Page 44 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)
Chapter forty-four
The Ward
Instead of the hot flames of anger from the previous days, Fern stared at her desk and the frost of a cold dispassion settled within her.
This was exactly what she expected. Lautric had warned her, after all. He’d told her she had other things to worry about than Srivastav’s work. Now, he had fallen for her trap and taken the work she’d left for him to find, probably as he had taken Josefa’s.
The only difference was that Fern had merely left a decoy; Josefa hadn’t been so lucky as to know there was a predator for whom to set a trap. He probably would’ve taken Srivastav’s, too, had Fern not interrupted him.
As for Fern… Lautric had all but told her he would take her work, so there was no point in surprise, resentment or anger. Now, she could finally set aside all those strange, complicated feelings, that irksome plume of affection that had steadily been rising within her. She had been right about him all along, and everything other than mistrust had been a mistake .
Now, she knew she could not trust him, and it was time for her to get to work.
Her chosen element was fire, and she had finalised her selection of spells, thanks in large part to the general’s advice. The oldest spell was a straightforward flame-making spell with a simple incantation. But the newest spell could be traced back to a Sumbra incantation for channelling fire.
Fern hated channelling spells: they required that one use their body as a conduit, and the human body, though resilient, was poorly fitted to that purpose.
Most candidates would shy away from that spell; Srivastav would not. A pyromancer of his skill would be well-versed in that kind of spell, especially given he was from a military background. But Fern was willing to do anything to succeed, and she was not afraid of pain.
Besides, learning this channelling incantation would be a stone with which she must kill two birds.
She needed to learn the spells for her assignment, but she had not forgotten the Astronomy Tower ward. Breaking such a ward would not be an easy feat. There were only three ways a ward could be broken: if the ward’s creator died, if the ward was undone by reversing its spellcraft, or if the ward was destroyed by sheer force.
The first option was unlikely. There was probably more than one creator and the closure of the Astronomy Tower had happened too recently.
The second way would require intimate knowledge of the original incantation, which Fern had no way of finding out .
And the third was the most difficult of all: wards were designed to be protective and would sustain a significant amount of damage before cracking.
But like most things on Earth, there was only so much fire a ward could withstand.
Fern faced the Astronomy Tower door, incantation in hand. She had slept for most of the day and eaten as much food as she could stomach during dinner. She still had some remnants of the energy Lautric had given her—she would need to use all that was left of it.
The incantation was complex and long, split into multiple parts, each part with its own purpose. First, a finding incantation, for digging deep inside the earth and seeking the source of fire. Then, a summoning, for calling forth the fire and gathering. A holding incantation, for stockpiling the fire inside oneself—the most painful part of the spell. Then, the channelling, for opening up the body on both ends to form the conduit: allowing magic in and out. And finally, the incantation for calling forth the fire. A wild, destructive incantation, the one that required most precision and energy.
On her first try, Fern got as far as the holding incantation. Finding the source of the fire and calling it forth had been easier than she imagined, but the moment she felt the flames enter her, the pain was so immediate, so shocking that Fern’s incantation died in a scream. She fell to her knees.
She sucked in a breath. The pain inside her was just that. Pain receptors triggered by something alien, sending an electric signal up the nerve fibres and to the spinal cord, neurotransmitters passing the message on to the brain, where the message was relayed to the somatosensory cortex, the limbic system and the frontal cortex.
A message passed on from one part of her body to the other, designed only to keep her safe. And in this case, pain was only a message, a warning. The danger wasn’t real; Fern would not be harmed. She was strong enough to control the fire without letting it harm her.
Fern began the incantation again from the start. Finding the fire, calling it forth, holding it. The pain was immediate and searing, but she knew she could not give in to it. She was stronger than the power she was trying to wield.
She forced herself to breathe, forcing unsatisfying air into tight lungs. The pain, she reminded herself, was only a false message, her brain’s needless warning. She wasn’t being harmed. She was alright.
She bit out the incantation for holding, feeling the flames fill her, lapping at her insides, charring her bones. Sweat broke over her brow, her body shook, and the rungs of her ribcage seemed to crack under some invisible force. An illusion. She gasped, withholding, keeping the flames trapped within her.
Drawing deep from her well of energy, she began the recitation for the channelling.
The channelling came more easily, her body eager to expulse the flames like ridding itself of a parasite. Throwing both arms forward, muscles straining with force, she sent out curling ribbons of flames. They seared her fingertips, and faded as soon as they appeared, and disappeared in a burst of embers before they could even cross the space between Fern and the door.
Fern, her breath a rattle, keeled back, her entire body going limp, her lips beaded with sweat. Her face was drenched, but her skin felt dry and scorched, as though she had just crossed the arid expanse of a desert. Even her lungs felt charred; if she took too deep a breath, she feared the structure would collapse into ashes.
She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face, hands shaking. Her fingertips ached, and her head was spinning. A wave of panic slammed over her, but she stood against it. The panic, like the pain, wasn’t real, it was just her nervous system reacting to unnatural stimuli. Her body begged her to stop—her mind urged her to keep going.
How long would she need to practise the spell before she could master it well enough for the assignment? Probably years. But she didn’t have years. She only had now .
When using magic with a depleted source of energy, there were only ever two options. The first was to borrow from one’s source of energy. This was always a risky undertaking: one could borrow too much and leave no energy for the coming days, weeks, sometimes months, or even years. In the worst cases, one could draw too much and use up their entire reserves, leaving themselves neutered of powers.
The other option, of course, was to use Wild Magic, but as Fern had once discussed with Lautric, this was a volatile source of power, unknown and almost impossible to control. She swallowed, tasting iron and sweat, and her legs buckled beneath her.
Most who had tried to bend Wild Magic to their will had failed.
Fern straightened her spine, pulling herself together. If Lautric knew how to channel Wild Magic, it was no help to her. She knew better than to ever go to him for help, no matter how tender his entreaties to do so had sounded.
And since she trusted herself more than she would ever trust Wild Magic, and Wild Magic more than she would ever trust Lautric again, then it would be from her own reserves she must draw power.
The thought was almost paralysing. Borrowing from one’s own powers was like borrowing coins from a purse one could neither see nor touch. You might borrow a handful out of a sackful, or you might be borrowing the last remaining coins. You wouldn’t know until it was too late. Some people spent years rebuilding their reserves—others never recovered theirs. Fern was no great mage, but she knew not what a life without magic would feel like. She did not want to find out either.
She steeled herself. Her back was to a wall, cowering would not change her situation. She wiped the sweat from her face and smoothed her hair and straightened the pins that secured the sweat-soaked strands. She moistened her lips and opened her mouth and took deep breaths, counting, holding, exhaling, forcing her frightened heartbeat to calm itself.
She gathered her energy and cast the spell once more.