“So, what do you think?”
“She’s an enigma.”
“You got that right. No insight into that weird magic of hers?”
“None. And it’s like she’s not even aware she’s doing it.”
“...You don’t think that she might be an enchanter, do you?”
“Her? No. But someone else close to her might be.”
“That’s the thing; there’s no one I could find. It’s like she appeared from thin air.”
“More important than that, is she one of us?”
“I wish I knew.”
...
Idelle stared fixedly at the wall in front of her. The light coming through her window illuminated little dancing motes of dust spiraling through the air, but she tried her best to look past them as she kept breathing slow and deep. Only the wall appeared behind them.
No, that wasn’t quite true. She felt like she could see just a slight hint of something. Almost like the flicker of motion left by a shadow moving in the corner of her eye. But whenever she tried to focus on it the feeling would vanish.
Or maybe the whole thing was just her imagination. She heard a distant bell chime and frowned. She hadn’t yet figured out which pattern (presumably) represented the hour, and which the half-hour. Still, if she wanted to join the sword class, it wouldn’t hurt to go now. She got the impression that the instructors showed up on their own terms and time, anyway.
When she arrived outside she found that Ivar had indeed already started leading a warmup. She joined in, finding the repetitive motions a good fit for her already meditative state of mind. No need to worry about fidgeting or shifting postures when you were already moving.
Even after only a single day of practice, the steps felt natural and fluent to her. The thought passed through her head that she surely must have learned something similar to this before. Either that, or whatever was going on with her body also made her a genius at swordsmanship, but she found that unlikely. Magical strength was one thing, but completely removing the need for practice to master skills seemed beyond the pale, at least based on everything (admittedly very little) she knew of magic.
Eventually, Ivar again moved on to practicing basic strikes and incorporating them with the footwork. She wondered if this was all he taught. Maybe there was a more advanced class at some other time, or on a weekly basis? She’d have to ask someone at some point.
For the moment, however, practicing basics felt like more than enough. Just like the other day, she found herself falling into an easy rhythm. Slice, and thrust. Thrust, and slice.
Ivar’s voice as he counted fell into the background. This really was nice… Just focusing on her body and sword as she repeated the movements over and over again. She looked over at the instructor, trying to find the small differences between his motions and hers and adjust. It was almost like playing a little game.
Slice. Slice. Thrust. Slice.
Something seemed funny about Ivar’s motions. No, not the motions. Rather, his figure itself seemed to shimmer slightly, like a distant image in the heat. She put it out of her mind, remembering his previous comment about being distracted. Just keep focusing on the wooden blade in her hands.
Still, it niggled at her. The slight shimmer wasn’t leaving, and she could see it out of the corner of her eye on the other students around her as well. No, it seemed almost omnipresent, only much fainter outside of their forms.
Ugh, focus! She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to concentrate. Slice, thrust, and chop. Slice, and thrust. She tried to ignore the flickering as Ivar walked over to her side of the group.
“It’s not a useless exercise, but is there any reason you’re practicing with your eyes closed?”
Idelle’s eyes snapped back open. For a second, the shimmer was gone, but after a moment of confusion she realized it was still there if she looked for it. No, not looked. She couldn’t look with her eyes closed. A grin spread across her face.
Then she realized Ivar was still standing in front of her, waiting for an answer. “Sorry. Yes actually. I guess there is. Is it all right if I leave the class early?”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, it’s not mandatory.”
“Thanks! I’ll be back tomorrow but this is important!” She ignored the curious eyes from a few of her peers and almost sprinted back to her room to sit herself on her bed again. She let herself breath deeply and focus. It was still there, right?
Slowly, she became aware of it again. It was muted, barely perceptible, but it was there. A ubiquitous feeling of slight motion, that permeated the very air and walls around her. No wonder she couldn’t find it before, it was so faint outside of people!
A thought struck her, and she looked (well, not exactly looked, but she figured the word was clear enough now that she’d found it) down at herself. She almost gasped. Not only was the flickering sensation as strong as it was on the other people earlier, but she could see a further, even stronger shimmer, running almost like a web or series of thin tree branches through her body and coming together in her chest.
Her blood vessels and heart? It must be. She grinned again. So she was right, it wasn’t a coincidence and she really DID have something to do with blood magic. Or at least had a natural affinity for it, with how much easier it was to sense for her than the other magic around her.There was no way there wasn’t some relation.
Now then. What had Cecilia said the next step was? She paused. Actually, they hadn’t really gotten that far, had they? She’d mostly just explained affinities. She was getting ahead of herself here.
But she didn’t even know if Cecilia was going to be available again today. She could go ask Adrian, he might know? She hesitated, not wanting to annoy the man when he probably had important Lieutenant things to do, but in the end her impatience won out and she ran back downstairs to find his office.
“Hey, will C— Her Highness be stopping by again today? Do you know when?”
He did not, to her annoyance. She considered going back to her room, but in the end decided to just suppress her excitement for now and go rejoin the swordsmanship lesson.
Idelle received a few more curious glances as she went back out, but no one said anything. Still, her heart wasn’t in it anymore, and when the lesson finished she quickly found herself standing by the edge of the courtyard lost in practicing her new “magic-sight”. She hoped the name would annoy Cecilia. The more she practiced, the easier she found it to pick out the sensation among her other senses, as well as make out fainter and fainter shimmers.
She realized that there were layers to it as well, as if multiple different shimmers were stacked atop each other, though they were hard to make out clearly and were easily muddled together. She tried to tease them apart, but the exercise eluded her, and before she could make any progress she saw a familiar figure walk into the other side of the courtyard. Grinning, she had to stop herself from dashing over.
“Cecilia! I figured it out!”
The other girl raised an eyebrow into a by-now familiar expression. “Good for you, I was beginning to worry that I’d taken on an incompetent student.”
Idelle rolled her eyes. “Maybe you just have unrealistic standards, did you ever think of that? Anyway, what do I do now?”
“Well, we need to take a stab at your affinities and then try out some easy spells. Do you wanna go to the library again?”
“No, can we stay here today? I want to try right away!”
Cecilia grinned at her enthusiasm. “Works for me. Lets at least go to your room, though.”
Idelle nodded and excitedly led the way.
