The wind was sharp that morning. Cold against my cheeks, yet comforting somehow, like it had been waiting for me to rise.
Father stood at the edge of the forest, arms folded, his eyes scanning the trees with the same calculating stillness he always wore. His presence alone made the air feel heavier. Not suffocating, just… real.
"You're up earlier than usual," he said without turning.
I stepped next to him. "Couldn't sleep."
He finally glanced my way. "Good. Then your body has no excuses."
Without explanation, he started walking. I followed, each of his steps deliberate, measured. We stopped before a tall, rough-barked tree. Thick, wide, and older than most of the village.
"Hit it," he said.
I blinked. "With what? My fist?"
He didn't respond. Just nodded once.
"...Alright."
I pulled my arm back, clenched my fist, and drove it forward.
Pain shot through my knuckles like lightning. The bark barely chipped. I hissed and stepped back, shaking out my hand.
Father said nothing. His eyes locked on mine.
"Again," he said.
I struck it again. Again. Again.
By the fifth strike, blood had started to speckle the bark. My knuckles stung, my wrist ached, and my pride was dented deeper than the tree.
"You're not just punching wood," Father finally said. "You're shaping force. If you can't drive your will into your limbs, into your bones—into the very breath between strikes—then you're just flailing."
He stepped up to the tree, raised his hand slowly, and exhaled.
His palm tapped the trunk—gentle, almost casual.
A boom cracked through the air. Bark exploded outward. A web of splinters flared where he touched it. The tree itself groaned from the pressure, roots shifting in the soil.
I stared, wide-eyed. No spell. No incantation. Just… presence.
"That's aura," he said, lowering his hand. "The energy of intent made physical. It's not magic. It's not spirit. It's you—projected."
"How?" I asked.
He looked at me—really looked—and finally, for the first time since we began, smiled just a little.
"Breathe in the world. Focus on the edge of the pain in your hand. Let that pressure guide your attention inward, not away. Where your will condenses, your aura will follow."
I closed my eyes. Felt the ache in my knuckles, traced it back through my arm, into the tightness in my chest, the tension in my mind. I focused on that knot of frustration—how small I felt compared to the power around me.
I struck again.
It was barely a flicker—just enough to feel a ripple, like something had shifted between my skin and the bark. But I felt it.
My aura.
Small. Weak. But real.
Father nodded. "Good. Now do it again."
And I did. Until I could feel the difference when I missed, when I struck too shallow, or when my thoughts wandered. He taught me to breathe, to draw power from my own heartbeat, my center. And slowly, my fists began to carry more than muscle—they carried meaning.
We kept at it until the sun hovered directly above, casting blades of light through the forest canopy. My fists were raw, my muscles trembling, but the strain felt… right. Earned. Like a price paid in the correct currency.
Father stepped back, arms crossed again. "You felt it," he said. Not a question.
I nodded. "Only briefly."
"That's all it takes." He picked up a stone from the ground, tossed it to me. "Now break this."
I caught it, still breathing heavily. The rock was unremarkable—just a dull, jagged thing the size of my palm. My arms protested, but I raised it overhead and brought it down hard on my knee.
It barely cracked.
"Try again," he said, "but this time, shape your intent."
He didn't elaborate. He rarely did. But the lesson was clear enough.
This wasn't about brute force.
I took a deep breath, centering on the feeling I'd grasped earlier—where my will met flesh. I imagined that place filling with a single thought: Break.
I brought the stone down again.
It shattered.
I blinked, bits of dust and fractured rock crumbling from my fingers. My knee stung, but not as much as it should've.
Father didn't smile, but he gave a small grunt of approval. "You're starting to see. Aura is instinct, refined. The battlefield doesn't wait for words or clever tricks. It answers only force."
He turned to go, leaving me standing in the sun-dappled clearing.
But I wasn't alone.
As his footsteps faded, I felt them. My shadows shifted slightly, unnaturally. Then I heard a whisper.
"You focused well today," said a soft voice near my ear.
I didn't flinch.
Solara stepped out from behind a tree that shouldn't have hidden her. Her form shimmered with soft light and dancing warmth—the scent of ocean mist mixed with burnt parchment clung to her presence.
"You let your body speak first. That's rare," she added, brushing her fingers along my scraped knuckles. Her touch wasn't physical, not quite, but the pain ebbed slightly as her aura entwined with mine.
"Father showed me aura," I said. "But I don't understand how it connects to everything else."
Solara nodded, then glanced upward. "Girls?"
A flash of silver-blue light to my right. Aelira dropped from the trees like a falling star, landing in a crouch. "You finally asked," she said with a grin. "Took you long enough."
And then Nyssara stepped from my shadow on the other side, composed as always, folding her arms behind her back.
"We'll show you the rest," she said simply.
I sat down on a flat stone, still nursing my hand. "Start from the beginning."
Solara knelt beside me, drawing a faint glowing circle in the dirt with a strand of light. "Magic. It's not power by force, like aura. It's structure. Thought. Meaning wrapped in symbols."
She traced lines through the circle—geometric patterns intersecting like a puzzle.
"Every spell is a translation," she continued. "You imagine something with your mind. If your soul resonates with it—matches the shape—it manifests."
Aelira leaned in, tapping the side of her head. "But the stronger the concept, the clearer the image has to be. You can't just shout 'Fire!' and expect flames. You have to know fire. What it wants. What it eats. What it becomes."
"So emotions?" I asked.
"Yes," Nyssara said. "But not uncontrolled ones. Magic is disciplined emotion. Directed by logic, filtered through belief."
She conjured a small orb of darkness and light entwined—a flickering paradox in her palm.
"This is a contradiction," she said. "It exists because I understand both. I accept the paradox. That's what makes it real."
I reached out, touched the orb. It felt cold and warm at once—sharp and soft, empty and full.
"…And what of anima?" I asked.
Solara's expression softened. "That one… is closer to us."
Aelira spun a small loop of silver thread in her fingers, then tossed it upward. It hovered, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Anima is your soul reaching out," she said. "Calling. Binding. Growing."
Nyssara pointed at the thread. "When you made us, it was anima that formed the bridge. But not just energy—you shaped us from your feelings, your ideals."
"You didn't summon us, remember," Solara added. "You echoed yourself, and we answered."
I was quiet for a long moment.
Aelira flopped down next to me, stretching out. "Think of anima like… a mirror with memory. It remembers the shape of you, and gives it form. Spirits are just those memories—given purpose."
I looked at the three of them, each so vivid, so real. Not illusions. Not tricks.
Pieces of me, walking beside me.
"And essence?" I asked, too quickly.
They exchanged glances.
"Not yet," Solara said gently.
"You're not ready," Nyssara added.
Aelira gave me a sidelong glance. "But someone's watching you."
My shadow flickered.
Raven didn't speak.
But I felt her.
Watching.
Always.
Waiting.
I said nothing, only nodded, and let the silence settle. The forest around us whispered again, wind threading through the branches like breath through ribs.
I had touched aura. Glimpsed magic. Remembered anima.
It wasn't mastery.
But it was a beginning.
And I knew beginnings could grow sharp enough to carve the future.