They sacrifice their manifestations to be able to do so.
There are also a few elites every generation who can fabricate any illusion they dream up. In other words, they can put you in your own living nightmare.
Where the Veils practice light magic to fight evil, the Noctryns specialize in dark magic to fight it. But in the Realms’ eye, better the devil you know than the one you don’t. Conveniently, they don’t have a problem with dark magic used by a soldier under their control.
They keep a heavy hand and an even shorter leash on the Noctryns.
The two entities might coexist, but there certainly isn’t any love lost between them. In fact, it’s a constant power struggle.
Of course, none of us will know what abilities we were born with or if we’re forfeiting them until we finish the trials and place. Then we’ll know if we’re casting the powers we manifest or if we’re offering the ultimate sacrifice and giving it all up to be able to wield darkness.
That doesn’t stop some of us from hoping for one or the other, though.
The very fact that a person wishes to wield light magic or dark magic is a pretty clear indication of where they’re going to end up. It’s a reflection of what lies within us.
Pulling the braid over my shoulder, I walk to the edge of my bed and carefully sit, drawing up my pants leg. An angry-looking cerulean-blue bruise covers my entire left knee.
I’ve had my fair share of scrapes and bruises. It comes with the territory of living in a port town. New people are always arriving and leaving, and more often than not, they bring their families. Ambrose and I had a never-ending supply of new kids to play with every month, and we would always get into some kind of adventure or trouble. Especially Ambrose, who was always determined to establish who was in charge.
That boy was always out to prove something and couldn’t walk away from a dare if he wanted to, which landed us in some precarious situations.
I straighten my knee, trying to stretch out the stiffness. The bone feels like it’s locked in place, and I’m almost positive I just heard a popping noise.
“Pretty sure that’s not good,” a chipper tone comments from behind me. “Looks like a torn meniscus to me.”
I have no idea what a meniscus is, let alone a torn one, but I’m assuming that it is, in fact,not good. I school my features to try to hide that I have no idea what she’s talking about. The physical portion of the trial is in two days, and last I checked, I need two working knees to get through it.
Nonchalantly, I push my pants leg back down and turn to look over my shoulder at Mallory, my new temporary roommate. She’s standing behind me, arranging her hair into a fauxhawk. The girl really can pull off any look.
“What’s a, um, torn meniscus?” I ask, pushing my pride aside.
“Basically, it means you tore your knee joint,” she replies, as if this isn’t catastrophic news to me. “You should be fine if it’s small. Try to ice it tonight and rest when you can.”
I make a mental note to look up information on torn joints during our free time, after we finish the first portion of the trials. Then the next stop is finding the medical wing. I’m going out on a limb here, no pun intended, but I’m thinking a wrap or something might be needed.
“How did you know?” I question.
Her brows pull together in confusion.
“How’d you know all that just from looking at my knee?”
She puts the last remaining touches on her hair and walks over to me, propping her hip against the dresser. “Dad’s a healer for the regiments. He brought a lot of his work home with him, whether it be theories he was testing or actual patients who needed extra monitoring.” She does a quick eye roll. “He’s extremely gifted. His ability is to feel his patient’s pain. It certainly makes it easy to pinpoint the issue, but I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”
Understandable. I’m not sure many people would.
I bite my lip as I try to imagine actually feeling another person’s pain.
It sounds awful.
“How did it work? Did he have to be in the same room as his patient or like actually touch them?” I ask curiously.
She laughs at the expression of intrigue on my face. “Yeah, he has to have a connection to their energy, by touch,” she says. “I was lucky enough as a kid that he occasionally let me watch him work, so I learned a lot about battle injuries and whatnot.”
A loud knock on the door causes us to stop talking. Lifting a quizzical brow at me, Mallory walks over, tucking in her prospect shirt as she goes, and slowly opens it. I can hear a muffled voice on the other side but can’t quite make out what they’re saying.
Pushing off the bed, I walk over to the dresser to finish putting my things away from my pack that I didn’t get to last night. My hands still when I hear the mention of my name.
“Yes, I’m Nori’s roommate,” Mallory replies in an enthralled tone to whoever she’s speaking with. “Give me a second, and I’ll let her know you’re asking for her.”
