“Seraph magicisAngel magic, Ophelia,” Damien explained, white panels of fabric draping around his waist. His chest was on display, soaking up what little sun pierced the gray clouds today. “It comes directly from us.”
“Does that weaken you?” I asked.
He shook his head, blond curls billowing in the wind. “No. We never felt it. It was nothing more than a connection, like every seraph that guarded me was a link on a chain, and I the manacle at the end.”
The metaphor was dismal, but I absorbed every word the Angel shared. Learning this magic was the first step in understanding what Echnid wanted with me.
“If seraph magic is Angel magic, what are the properties of Angel magic?” I asked, testing my wings at my back as their strength grew.
“As you have seen”—he cast a wide dome of shimmering gold light over us—“it varies between us. But all Angellight is restorative.” As he said it, a few withering plants perked up, their leaves tinting a more vibrant green. “All can cure rot and the most deeply planted taints.”
A beam of Damien’s light burrowed precisely into the earth, ripping up a dead root with such exact movements, the dirt around it wasn’t even disturbed. He commanded it with an ease and accuracy that didn’t even seem to require a thought.
That. That was what I was here for. What I wanted to learn and why I set aside my grudge.
“Mine is connected to the mountains.” The bubble of light solidified then rumbled, the earth quaking. “It can also be its own force. Should anyone try to approach right now, they wouldn’t be able to penetrate the space. Should I throw this at an opponent, it would force them back.”
“So, it’s healing, but it’s also defensive.”
Damien nodded. “The light itself is raw and endless. It could theoretically have a number of uses and forms. But with my power, I will never be able to command the tides or decipher the stars. There are limits where unique tendencies come into play.”
And the only way to truly learn it was to try.
So that was what we did. Daily, Damien and I visited that mountaintop, and he gave me a lengthy routine of exercises that ranged from strength and magic control to physical conditioning. Those typically includedusingmagic while I worked out, but the focus was also on balancing my new wingswith movements I’d been doing for years. Like a toddler learning to walk. And eventually, hovering off the ground, inching higher in small increments.
With sweat slicking my skin and the mountain breeze tangling through my hair, we went back to the beginning. I conjured light as I had many times before, demonstrating the ways I’d used it, and Damien scolded me for the lack of control.
He pushed me at an impossible pace, and I glowered at him, snapping, “Perhaps if the person that could explain how it worked hadn’t abandoned me, I’d know better.”
That had a layer of guilt slipping across his scarred features.
“Keep trying,” Damien demanded, bottling up any hint of remorse. Why was he so insistent about me learning quickly when I’d been living with this myth secretly inside of me for years and no one knew?
Again and again, he had me create barriers. Bring individual leaves on wilted stalks back to life.
I scrawled shapes and messages in the air with the shimmering threads of his power, commanding very precise control before I was allowed to move to more expansive tasks. One day, Damien even had me practice feeding the power into a dull ring on his middle finger until the stone in the center glowed.
“Is that how you created the emblems?” I asked.
“On a very small scale, yes,” was all he said.
After the first week, despite the fact that I was still showing little progress beyond increased accuracy and precision, Damien had Gaveny and Ptholenix, the Seawatcher and Bodymelder Angels, joined us.
Their presence swarmed the mountaintop, thickening the air with their undiluted ether. Ptholenix’s wings reflected a burning array of fiery hues, his light licking up his tawny skin like flames. And Gaveny…Gaveny seemed to be made of the tides. WhenDamien scolded my control and the Seawatcher laughed, it was like a wave crashed around us, mirroring the boom of water against rocky cliffs as I remembered from Brontain.
The first time, I stumbled at the sound, and Ptholenix drawled, “You will get used to it.”
“What?” I asked, righting myself.
“Your knees felt rocked on a boat just now, correct?” he clarified, one thick brow arched expectantly. When I nodded, he jerked his chin to where Gaveny and Damien argued about what I should be prioritizing, the Seawatcher grinning to match the latter’s frown. He turned his back on me, an intricate tattoo of a rope and anchor decorating his spine.
Ptholenix went on, “We are made of the core of the earth’s magic, thanks to how we all came by our power. We were always gifted, but when we truly absorbed that ether, it warped us. It is the most powerful source in the realms, and we began to reflect it in ways that speak to our nature. The Tideshifter”—Gaveny, apparently—“is a living sea, as I am a flame, and Valyrie is comprised of the stars.”
It made sense that the Angels, especially the five minor clan Prime Warriors, were comprised of their magic. Now that their Spirits were returned, they ebbed with the heart of that raw source.
“Why is Bodymelder magic demonstrated by flames?” I asked, calling up Ptholenix’s thread. Orange Angellight twirled around me, but I focused on shaping it to an actual flickering flame. Something I had yet to achieve.
It sat above my palm in an indeterminable shape.
