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k_a_webbThe one thing Calix had hoped, ever since Tuula had come into their lives, was that Felicia would never bloom. It had been longer than he liked since their last conversation, because they both knew it was better for her if she didn’t spend too much time around him. Having Tuula as a part of their family had changed everything. Once it would have been normal for Felicia to spend hours with him, the two of them talking about what she’d been learning from her teachers, and he would teach her little things that they didn’t know, as they weren’t magic users. Fortunately. Otherwise Tuula would have had them removed and Felicia’s life would have changed ever more than it already had. She knew that everyone was waiting for her eighteenth birthday in a way they hadn’t been before Tuula had arrived.
Calix remembered one conversation they’d had after hearing about the execution of more than a hundred magic users in Konir. That was when he’d known for certain that the future his best friend had seen for him was going to come true, no matter what. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was about the news that had made him come to that realisation, as that was long before Tuula had married into the family, and he still hoped that he would be able to keep Atecia as a safe kingdom for magic users, even though the news coming in from Haerith wasn’t good either. Invaders from Ialaera were taking over the kingdom and hunting down every magic user they could find, as though that was going to remove magic from the world.
No one knew why Sauin had bloomed originally. Calix had read Sauin’s journals from that time, started just after he bloomed and before he really understood what had happened to him. At first he appeared to be the only magic user in the kingdom, maybe even in the world, but soon that changed, and when it did it slowly became obvious that he was, at the very least, one of the first. He’d expected, once everyone had found out that the Crown Prince was a magic user who needed guidance, someone would step forward to teach him what he needed to know, and when it never happened he asked the dead if there was a reason for that.
Sauin had found out then that the dead didn’t offer information to anyone – it had to be asked for. When he asked the question he got the answer he was hoping he wouldn’t get: he truly was the first. There were no older magic users and he would have to work out by himself how to use the powers that he had found himself with. Calix couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him. It had been hard enough to go through the blooming process and learn about his abilities when he already knew that he was going to be a magic user… and he was the only person in the kingdom, probably in all the kingdoms, who had that certainty. It seemed likely that the worry he’d felt on the days before his birthday was much more like terror for everyone else.
It was Calix’s fear that Felicia would bloom that took him to her bedroom on her birthday. Some of the servants, thankfully, didn’t fear him because of his magic and they’d told him that she hadn’t been seen for a couple of days. That wasn’t unusual as she preferred to keep away from Tuula, but they told him that Felicia looked a little ill. One of the male servants, someone Calix knew had seen his daughter bloom before sending her off to the relative safety of the mountains, told him that she looked like his daughter had and that was why he’d put some berries he knew to be poisonous in his pocket, just in case. He hated that he had them, but blooming wasn’t a safe process.
How bad it would be if Felicia’s blooming went wrong depending entirely on how much magic she had within her. Some people were much stronger that others. There were those who manifested all of their known abilities at the same time, which could be very interesting if you happened to be in the room with them, and then there were others who manifested one at a time, over a period of months or years. Calix bit his lip. He’d heard stories of bad bloomings that had taken whole cottages with them, leaving families devastated. It was unusual for children to suddenly find themselves orphaned when that happened and some didn’t have aunts, uncles or grandparents willing to take them on, so they ended up in group homes, being looked after by a number of adults who’d offered to take on the job of raising them, even though they didn’t have space in their own home for them.
Calix knocked on Felicia’s door and waited for an answer, as he tried not to think of the worst. It was just hard. When she didn’t answer he opened the door, half expecting her to be engrossed in a book at her desk, because that was normally the reason she didn’t hear someone knocking. She wasn’t at the desk or in her bed, which left her bathroom. “Felicia,” he called, hoping she didn’t hear the fear in his voice. Knowing that he was terrified too wouldn’t help her if she was blooming.
A sigh of relief caught in Calix’s throat as Felicia opened the door. “It’s bad, Cal,” she said, sounding as though she was in pain and her pale face covered with a sheen of sweat reminded him of the only other time he’d been with someone on their blooming day. “I thought I could do this, I really did, but…”
“When did it start?”
“Early.” Felicia ran her free hand through her hair, clinging onto the door with the other. “It was still dark out. When someone brought breakfast in I remember looking at them but I couldn’t see them. They were all blurry. Fortunately that’s faded now, but I don’t know if I’m going to get through this.”
Feeling strangely calm Calix made his way over to his sister. “You’re going to be fine, Lis.” He used the handkerchief he had in his pocket to wipe the sweat off her face. “You’ve got through the worst of it.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s if you panic during the blind phase that things are likely to go wrong and you didn’t, otherwise I have a feeling this part of the building wouldn’t actually be here. Right now it hurts, I know, but that will fade. You’re near the end of the process now.”
“Can I make the pain go away?”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t always easy to remember what abilities someone would bloom with and Calix tried to think of what his sister would be able to do, although he wasn’t entirely certain exactly how she’d need to use them. He knew of someone who could only use their water magic if they sang and another who could create water by writing poetry. “You should be able to work with the earth, Lis, and heal, but I don’t really know how you can use either of them, because I know from a friend that you can’t heal yourself.”
The knife Felicia seemed to get from nowhere surprised him, even though it shouldn’t have done, because he was the one who had convinced her to start carrying one, just in case. She was the only daughter of the King of Atecia and that made her a target, at least until the time came when it was finally put into law that magic was illegal. It was more of a surprise when she cut the back of his hand with it, although, when he thought about what he’d just told her, it made sense. Calix just hoped she’d work out how to heal him, because otherwise he’d have to find a way to explain why he had a cut without telling them Felicia had bloomed.
Keeping silent he let her try to work out how to use her ability. He knew, from experience, that trying to help would often do more to hinder the newly bloomed magic user. Finally he felt it, her magic, for the first time, and he knew then that he’d been wrong about how much of the building she would have taken with her, because she was strong. Much stronger than him. If she’d panicked she would have taken at least half of the castle with her and that was a terrifying thought. If it had happened Calix would have been dead before he could have helped her. Suddenly he knew what everyone else in the kingdom must go through before the day of their relatives’ eighteenth birthday. He shivered, glad that it had worked out, otherwise…
Shaking his head Calix told himself to stop thinking about things that hadn’t happened and to focus on his sister. Even though she was still pale it was obvious that using her abilities was helping and he found himself reaching out to gently stroke her hair. Felicia smiled at him. “You were right, Cal.”
He smiled back. “That does happen occasionally.” He held his other hand out. “We still have plenty of space if you want to try again.”
“Why not the same hand?”
“You’ve healed the hand, but it still needs time to finish the process. That’s something one of the healers I knew learnt when she was doing the same sort of thing you are now, only she was working on how to heal deep cuts, and she found that when she recut the newly healed wound that the magic hadn’t finished fixing things under the skin. It meant she had to work harder to heal the new cut, as she’d affected the magic in some way.”
“Like she’d damaged the magic with her action.”
Calix nodded. “That works as a explanation.” He winced as she cut the offered hand, this time making the cut bigger than the previous one, and he knew he had to find her someone else to experiment on. “Fortunately she wasn’t the sort of person to rely just on magic and when she realised what she could do she made the decision that she was going to learn how to heal physically as well as magically, so when the cut didn’t fully heal she stitched it. A couple of days later it was fully healed, but it taught her that magic is something to be careful with, even though being able to do what you can is a good thing.”
“Magic is neither good or bad,” a voice said from the bedroom door, making them both jump, and Calix looked over at his older brother. “The servants told me what was happening too, Cal. You might think that Tuula has brainwashed me, but she hasn’t – I just know what a precarious position we’re all in right now. It was better that I stayed away from both of you, to keep you as safe from her as I possibly can, but if you want to survive you’re both going to have to leave.”
“No,” Felicia replied, shaking her head. “I’m not letting her make me leave my home, Vance, even if it means I end up getting executed.”
“It’s not that simple, Fliss.” Vance stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “Do you know how rare healers are?” He shook his head. “They need you, in the mountains, because they only have one and living there isn’t safe. I don’t want you to go, and I don’t want Cal to go, but Cal won’t go unless you go and, Cal, you have to go as well.”
“Why?” Calix asked, studying Vance. “What’s changed?”
“Tuula is pushing and I can only keep her at arm’s length for so long before I have to give in – otherwise we’re going to be in the same position as Haerith.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
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Date: 2014-04-15 05:28 am (UTC)That should say "than" above.