Chương 35: Chapter 34: The Cost of Ignorance

The lightning core fired. I hadn't even aimed. The arc caught the creature across the side of its body as it hit me, a burst of blue-white that sent us both sprawling in opposite directions. I hit the ground hard. My shoulder sang with pain and the core rolled out of my hand. I scrambled for it. The creature was already recovering. The lightning had scorched a line along its flank but it was still coming. I found the core. Thumb against crystal. The circle lit. It lunged. I fired again.

The bolt caught it in the chest. It staggered, let out a sound that wasn't quite a hiss, and kept coming. I ran. Not heroic. Not tactical. I ran the way you run when something faster than you is closing the gap and you have no plan beyond the next step. Branches whipped at my face. The ground was uneven — soft in places, hard in others, roots hidden under moss. I didn't know which direction the village was. I just moved. Another burst of lightning over my shoulder. A hit — I heard it connect.

The creature screeched. It didn't stop. Ella felt it from afar. She told me later. She was at the pond, adjusting the channel, when the ripple reached her. A fight. A familiar mana signature — mine — flaring in short panicked bursts. She stopped. She wasn't worried at first.

"He's fine," she told herself.

"The creature is weak. It's nothing." She went back to work. But the way I was moving grew more and more frantic. The panic I was in, was clear. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. She stood up. I didn't see her arrive. One moment I was running. The creature was at my heels, close enough that I could smell it — wet earth and something rotting. My hand was shaking as I brought the lightning core up for another shot. The next moment, the creature wasn't there.

A blur crossed my vision. A sound — a crack of displaced air, sharp and sudden. The creature's body folded in the middle, launched sideways by something invisible, and slammed into a tree trunk twenty feet away. I stumbled. Caught myself on a trunk. Breathed. Ella stood where the creature had been, arm extended to me, to help me stand up. My eyes followed the invisible impact. The push-circle. She'd used it like a hammer. Then I noticed.

"The tree —" I started.

"I know." She was already moving. Grabbing my arm. Pulling me. The tree had broken. A branch — a thick one, the size of my forearm — had snapped where the creature's body had struck it. The break was fresh. Pale wood exposed to the air. Sap weeping from the wound. The forest noticed and it wasn't happy about this. The ground beneath my feet was trembling, a low vibration I felt through my boots.

"Move!" Ella said. We broke the treeline together. The village rose ahead of us — stone roofs, the steam of the thermal road, the familiar shape of my house by the river. I didn't stop until my boots hit cobblestone. Then I bent over, hands on my knees, and tried to remember how to breathe. Ella stood beside me, facing the forest. I turned to look. The treeline hadn't moved much. The edge was sharp, distinct — one step to the left, open ground. One step to the right, forest.

The trees nearest us, the ones inside the village stood still. Not hostile.

"Will they come after us?" I said.

"No." Her voice was steady.

"The forest doesn't pursue. It guards what's inside."

"That tree —""Broke a branch. Yes. I felt it." She paused." The forest will remember that. But it won't follow us here." I straightened. My shoulder ached. My hands were still shaking.

"You said it was safe."

"It is. If you don't damage the forest or try to steal live wood." She looked at me.

"We broke a branch by accident." I let out a breath. It came out uneven. She was watching me. A different kind of attention now — less assessment, more... something else.

"You're weak." I blinked.

"Thank you."

"You understand what I mean. The creature was small. I sensed it from the pond and knew it was a small fry. If I had been the one fighting it, I would have ended in a single blow."

"Not all of us are overpowered queens born into a magical world."

"Not all of you need to be." She paused.

"But you need to be better than this. The potential is there — but the application and knowledge is lacking." I said nothing. She wasn't wrong.

"You need proper magic."

"What does that mean?"

"It means teaching. The grimoire shows you the circles. It doesn't teach you how to move. How to read your surroundings. How to sense a creature before it senses you. Or how to shape a spell for combat." I looked at the forest. At the treeline. At the spot where I had almost died because a "small" creature had caught me off guard.

"Can you teach me?" She considered this. The silence stretched.

"Yes. But not here." I looked at her.

"The snow is almost gone," she said. My gaze went to the peak. The white cap had shrunk. The stone beneath was dark and wet, catching the suns' light.

"We need to go to the dragon." It wasn't a question. The forest stood silent at our backs. The mountain loomed ahead. Somewhere within that very mountain, the dragon would soon awaken.