Chương 6: Chapter 5: The Stillstorm

Elma stood in the center of the high-walled training yard, the suns were warm on her skin. Christa stood opposite her, dressed in light training silks. She raised a hand and simply snapped her fingers. There was no gathering of moisture, no slow condensation. Pop. A dozen crystalline water droplets materialized instantly in the empty air surrounding Christa. Elma flinched. The sudden appearance of matter triggered a jagged shard of memory. Strategoi Fenric. The gray eyes.

The spear that had simply manifested inside her stomach. The phantom pain of being gutted flashed through her small torso.

"How?" Elma asked, her voice tight, staring at the suspended water with wide eyes.

"Not now," Christa replied, her tone brisk and focused, devoid of the usual softness.

"Focus, Elma. You must try to stop them from hitting you." Elma stared at her mother—at the water orbiting her palm, at the battle-light in her usually soft eyes. She had never seen this woman before. Christa pointed a finger at Elma. The water droplets accelerated instantly, blurring into streaks of liquid bullets heading directly for her face. Elma squeezed her eyes shut and thrust her arms out, desperately willing the space in front of her to freeze, to harden, to stop. The air rushed—and then silence.

Elma cracked one eye open. The droplets hung suspended in the air, mere inches from the tip of her nose, shivering slightly but holding their position. A rush of relief hit her. She looked past the water at Christa, a small smile breaking through her concentration.

"Did I do it?" Christa smiled back, shaking her head.

"No." The droplets accelerated across the final inch, slamming into Elma's face in a cold, stinging splash. Elma let out a small, indignant scream. She stood dripping, cold water seeping into her training silks. The wetness was an insult, but the deception was the true fuel. It burned in her chest, hotter than any childish anger. Her gaze snapped to the stone fountain beside her. She didn't just see it; she felt it. The cold, dense weight of the water in its basin. The slippery, yielding liquidness of it.

The potential energy coiled in every drop. Christa's voice cut through her focus, a patient lecture about connection, about feeling the world as an extension of oneself, esoteric nonsense Elma's mind instantly filed away as useless philosophy. Then, the water answered. A massive sphere of water tore itself from the fountain's basin and shot across the yard, silent and deadly fast. It struck Christa mid-sentence. The impact was a wet, concussive thwump.

Christa was knocked off her feet with a sharp cry, skidding through the dirt. Elma stood perfectly still, a faint, cold grin touching her lips. Somewhere beyond the trimmed hedges bordering the courtyard, something rustled. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Elma's gaze flicked toward the dark greenery on instinct. For half a second, she thought she saw the outline of something pale between the leaves. Then Christa coughed violently, dragging Elma's attention back.

Water streamed from Christa's hair as she pushed herself upright. She looked at Elma, really looked at her this time, her eyes burning with sudden, blazing intensity. A wide, genuine smile broke across her face.

"Alright," Christa said. A shimmer of condensation formed above her upturned palm, collapsing into a compact orb of water that spun faster and faster, its surface warping into a glassy, whirling blur. Elma's grin vanished. A primal alarm shrieked through her mind. Her breath hitched. The yard went unnaturally still, the air pressing against her skin like a held breath. Too dangerous. She bolted. The assault was relentless.

Elma scrambled across the stone, her small feet skidding, but the hissing sound of high-pressure water followed her like a hornet swarm. Christa was firing a volley—a continuous stream of condensed liquid bullets that chewed up the earth inches from Elma's heels. She ran, but the bullets followed, forcing her into frantic, four-year-old zigzags. Running is useless. The thought slammed into Elma's mind, overriding the panic. Running was for victims. Running was for the creatures that got crushed.

She didn't want to escape this power. She wanted to own it. Elma dug her heels into the dirt, skidding to a violent halt. She spun around, facing the oncoming barrage. The lead bullets were thirty feet away. Twenty. Elma didn't look at the water. She looked at the empty space between her and death. She forced her mind to reject the concept of "empty." It's not nothing, she screamed internally, her consciousness clawing at the fabric of the world. It's matter. It's heavy. It's mine.

She reached out with her will, grabbing the invisible atmosphere like it was a physical blanket, and she pulled. The garden reacted instantly. A low, sucking roar filled the yard. From the edges of the training grounds, the manicured cypress trees groaned and leaned violently inward, their branches thrashing as the air was ripped away from them. The pressure in her ears popped painfully. The strain was immense, like trying to hold back a collapsing ceiling with her mind.

She took all that rushing, chaotic gas and crushed it down, layer upon layer, compressing the volume of a storm into a space no wider than a millstone. The first water bullet struck. It didn't splash. It was caught in the density of the compressed air, hanging there like a fly in amber, vibrating with kinetic energy it couldn't release. Then came the rest. Crack. Crack. Crack. The sound was like hail hitting a sheet of steel.

The following bullets didn't penetrate; they smashed against the invisible barricade of dense atmosphere. They shattered on impact, disintegrating into a harmless, fine mist that drifted around Elma's trembling form. She stood there framed by the leaning trees, protected by a sphere of air so dense it cast a shadow on the ground. The water assault ceased instantly. The genuine, battle-hungry smile on Christa's face vanished.

"Hold it!" Christa commanded, her voice sharp with urgency.

"Elma, do not let that go!" Elma blinked, confused by the sudden panic, but the veteran instinct obeyed. She clamped her will down on the compressed air, holding the sphere in place even as her small arms trembled with the effort. Christa stopped directly on the other side of the barrier. She leaned in, her eyes widening as she observed the way the light warped through the impossibly dense atmosphere. She looked at Elma through the distortion, her expression a mix of awe and alarm.

"You've called a Stillstorm," she muttered, more to herself than the child. She looked up, meeting Elma's gaze.

"Listen to me. If you let this go all at once, it will kill us both. We need to vent it. Slowly." Elma's eyes widened. Stillstorm?

"On my count," Christa said, holding up a hand.

"You are going to release the pressure in stages. Just a little. One." Elma focused. She visualized a small valve opening in the wall of air. She relaxed her grip—just a fraction. HISS. A jet of compressed air shrieked out, kicking up dust and blowing Christa's hair back wildly. The barrier remained, but the terrifying density lessened slightly.

"Good," Christa breathed, nodding.

"Again. Two." Elma repeated the process. WHOOSH. Another violent gust erupted, shaking the nearby trees. The haze of the sphere grew fainter. Elma's arms were burning, her concentration fraying like an old rope.

"One last time," Christa said, her voice steadying.

"Release the rest. Thre—" A tickle started in the back of Elma's throat. It was the dry, dusty air of the training yard irritating the sensitive, four-year-old windpipe. Elma's eyes watered. She tried to hold it back. She tried to swallow. But the body—young and treacherous—betrayed her. Cough. The focus snapped. The mental grip on the remaining oceanic pressure vanished in a millisecond. BOOM. The shockwave was instantaneous. A hammer of pure, concussive force.

Elma was lifted off her feet and hurled backward like a ragdoll. She saw the world spin—sky, ground, wall, sky—before she slammed into a manicured hedge. Across the yard, Christa was thrown in the opposite direction, skidding violently across the dirt until she hit the stone fountain with a dull thud. Dust rained down on the silence that followed. Elma lay in the crushed greenery, staring up at the spinning blue sky, her backside throbbing and her dignity in ruins.