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Master Erlan’s fire magic is fast.
Wignall learned it firsthand when he foolishly naively tried to sneak into a Fantasy Magic lesson, convinced that he could go unseen in the arches of the Spring Hall’s triforium. That even if he were to be spotted, they wouldn’t–
“Your mere presence is an insult to the sacred arts,” the elder had spat at him, quickly correcting that particular assumption.
It’s been a few hours since then. A few hours spent trying to conjure the field of flowers he had glimpsed before he had been found out and chased away like the rats that got into their pantry had been by Rhen’s father.
Rhen, who also doesn’t talk to him anymore.
Who was amongst those that saw Wignall get nearly set on fire, then tumble down the stairs leading to the gallery in his haste to get away.
Wignall only knows this because Rhen’s bright red hair is near-impossible to miss, and had been enough to divert Wignall’s attention from Master Erlan’s murderous gaze for the brief second it took for the older elf’s fire serpent to latch onto his arm.
His sleeves remain torn and blackened, the burn slashing across his forearm a constant sting beneath them. He doesn’t notice the singed ends of his hair until Master Lyra sneers at the sight of them and bans him from attending dinner for daring to arrive in such an unkempt state.
“But, I–” Wignall tries to argue, then clicks his teeth shut when her eyes narrow in displeasure. “Of course, as you command. I apologize.”
He sees a flash of red at the end of the hallway as he scurries outside – hampered by the shame clinging to his heels – and even though it has been more than two moons since Ellenor was taken left and Wignall was revealed to be defective, the way Rhen averts his gaze from him still manages to make his eyes prick with unshed tears.
He misses the way the other’s eyes sparkled whenever Wignall showed him a new illusion. Before they learned that his flames shouldn’t be mere tricks of light one’s hand can pass through, that his flower fields shouldn’t disappear with the faintest breeze.
Perhaps he just misses having a friend close in age. Though now he can’t be sure if that wasn’t yet another misunderstanding on his part. That they were never friends at all and all their time spent together was just Wignall forcing Rhen to put up with his incessant–
The cool air bites at his cheeks and nose as soon as he steps into the courtyard, the entrance slamming shut behind him with a decisive thud.
His stomach growls.
He tells himself he can handle a day without food. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it for disrupting Master Erlan’s lesson, and he can use the time to tidy up his hair.
Except Master Lyra finds fault with his tunic the next morning, so he leaves the hall before the scents of fresh pastries and tea could reach his nose.
The growling grows loud and painful and embarrassing. Grows hard to hide and impossible to ignore by the time Master Lyra finds issue with something – him, always only him – yet again that evening. Asks Wignall how much longer he plans to shame his family name with his behaviour and that–
That hurts.
It hurts enough to turn shame into anger, a spark of the same impulsive foolishness that kept him fighting as the Elders lead Ellenor away flaring in his chest and leading him to the mess hall in the dead of the night on the third day.
He’s halfway into the kitchens when he sees a flash of red and hears a sigh before the person is stepping out from the shadows and blocking the way in front of him.
“Rhen?” he asks, and can’t quite begrudge himself the hopeful lilt of his voice.
Dark green eyes flick to him briefly before settling on the ground between them. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.” Wignall tries to keep his voice low. “I promise not to get caught. I’m just really hungry and–”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Rhen cuts in, frustration and worry warring in the crease of his brows. “Master Lyra told you not to do something and here you are, mere hours later, going against her orders! Spirits, Wignall, I know your head isn’t actually empty, so would it kill you to just think for once?!”
Wignall’s stomach clenches around nothing and he lays his hands over it even though he knows the touch won’t do anything. It has stopped growling sometime the day before – now it just hurts. “I’m…”
Rhen’s eyes look oddly bright when they meet his. “You can’t take anything from here. They’ll know.”
“You’re right,” Wignall says, his mind feeling a little clearer. Like he’s less likely to mess something up again. He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Rhen’s ears flush pink and he crosses his arms over his chest as if to ward himself in the face of it. “I… thank you. For stopping me.”
Rhen gives him a nod that almost feels like approval. “Meet me at the creek at dawn.” He doesn’t wait for a reply before pushing past him and into the echoing darkness. “I’ll bring you something.”
Wignall stares at his back until it melts into the shadows again, and doesn’t move from his spot for a long time after that.
When he shows up at the creek the next day, he’s met with an empty clearing and three fish stuck into the ground on crooked sticks, cooking over a small fire in the exact spot where Rhen once pushed him into the stream.
The smell hits his nose first, and Wignall throws caution to the wind as he drops to his knees by the makeshift campfire to grab his first meal in days.
He scalds his tongue with the first bite. It’s overcooked and tastes like ash but it’s better than nothing, and if Wignall has learned anything in the past few moons, it’s that he cannot afford to be picky.
Rhen’s nowhere to be seen.
Wignall bites into the fish and ignores the stinging behind his eyes. It isn’t until two days later that he finds out about Rhen’s family moving into the valley beneath the mountain range to the east.
He’ll dream of flame-red hair and escaping to Birkdal for years to come.
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Regarden is… different. There’s too much stone and scarcely any greenery, the Academy’s gardens cut into harsh shapes that make Wignall wish he could use Fantasy Magic just to set the bushes and vines free.
It also allows him to breathe for the first time in decades.
The professors look at his casting with appreciative eyes, Wind Magic that would have earned naught but scorn back home worthy of full credits here, his illusions impressive rather than mocked for faults.
The last stone golem falls at his feet, and he lowers his wand. Wind residue clings to his skin where he overcast the Verdes matrices, and he only manages to keep the pleasant expression on his face by sheer force of will as he turns to face Professor Edward’s judgement.
The man gives him a curt nod, jotting something down on his clipboard before moving on to the next student.
The man’s specialty is Darkness Magic, Wignall assures himself. Surely, he didn’t notice–
“Look out!”
The shout reaches him in time to make him turn around, but the glancing arc of flames is too fast for him to avoid entirely.
He stumbles back in his attempt to sidestep the attack, hissing through his teeth when the fire bites along his forearm. The force of it sends him to the floor, the marble cold and unforgiving beneath him as he frantically pats down his sleeve and shrugs off his burning uniform cloak.
“You should know better than to turn your back on active spellcasting!” A haughty, too-loud voice calls out above him. The words sound parroted rather than learned, and Wignall ignores his still-pounding heart as he lifts his gaze with a frown.
Rhen! his mind exclaims, the sting across his skin and that lovely shade of red briefly sending him back to Lindalf – to the floor of a different hall and a familiar shame.
The red turns burgundy under the shade of Professor Edward’s spell that finally puts the fire behind Wignall out.
It’s enough to snap him back to the present.
“Among my kin, there was no danger of misfired spells. Lyzance standards apparently have yet to reach such a basic level,” Wignall says tightly.
The boy’s cheeks flare to a shade that almost matches his hair. “You–!”
“Sion Ulster!” Professor Edward’s sharp voice cuts off whatever he’d been about to say. “You should have awaited your turn like everyone else. Had I been supervising, the fire could’ve been contained in time.” He then swivels to where Wignall has managed to push himself back onto his feet. “Lindor, are you hurt?”
“I am fine,” Wignall says immediately, but that pitch-black gaze snaps to his forearm before he could cover it with his intact sleeve.
“Ulster, accompany him to the infirmary.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, turning around to address the students trying – and failing – to pretend they’re not gawking at the scene. “The rest of you, get back to work!”
With that, the attention of the rest of the class is back on their own golems, Wignall and the loud boy forgotten like yesterday’s gossip.
“Well?! Get a move on or I’ll miss my chance to get credits!”
Wignall starts at the tone, suddenly hyperaware of the pain pulsing through his arm. “Do you really believe Professor Edward will permit another attempt?”
The boy – Sion – goes still. He looks from Wignall into the hall, then back to him with a rapidly deepening frown. His gaze snags on the raw red skin of Wignall’s forearm, but he averts it just as quickly. “Let’s go,” he says, less commanding. “Before we get into more trouble.”
“I am not in trouble,” Wignall says once they’re out in the hallway, for some reason feeling the need to defend himself. “You were the one who acted reckless, and–”
“I know!” Sion bursts out, still not looking at Wignall. His voice echoes in the empty corridor and he lets out a frustrated sound as he quickens his pace.
Wignall expected denial. More accusations aimed at his own inattentiveness, not–
Not that all-too-familiar edge of shame in the other’s frustration.
Wignall shakes his head to rid himself of the thought. He’s an elf. He’s not supposed to see himself in some lyzance.
“How did you even manage to miss?” he forces out, trying to sound like Master Lyra used to. Like a proper elf.
That bright scarlet gaze – so unlike the shades of green he grew up with, yet just as baleful for the briefest moment – snaps to him, and Sion stops.
The silence between them stretches uncomfortably, Sion’s entire frame pulled taut as a bowstring.
When he finally moves, it’s stiff. Controlled through visible effort. He lifts his hand, and Wignall half-expects him to fire off another spell – this time aimed at him on purpose.
“Here,” Sion mutters, shoving his cloak in Wignall’s face.
Wignall blinks at him.
“I burned yours, so,” Sion powers through, seemingly taking Wignall’s silence for dismissal. “Unless you want to walk around in a half-burnt shirt, you should take it.” He gives the dark fabric a pointed shake. “I’m not asking again.”
Slowly, Wignall brings his burnt forearm closer to his chest, and takes Sion’s peace offering with his other hand – taking care to avoid brushing against Sion’s fingers as he does so.
To his credit, Sion doesn’t seem to mind, and waits wordlessly until Wignall gets the cloak around his shoulders.
Thank you, he almost says, the words right on the tip of his tongue. He stops himself, swallowing dryly. It would not be proper.
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“How is she?” Sion asks with a sideways glance at a still-sleeping Colette from where he’s crouched down next to him.
Wignall, who was too busy skimming through a diagnostic spell to notice his approach, startles badly enough to almost tip over backwards.
A hand on his shoulder steadies him. He tips forward a little in compensation, his heart erratic in his chest as his muscles lock up.
The fire Sion had set flickers at the edge of his vision.
Sion pulls his hand away. “Oi, easy there.” It’s not said in a particularly comforting tone, but then again, stranded somewhere between the Northern Spine and Belmdeth as they are makes any attempts at reassurance quite futile. “We can’t afford to be down more people.”
“She needs rest. That tunnel she made saved us all, but it took a lot out her. The only thing we can do is let her restore her magic,” Wignall says once he finds his voice. “Normally I would take care of it, but…”
“You restrained those monsters long enough for us to get away,” Sion retorts, oddly sharp. “Don’t overdo it. Not here.”
Wignall tucks the blanket around Colette, then gives her temperature one last cursory check before turning to look at Sion. His gaze flicks between the flames behind him and the way their light catches in damp red strands. “Julius helped,” he settles on once the silence starts to stretch for too long.
To his surprise, Sion snorts. “Don’t let him hear you – he already crowed about his clones’ magnificence while you were patching up our reckless vanguard.”
Despite everything, Wignall feels himself smile. He glances at Lihanna and Will, both of them hunched over the map and heatedly discussing something with their old Professors.
“I suppose it would have been too simple if the train made it to Samios,” he says, trying to match Sion’s tone through the exhaustion pulling at the skin around his eyes.
Sion exhales forcefully. His lips curl into a wry smile as he leans back on his hands. “Considering this group’s luck, I’m surprised the attack didn’t come right after we left Regarden.”
A sharp gust of wind cuts through the small clearing they’ve settled in, and Wignall wraps his arms around himself. It doesn’t help much, his drained reserves allowing the chill from the ground underneath him to sink into his bones. “I would take the Eleventh Floor over this any day,” he says belatedly, swallowing to keep his teeth from chattering.
Sion, who appears unaffected by the cold, gives him a long look. “Move closer to the fire, I’ll watch over her,” he says after a pause, nodding towards Colette.
Wignall shakes his head sharply, a glance right confirming the fire hasn’t grown nor moved closer. “I am fine. I would rather–” He looks around – desperate for an excuse. His gaze snags on a mossy patch of ground around a tree right at the edge of the clearing.
Sion follows his line of sight and huffs out a laugh. Wignall doesn’t linger on how pleasant the sound is.
“You elves and your trees,” Sion says, mildly enough to not make Wignall feel compelled to defend himself. He stands up, then pauses, seemingly considering something for a moment before reaching for one of the blankets he had left at Colette’s feet and throwing it over her.
Wignall cranes his neck to see only one blanket left and lifts his gaze to Sion’s somber face. “Won’t you be cold?” he asks quietly.
Sion’s responding grin is sharp, a little wild in the firelight. “Fire mage, remember? Here,” he says, tossing the last blanket at Wignall and grinning wider when he has to flail to catch it.
Another gust of wind, undercut by a chorus of howls in the surrounding darkness. Sion’s expression sobers, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Come on.”
Wignall stands up and follows him to the tree, wordlessly wrapping the blanket around himself. For some reason, it feels wrong to break the silence that’s settled between them as they sit down with their backs against the thick trunk.
His breath mists the air in front of him in white puffs. The sight brings a strange sort of comfort with it, a memory of playing at dragons from lyzance fairytales with Ellenor flickering in his mind. Of Rhen joining them once, showing off a spell that let him breathe fire yet still arguing with Wignall about who should play the gallant knight coming to rescue their little princess.
He wonders if Sion used to do that, too.
When he gives him a sideways glance, Sion’s focus is on the fire crackling between Colette’s bedroll and the hard leaning tree beneath which the others are still poring over the map. There’s a tightness around his eyes, his exhaustion finally made visible in the slump of his shoulders.
“You’re shivering” Sion says suddenly, not taking his eyes off the flames.
As if by command, a shudder racks through him, and Wignall rubs at his arms through the coarse fabric of the blanket. He feels heat crawl up the back of his neck under Sion’s scrutiny.
His grip on his arms tightens. “You need not concern yourself,” he says, regret pulling at his chest as soon as the words leave his mouth.
The fire flares wildly, logs crackling in time with Sion’s twitching fingers.
“I did not mean–” Wignall starts, earning an arched eyebrow and another sharp pop of burning wood that makes his voice catch in his throat. I’m sorry, he wants to say. Or maybe not. Elves don’t apologize to lyzance. But Wignall had already done it for Will–
For once, Wignall doesn’t let himself linger on the thought. He gathers some of his magic, a part of him lamenting the waste even as he watches his exhale fog the night air around his whispered Nardrea.
A palm-sized dragon made of fire leaps out of the magic circle hovering in front of him, a little lopsided and flickering in a way it wouldn’t have been if he had used his wand. The flames are naught but a trick of light, and he guides the illusion towards Sion with a fair amount of nervousness.
At most, he’s expecting offense at his inability to use real flames. A telling-off for wasting his reserves, at the least, but–
Sion holds his finger out for the wonky creature to settle onto. His face relaxes into something that on anyone else might pass for gentle.
“My sister used to drag me out whenever it got cold enough to play at dragons.” He makes a show of breathing out, his exhale dispersing in the cold like a failed illusion. “I learned Crims Haltas for her. It lets you–”
“–breathe fire,” Wignall finishes, an involuntary smile tugging at his lips despite his chattering teeth.
The look Sion gives him is as surprised as it is curious, the dragon in his hand fading with each passing second. His lips part, then close around a forceful sigh that makes Wignall wonder if he had overstepped, after all.
Another shiver cuts off his wandering thoughts, the cold biting at his exposed skin mercilessly. His fingers have gone almost entirely numb, his ears and cheeks stinging as he watches Julius try to drag Will and Lihanna to their bedrolls.
When he sneaks a glance to his right, Sion has his illusion cradled in his palms, its light glinting in the red of his irises as he watches it flicker out of existence.
Despite himself, Wignall feels a pang in his chest. He should have used more magic. Even a little comfort would have been worth–
“A falcon,” Sion says suddenly, his head tilted back against the bark, scarlet gaze bright and fixed on the starless darkness above them. When he turns that gaze on Wignall, it’s enough to make his breath catch. “Once we make it to Samios, you’ll show me how to make one.”
Wignall swallows, words failing him once again. He brings his hands to his lips, blowing on them to stall his reply. No one’s ever made it across Belmdeth, he should be saying. He could make one now. While they’re both–
“I will,” he manages, and the firm nod it earns him is worth the taste of ash on his tongue.
A moment later, the air fills with the familiar hum of someone preparing a spell, then–
Warmth. Settling over him like a soft blanket.
He doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes until he thinks to tell Sion off for wasting his magic. Blinking away exhaustion, he looks for a magic circle, but finds Sion empty-handed and… oddly puffed up.
He’s not casting, Wignall recognizes belatedly. The heat seems to be spilling from Sion in steady waves, not unlike the sensation of magical residue lingering after a spell.
Not once do Sion’s eyes stray from the fire he’s keeping strong and stable, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before.
“Thank you,” Wignall says, not thinking much of the words until wide red eyes flick to his face.
Sion clears his throat, his cheeks practically glowing in the firelight. “Just go to sleep, elf,” he mutters, and Wignall can’t quite find it in himself to argue.