The sound of tambourines and drums echoes through the village, complemented by the shouts of drunken people and even drunker singers. Clothes so bright they almost blind me move like the wind in dancing steps up and down the streets. Dogs bark and chase cats, bar owners laugh as they count their money, and soldiers prevent anyone from being crushed by carriages in the middle of the street.

  The wooden statue of the priest who sealed Aldwyn at the founding of the village is the highlight, towering above the main carriage and showing all its glory to the people. Some fall silent before the image, others brandish their mugs and ask him to bless them.

  Amid the respect—or lack of it—one or two looks in the crowd stand out in a stare or frown. The black clothing sets me apart from the rest, but not many would have the time or interest to look at me. They do, however, sense the discomfort that lurks behind the sips of beer and shows itself in one glance or another.

  Some point their finger. One whisper or another. Some are tempted to throw a glass bottle, but are afraid I'll notice and curse them. Looks of fear. Looks of hatred. But no more pity. Never again.

  The soldiers prevent them, with renewed faith in the statue of the priest, from going ahead with their plan. They don't stop watching me, either, disguising themselves in the crowd as carriage administrators to keep their gaze on the black dot amidst the color.

  The sound of the racket is slowly left behind as I walk, its echoes replaced by animated conversations about the festival, then by the melancholy songs of the elders, and finally by the metallic footsteps that take me to the end of the village.

  On the edge of civilization, the soldier approaches and removes the handcuffs from my wrists without saying a word. He inhales briefly, then steps back with careful steps and beckons me to go.

  The sound of footsteps echoes in the depths of the road. Crickets fall silent, birds change direction as if anticipating the rain. The monotonous harmony of nature is interrupted and consummated by the whistling of the wind. I obey the guard and walk home, where the singing of the village stops to give voice to the whispers of the forest.

  The sun is cold. The hut stretches over the clearing of dark grass a few kilometers from the gates, and a large cloud looms over the area. In the background, a slender silhouette stretches out, so black that it seems to absorb the surrounding light. It watches me as the Lion once did, and I ignore it as usual.

  They say there's no need to worry about your diet when you need to eat to survive. Responsible for making me worry about irrelevancies I've already answered for myself, the city's screams and bells disappear along with the complacent comfort they cause. On the contrary, however, it is in the prickly peace of my own home that ignored worries become consequences.

  The dark forest replaces the dirt road. The flayed face of the abomination is still vivid when I close my eyes, burned into my retinas as if I had been staring at the sun for too long. A part of me isn't as bothered by horror as it is by boredom—or rather, it has more horror of boredom than of horror itself. Faced with reality, the lesser evil of silence is still the right option.

  The comfort had made me forget about the pain in my feet. The guerrilla protocols were much more tiring than I had imagined. I thought I wouldn't need any kind of training from the village, but I never learned the soldiers' modus operandi, and they would cut my head off if they suspected sabotage.

  My goal is to guide the troops when they detect Aldwyn's presence and destroy him. Made during my trial after being arrested in the forest, this was the deal that saved me from being executed. In a victory, Aldwyn would perish; in a defeat, the village would be rid of me: a victory either way.

  Training takes up the first four hours of the morning. The rest of the day, probation locks me in my house under sentence of execution. They don't have to entertain the idea. I don't leave the house except to hunt, borrow a book or visit the Lake. With Morgana present, that last option had also become unnecessary.

  “Sieghart?”

  Speak of the devil;

  The fairy's voice sings in my ears like the harmony I thought I had expelled. Her black dress dances in the wind and wraps around her form, the sunlight reflects off her skin like a prism and casts a frosted rainbow over the ground. My eyes no longer hurt when I look at her, they have adapted to the dreamlike blurs. Even so, I still wonder if all this brightness won't make me go blind.

  Sitting on the grass, she looks at some apples in a basket on her lap until she turns to look at me.

  I glance at the black figure, then back at her.

  “When did you get back?”

  “I didn't come back. I was with you.” She says, then offers me an apple. “I made these grow. Eat, you must be hungry.”

  I pick up the apple and take a bite. Perhaps it was hunger, perhaps the fact that Morgana made it grow or even that she was the one who gave it to me, but it tastes so sweet that it almost melts in my mouth.

  “Is it good?”

  I nod. “I thought fruit didn't grow here.”

  “It's harder if you’re around.”

  “Wouldn't it be better to stay hidden? What if the soldiers see you?”

  “Don't worry, I'll take care of it. How are you feeling?”

  I look around the field. “My feet hurt.”

  “Will you be able to do what we planned?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Don't worry.”

  “I saw your training. Come to think of it, you fight very well for someone so young.”

  “I already knew a bit when I got here.”

  “At four years old?”

  “Yes.”

  Morgana pauses, then shrugs. “You're pretty dry, aren't you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I'm going to have to introduce you to something new. You don't seem very interested in anything that isn't me.”

  “What? I'm not—why are you like this?”

  She smiles. “To try to get a reaction. Sleepless nights and a bad diet are starting to destroy your face. You should smile more.”

  I wander my gaze over the ground, then force a smile.

  “… You're lucky you're still a child. Maybe you'll be better when you grow up.”

  “I'm fourteen. I'm not a child.”

  The smile widens. “It is for me—and people like us should rarely obey worldly laws, don’t you agree?”

  “You seem very spiteful.”

  Morgana shrugged. “Aren't you?”

  “… What are we going to do today?”

  Morgana bites into an apple and forces herself not to grimace. “You're going to save me, Sieghart.”

  “From what?”

  “From you.” She says.

  I nod, then turn to the slender shadow. “I'm sorry. I didn't know I was bothering you.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  I turn to the fairy. “… I thought you were talking about… Never mind. What do you mean?”

  “… Healing you in the forest has exhausted me. I barely have the strength to keep my shape and, next to you, I feel Chaos diluting my control every second. At this rate, I'll become smoke by the end of the day. You're going to stop that.”

  Morgana stops me from eating the last piece of apple and shows me the white part. “Channel.”

  I find the idea strange, but I concentrate the surrounding air around me on my free palm. The short space of time is enough for the dense crimson color of Chaos to envelop my body and spread through the air like smoke.

  The spell dissipates as quickly as it was created, with one or two fragments refusing to fall apart so easily. Morgana's hands tremble, but she stands firm. In my other hand, the white part of the apple had turned black, its shriveled skin lost its color.

  The fairy stares at me. “I want to control it.”

  “Are you going to teach me how to stop destroying things?”

  “No, dear. I'll teach you to destroy only what you want.”

  ***

  Bringing the immaterial into the physical is nothing new for me. I visualize the chaotic void that escapes from the Gates and represents my authority over the world, then I grab it and bring it into reality as if chaining it to my will. I give mana a physical body, I make it manifest in the world as the volatile red energy surrounded by the black of night.

  I transform this energy into an amorphous, black substance, then change their physical state and give them properties as if I were building a new element.

  Heavy. My shoulders are pressed down as if they were being crushed. Dense, as if enveloped by thick smoke. Aura -- the physical manifestation of mana -- sinks into me and grows to the height of the house. I can't give it an exact shape—but I don't need to.

  I open my eyes to find myself inside the red storm. Then, I turn it translucent and watch Morgana from behind Chaos lenses. If I didn't know about the fairy's skill, I would doubt that she could see me. I concentrate so that the vicissitude of the form doesn't fade away, but I hold it back so that it doesn't get more than ten feet away.

  The earth writhes, sparks ignite in the atmosphere, but I don't recite any spells. At full output, I feel a drop of sweat fall down the side of my face.

  Morgana turned her gaze to me. If she failed, she would die.

  “Mana has no substance. No physical form.” She says. “On the contrary, it is the engine of magic. Authority. Yet it is here, influencing the world. How?”

  The smiling face of the child I saw at the Gates flashes in my mind, its jaw ripped off, making me hesitate for a single second. I feel the power spreading, but I contract the spiritual muscle that holds it and pull it back like a chained dog.

  “I don’t-”

  “That's not the right answer.”

  I stammer a reply.

  “What do you call the physical manifestation of mana?”

  Volatile, the aura changes its states and writhes on itself, as if trying to break through my body and escape from the prison of flesh.

  My mind becomes more lucid in the midst of chaos. Outputting as much as I can, the weapon doubles its edge and pierces me, too. I can feel every blade of grass on my feet, my breath, the clothes on my body and even its weight.

  I reduce the intensity of my touch, then of my vision, to stop seeing the hallucinations. The magic leaks from one area to another, and I concentrate on preventing the spark in the atmosphere from becoming a fire. Meanwhile, I control the extent to which the power spreads so that it doesn't reach Morgana and tear her apart.

  Distance. Output. Stability. Technique. Answering Morgana coherently is the equivalent of balancing a house on one arm and an elephant on the other.

  “… I saw—”

  “Answer faster.”

  Another meaningless answer.

  Morgana smiles. “No. Again.”

  “You—”

  “I'm very pretty, but that isn't the answer either.” The smile widens. “Unless your weepy dreams were about me.” She looks away. “Oh, Sieghart, you—”

  Morgana's right arm disappears. Her eyes widen and then narrow at the sight of the severed limb.

  I look away and contract Chaos again. A new arm rises from the wound as Morgana stares at me.

  “These arms are expensive, Sieghart. The stock will soon run out. When the day to hunt Aldwyn come, my power will have been sapped by this training. I need to guide you the right way, and that takes practice. I won't be able to help you beyond a few whispers. It's not as if it will matter—I'm so weak it would barely make a difference. Anyway, you'll be on your own. You understand that, right?”

  It's obvious that I won't be able to stabilize Chaos in this way. I prevent my mana from being transmuted into some element, while I try to reduce and stop the intensity of my senses. However, it's no use trying to repress the flesh if the mind also gets out of control.

  Explosions and memories invade my vision. Dealing with all three topics at once gets mixed up with technical skills. I lose track of the effectiveness I'm outputting to keep the latter at a maximum. I remember that Morgana will die if the distance increases, and I go back to redoubling her control.

  So that you know what I'm doing, I calm my mind and watch the ground catch fire.

  I face Morgana. Another drop. My body’s hot. Magic normally has no effect on the body, but I've given up trying to understand what it does or doesn't do. The rules I've studied so much stop applying as the scale of abstraction increases and miracles begin to be applied; as Chaos conforms reality to itself.

  Of the ten I release, I can only use two. Eight-tenths of Chaos is released into the environment. Even though the mana I wasn't using was locked behind the Gates, I don't feel a difference in the power I use. Instead, the difference manifests itself in my heart. Before, one slip seemed enough to destroy the village. Diluted, that feeling has gone numb. Part of me misses this danger.

  I steel my resolve,

  Destroy whatever you want.

  And then I channel.