Wynn shivered and turned her attention back to Arabella who was packing away the cards. “I feel much better about you now,” Arabella smiled weakly, and Wynn felt her sincerity, but also a vein of worry. The cards Arabella had picked almost never appeared in a reading and they had all appeared simultaneously for Wynn. Arabella rubbed her face wearily.
“Open your mind; we have wasted much time with my trivial reading. Concerning magic
I am no professor, and can only speak through experience and piece information together from those wiser than I. In my opinion to understand magic you need to understand its history. Where magic first came from will always be a mystery. I cannot imagine the first Mage or Magus’s shock to discover they could feel exactly what everyone else was feeling, or that they could move things with their mind! Magic was once pure, used to aid those who needed it most. It started off, in its true form, as the ability to heal.
“It is the skill I personally regard the most important and precious. You can bring someone back from the brink; literally drag them from death if you are skilled enough. There is not a feeling in the world which can compare when you heal someone you care about. For aeons healing was all any Mage or Magus could do, and it was all anyone cared about. Before magic became taboo and illegal it was truly respected. Village wise woman often claimed to be a Magus, to inspire trust and earn a reputation. They were mostly hoaxes, it has always been part of an unspoken law that those with the gift must be able to blend in. If everyone knew you had magic you would never have peace and it would attract the wrong kind of attention. Even now, if magic was legal, would you feel the need to flaunt it?”
Wynn shook her head, she could not think of a situation that would ever call for her magic to be common knowledge, the thought made her stomach churn unexpectedly.
Arabella continued, “For so long healing was all anyone ever wished of their gift but over time it evolved, just as everything in life evolves and becomes stronger. Soon magic was limitless – in the sense that you had to be strong enough to control it and hold that amount of power – and that was when those of darker heritage were awoken. Magic is a neutral gift. It does not choose its host, just as those it was granted to could not choose
it
. There never used to be a divide of good and evil. There have always been people who chose to do bad things, but once magic was added to the picture the need for power corrupted many. A corrupt soul will corrupt the magic.
“Magic passes down through the generations. It is most commonly inherited from the mother, although just as many men possess it and pass it on to their offspring. It can lay dormant for a whole life time, or it can skip a generation, only those strong in spirit can awaken it. Magic is something you are born with, it lies dormant in your blood until your eighteenth birth-day, this is when you reach adulthood and are strong enough to control it.”
“I am not yet of age,” Wynn reminded Arabella.
“Ah yes. What happened to you is very uncommon. It is said that if one with the gift is threatened before their eighteenth summer then magic will come to their aid. Of course you are not mature enough to deal with it; your powers will be erratic, unpredictable, and dangerous.”
Wynn gulped.
“Listen to your body. Magic pulses through you; every fibre of your being is intertwined with it. It is not just blood that flows through your veins. It is not just air that swirls in your lungs. You and it are indefinitely one. Magic is a force inside you and your ability to be a strong and respected Magus comes with control. Imagine a thunderstorm; what you must do is contain all that fury, all that raw power inside you.”
Wynn’s eyebrows furrowed, it was not the best example. She could hardly believe inside her the fury of a thunderstorm raged. She felt just as she always had, small, weak and vulnerable.
“To begin with control is just the same as resisting an urge. Your natural instinct will be to reach for your magic. Exactly how you defeated the soldiers in Woodstone’s square, and moved us to the plains. You cannot explain why you did that can you? That is because magic is so ingrained into your blood that even if you consciously do know how to use it, your subconscious does. This fact means that you must try very hard to resist. You need to release your magic slowly, over a period of time, until you can release it without thinking, safely. It will get easier; control is fairly simple and is just the first stage in a lifetime of learning. Once you can control your magic you need to learn how to use it.”
Wynn was feeling more and more out of her depth, something bothered her however, if a corrupted soul meant the magic too corrupted, what did Arabella’s past mean for her gift? “You have killed many...” Wynn said slowly, letting the statement hang in the air.
Arabella sighed sadly and it seemed that her eyes spoke of thousands of difficult choices and regrets, “I chose to be this way, I am a killer, a murderer, I take lives that would without doubt take mine if they had the chance. I am strong through necessity; you will not see me cry because the world has no time for tears. My magic may have corrupted, but I stand by what I have become because I believe I am justified.”
The room became silent, Wynn mulled over what she had just heard, her heart ached for Arabella, but she would never let Arabella know she pitied her. She was too proud to be pitied and would scorn such a thing. It was strange for Wynn to see Arabella with doubts and fears and most of all regrets. She had been nothing but a force of power and mystery, strong both physically and magically and constantly intimidating. Wynn knew without a doubt that if Arabella had wanted to, she could have killed her in numerous ways almost instantly, she was glad they both followed Griffin's orders.
Arabella smirked as she heard Wynn's thoughts and Wynn had to shake herself. She had forgotten how much could be heard from another, with only Arabella in the room she could get only a hint of her thoughts and emotions, but to Arabella Wynn might as well have spoken aloud all that she had thought. She blushed deeply and quickly changed the subject.
“What are the limitations of magic?” Wynn asked.
“Magic is a sense is limitless, though that creates the wrong impression,” Arabella frowned, wondering how to explain, “there are no constraints on what can be achieved with magic; it is not broken into skills such as healing or reading another’s mind, if you are born with the gift your ability to do both these things, and others atop of that are a given and expected. The only limitation of magic is the raw power and strength of your body. Every gifted, once their magic in inherited is born with three things, the ability to feel emotions and thoughts of those around them, and an instinctual knowledge of the area around them, if you concentrate you will be able to see every house, street and alley around you as though physically walking through it. Finally the ability to create a shield to protect yourself and your mind.”
Wynn nodded, understanding as much as possible without having actually experienced what Arabella said. Her words did not explain Aerona’s reputation, why she was so feared.
“Who is Aerona?”
Arabella sucked in her breath mirthlessly, her eyes suddenly hard, “Where to begin with words that cannot fully describe all that she is and all she will be? She is evil. She controls all that is unholy. She can bend a will until it breaks. She controls the night, and all creatures that live in it. It is unwise to goad such a powerful Sorceress, but in these times danger lurks in the lightest of paths. Aerona is over a century old and powerful beyond belief. In her time she has amassed an army and following larger than thought possible, they spy upon those in power and train so that when the time comes, none will stand in their way, she rid the land of Gypsies, at least to conscious knowledge, illegalised magic and all those who practise it, allowed Lord Oprend and his army to take over and control us and will stop at nothing to see herself Queen of us all.”
If Wynn had not been sitting down she was sure her legs would have given way. Arabella would not exaggerate the horrors Aerona had committed, or lie to soften the blow, what she said of Aerona was completely true and Wynn felt weak at the thought. It all felt, suddenly, like a joke at her expense, because there was no way she could even comprehend training to fight Aerona. She was nothing but a maid, but she stopped herself, she was not even that, she had freed herself of that title, now she could claim nothing. Nothing other than a murderer. The word tasted strange and bitter on her tongue, but the presence of Arabella meant she could not dwell on the morality of her past.
Arabella closed her eyes and became completely still, suddenly she cast herself into Wynn’s mind. Or at least that was what Wynn thought had happened, everything physical had remained the same, Arabella had not moved an inch or uttered a word, but somehow Wynn felt her presence inside her head. It was an odd thing, but not terrifying now she had spent weeks experiencing and living with other's emotions and thoughts inside her. Arabella's presence was almost ghost-like, a shadow of herself on the edge of Wynn's conscious. Wynn was unsure what to do but Arabella's voice was speaking across her mind.
“
Concentrate
,” she said, “
go deep into the centre of yourself. There you will find a pool of magic. That is your store of power. Using magic is done one of two ways, either commanding it with your mind and channelling it through your hands, or just using your mind, the magic obeying you instantly. The former is most practised as it allows you to control exactly how much magic you use but of course has its limitations.”
Wynn saw Arabella remember the night in Woodstone, only a few days before where she had been unable to save them from the army because her hands were bound behind her. Arabella still seethed at her failure.
“
It is a hard thing
,” Arabella continued, cutting the memory short sharply and focusing back on Wynn's mind, “
to control magic using just your mind or voice, it takes a lot of concentration and strength to guide that force from your body with no way of channelling it other than your conscious. That is why most of the gift use their hands.
”
Arabella opened her eyes and instructed Wynn to do the same. It was disconcerting to see Arabella in front of her and yet feel her inside her head; Wynn took a deep breath and steeled herself for what was to come.
“Mental communication is an important and much used way of communicating,” Arabella said aloud, “and I encourage you to use this when speaking to me for it strengthens the mind and develops the ability to pay attention to a situation and still converse mentally. There are limitations to speaking mentally of course, it is hard to converse with more than one, doable, but tiring for you must link your conscious with more than just one to be heard; emotions are detectable through mental communication but if you are far away from the person you are speaking to the ability to sense their emotions will cease, therefore you will have no idea if they are lying or not by inspecting their emotions or thoughts. It also has its limitations with distance; many cannot speak further than a few miles, and many much less than that. It takes a will of strength and determination to speak to one any further than that.”
Wynn nodded.
“I am unsure how to begin with you,” Arabella mused, her beautiful face pensive, “I am loathed to encourage the use of your magic, I have no idea how it will manifest and if you have enough control to shape it into anything safe,” Arabella raised her hand to Wynn's open mouth, “I know you managed to use it to move us here, but that was an effect of extreme desperation and fear, you have only ever used your magic under duress and I do not know if you would be able at the moment to practise without endangering us all.”