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“Were you just standing there eavesdropping?” Rochelle asked as she set her mug on the table.
He met her gaze easily, smirk unwavering. “It’s hardly eavesdropping if I’m in plain sight.”
Her lips dipped into a pout even as Tora spoke up again. “Well, it’s good you’re here, anyway. I’m just about done with this batter and then I’ve some errands to run. I’d hate to leave poor Rochelle all alone.”
Rochelle stood and scooped up her mug. “I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t been holding you up.”
“Nonsense,” Tora said. She turned and set the bowl on the adjacent counter, beside a long, flat heating tray. “I’ve enjoyed the company, sweetie. It’s not often my guests come spend time with me!” She wiped her hands on her apron and smiled at both of them in turn. “Now you two go off and do whatever else it is you need to do. I’ll have dinner ready after sundown, unless I hear from you before.”
Aric straightened. “We appreciate it, Tora.” He waited until Rochelle had deposited her cup in the sink basin and moved into his reach. “Come on, then. I know a place where we can get started on that lesson I owe you.” Because it was either train in the great outdoors or isolate himself alone with her in one of their temporary bedrooms, and after the morning they’d had, he didn’t trust himself to do that.
****
Rochelle had opened her mouth to ask Aric what could have happened in his second meeting with Harald that he was back so soon, but when their new surroundings settled into view around her the breath left her lungs. She stood there, jaw hanging open, dragging in staggered lungfuls of misty air and attempting to process the impossible beauty just yards ahead. There were mountains rising up to the sky on their right, more like jagged and dangerous-looking outcroppings of earth than any mystical forest, and below their feet was a lush field of vibrantly green grass. The grass dropped off not far away to her left, where it looked like the plateau they stood on gave way to more unwelcoming rock face. But it hardly mattered.
Straight ahead was a body of rippling water, rolling steadily into the ever-narrowing channel that directed the water over some protruding rocks and ultimately down a single waterfall on the left. All of which stemmed from some source of water higher up, on the other side of what Rochelle could only describe as a waterfall bridge. It was not one waterfall, or even three, but a gently arched and almost evenly spaced row of seven cascading streams. They seemed to come frominsidea portion of one of the mountains that stretched across what would otherwise have been a large chasm and connected the land to the other side.
The sight was beautiful.
The air was crisp and clean, not a trace of that salty tang on her tongue. The sky overhead was a bright, nearly cloudless blue.
“Do you think you can focus here?” Aric asked.
Rochelle blinked and turned, finding she’d taken several steps away from him in her visual exploration. She offered him a cautious smile. “Not likely. It’s so beautiful, I don’t even know where to look.”
He grinned as if he were amused, and all at once Rochelle remembered the whisper-soft feel of those lips grazing her skin and pressing into her hair. “I’m sure I told you that part of mastering your magic is learning to drown out distractions.”
She did remember that. She remembered thinking he had no idea how difficult he made that task at the time, alone in his basement with the pretty glowing flowers. He was right, she supposed, that this scenic waterfall was much more of an additional distraction. Not that she explained any of that. “Is this reminder because I wasn’t able to control my emotions earlier?” She knew she’d embarrassed herself, and him too in the sense that he was her teacher.
Aric’s grin vanished and he took a single, large step, bringing him into her personal space again. “No, Rochelle,” he said, his voice quiet and serious despite the natural volume of the area. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers along her jaw before cupping her cheek in his palm. “You did nothing wrong. I’m only sorry I allowed it to happen.”
Her heart thundered in her ears and Rochelle stared up at him. She slid her hand over the back of his, fully expecting him to pull away. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said on a whisper. Her words reminded her of the problem that remained, the problem that was undeniably her fault, and Rochelle forced herself to drop her hand. At least until the current mission was over, she still couldn’t tell him. “Can I ask … how did it go? With Lord Lamont?”
Aric’s brow twitched and his hand fell away. He tucked both into his pockets. “As well as I expected, I suppose. I’ll have to make a couple of brief calls in a bit to follow-up on him, but there’s no point in me returning to that office today.”
That explained why he’d taken her to this place, wherever it was. She drew a preparatory breath. “So, what do I need to know?”
“I want you to meditate,” Aric said. “But instead of clearing your mind entirely, your objective is to narrow your point of focus to yourself and the space you’re occupying. You need to be able to feel it, from head to toe. Feel the way your exhale changes the movement of the air, the way your feet bend the grass, all of it. Once you’ve practiced accessing that sensation, I’ll have you expand your awareness to another point—what would be your destination point—with the goal of imagining your presence and associated influence in that location.”
Rochelle nodded silently. She could already see why this wasn’t a common technique. Just the sense of awareness he was asking for required multiple types of magical focus layered over each other, and as far as she understood, the average sorcerer only ever truly mastered two of the possible eight fundamental elements.
Aric moved back, giving her a little space, and asked, “Can you tell me which elements you think are necessary to accomplish this?”
She bit back her smile. He’d taken to asking her that almost every time he tasked her with something new and, therefore, unfamiliar. It was sort of like a pop quiz, forcing her to think about the definitions and applications of each element of magic whenever she learned something new. It had been a little annoying the first few times, but she’d come to appreciate the challenge. It prevented her fromdoingwithout comprehending her actions. So she took a moment to reflect on her task before answering him. “Air,” she said first, because that was most obvious. “Matter.” That seemed to be her strongest element, if the horrendously destroyed reading room was any indication. There had to be at least one more layer, though, and she struggled often to differentiate between soul and energy. But surely it was one of those, so she considered the larger goal and took a gamble. “And soul.”
From what she’d learned between her studying hours and actual practice, Rochelle had come to understand that of all the elements, soul was considered the hardest to master. That was why sorcerers who’d done so always tended to wind up with an elevated status. It would also explain why Aric’s teleportation magic hadn’t caught on. Even Mitzi, who was one of Yafae’s most powerful soul sorcerers, couldn’t manage the synchronized balance of magic.
Aric inclined his head. “That’s correct,” he said. “But since you were trying to guess the entire spell, you missed some.”
Rochelle winced. “There are more?”
“For what I asked you to accomplish today, the three you listed are all you’ll need,” Aric said. “When you’re ready to attempt the act of transporting yourself from one location to another, you’ll first need to learn to weave two more types of magic with the rest.”
So much for trying to impress him.She should have known better, she supposed, so she let the disappointment go and nodded. “Okay.”
“Close your eyes if it helps,” he said. “The goal is to be able to call up this sense of presence awareness with a single thought, as easily as you call up any other magic. You won’t be ready to expand your awareness until you can do that.”
“What were you thinking when you created this spell, exactly?” It was one he’d concocted during the timeframe of the anime she’d watched in her old life, but the show hadn’t offered a lot of insight into his thought process. There’d only been a sense of urgency and a need to be somewhere he couldn’t get to quickly enough using ordinary means. It certainly hadn’t touched on everything he’d just explained to her.
