5.1: Watching

5.1

Stellina

The leaves are orange and green on the trees above me. A shimmering, visible blue breeze ruffles through them. This is my forest, but it is not. I can tell it is my forest, though I do not know how, as my forest has silver leaves. If this truly is my home, what blight has consumed it?

My footsteps crunch on a path of ugly, brown fallen leaves. The air smells strange and feels moist, somehow. It is not the state of its decomposition that stirs unease within me, but the familiarity of this environment. 

It begins to rain. Big, fat droplets, the size of my head. They quickly sink into the soil and begin creating small puddles, then pools, then a muddy lake that climbs up my calf. My panic rises with the water.

A building lifts from the corpses of leaves in front of me. Its shape is strange and box-like with a triangular roof but I run towards it, gasping between showering droplets. I trudge through the mud, now pulling at my knees, and push through the walls of the box.

I am seated, cross-legged, on a flat floor. Surrounding me is a bright, white room. There are no doors, no windows, no corners. 

Peering above, I see myself staring back at me. She wears one of my usual, everyday outfits. I realise, without looking away from her, that I wear nothing. Although, I do not feel cold or warm. I simply am. Her eyes move slightly and narrow to glare at something just past my shoulder.

It is me. I stand below me, in war-torn robes, screaming and banging on the walls of the container. Blood begins to pour from her eyes and she twitches as large, skeletal wings rip themselves from her spine. This does not unsettle me. It just happens.

I drag my eyes away.

There are voices outside this room. They wrap all around this enclosure, muffled and garbled. I know who the voices belong to but not what they say: my mother, my father, Xada. 

Nothing they say ever makes sense.

A small drop of water lands on my cheek. It travels along my body, rolls down my hand, and hangs off my pinkie finger. Waiting. Watching.

Listening.

I look up into a twisting void as it falls, splintering the floor into a shatter of waves. I would drown but I am on a ship, rocking back and forth, back and forth, quicker and quicker. The water tousles my boat with urgency causing me to fall against the main mast. I close my eyes and know that I must

Wake up.

I open my eyes. Air rushes into my lungs as I bolt awake. Alarms course through my entire being. I fumble for the light even as my eyes adjust but a hand from the darkness bats it away.

“Stellina?” A familiar voice speaks hoarsely from beside my bed.

“Xada? What are-” My voice cracks, I clear my throat, but I have no time to finish my question before Xada interrupts me,

“Stellina, I need you to get up. Now. We do not have much time.”

“What is happening?” I ask, drearily. Xada pulls me from the warm comfort of silken sheets,

“No time to explain. We need to go. Now.” He drags me towards the door, and my feet stumble behind me. The stillness of the night is enveloping. The quiet holds peace and…waiting. Watching.

Listening.

The horns begin.

The sound is like a punch to the gut as one, awful note blasts from every corner of the city. It grows louder as it gains strength. As more join the throng. It blares in my ears, fills my entire body, causes every nerve within me to stand on end. It is painful, excruciating. For a moment, I am frozen in place. But Xada is immune to the effect and rips my bedroom door open with a curse, dragging me with him.

There is no escaping the warning horns. They echo from all over, filling every crevice of our city. I try to clamp my hands over my ears in a futile attempt of blocking out the noise but Xada has my hand in his and he whisks me out into the hallway outside my room. He darts left without warning, causing me to pitch suddenly towards him before I catch my footing. He slams his hand into the wall beside us, his lips move quickly but his words are lost in the calamity around us. When he removes his palm from the wall, he wastes no time in continuing his frantic dash. Before I am snatched away once more, I glimpse a blinking panel that had previously been invisible to my eyes. A rune is illuminated on it but I do not have to read it to know what it means: emergency, imorum. My combat teacher reviews the emergency protocol with me once a year but I have never seen it in action.

“Stellina!” Xada shouts over a new mixture of sounds as metal begins to smoothly encase the glass bridge that we now run through. I feel that I might go insane if another noise is added to the mix, so I attempt to use his voice as an anchor, “Pop quiz.”

Though my heart pounds in my ears and my vision blurs in and out of focus, my mind immediately begins to draw memories from my lessons throughout the years: exploding apples, tiny tornados, diplomatic relations blah blah, window…

“What is the spell that commands water?” Xada asks as the final glazing of metal slots into place, dropping us into momentary silence and darkness. I was expecting to feel relieved when I would not have to hear the horns any more, but, if anything, it causes blood to flow faster through my veins. I had not taken the time to look out the glass into the darkness beyond to decipher the reason for our sudden plight. I do not have the time to berate myself for that.

“Stella, focus. What is the spell that commands water?” Xada repeats with a snap of his fingers. He slows our pace temporarily to give me time to think.

“Kilios,” I respond. Tiny blue lights pulse into being along the floor and ceiling. Illuminated in the blue glow, Xada jogs beside me, his gaze fixed on the curving walk ahead.

“Good,” He nods affirmatively, “Now, what is the spell we learned yesterday?”

“Glacu Kilu, the spell to command ice,” I state tentatively. Where is this going? And why this moment?

“Wonderful. Now, we are going to do something we have not done before,” Xada brings us to a complete halt. The encased hallway seems to span endlessly in front of us, “We are going to combine those two spells in order to hasten our progress. Follow my lead, do not slow down. Our destination is the north-east sommelnium entrance.”

My eyes widen as a shock passes through me. I cannot help but blurt out,

“The sommelnium? But- “

“And do not ask questions,” Xada cuts in. I clamp my mouth shut and stand very still, as if a single movement would cause a barrage of criticisms upon me.

Xada begins to demonstrate this new technique. I observe and mirror his movements as he lifts his hands to his right shoulder with palms facing each other. The arms are that of commanding water, but the hands match those of commanding ice. They were mixed, intertwined.

“With practice, you will be able to do this without pronouncing a word or visualising runes. It only takes an understanding of the universe around us and the unique powers within you,” Xada explains as our arms are held aloft, “We will use the movement of commanding water and the hands of commanding ice. The incantation will also combine the two into: Glacu Kilios, but imagine the runes individually.

“Hold the spell, follow it through, let the ice guide you. You need to do this on your first try. Can you do this?”

My brow creases at the complexity of the spell. My heartbeat dances in my ears. Despite this, I nod and flap my hands as if shaking anxiety off of me. I could do this. I would prove that I have what it takes to practise magic. That I can control myself and the spell in turn.

“I will not be far,” Xada reassures me, “And the entrance is close. Do not stress, I will see you at the staircase downwards.” I keep my mouth shut to avoid scoffing at the thought of not stressing in this situation. Without giving me any time to hesitate or prod him with questions, he sweeps his hands outwards with a flash of turquoise sparks. The next moment, he is around the bend, leaving a trail of ice behind him.

I take a deep breath and prepare to follow. He is not here to help me if I mess up and I did not want to know what would happen if I took too long.