Volume 1, Chapter 7: Breakfast, Biology, and Other Emergencies (Patreon)

Chewing the rubberiest meat I had ever eaten—and already working my way through a second helping—I took another swing at the fallen tree with the crowbar.

Striking it with all my strength, I broke off another chunk. Beneath a thin layer of remarkably tough bark lay soft wood, which I gathered and tossed to Bri for her to devour.

I was slowly beginning to worry that now that she had acquired a taste for food, she would never regain control of herself. Instead of a small ball of fire, I would soon have a roaming inferno following me around—a terror to forests, offices, and furniture stores everywhere. Assuming, of course, that the last two could even be found in the worlds we were destined to visit.

That final thought darkened my mood somewhat, but watching the face formed within the flames—its teeth made of constantly shifting fire—as she devoured one piece of wood after another with such speed and greed that clouds of sparkling smoke streamed from her narrowed, smiling eyes was a sight that more than compensated for those gloomy thoughts.

“More!” she shouted, opening her mouth while she was still chewing. Sparks and wood shavings spilled downward.

“I think you’ve had enough for now, Bri.”

“No. Give me the pieces you put in the bag too!”

Her eyebrows drew together, and her mouth became a single, faintly trembling line. Her fiery hair stood on end as she floated significantly closer to me.

“I wish the meat I ate tasted half as good to me as that wood apparently does to you,” I replied after letting out a sigh. “Listen to me.” I pointed a finger at her and frowned, adopting a completely serious expression and a tone that allowed no argument. “Either you get yourself under control right now—and yes, I can see you staring at the trees—or I leave you here and continue alone.”

“I’m sorry…” Every flame comprising her drew inward. Her hair collapsed into little flickers against her head, her brightness dropped, and she descended several inches until she was hovering barely above the ground. If she had possessed hands, she probably would have clasped them behind her back and swayed from side to side while pouting. As it was, she managed only the pout.

“This is important, Brigid. We need to control our basic instincts, or we won’t make it. We eat and drink—in my case—only as much as we need. No more. You’re already as large as you were when I first saw you. That’s enough, understood?”

“Um… understood!”

“Seriously. We need to be able to set boundaries, or we won’t survive this.”

“Yes, um… sir!” she replied.

I tightened my grip on the crowbar and surveyed the area, making certain once again that nothing was about to leap at either of us from beneath the sand or from behind the tall trees. Satisfied, I tossed the tool into the bag lying on the ground.

Only the lizards—which I now regarded with undisguised disgust—climbed here and there across the trunks, catching strange, hairy insects perched upon them. At the tops of those fern-crowned tall plants, birds were engaged in either an impassioned courtship ritual or some other heated argument, drowning out the morning breeze with their shrill cries.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to test the two abilities I haven’t used yet.”

“Why would I mind?”

“Because after trying them on the flame from the lighter, I’d like to test them on you as well. I have control over fire now, after all. Or at least I’m supposed to.”

She nodded, and I reached for the lighter.

Its casing was translucent, allowing me to see the liquid inside sloshing around as I lifted it. The sight made my mouth water and filled my thoughts with images of glasses full to the brim. I pushed those thoughts aside, promising myself that finding some would be our next immediate goal, then pressed the ignition.

A spark appeared and was instantly extinguished by the wind sweeping through our modest clearing.

I sighed and tried again, this time shielding the lighter from the breeze with my other hand. A moment later, the tiny flame warmed my palm, illuminating it with an orange glow.

I reached into my memory for the images created in my mind by the knowledge of the ability that had been implanted within me. In conceptual form, my Anima—or so I assumed—once again showed me how I understood it.

[Pyrography; Classification: Technique, Authority Claim: Fire may be drawn from its source and made to follow the Soma of its wielder. The Inspired can pull part of a chosen flame away and leave a trail of fire behind. Simple lines are easier to maintain than detailed shapes. Unsupported flames disappear unless continuously sustained with Authority.]

So far, Soma had followed my will and my body without the slightest difficulty and I hoped it would do so this time as well.

I looked once more at my companion, who was watching the small flame with undisguised curiosity. Her eyes had become extraordinarily wide, and the sparks serving as her pupils had grown at least three times larger.

After making sure she did not object, I moved my finger toward the flame as close as its heat allowed without further damaging my already burned hands, and willed Pyrography into action.

The power sleeping within me stirred from some undefined center—of the spiritual version of myself—and, once it found its way into the physical world, my finger became surrounded by light in shades of white, yellow, and orange shimmering in the sunlight. The sight reminded me of the mirages sometimes seen on the far end of a summer road heated by the sun.

With Soma gathered at my fingertip, I drew it away from the flame and immediately felt a connection to that fire on some spiritual plane.

“Wow!” Bri gave voice to my own thoughts as she watched—just as I did—my finger leaving a line of fire hanging in the air, following and precisely reflecting the path it had taken through space.

Focusing inward, trying to determine how much strain this placed on my Psyche, I rotated my finger in the air, leaving behind a suspended circle. In one continuous motion, I then drew a smile extending from its edges and two smaller circles to serve as eyes.

My soul did not seem especially burdened by it. Simply initiating the ability had not been demanding.

The moment I thought of ending the drawing, the Soma concentrated around my finger—dragging fire behind it—immediately stopped, and my hand ceased to function as a fiery brush.

What I had drawn, however, remained suspended in the air before me, mirroring my own smile.

Then I realized that one end of my drawing was still connected to the living flame. I released the lighter’s trigger and let the flame go out. To my surprise, the fiery lines hanging in the air did not disappear, nor even begin to fade as I had expected. They remained exactly where I had left them.

My Psyche, however, tensed the moment I severed the connection to the original flame. I could feel that my own soul was now feeding the creation floating in the air, and that with every passing second I was losing spiritual strength. Sooner or later, I would have to release it.

Even so, a single line was not especially taxing, and I was almost certain I could maintain it for many minutes—perhaps even longer.

With the smiling fiery face hanging before me, I slowly reached out a hand toward it. But the instant I brought my palm close to the flame, I felt that it was entirely real and fully capable of burning me, so I instinctively ended the spell sustaining it.

The line first flared white and yellow, then vanished completely, and my Psyche breathed a sigh of relief.

[Stoke; Classification: Technique, Authority Claim: An existing flame may be encouraged to burn stronger. Increases the size, heat, and intensity of a chosen flame. Requires an existing source of fire. Greater amplification consumes more Authority and may cause the flame to exhaust its fuel or spread uncontrollably.] My Anima or Daimon—whatever it was—brought up the description of the next ability I intended to test.

“That was super-extra-cooltastic!” Bri bounced—if movement through the air could be called that—up and down, flattening whenever she descended and stretching whenever she rose, which was what gave me the impression in the first place. “I didn’t know you could draw so beautifully!”

“Bri, that was an incredibly simple doodle. There was nothing beautiful about it. But yes, I’ve been painting and drawing for as long as I can remember, so it wasn’t difficult,” I replied.

Shielding the lighter with my hand, I ignited it again and used Pyrography once more to draw a line out of the flame, this time catching it between two fingers. As I traced it through the air, I spread my fingers apart, causing the drawing to split into two parallel trails.

Turning in a circle, I drew a ring around myself, moving both fingers back and forth as I went and creating something resembling spikes protruding from its edges. Then I stopped drawing with the fire, maintained the aerial image I had created, and ducked beneath the circle to step outside it.

Once clear, I brought my hand as close to the flames as I could without damaging my skin. Focusing on the fiery lines, I decided that they should grow, thickening and increasing in volume.

My Psyche reacted instantly, swelling with such force that flickering dark spots appeared before my eyes. Before I realized what was happening, the Soma gathered around my hand tore itself free and spread across the entirety of my magical drawing in its usual colors.

An instant later, before I even had time to pull my hand away, the whole thing erupted into thick flames.

One heartbeat later, I was scrambling backward on my hands, dragging my ass through the sand after instinctively recoiling from the fire trying to consume me. Thanks to my quick reaction, I felt only a faint tingling in my hand, but the fact remained that if I ever used this ability again, I would need Cinderhide protecting whatever body part I used to paint with.

“…Lex? Lex!?” I heard, realizing too late that Brigid had been speaking to me, concern vibrating through her voice.

I focused for a moment on the inferno suspended in the air by my Authority and decided that its time had passed. The entire phenomenon vanished in a brief flash before I could blink.

“Bri, this is the moment when you were supposed to say, ‘You’re a wizard, Lex!’” I replied, letting myself fall backward onto the sand with my arms spread wide.

“Are you? Is that good or bad? I, um… don’t understand!”

“Knowing my luck, my dear, it definitely isn’t anything good. But I’ll tell you this—it feels incredible. Highly recommended.”

“You said I might get to try… um… that too,” she began, slowly floating above me and rotating in the air until her face rested at the bottom of the sphere, pointed directly toward mine. “I’d like to try.”

“So would I, Bri, and we will in a moment, but that last trick was by far the most demanding one for my Psyche, and it strained me pretty badly. Give me a moment to rest.”

I focused on my abilities once more, and as I did, several new realizations flowed into me.

[New information has been established regarding the following abilities:]

[Cinderhide; Expression Type: Transformation, Authority Requirement: medium to high, Persistence: as long as actively supported.]

[Pyrography; Expression Type: Connection, Creation, Conceptual anchor: Symbols, Authority Requirement: minimal, Persistence: as long as actively supported.]

[Stoke; Expression Type: Reinforcement, Authority Requirement: medium to high.]

I had underestimated just how extraordinary the understanding provided by my Anima was, and how neatly it organized everything I knew and discovered about my abilities. It only made me more curious.

“Bri, did your Molbob tell you how we’re supposed to gain new abilities?” I asked, staring up at the sky with my biological eyes while somehow looking inward at the same time.

“He said that whenever we use Authority, we release something he, um… called Essence of Authority. That essence accumulates inside us, and once we gather enough of it and encounter something that aligns with our Path, we gain a new ability.”

“That’s it?”

“No. Each ability can also change, but he didn’t explain how or why. And, um, there are levels of advancement based on how much essence we accumulate. When we reach one, we’ll be given a choice of branches or something like that. I wasn’t listening very carefully because I was… excited about what I already had.”

“I understand. That’s a little unfortunate for you when you can’t actually use your abilities.”

Bri laughed, sounding as though someone were tossing one log after another into a blazing furnace.

“I told Molbob the same thing. That, um… it worried me. And do you know what he said?”

I waited for her to continue, but when I realized she was genuinely expecting an answer, I obliged.

“What did he say?”

“He told me not to worry. Whenever we do anything aligned with our Path, our souls resonate and release essence. So it isn’t only when I use an ability to heal someone, but also when I heal them through ordinary methods, take care of someone, or even just think about doing it.”

“Interesting that he spent so much time talking to you. My alien threw me out the moment I chose my Path.”

“Maybe he didn’t like you?”

“Maybe. Probably. I wonder whether that means I gain essence every time I play with fire, or whether I have other ways to develop too.” I sighed and pushed myself into a sitting position, forcing Brigid to drift aside as I moved. “Your turn, my dear.”