“I thought you were supposed to be teaching me how to use my magic, not combat.” She had been training with Costrae for days now but she hadn’t done anything with her magic beyond lighting candles.

“First things first, to learn one you need to understand the other-

“I do understand-” Ana started but Costae gave her a look in which Ana could see the dark power behind her eyes and Ana closed her mouth as Costae forged ahead. 

“Second, if you want to start using magic in combat then we can do that.”

“So I can start learning how to throw fireballs!” Ana said, excitement in her voice that she hadn’t had for a while.

“Did you start combat training by throwing knives?”

“No?”

“Good.” The smile on Costrae’s face was frightening.

Ana soon learned the reason for that terrifying grin when Costrae started shooting magical daggers at her. She dodged the first, then duck and rolled to avoid the second two before flipping backwards onto her feet again. 

“What are you doing!” She screamed, barely dodging another deathly dagger as it whizzed through the place her head had been a second before.

“Defend yourself.” It was an order but she didn’t know what it meant. She looked around the training area, spotting a shield near the racks of equipment. She lunged for it, rolling under another shot at her head and reaching for the shield. But the shield was whisked away to the other side of the training area on a dark wind. “With Magic.”

“What do you mean?” she yelled in overwhelmed confusion.

“Shield yourself, use your magic and shield yourself cailín bea tine.” 

“With fire?! She shrieked in exasperation.

“Yes! Unless you secretly have some other ability we didn’t know about until now.” Costrae’s brows were raised and if Ana didn’t know any better she would think they were being sarcastic. She would have chuckled if Costrae hadn’t then sent another volley of death daggers flying for her head. She flipped backwards but tried to think up how she could shield herself with fire without burning herself to the bone. One of the magical dagger things narrowly missed taking off her ear leaving a scrape. 

“Can’t you just give me a moment to focus!”

“No.” She groaned in irritation ducking and dodging the next three daggers that Costrae sent flying. She tried to think of a wall of fire between her and Costrae far enough from her that it wouldn’t burn her but-

Another dagger flew at her and she couldn’t duck in time to keep it from drawing a line of blood across her cheek. She tried moving her hand in a line in front of her but no fire rose. 

“Oh come on!” Another bolt of Costrae’s dark magic was speeding for her heart and she rolled to the side and came up kneeling on the ground barely managing to jump out of the way as Costrae sent another blade of shadows carrening for her. She landed and for a split second could only blink at the place she had been a second before, a dagger of dark and shadows embedded into the dirt, cracking the earth around it apart. Well shit. 

She cupped her hands trying to summon just one flame,  trying to  think of that knife, slicing out a thin sliver of power and letting it into the world. If she only had one she might be able to shape it into something. She felt a flicker of warmth in her palm and she looked to find a small flame dancing in her palm. It didn't burn her though. It didn’t burn her like it had when she was trapped in iron. Or could it be that her fire couldn’t hurt her- that it had been the iron, how it twisted her magic. Could it be that the iron had taken her magic and forced it inward. Was this what magic was? Was this- this little dancing light- the truth of magic, not the twisted beast she had seen for so long?

She remembered a moment too late that Costrae was throwing magical daggers at her and that she was supposed to be dodging them,and that staying in one spot as she was, was stupid. She looked up and saw the dagger of shadows spearing her heart but there was no time to get out on the way. She covered herself and the flame with her arm bracing for the impact-

But it never came.

She looked up and saw that her flame had shifted into the shape of a shield before her. Bright as a star. This was her magic, and it was beautiful.