This was no average royalty’s stash of weapons. This was an arsenal that reflected time, wealth, and divine rule.
“What’s the significance of this date?” she asked, pointing at the skinny sword as she walked along the display.
“My seventh birthday,” replied Reeve.
Maeve observed the weapons a moment longer. “These are all yours?”
When no reply came, she looked over her shoulder. He stood at the center of the room, his eyes on her. He nodded.
She placed the wall of weapons to her back and faced him fully. “I am going to assume these swords bear purpose in today’s lesson.”
Reeve’s eyes trailed down the wall behind her.
“It’s likely your control came from your Magic,” said Reeve. “It offered strength and stability for the lightning to flow through you, just as your Magic did. Now those currents are empty, and conducting such power isn’t easy. But lucky for you, I’m an expert at such things, having once been without inherent Magic myself.”
She’d never considered that. Before Reeve Inherited the power of Aterna from his father, he’d only used weapons forged with Magic. Just as all the Senshi Warriors did. Her eyes drifted to the wall of the armory.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “My Magic is imbued in the weapon, and the body must learn to use it.”
“That sounds easy enough,” she said, feeling confident and hopeful as she turned back towards the wall.
“Why don’t you pick one up and see?” he asked, smiling softly. Encouragingly.
Maeve wrapped her fingers around the hilt of one in reach, noticing they all had varying-sized stones in them that glowed like violet fire. The sword she grabbed had a small stone inside its hilt, barely larger than a small pea. She pulled up on the blade, removing it from its display on the wall.
All hope and confidence faded as she faltered beneath the sword’s power, swaying sideways as the steel blade made contact with the floor with a bang. Reeve moved in silent swiftness and appeared at her side, correcting her wobble as the sword brought her to the floor with its magnetic pull. Magic swarmed from the hilt, wrapping her arm possessively in a dizzying way.
“What kind of Magic is this?” she asked, blinking a few times beneath the blanket of power.
“That is the minimum amount of Aterna Magic required to be a Senshi Warrior.”
Maeve’s mouth fell open.
“If one cannot wield that by age nine,” he continued, “they cannot enlist.”
It occurred to Maeve that perhaps she hadn’t fully understood just how devastatingly different the Senshi Warriors were from that of another Magical army. A roll of power whipped through her, radiating from the sword. Reeve laughed through his nose as his fingers wrapped the hilt of the blade she was still clinging to.
“Though,” he began, taking the sword from her grip as she let loose a strained exhale, “nine-year-old Immortals are still very different from you. An Immortal is designed to carry Aterna Magic. You are not.”
He effortlessly placed the sword back in its proper place on the wall and turned towards her, their shoulders squared with one another.
“How’d your Dread Magic flow?” he asked.
Maeve inhaled deeply, as if she were about to use said Magic she no longer had at her disposal, and exhaled to see what feelings she anticipated.
“It moves from my center, up my spine, then back down my arms.”
Reeve made a quiet sound of interest. “And the lightning always felt the same?”
She shook her head. “No. The lightning backflows to my center, then shoots back down the path it came up, and out my fingers.”
Reeve’s head tilted. “From the hand,” he said, both a question and a statement. “That is different, then.”
Maeve held out her right hand, her dominant one, the one that earned her a Supreme title, and the hand where lightning could be conjured. She turned over her palm, acutely aware of Reeve’s eyes on the line of raised tissue scarring her palm.
“Arianna can produce it too,” said Maeve, more question in her tone than Reeve’s.
“Arianna has a more potent amount of Dread Magic than you.”
