“What you just experienced was the gift of a seer. You saw into my past, a scene that always plays through my mind when Sebastian is around. I am sure you understand why now.”
“That is my gift. You do not understand your own gift enough to understand my curse.” She glanced at Sebastian and smiled. “But you may understand Sebastian’s. Have you felt his hunger? A hunger for a person that does not begin in the loins?”
I thought back to last night. It was all such a blur. “Maybe?”
“Maybe it’s too early for you to have felt the curses. It will come though. Be prepared. When you forge a connection to someone, an action that we’ll practice, you’ll get both sides, the gift and the curse.”
“Regardless, that is something that we’ll work on later. First, you need to learn to use magic at its most basic level. It’s an instinctual action that you need to understand so that you can use your power on demand.”
She said, “Your primary magic stems from light. As Sebastian weaves mists, you’ll weave light and its opposite, darkness. Luckily, I have a similar affinity.”
She smiled as she raised her hand and a light so bright that it seemed to burn shown from it. Directly at my face.
I put my hands up to stop it, but the light seemed to wrap around my hands. I tried to close my eyes, but it was so bright that it hurt even with my eyes closed.
“Stop!” I yelled.
“Stop the light,” she commanded, but I didn’t know how. It continued to burn me, growing in intensity until it all seemed to go dark. I opened my eyes, and everything was blurry. Pain was everything, like someone had stabbed my eyes with a hot poker. It felt like I’d never get over the pain, but seconds later it was gone completely.
“Can you see?” she asked as her form became clearer.
I nodded. “Excellent. At least your healing powers are in full effect. You would have been blind if they weren’t.”
“You blinded me?” I asked incredulously.
She nodded. “You didn’t think this process was painless, did you?”
“Yes. Yes, I thought that learning magic would be like learning anything else. Namely, that it wouldn’t require you to burn my eyes away.”
“Those are mortal thoughts. Everything in the Immortal Realm requires sacrifice. Pain is an insignificant one. Ask Sebastian how much pain matters to him.”
I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out at Cara. A darkness seemed to flow through me.
“Sebastian, come here. She seemed to value connections and there is a very strong one between the two of you. Maybe she’ll act out of instinct when you’re in pain.”
He didn’t hesitate as he hopped off the stump and made his way over to Cara. He removed his hood and put his hands behind his back, ready for her to repeat her actions on him instead of me.
His eyes open wide, he glanced at me. “No. This is ridiculous, Cara. There has to be an easier, less painful way to teach me magic.”
“There is, but it takes time. That’s a luxury you don’t have, and you know it. We will gain time with the sacrifice of pain. Or, you could just move my light.”
A grin crossed her lips as she raised her hand again. A beam of light so powerful that it seemed to burn the air flashed from her hand, and Sebastian began to scream.
I moved instantly, putting myself between her and him. Pure shadow like that of my wings flowed around us, a barrier between the light and myself. I snarled at Cara, and a liquid blackness flowed from my hand towards her.
I saw inside her, as she must have done to me. Seeing that twisting, seething seat of power, and I knew that she did not control the shadows. Only the light. The liquid blackness coming from my hand covered her face, blotting out all the light around her.
She tried to penetrate it with her own control of light, to break the stream of blackness, but it was like a child trying to break down a door. I felt her throwing all of her magical force at it, but she could do nothing.
“Stop,” Sebastian said softly from behind me, grabbing my shoulders. Suddenly, all that rage went away, and with it, the blackness evaporated.
She fell to her knees gasping. “What did you do?” she whispered between gasps. “That is not light manipulation. That was something different.”
“I wanted you to stop hurting him,” I said meekly. “Are you okay?”
She nodded as she slowly caught her breath. When she finally stood up, she said, “Good. Let’s see if you can do it again.”
I nodded solemnly, but a part of me became overwhelmed with excitement. I’d just done fucking magic. Not just a little thing. I’d just put a zillion year old elf on the ground with my magic. I was not going to be some fairy princess anymore.
I took a deep breath and felt those forces inside me. Ones that had woken in that moment. I felt the shadow shield inside me, and I pushed it outward, surrounding Sebastian and myself in a ball of shadow. Sebastian put his hand to the semi-transparent wall and slid through it easily.
Then he stepped out, and when he put his hand to it, there was a resistance. I could feel him pressing against it, but it took almost no strength to resist him. He pulled a dagger from his sheath and stabbed the shield.
Pain shot through my stomach as I felt the power inside me
