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Lady Evening Belle
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I raised my arm to cast again without thinking. I was tired, but I still had the symbols in my mind. When I focused on them, the smeared ink and gaps in the marks glowed as if they were still fully drawn out. I wasn’t casting without runes. I could create them with my own magicka. The tome mentioned that this was something I should practice, a basic element of all spellcraft that came from the alteration school. Rune summoning, or channeling magicka into glowing patterns, would help me to memorize the spell’s inner arithmetic, but I had no idea I could do it at all. It reminded me of my visions of my spell. The flames spell flowed through me again, but this time I knew better how to control the flow.
A steady unbroken stream of flames spread across the lumber burning it down to charcoal. Keeping it going wasn’t hard now, at least when I didn’t worry too hard about it. I practiced pulling the flow of magicka shut. The flames sputtered to a stop, and the magicka warmed in my arm. It burned. It felt like a hot steam rolled under my muscles and threatened to bubble my flesh off in clear running boils. It raced through me. Along streams inside my hands, into rivers under my veins, and then into lakes within my torso. The pain finally ceased. My whole arm, up to my shoulder blade, was covered in aching pins and needles.
I struggled to catch my breath, clenching the aching inside my hands. That was where it hurt the most, not just from the burns. There was no way I could call upon this suddenly or while in danger, but I controlled it. For at least a few minutes, I had complete control over fire. Lod watched me for a time, and then he clicked his tankard to mine. I had held it this whole time and simply forgot it existed. I took another deep swig of my tea and stared at the burning piles.
This new spell was at my command, mostly. I’d far from mastered it, but I could call upon it. And the work had come to me so naturally,
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