(Resumed) Solstice

[Em]

Ser Feylance smiled at the small stack of papers I brought into his Spell Circles class. "Welcome back, Mr. Sinclair."

I winced at being called "Mister", but kept my smile closed and grit my teeth. "Thank you, Ser." I found my way back to my seat and took it.

"Well, class." Ser Feylance took a corner of a curtain and pulled the sheet away to reveal a filled stoneboard. "I hope you had ample time to study that Spell Circle over the weekend because it will serve as your practical introduction to the world of subcircles." He raised his staff and tapped a chalk-drawn diagram on the stoneboard.

Today I learned that Spell Circles can be part of, or connected to, other Spell Circles. I should have realised this much earlier when even the basic Spell Circles having an inner circle to form a ring around the circumference, but better late than never. The basic idea is that Æther in the Main Circle can flow into a Sub-Circle, running through the inner Circle's runes and feeding the result back to the Main for further processing.

Ser Feylance took the Redistribution Array he had us study and gestured to a diagram depicting how it would be more safely used as a sub-circle. Lines jutted out the 4-o'clock and 8-o'clock positions toward Jera/Tiwaz pairs pointing back into 5 and 7. "As you surmised, the Circle uses probabilistic discouragement to encourage the result it wants, but some back-channeling still happens. Therefore, we loop it back into the entry point to ensure the Æther is appropriately channeled." 

Selene had called that phenomenon "back-conversion" earlier, for which this manner of loopback served as a basis for many far more complicated safeties, but Feylance chose the simple basis to teach with.

He finally finished the lecture by pointing out that some Magi link Spell Circles together in an overlapping fashion. Lienne was apparently notorious for this. This method pulls an extraordinary amount of Æther and greatly taxes one's Vessel, but the proof was in the magnitude and versatility.

I recalled what Selene had said about Elements being particularly draining for newly-Attuned Magi, of how Ansel had collapsed after his first Earth spell. Reflecting back on what Feylance said, I wondered:

Just how powerful were experienced Magi? I remembered Jacqueline as this invincible champion of flames, but now it felt like she'd be swatted away quite trivially here.

So what was the real limit? Is Aegis near that limit?

I shook my head. No time to wallow when I already had an insurmountable mountain to climb.

Ser Feylance dismissed the class.

I waited by the door for Selene.

"Oh hi Em!" she greeted with those brightly-curled lips of hers upon entering my field of view.

I nodded. "Hey. I won't be at MMA today: doctor's orders. I'd like to spend some time with you after though."

Her smile inverted and she hung her head down. "I can't today, but what about Wednesday, same time?"

I nodded. "That works for me. I have some classwork to finish up anyway."

Every time Selene chirped, I felt this warmth in my chest. Today was no exception. "Excellent! See you soon, Em!"

I nodded. "See you soon."

I set a course back to my dormitory. Parting from Selene brought a soft sorrow to me, but I felt at ease. 

For the first time in half a decade, I felt at home.

Æther poured from and ensconced me. Shroud. I had cast Shroud without realising it. "Huh." I noticed my pitch had jumped back up.

I held a fair flow of Magick around me and felt a light strain on my insides, presumably from my Vessel. Other than that, the spell held and calmly so.

It felt... natural. It felt right. It felt mine. This Magick is mine. It is mine and the Ætheric manifestation of who and what I am.

My name... Emmett. No. Well. Maybe. Emily? Emily Sinclair. It felt nice, but at the same time, a little off. "Emily" felt almost too docile. Emmalynn? Emmalyn Sinclair? Better, shortens to Emma easier, but... not quite. 

But then why did I like when Selene called me Emily? And why do I want her, and only her, to call me that?

I threw the overwhelming thoughts away with a shiver. My Shroud dispersed soon after. Just in time, too: I opened the door to my dorm building. 

I had work to do. Figuring myself out can come tomorrow.

Tomorrow was quiet, yet not hopeless. I had caught up in my reading of A Sabbath of Siblings, A Litany of Lovers the night before, along with my mathematics drills and brief historical summations. The latest chapters of the book depicted how the two, Lumen and Shadow, had squalled so fiercely that they decided to abandon each other. They seemed content and happy at first, but something was amiss. Lumen had gone into a fierce frenzy, fighting anything and everything with no end in sight, while Shadow wasted away in a room, not even lifting a finger in search of food.

I did not pay the classroom discussion much mind, but I thought back to how impotent I was before my journey to Can Vahs, compared to where I was now that I had accepted, quite literally, my feminine side, as Emmalyn, or Emily, or whatever I was going to name myself. Maybe the answer for me is somewhere in the middle? I asked myself in my mind.

I shook my head. Or, rather, some prejudicial force in my mind twisted my neck left and then right. Something in me clearly did not agree, but then... then what?

Naturally, I was exempt from the lifting days of PT as well.

The next day in Theory of Magick built upon the previous Monday, with half the class practicing a spell to ward away the message being transmitted. Once again I was sidelined.

Wednesday's Spell Circles class showcased interlocked Circles, starting with that Isa/Sowilo/Jera cyclic pattern but with an Ansuz rune pulling from Æther instead of a fireplace. This time, however, the Isa and Sowilo runes were at the sides, almost touching the overlaps of the other Circles.

The rightmost circle, near Sowilo, had a Fehu rune on the edge feeding into a Perthro rune selecting between an Ansuz/Thurisaz pair (Ætheric Threat) and a Gebo rune (Gift, in context taken to mean peace). The Gebo side cycles back into the selector with Jera and the AT pair hooks into Hagalaz to intercept incoming Magick.

The leftmost, near Isa, had an Othala rule instead, and a Nauthiz rune selecting between Jera and Raidho-Thurisaz-Mennaz.

The combined circles essentially split a man's Magick into a fast, active pool and a slow, heavy pool. The active pool was sent to an autonomous sentinel that would use it to intercept incoming Magickal attacks, while the heavy pool accumulated until the Magus wanted to sink it into a target like a ballista bolt. In short, two powerful spells in their own right, integrated into one circle.

Of course, Ser Feylance never taught without the usual warning. "You may very well want a simple Spell Circle in your repertoire, boys," he said, "but I want you to develop a well and complete understanding before you do so. I trust Scion Adams was tutored rather extensively before attending, since I know you all will raise his name."

I gave a friendly wave to my classmates as a group, not wanting to put specific attention on Selene and disturb her, instead ambling to the grassland where she had bestowed me that lovely name of Emily. There I sat and crossed my legs, taking the crisp air in ever so slowly, and releasing it with a certain... I'd like to say, respect, of sorts.

The thumps in my chest lulled. The burdens of anxiety melted off my back. A metaphysical presence, a psychological conception of my voice, shifted from the back of my throat to about where my lips were.

"Oh?" I found myself welcoming the shift in my voice for the very first time. "Ohh~"

My Magick flowed from and around me, enveloping me in the comfort of my very own Shroud, waning as I fill myself with air and waxing when I breathe it out. Today was... what, Twenty-Seventh of Ninth? Yeah, today's Wednesday, so it's either the Twenty-Seventh or Nineteenth, and since I enrolled on...

Third. Third of Ninth. I had been here for three weeks. Out of four that I had before going flunking into debtor's prison...

And I wasted a week on recovery...

My Magick swelled about me, hot flashes streaking into the skies above. Why?! Just how much shite does one girl have to endure?!

Dark emotion slithered 'round my senses, my body clattering against itself under pain of despair...

My next memory was a soothing wave of Magick not mine washing over my Spirit.

"Emma? Emily?!" I heard a voice. "Hey! Are you okay?! Please wake up!!"

"Uh... urgh..." I lifted my eyelids away to sky-blue eyes and flanks of pale hair. My breath stalled.

"Thank the Havens and Havens! Em, what did you do?!"

I groaned and pushed off my back onto a seated position. "I-" My voice was back to its boring old self. A voice unworthy of such wondrous ears, the other-apparently-real-me said.

"Yes?" asked Selene with expectancy in her tone.

I cleared my throat and felt my voice return to where it should be, where it belongs. "I had meditated on my experiences. My Shroud was out and-"

A sting nipped my cheek.

I watched Selene's palm swing away from me, on the opposite side.

The next snap came from her voice. "Em! You need to take these things slow!"

I rubbed my cheek where she had slapped me and felt the expected warmth from the lash, but also a deeper one, a warmth that threatened both my cheeks.

"You're still recovering from a week-long rest and you're only now learning to harness your emotions. It is extremely important that you not Shroud when you're experiencing turmoil!"

"Huh?" I noticed my voice drop back down, but this time I elected to keep it there. "Isn't Shroud how I get in touch with my emotions?"

Selene brought a palm to her face and sighed. "No- well, yes, but the issue here is Shroud amplifies your emotions and provides them a pathway to act on." Her hand pulled down to reveal a quite-exasperated face. "When you're a schoolgirl, which is when you're supposed to be learning the Magicks, your emotions don't have the weight of the world behind them nor that much Æther available so the risk is minimal. A full adult on the other hand?!"

My eyes glazed over at how stupid what I just did really was.

"In between a six-year-old and us, there are five more of these Magicks critical to a woman's Magickal development. They are Tell, Clutch, Lapse, Prayer, and Wish. Tell we can skip for now, but it focuses our intents so we can speak to others through our Shroud, but what you most definitely need is Clutch."

I nodded along. I had a hunch that this Clutch spell had something to do with cutting off Shroud, but I sat patiently, in wait for her.

And verily was my wait rewarded. "If Shroud is opening yourself up through your Æther, then Clutch is squeezing yourself tight and choking your Magick to death. Which is exactly what you need when you notice your Shroud falling prey to unwelcome emotion."

"Huh." I held my hand and drew a slow breath, the azure hand-glowy spell erupting to soaring life now that I knew how my Magick worked.

Selene stopped her speech and stared at the Ætherlight around my palm. "Emma, what are you-"

I clenched my hand into a fist and the spell suffocated out of existence.

"Okay, yes, that is a Clutch, but it's way overly dramatic. You should be able to do it without the kinesthetic mnemonic."

A new anger toward Jacqueline simmered in my heart, incensed by the knowledge that the act of pulling Æther out of the sky was in truth the technique I used to cut off Magick instead of gathering it.

"Remember what I said when we played Throwball? Muscles don't have any control over your flow; they're just a guide." Selene wagged her finger with a half-smile and swish of her hair. "It's that mental act of closure that does it. You'll know you've divorced from the old masculine way when you can Clutch some parts of yourself while Shrouding others. That's how you can punch out Ætheric blasts as a woman, by the way." She brought her other arm across her chest and snapped it out. An azure ball of Magick blasted out of her fist and curved into the sky, keeping its weight and density without spreading out.

I watched her spell fly out and thought of the concepts of Shroud and Clutch, arriving at the conclusion that neither involved shooting out a spell.

"Oh, right, I guess I lied a bit." Selene mock-covered her lips with both hands. "That used three of the Schoolgirl's Magicks in unison. Clutch to restrict the flow of Æther, Shroud to open a pathway out, and the fourth of the Magicks, Lapse, to well and truly release your Magick out into the wild. Now some will say that keeping that shape is actually Wish, or more often Prayer, but I don't think so. Speaking of."

I hummed in assent. "Yes?"

"Do you have a Mission this coming week?"

I nodded.

Before I could continue, Selene held a finger to hush me. "Then I need to show you these so you can meditate on them." She dropped her arms to her side, and her Magick enveloped her in what I now knew to be her Shroud. "This is just Shroud. I have it a bit stronger than normal, but that's because I'm about to cast something pretty big."

"R-right." I found my more desirable higher voice again, scrambling a short distance from her before standing back up.

"The thaumaturgical purpose of Shroud, Emily, is to gather your energies about you so you can react to the world around you. Once you have that energy..." Selene drew in another breath, and her Shroud expanded into a fierce aura of at least two metres' radius. "You can beseech your inner woman, your Soul, to speak its truth upon the world."

I focused Æther into my eyes for what was likely the first time since the Nightmare incident. I saw Selene's Magick pour out of every pore of her body like steam off the kettle, filling the globe that was her Aura. The next thing I saw, the Magick under her control focused, molding into what could only be described as tentacles belonging to a sea creature. These thick tendrils swam clockwise around her, swaying to and fro, awaiting the opportunity to strike down any potential invader.

"This is called Prayer. You are deferring to your Spirit, your subconscious Astral self, appealing to your hidden wisdom to shape its energy how it wishes. However, keep in mind at all times that Prayer is fundamentally a request, and your Soul may deny you, especially if you've abused yourself. However, it is by definition the most efficient expenditure of Æther possible. Prayer is taught early to girl Magi to get us used to respecting ourselves and our surroundings, as well as to help us practice Magickal endurance, but even late in life Prayer is useful to inspire us to create spells truly representing who we are."

"So..." I gave myself a moment to piece together the question I wanted to ask. "So if Prayer is a request, then that means you're not guaranteed a set result?"

"Exactly." Selene released her tentacle ring back into an amorphous Aura, then pulled her Magick back into itself. "And that is the point of the final Schoolgirls' Magick, Wish. Whereas Prayer is listening to your inner self and letting it play how it will, Wish is ordering her to do what you want. For obvious reasons, Wish is taught much, much later than Prayer." 

I hummed in assent. "If you mistreat yourself, the inner self won't listen to you."

"Exactly!" Selene bounced up and down in a pattern of jumping jacks. "And now you're caught up on the basics! I'd like you to meditate on the six Magicks before your Mission, but remember you're STILL healing, so don't push it, madam!"

"Y-Yes Ser!" I barked in instinct, much to Selene's amusement, judging by her laughter.

"I'm not a Professor yet, silly!" She bounded over to me and wrapped her arms around me for a brief moment before stepping back. "Though, I'm touched that you think so highly of me."

I opened my mouth. Words did not come out. My cheeks were red. I had no idea why, or so I kept deluding myself.

"Well... now that that's out of the way... anything you wanna do together? You did ask me to spend time with you, after all."

My legs kicked off the earth and I found myself jumping like she liked to do. "I was thinking maybe we could walk around campus and talk?"

Selene's eyes always sparkled, but this time I was certain they had dazzled me.