Part III — Fire Without Word
Summary:
Saviik's Destruction magic matures under Battlemage tutelage. His control becomes art—fire shaped by will alone. But with mastery comes unease: the realization that what he holds is not learned, but remembered. Xala begins to see that his gift may one day consume him if not anchored by something human.
---
The years in Cyrodiil passed without seasons.
Spring bled into summer without snow to mark its edge, and the lake stayed the same perfect mirror no matter what the sky decided. By his eleventh year, Saviik's height had caught up with Xala's; the grace that once made him seem delicate now made him precise. The marble halls had become his classrooms, the air itself his instrument.
In the courtyard where the Battlemages drilled, Taren Valen stood with arms folded, watching his pupil trace the sigil for fire into the air—not with chalk, but with motion. His fingers left a faint afterglow, lines suspended in nothingness.
"Recite the phrase," Valen prompted.
Saviik didn't speak. He inhaled, exhaled, and the pattern ignited into a slender pillar of blue flame that held its shape for as long as his breath lasted.
Valen's hand dropped. "You must say the words, boy."
Saviik's reply was soft. "Why, if it already listens?"
Valen opened his mouth, then closed it again. The other apprentices—older, louder, trained by repetition—glanced sideways, uncertain whether to envy or fear him.
"Because," Valen said finally, "words remind the will of its limits."
Saviik nodded, though the lesson did not fit the shape of his experience. His power never felt like will imposed—it felt like recognition. Like finding a rhythm the world already kept.
After the class dismissed, Xala waited for him beneath the stone archway, braid half undone, a satchel of scrolls slung across her shoulder. "You're making them nervous," she said.
"Master Valen?"
"All of them. They've been studying for years and can barely light a candle without a word. You breathe and the air obeys."
"I don't mean to."
"Maybe that's the problem."
He smiled a little. "You sound like Lady Ylva."
Xala flicked a bit of dust at him. "And you sound like someone who's forgotten how to enjoy being better than everyone else."
"I'm not better."
"Tell that to the fire."
---
That night, in the library's quiet heart, he stayed after lessons. Candles stood in a precise ring on the table; he placed both palms flat and let his mind empty. The flames trembled, then straightened, each the same height. When he lifted his right hand, they leaned that way, obedient to the motion, as if a hidden wind bent only to him.
He felt it again—the faint pulse beneath the surface of things, a warmth that wasn't entirely his own. It didn't frighten him. It felt like memory.
A floorboard creaked behind him. Xala stood there, the candlelight cutting her outline in gold. "You said you weren't practicing after supper."
"I'm not. I'm listening."
"To what?"
He hesitated. "It's like… the world hums, very quietly. If I stop talking long enough, it answers."
She stepped closer. "And if you talk too loud?"
"It stops."
"Then maybe that's all magic is," she said, sitting across from him. "Learning when to listen."
They stayed like that awhile, the candles bowing slightly toward them, until the hourglass ran dry.
---
Weeks later, Valen arranged a demonstration for visiting scholars from the Mages Guild. They came expecting spectacle—circles of fire, chanting, the familiar bravado of Imperial training. Instead they found a pale boy standing barefoot on the marble, no staff, no incantation. At Valen's nod, Saviik raised a hand and drew heat from the air until the shimmer itself took shape. It did not roar; it glowed, a thin ribbon of contained light looping between his fingers like silk.
When he ended the spell, one of the mages whispered, "No sigil?"
Valen's expression betrayed nothing. "None visible."
Ylva, watching from the gallery, measured the scholars' expressions. Admiration was acceptable; awe was not. She caught Saviik's eye and gave the smallest shake of her head. He understood: enough.
After they left, Valen approached him. "Never do that outside this house," he said.
"Why?"
"Because the moment they can't explain you, they'll want to own you."
---
That night, a storm rolled in from the west—the rare kind that reached even Lake Rumare. Rain streaked the tall windows; thunder muttered like distant speech. Xala found him standing in the corridor, watching the reflections ripple across the marble floor.
"Do you miss Windhelm when it rains?" she asked.
"I miss the noise," he said. "Here the thunder sounds polite."
She laughed softly. "Everything here sounds polite."
They watched the lightning bloom behind the clouds. When the light filled the hall, she saw his profile clearly: calm, eyes steady, the faint shimmer of power that never quite left his skin.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
He looked puzzled. "What?"
"Keeping it all inside."
He considered that. "No. It just feels… waiting."
She reached out, brushed a strand of hair from his face. "Then promise me you'll know when to stop waiting."
"I can't promise what I don't understand."
"Try anyway."
He nodded once, solemn. "I promise."
---
By dawn, the storm had passed. The garden's fountains overflowed, the air cool and silver. In his study chamber, the candles relit themselves before he touched the flint. He stared at them for a long time, then whispered, "Enough," and they stilled.
Outside, Xala's laughter echoed as she chased her hound through the wet grass. He watched her from the window, the warmth in his chest not quite magic, not quite human, but something that made both seem possible.
The day's first light caught the edge of his desk, glinting off the brass inkstand until it burned like a miniature sun. Saviik smiled faintly at it and went back to work, copying the words Valen had drilled into him:
Power is quietest when it knows itself.