35 – Spell Breaker

It was Lyra who explained Ari’s offense to her, stressing that she should not have brought up the dead family member and implied that it was his fault that he’d died, even if that might be a somewhat accurate retelling of events.

It was a way of disrespecting the dead, she said. Though it was unintentional, Ari had implied that a brave man like Riordan, who had sacrificed his life for others and was a national hero as a result, a hero without parallel, had died because of his own lack of ability.

Even mildly suggesting that if he’d known spells, he would have lived was spitting on his legacy, however true it was.

“Oh,” Arielle said in response, regret crawling over her skin. “I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Lyra gently said. “But in essence, that’s what Riorke heard, and that’s why he’s very angry. There’s also the added insult of the statement being doled out after you easily beat him in a fight. That was already a blow to the ego, and then you inadvertently rubbed his face in it. I also think you probably should not have mentioned his brother at all. I’m not close to Riorke, but even I know how sensitive he is about the death. I understand it was not your intention, but you metaphorically poked at a sore wound in the worst way possible.”

Arielle felt really bad, lacing her fingers together in her lap. “So what do I do now?”

“How angry was he?”

She remembered the glare and the stiffness of his body, his harsh tone of voice. “Fairly upset.”

“Did you apologize?”

“Yes. I asked him to tell me if I’d said something wrong so I could apologize for it.”

“That’s not really an apology…” Lyra blew the breath out between her lips. “It’s tricky, especially with hot-blooded Ashbournes like him. Approach him too quickly before the fire is out, and you might risk flaring it up again. Yet allowing the flame to simmer longer only erodes more of the base.” Her nose twitched. “Okay, here is what you will do. You will try to make the apology again, fully understanding what you did wrong and acknowledging it. Explain to him that you were worried about him, and that made you speak out of turn. Remind him that you’d been raised by Mossbornes, who are plainspoken by nature, and that you’re blunter than most and have a problem understanding when you’re being obnoxious. Also, tell him that his friendship matters to you, but you’ve never had friends before, hence are prone to offend unintentionally, and inform him that he needs to tell you immediately you say the wrong thing so you can apologize for it and take note of it. You can wrap this all up in a short but eloquent speech, and if he tells you that he still needs more time away from you, then you give it to him.”

Arielle nodded, reciting everything Lyra had just said in her mind.

“Do you need help putting it more concisely?” Lyra asked.

“Yes, please.”

So that was what they did till evening time, workshop the apology until it sounded right.

Yet Arielle was still nervous when she approached their table later. Lacey saw her first and seemed to freeze before nudging Cuthbert to his side.

By the time she reached Riorke, her heart was pounding in her chest.

“Riorke,” she spoke up. “I want to say I’m really sorry for saying–”

“It’s fine,” he said tartly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Arielle blinked. “But I wasn’t done apologizing.”

“No need.”

“I rehearsed it. It’s really good.”

That had him turning to eye her with a smile that didn’t look very happy. “You rehearsed it, huh?”

“Erm…yes?” She glanced at the faces of those at the table, wondering if she’d said the wrong thing again, because they were all giving Riorke a wary look. “Is that bad?”

He shook his head. “If you’re really sorry, then I want you to just go away and not talk to me for a while. Okay?”

She gripped her tray. She didn’t feel right leaving without saying her apology, but if she spoke now in spite of hisstatement, it would portray that she wasn’t actually sorry.

What should she do?

It was Lacey who caught her eye next, and he gave her a partial smile and shook his head. “We’ll try again later, okay?”

What was he trying? I’m the one apologizing.

Arielle ultimately nodded, and with that, she backed away.

However, things felt a little uncomfortable even the next day when they were in the library researching the Unmaker again. The crew was mostly silent today, except for occasionally muttering their frustration about not finding anything useful and how bored they were. Typically, Ari would enjoy the silence, but she could tell it was not the good type of silence.

She couldn’t ignore Cuthbert and Cedric’s dark looks, nor the fact that Riorke made it a point not to look at her at all.

Whenever she stared at him, he would glare.

She wished that he had just let her complete her apology. That might make him feel better about things.

Once again, she was left giving someone space and wondering how long that space was supposed to last. It was hurtful, and knowing it was her fault made it worse. She wished she had used her aura-reading charm to keep her from making a mistake like this.

How much would that have helped, though?

Luckily, she was distracted from stressing too much about it because the following weekend was the busiest she’d ever had since starting at Erynwall.

First, she was developing the spells she would use to hide her true ability.

The first was a spell she dubbed [Spell Breaker], which was a skill that she would use to mimic her ability to dissolve spell forms after they had been created. She began crafting it on Friday night, working through the different functions that would be needed for such a spell to operate.

It would begin by locating and identifying whatever spell it wanted to break. That was going to require a combination of Massa and Luxa, with Luxa rings forming double bonds to increase the level of enlightenment, in order to identify the components of a given spell down to its essences. The Massa ring surrounded the Luxa, and she added a short Calor chain at the end to speed up the first stage of the spell.

Therefore, stage one looked something like this: 10 (Massa 𝞪) + 3 (Luxa 𝞪) + 3 (Luxa 𝞪) [double bonded] + 2(Calor 𝞪

Technically, the double-bonding should have been a stage on its own, if only because most spellcasters liked to limit essences to three per stage, but Arielle didn’t feel like splitting it.

She thought she would be able to handle it all at once, given how fast her speed already was.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it’s taken without the author’s consent. Report it.

Arielle was already reeling over how many essences she was going to spend on this spell.

She sighed deeply as she moved onto the second stage.

6 (Vacu 𝞓 ) + 6 (Vacu 𝞓 ) [triple bonded] + 4 (Luxa 𝞪 ) + 4 (Calor 𝞪 )

This was supposed to direct the Vacu void-complex towards the spell contained in stage one to eliminate it quickly.

That second stage was the hard part.

It was a Vacu-heavy spell, and it involved a double bond Vacu for stability that temporarily increased the negativity of one component, thereby increasing the difficulty.

Double bonds were for a few things: to increase the effect of only one or two of the essences more stably; to change the shape and movement of the spell by impacting essence density and the overall movement of the charge; and to increase reactivity and reduce the flexibility of a spell, making it harder to break.

Professor Valeria said that temporary charge changes typically occurred when two essences with uneven charge magnitudes were double-bonded to each other, for example, a Vacu double-bonding with a Luxa would give the Luxa a temporary neutral charge, since Vacu was much stronger in magnitude. This usually happened in rarer, higher-tier spells, especially those that used Vacu.

However, Vacu-Vacu double and triple bonds occasionally experienced the same property and, as with most Vacu effects, no one really knew how or why it did that.

Most people suspected it had to do with using different Vacu isotopes in the bond, theorizing that each had a different’strength’ of Vacu. However, it happened when using two of the same isotopes, too, so it was really anyone’s guess.

The temporary change in charge of Vacu made the spell over all more unstable, despite the additional bond, and Professor Valeria recommended either adding a Massa stabilizer or a rune.

Ari had initially thought to add Massa, but that ultimately limited Vacu and made the spell ‘heavier’ and not as fast or powerful.

So she simply took the spell as it was and understood that it would be more difficult to cast without breaking. As she got ready to do so, she went over her calculations again.

“Okay,” she said when she was sure it was balanced. “Here we go.”

She swirled her wand, and the first stage came together neatly. Double bonds formed by holding the relevant essences perfectly still in the right shape for some time, which she did with ease with the Luxa, before combining it with the rest of the spell, in about two seconds.

Then, stage two.

Spells with double bonds didn’t break as easily, and they had an increased time allowance of ten to twelve seconds, so she wasn’t necessarily worried that she would run out of time. She focused her energy on Vacu, which refused to stay still. It was constantly trembling in place, scared Arielle thought, always ready to draw back and break the spell.

“It’s okay,” Arielle told it. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

Arielle had a theory that because Vacu was the essence most likely to form manalings, it had become fearful of spell craftas a result.

That was why it was constantly trying to escape its fate of being used even after it was charged for that purpose, thereby exacerbating its problem and creating more manalings.

She had to be patient with it, but she still kept her eye on her internal timer, heart beating as she settled the Vacu orbs into place, humming her mother’s song while she was in it.

Almost…almost…

The spell snapped into action and bloomed to life.

Good. It was stable.

NEW SPELL DETECTED.