Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(29)

“Enough?”

“Yes. Plenty.” It’s almost frightening how much strength she has, he was thinking. That only makes it more of a waste if she won’t use it.

“So I’m stronger than you?” she guessed.

He nodded as he met her gaze. “You’re the strongest sorcerer I’ve ever met.” He shrugged. “That I know of, of course. It’s not as if sorcerers compare abilities every time they meet. I could have met someone stronger and not known it.”

Rielle looked away. To be told she was magically strong was like being told she was beautiful. It appeased her vanity in a vague and purposeless way, yet to use either for personal advantage was wrong.

So was returning to her world using it for personal advantage? Of course it was. But if Lejikh was right, if she stayed outside her world she might still need to use magic for her own survival.

How was that different to letting Betzi teach her how to defend herself? So long as she only used magic for self-defence it was not forbidden. If she had to return to her world for her own safety, then that was self-defence.

Baluka was fighting not to smile at her thoughts. She drew in a deep breath. “So what next?”

“Working out how to push yourself into the place between worlds is the hardest part, so we usually start by taking a novice there and letting them work out how to hold themselves in place. So… take a deep breath and some magic and we’ll begin.”

She obeyed, and linked hands with him again. Their surroundings faded a little.

“I’ll stop resisting the pull to this world now,” Baluka told her. “See if you can take over.”

At once she sensed the pull. Baluka had called it gravity. To resist normal gravity she would normally hang on to something. But there was nothing to take hold of. Moist air surrounded her and she realised they had arrived again.

Baluka shook his head. “There is nothing physical, in a normal sense, in the space between. Seek an awareness of the world you are being pulled towards, not the pull itself, and try to push against it.” He smiled. “Ready?”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

He took her a little further out of the world this time. The pulling was weaker. She sought the world they had left, but felt nothing but the pull. Unless… she stretched out as she had when reaching to the limits of magic in a world. A world was a big thing. Something in her mind shifted as her perception changed, and suddenly she understood that the pull was the world.

How to push against it? She could not seize a whole world and still it. The pull was growing stronger as it drew them closer. Whatever she was supposed to do involved magic, but nothing physical. In desperation she sent out magic, but it simply drained out of her, unused. Shadows sharpened into land and the peculiar sky, and she was able to breathe again.

They tried again, and again. When she failed a fifth time, Baluka let go of her hands and paced a little, thinking. “Perhaps this is harder for you because you’ve not learned to use magic at all. Of course! You have hardly ever tried to shape it and you probably didn’t know what you were doing when you did.” He frowned, then returned to her. “Let’s try this one more time. All I can suggest now is just do what feels natural. Work on instinct alone.”

When air pressed around them a short while later she sighed in frustration. Baluka squeezed her hands and smiled.

“Don’t worry. You’ve not grown up among sorcerers travelling between worlds every few days, so many concepts are new to you. Even if you had succeeded today, there is more to learn before you can travel quickly and safely–if there wasn’t we wouldn’t need to find you a teacher. We’ll just have to start by teaching you more of the basics of using magic.”

More? Rielle quashed a sigh. Just how tainted must I become?

“Now?” she asked.

He looked at the distant house and shook his head. “No. My family will be here soon and I am also supposed to start teaching you to hide your thoughts.” His gaze returned to her and he began to chew on his lip. “There are two ways to do this,” he said. “The slow, kind way and the fast, cruel way.”

She frowned. “I’m guessing that you only need to tell someone this if you’re planning to use the fast, cruel way.”

He grimaced in apology. “We are in a bit of a hurry.”

“What is so awful about it, then?”

“I tell you to think of something you don’t want me to see in your mind. Something embarrassing, or that you regret.”

At once a memory rose of the corrupter’s hand on her belly and the pain that followed. She had nearly thought of this a few times since joining the Travellers, but had managed to distract herself in time.

Baluka’s eyes widened and he looked away, but it was too late. He knew. I cannot bear children. But that wasn’t the worst of it, she realised. That act of foolishness had only harmed herself. Would he regard her less warmly if he knew what she’d done to Sa-Gest? No! Don’t think of it. Don’t think! She took a deep breath, fixed her eyes on a nearby tree and made herself observe its strange, twisted limbs.

“I think I understand how that works,” she said.

“I’m afraid that’s not how it’s done,” he replied. “You must do more than distract yourself. You must learn to hide your thoughts. Travellers work out how to do this as children. So does anyone with magical ability who grows up around sorcerers.”