
“Now, let’s do some exercises. I shall instruct you on how to both pull the power into you, which you have already done, and control it once you have done so, which you have not done. First, I want you to draw power, but not as much as you can. Just a little. A small tendril, as you described, up your spine.”
Clíodhna closed her eyes and imagined that thin, blue-white line branching up her back, through each of her bones until it reached the base of her skull.
“Good, good. Now, keep it there. Don’t let it dissipate. Don’t let it grow. Don’t let it meld through your body. Just hold it in place.”
It quivered within her, aching to spread, to move, to disperse, but she clenched her jaw and it remained in place. After several moments, she shook with the effort, but refused to let the power win.
“Excellent! Now, release it, a small portion at a time.”
Bit by bit, Clíodhna let the power escape, back into the earth she sat upon. It tingled as it disappeared, almost like a wave goodbye. When she’d
