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Feel the magic in your veins, let it flow through you. Feel it, hear it, taste it. Control it.

Annabelle exhaled hard as she shifted her weight, holding one of her hands out before her. Svario stood opposite of her, holding a sword in his hand, grinning at her. She could only imagine what ran through his mind now that magic seemed to hum through her veins.

Feel it. Hear it. Control it.

“Control your breathing, focus your mind,” Svario said to Annabelle, drowning out the other voice that echoed faintly in her mind. “Now. Give me a taste of your magic.”

Annabelle inhaled sharply and focused her mind. Focused her senses. Feeling the hum of the power through her veins, the air seemed to shift around her. Closing her eyes for a moment, she imagined a small fire. And when she opened them, to her surprise, fire flickered over her palm in her outstretched hand.

“Perfect,” Svario said. “Now, give me wind.”

The lesson continued for what felt like hours. Annabelle went through each of the elements as Svario instructed, showing small control over each one. Fire, air, water, earth. Each element came to Annabelle easily, and she found her control over them to be stronger than she expected. In part, she believed it was the stone, but another part of her wished that it would be that she had an affinity for magic.

After all, many elves had lost their magical abilities over time once they became servants or slaves for others. Without the means to practice their abilities, the magic waned through bloodlines. Annabelle secretly hoped that she had a magical bloodline, and that explained the magic that flowed through her.

But it wouldn’t explain why she only felt it when Svario handed her the crystal of Mystel.

“That’s enough for today,” Svario spoke. “Tonight, we shall learn how to control the magic of spirit. It is the hardest element to control, and it could be deadly to try. Are you willing to take such a risk, Annabelle?”

“Of course, Svario,” Annabelle replied, bowing to him.

“Tsk, do not bow, girl, you are not a servant anymore. If anything, we should all bow to you.”

Annabelle went to ask what Svario meant by that, but by the time she opened her mouth, he had already turned away, a sign that he was done with words. She turned to look at Sean, who was grinning from a sense of awe and amusement, who only shrugged at her.

The rest of the day went without incident. Annabelle and Sean sat away from the caravan a bit, minding their own business and staying out of the way of the guards and merchants. They had traveled closer to the forest and were told that by morning, the Forest of Mystel should be visible.

Which meant by morning, Sean and Annabelle would be on their own to face the horrors within.

After dinner was finished, Annabelle stretched out and laid on the grass, looking up at the changing colors of the sky. Svario’s words echoed in her head, tonight, we shall learn how to control the magic of spirit. What made the spirit element so different than the others? She figured that maybe Svario would tell her when the lesson time came. Another question lingered in her mind, however. Why did the training have to be at night?

“The veil is weaker at night,” Svario told her when she asked that night. The moon shone high above them, casting a silvery glow over everything. The trees around them whispered with the wind. “So in order to control the element of spirit, one needs the veil to be weakened.”

“I see,” Annabelle replied, holding the stone of Mystel in her palm. It seemed to have an eerie glow beneath the light of the moon. Something felt off about the whole ordeal, but Annabelle pushed the thought from her mind. “So what’s different about spirit than the other elements?”

“A lot of things,” Svario replied, tilting his head. “For instance, you cannot see air, but you can still control it. Feel it… Spirit is different. You cannot see it nor feel it, but it is there, inside us all. Inside every living thing. Humans, elves, animals, plants… We’re all the same, in some ways.”

Annabelle closed her eyes and squeezed the stone in her hand, ignoring the eerie glow it gave. If everything was one in the same under the magic of spirit, then why were things changing within the Forest of Mystel? Why was the miasma such a mess?

Feel. Control. Become.

The last word caused Annabelle to open her eyes, staring wide-eyed in no particular direction. Become…? Become what? She wondered.

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