Sans titre

The first wave of corruption was just the air.

Aveline clenched their fists. "One last challenge," they declared, and soared into the air, forcing the corruption back with their wind magic. Blowing gust after gust, throwing tornado after tornado, trying to redirect the corrupted air away from the Capital. It was too much for them alone, and there was nothing the rest could do to help them. They could only watch as the corrupted air continued to advance, and grow denser, finally engulfing Aveline, claiming them in its midst. Their coughing and hacking faded away into silence, and the others knew they were gone when the wind suddenly dropped and the corrupted air no longer faced resistance in its approach.

Seren looked back at Kaela and Mira. Kaela grabbed her wrist and shook her head. Seren pulled out of her grasp. They all knew that the corrupted beasts would be the next to advance, and that ice magic slows the corruption. She had already accepted her fate.

"Seren, please," Kaela begged, but Seren approached the corruption, holding her arms up in preparation. She looked over her shoulder back at Kaela and Mira, meeting both their gazes firmly. "It's up to you two. I can only slow the corrupted air and defend against the beasts for so long."

"There must be another way!" Kaela insisted.

Seren had already turned away from them. Water vapour in the air froze around her, thickening bit by bit into a solid block of ice. The corrupted air met her magic and slowed, struggling to seep through the frozen shield. Seren exerted every bit of her energy into growing the shield, holding as much of the corruption back as possible.

The corrupted wolves howled, invisible in the fog. The ground shook with their approach. "No!" Seren cried. Her shield wasn't thick enough yet to withstand their inevitable crashing impact. In desperation, she froze the only water left around her.

Herself.

"Seren!" Kaela screamed, stepping forward. Ice took over Seren's body, her limbs freezing into solid blocks, becoming one with the ice shield. Mira's hands on Kaela's shoulders precented her from running forward.

"Kaela!" Mira's voice was far away, though she was right there tugging her towards the capital. The corruption was already beginning to permeate the ice shield, advancing slowly towards them. The shadows of the wolves appeared through the ice. "Kaela, we have to go!"

The wolves bashed themselves against the ice shield. Seren's frozen body rattled.

"Seren!" Kaela screamed again, letting the air carry her voice, the ice sting her throat. She felt herself sink to the ground. Mira was shaking her shoulders, trying to get her to move.

"Kaela, you have to wake up!"

Kaela's tears evaporated the moment they escaped her eyes. Mira walked around and came in front of her.

But it wasn't Mira. It was Seren.

What?

She shook him again.

What?

"Pyla, you have to wake up!"

"Pyro!"

Pyro woke up with a start.

His bed was on fire. Seren was putting out the flames.

Scott. Pyro closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was Scott. He was at the Academy. He was safe. The corruption hadn't reached them. Yet, the back of his mind whispered.

He drew his knees to his chest and grabbed his head with both hands. He swallowed and tried to slow his ragged breathing, but he could still see the advancing fog seeping through the ice in his mind's eye. The shield was cracking under the wolves' impact. Seren's frozen body shattered as a beast tore through the shield and headed right for him.

A reactive burst of flames exploded around him, a whip of fire that ignited his wooden walls.

"Pyro!" Scott cried in exasperation, "Are you trying to burn the whole school down?"

"I'm sorry," Pyro spoke, his voice hoarse and dry. "I... had a nightmare."

Scott stayed silent for a moment. He raised his arms and coated Pyro's walls with snow, extinguishing the flames.

"Was it about the Fourfold Guard?" Scott finally asked.

Pyro looked up. "Have you dreamt about them as well?"

Scott gave a curt nod. He walked towards Pyro, patting out the remaining flames as he passed by them. Cindy whined when his hand hovered in her general direction, and he left a large section aflame for her, where she sat cozily and comfortably in the midst of fire. Pyro swung his legs over the side of his bed, making way for Scott next to him. Scott glanced at the partially destroyed bed, looked around for any better sitting spots, then sat down next to Pyro. The already weakened bed frame splintered under both their weights, sending Pyro sliding towards him before he caught himself. Pyro's focused expression remained unchanged.

Scott held his gloved hands up, then tugged his gloves off and turned his hands over and back for Pyro to see.

He wiggled his fingers, white at the tip, a layer of ice forming over his skin. He rubbed off the ice, only for it to form again quickly. "I dreamt about turning to ice," Scott said quietly. "It felt so real. The stiffening of my muscles, the burn of the freeze, and I woke up with this. It won't go away and I still feel it, the chill in my bones, the sluggishness in my muscles. My whole body feels heavy. It's like... I'm awake now, but I haven't defrosted yet. My body's still there, in the ice shield."

Pyro reached a hand towards Scott. He paused, and Scott nodded for Pyro to continue with whatever he was thinking of. Pyro took a moment to imagine flames licking his palm. With the new heat gathered in his hand, he wrapped his fingers around Scott's. Scott exhaled as the ice finally thawed, his white-tipped fingers slowly turning red as blood rushed forward. Pyro withdrew his hand and Scott gave him a nod.

"Thank you."

"Anytime."

Scott wriggled his fingers as feeling returning to them, and looked at Pyro. "Still think it's just a story?" Scott asked quietly.

Pyro chose their words carefully before answering. “I don’t know if the dreams are proof of a… past life. It could just be my mind extrapolating information from what we’ve read. I do believe that the books are recounting history and not fate—whether that be our history—and I think we’re… better versions of them. Or, that we’re going to be,” they replied.

They looked over at Cindy, who noticed their attention and stood up from the flames, coming towards them. She flapped her wings and tried to nip Pyro’s fingers affectionately as they petted her with their warm hands. She made herself comfortable in their lap and closed her eyes.

"You're as warm as the flames, huh?" Scott asked, gesturing with a head tilt towards Cindy's previous spot.

"I suppose."

"Mm. And as closed off as the ice shield Seren turned into.”

Pyro glanced briefly at him. "That’s a terrible comparison to make, and I'm not closed off."

“‘Better versions of them’? Do you think that Kaela wearing her heart on her sleeve was a character flaw? Do you believe that was why the Four fell? Is that why you’re the opposite now?”

Pyro’s hands paused. “You sound as though you are confident that you really know what they were like.” Their eyes flickered up to Scott. “The ice shield isn’t the only dream you’ve had of Seren, is it?”

Scott stood up abruptly and began pacing. Pyro’s gaze dropped to the icy imprints his boots were leaving against his burgundy floor.

“The Four, they were so powerful. Unbelievably synchronized. The book doesn’t do justice to their powers. And beyond just their powers, they were the best of friends—”

“Have you had dreams of Seren before we came across the book about the Four?” Pyro asked, alarmed. They had not been aware of this.

“I didn’t know her name was Seren then, but yes, ever since I gained my magic, I’ve been dreaming about the four of them. Seren, Kaela, Mira, Aveline. They called them Avy, like Ivy, but with an A. I know how they first met. I know about the corruption in their time. Why they formed their elemental group. When they became recognized as the Four. And I just, I can’t be the only one with these memories, you know?!” Scott exclaimed, throwing his arms up at the end.

“Memories,” Pyro echoed to themself.

“I keep thinking that you, or Drift, or Shelby will gain memories too, but none of you have. And I’ve just had to… to hold on to these memories alone, until now.” Scott turned to Pyro, his eyes piercing and firm.

“No wonder you’ve been sleeping for so long. You’ve been living another life,” Pyro joked, hoping to lighten the mood, but Scott remained completely serious.

“I need to know what happened, Kaela.” There was a different look in Scott’s eyes. He looked like… like a continuation of Pyro’s dream, where Seren stood in front of them instead of Mira.

“Kaela? I’m… Pyro.” They heard their own voice. They sounded… unsure.

The air around both of them shifted. Corruption poured in from behind Seren. The ice shield had fallen and the corruption was making its way unrestrained to the Capital. The corrupted wolves were running straight at her.

Pyro shook their head and pushed themself back against the bedframe, away from the wolves, away from Scott. Cindy jumped out of their lap with a cry that was barely audible over the howling and barking of the wolves.

“Is the book true? Did you burn until your heart gave out?”

The heat of flames surged through her veins. Fire lit up at her fingertips. She clenched her fists in an attempt to extinguish it, but the blaze only roared, engulfing her entire hand.

“Did you leave a ring of white fire no monster dared cross?”

A corrupted beast leaped at her. She raised both hands and blasted the beast with fire as hot as she could gather. The beast was blown backwards. Kaela spread her arms and white fire razed across the grass, ready to take any other beast head on. Still, the corrupted animals were strongwilled. Whether by choice or by force, some stepped into her flamed path. Kaela raised her arms up towards the roof, growing the flames, exerting herself in this last stand the same way Seren had.

Roof?

Her moment of distraction gave the beasts a perfect opportunity to attack again. One leaped right at her, landing with all its might against her chest, pushing her down onto the bed. She grabbed hold of it, letting her white flames latch onto the beast, ready to burn the corruption to a crisp. But it was strangely fire resistant, and wiggled in the flames like they were just playing a game together. It blew flames right back at her, then it licked her on the nose.

The beast’s unusual affection made them blink. They were holding onto a dragon. Even stranger was that the dragon had a name, and they knew it.

“Cindy?” they muttered to themself as the world shifted and came back into focus. His room. His dragon. His name.

A gust of wind blew into his room and sent him flying back against the headrest of his bed. He gasped for air—the wind was taking away the oxygen in the room to extinguish his white-hot flames, and swirled in a heavy blanket around the room, forcing his flames down. They flickered, losing oxygen, losing fuel, turning into weaker red and orange flames.

“My turn!”

The wind dropped abruptly, and a flying blob of sand started smashing into his flames one at a time, smothering and extinguishing them. Drift walked closer as she worked her way from the flames at the entrance of his room towards him, and finally, she looked right at Pyro.

“Sorry, but your hair is on fire,” she told him, and lowered her hand. Sand crashed upon the top of his head and rained down. Cindy whined and pulled herself out of his grip, disliking the sand. She fell from the bed and out of his sight.

Pyro dusted the sand off him and sat up. Shelby and Drift stood in his room, Scott at the entrance behind them. Shelby turned to Scott.

“You were right here! Why didn’t you stop him from burning down his room?!” Shelby demanded to know.

Scott didn’t look at her, didn’t respond. His eyes were still trained on Pyro, still having that look in them. Seren.

Yeah, Scott! You were just standing there, frozen,” Drift added, then whirled back to Pyro, “And you! White flames? Hotter than you’ve ever burned before? How did you learn to do that?”

“I… I don’t know. It just happened,” Pyro said vaguely, choosing to omit the entire situation with Scott. No need to alarm Shelby and Drift with that.

“Be careful, Pyro. Your room is charred beyond recognition and probably needs a magic overhaul. We’ll have to report this to the guards. You should be careful where you're throwing white flames around,” Shelby advised.

Pyro nodded silently. Cindy returned to him, startling him with a leap up the bed towards him, boosting herself up higher with Pyro’s knee, and settling on top of his head, claiming the space as hers. She flapped her wings as she nestled in his hair, blowing the remaining sand off his head. Pyro spluttered at the new round of sand falling around him. Her rummaging around in his hair also sent something else floating down.

Pyro grabbed hold of the red feather as it floated down. He turned it over and back. Strange, where did the feather come from? Cindy wasn’t a feathered dragon. He let loose a spark and the feather caught on fire, erupting into bright white flames and burning itself out, leaving nothing but ashes in the wind.

“Woah,” Drift said, unsure. “What was that?”

“It was a phoenix feather,” Scott spoke up.

Pyro looked up at him. Shelby and Drift turned to face him.

Scott walked back into the room. He came up to Pyro and stood over him. He reached into Pyro’s hair—earning a hiss from Cindy for invading her space—and pulled out an identical red feather.

“So you did burn up,” Scott said quietly. His eyes searched Pyro’s for something he didn’t find. He leaned forward and wrapped Pyro in a hug, and Pyro stiffened. When Scott let him go, his gaze had softened, a smile tugging at his lips. “It’s not a flaw to be more emotional, just so you know.”

Scott took a few steps back, then turned to face Drift. “You’re next,” he told her. “Bye, Avy,” he said to Shelby as he passed her, then walked out of Pyro’s room and into his own.

Scott’s door closed, and Shelby and Drift turned back to Pyro.

“What did he call me?” Shelby asked.

“What does he mean?” Drift asked, worried.

A fresh stream of tears followed the dried imprint of its predecessors down his cheeks. His throat burned, harsh air dragged in and out with every gasp. His father gave his hand a weak squeeze.

"Go, bloom for me, my little sprout. I love you."

Scott clasped his other hand over his father's, holding him tightly, only for his father's hand to go limp in his grasp.

"Dad?" he whispered.

His father's expression was peaceful. The coughs that had wrecked his lungs for so long no longer pained him. His hand slipped from Scott's grip, and was cushioned soundlessly over his chest.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut. He covered his face with his hands and leaned forward. His body shook and trembled, wrecked with sobs.

Useless. Useless magic. Being forced to go to the blue kingdom, paraded around with the other newcomers as though they were special handpicked individuals, having access to other mages’ spells and specialities, and magic had done absolutely nothing for him.

His heart ached and burned. The flame spread through his veins, leaving ash in its wake, the bitter taste of unusual anger deposited at the back of his throat.

Anger at the futility of magic.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Wiping his tears away, he lowered his hands and gazed at his father once more. He took a deep breath and willed himself to be strong for once, for his father. He reached for his father’s hand, the one resting over his chest. He paused. His father’s fingers were still curled up in a loose phantom grip, seeming to hold an invisible bouquet of flowers.

Scott stood up, pushing his chair out of the way, stumbling backwards with the sudden motion. He could make that bouquet real. If his magic was good for something, anything, it should be to honour his father one last time.

He reached for his spellbook on the table and flipped it open. His eyes brimmed with a fresh batch of tears, remembering his previous failures. He could barely make out the words and symbols on the pages through the glistening refraction of his tears. He blinked them away, willing himself to concentrate. He held an arm out towards his father, just as he had done minutes earlier. He drew an inscription in the air and muttered the spell. Spell-lights flickered over his father's chest but quickly burned out, failing to conjure anything solid.

A strange rage and desperation consumed him, constricting his lungs. He hurled his useless spellbook to the corner of the room and simply raised both hands forward. He tried to calm himself with a deep breath, but it was useless; the oxygen he breathed in was redirected to feed the flames licking his heart.

Magic had always been more intuitive for him, anyway. He had summoned flowers so many times before, and this time should be no different. He just wanted his father to hold a bouquet of flowers; his bouquet of flowers. Scott narrowed his eyes and focused. He incanted the spell again, the bitterness at the back of his throat spreading to his words. Spell-lights reappeared, grew to the size of a lightbulb, then burned out and vanished.

He turned around and slammed his fist into the wall.

Anger at his inability to do magic.

What was the point of being a mage if he couldn't bend reality to his will? If he couldn't save the people he loved most?

He pulled his hand free and looked down at it, breathing heavily. Flecks of paint and debris spotted his red knuckles. He barely felt the pain that should have come with the impact, just the heat in his veins, and with it, a tingling feeling that spread across his hand.

Both hands. The one that hung loosely by his side tingled too, and he raised that hand up to look at it. He could see faint sparks of light, dancing from one fingertip to the next.

Maybe his magic was activated now. Maybe it just needed that physical shock to be shaken awake. Scott whirled back to face his father and held both arms out towards him again.

Bouquet. Bouquet. Bouquet. Just a simple bouquet of flowers. Third time’s the charm. Just one last thing he could do for his father. He recited the spell, feeling his throat burn with every word, tasting the dry air escaping from his lips.

Once again, spinning circles of spell-light were brought back into existence.

The tingle in his hands spread, reaching his elbow, creeping up towards his shoulders. The sparks of light reacted to his conjured magic, dancing quicker, arching further. Scott tried to ignore it. He focused on the spell-lights. Slowly but surely, they began to stabilize and merge. Scott adjusted his fingers outwards, willing the edges of the ball of light to expand, to blossom into petals, to define itself into the different flowers that made up a bouquet.

One of the magic sparks leapt from his fingertip, flew in a U-shape, and buried itself in the back of his hand.

Scott jerked his hands back and looked down, breaking the spell. He hissed at the pain that blossomed across his hand, then tried to blow where the pain had spiked, hoping to relieve it. His breath was hot against his skin.

A loose spark stabbed his arm. Another punctured his wrist. A third jabbed his shoulder.

Scott jolted backwards and clenched his fists, hoping to stop the sparks. They didn’t stop. They turned into needles as they grew in number and gained speed. They ripped his skin apart from within and tore free from his fingertips, then flew towards him and attacked him. Sharp spikes of light magic emerging from every follicle, filling the air, then raining back down onto him.

Magic beyond his control, holding him in a prison of pain.

Anger at the betrayal of his own magic.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and screamed.

Flames poured from his mouth. The fire that originated from within had its first lick of atmospheric oxygen and erupted around him, engulfing his entire body. It felt like he had been covered in gasoline, the flames being funneled along the surface of his skin, wrapping him in a cocoon of fire.

Scott opened his eyes, gasping.

He was glowing. He held his hands in front of him and turned them over and back, examining the luminescent layer over his skin. His eyes flicked up to the ceiling. The sparks had stopped attacking, frozen in mid-air, hanging over him like stars.

It wasn’t fire that had poured out of him, it was… light.

It was his magic.

Scott inhaled, and exhaled, trying to calm his pounding heart.

The ball of light still hovered over his father despite the spell being broken. Scott held out a trembling arm, unsure. He expanded his fingers slightly and the ball of light blossomed into a singular giant flower, petals unfurling and resting gently over each other, light flowing from the receptacle and trailing in a line through his father’s grip. As the magic glow of the flower faded and it materialised physically, Scott recognised it.

It was his staff.

Magic staffs manifest at a mage’s most vulnerable moment.

Scott lowered himself to his knees, to his father’s eye level. He reached out for his staff. The moment his fingers met it, his own glow of light receded. The stars of light over him dimmed and vanished. Scott took his staff from his father and wrapped his fingers around it, weighed it in his hand, sensed the way it drew upon the magic in his veins. He gestured his staff at a corner of the room and a ball of light appeared effortlessly, illuminating the room.

Scott reached his free hand out and slipped it into his father’s. “Dad,” he whispered. The tears he had been distracted from returned to his eyes. “You would have been proud.” He squeezed his father’s hand, then let go and pulled himself up to his feet. He waved his staff, and the bouquet of flowers he wanted appeared in his father’s hand.