Ascendant

She was a girl a year or two older than Nym with long, blonde hair done in loose ringlets wearing a fancy purple nightgown embroidered with what he recognized as runic constructs. They had to be the reason his scry spell hadn’t seen her. She was protected against magical sight in some way.

The girl looked up from her book suddenly, and he realized that his shadow had fallen across the table she was reading at. Nym let the flight spell go and fell a few feet behind the book shelf to hide, but it was no use. It was easy to see through the gaps in the shelf, and if he could see her, she could see him too.

“Who’s there?” she called out. “Come out.”

That was it. The whole job was a bust. He’d tripped up over a girl who was maybe twelve and just happened to have runes stitched into her clothes that blocked scrying. He’d relied too much on magic to compensate for his lack of abilities as a burglar and it hadn’t been enough.

“I said come out!”

The girl was on her feet now and stalking towards the single book shelf that separated them. She could clearly see him, even if his form was broken up by the books in front of him. That didn’t stop her from circling around it, and Nym fled the other direction.

There was no way he was getting into the vault now, but maybe if he could hand Valgo some new information about it, that might be enough to satisfy the thief. If Nym didn’t make it out of the house though, he was fully prepared to tell the guards every single thing he knew about the thief who’d coerced him into this stunt.

Nym dodged backwards from book shelf to book shelf, occasionally flying completely over top of one while the girl pursued him. “Come back here,” she demanded.

Nym didn’t answer, of course. He just kept putting distance between himself and the girl. His plan was to lure her to the back side of the library, as far from the exit as possible, and then zip across the room and use the lead time to escape before she alerted the guards. It was a bit of a gamble, since at any time, she could give up her pursuit and go straight to yelling for help.

Those were the only two options he was expecting her to have, so he was caught completely off-guard when the misty aura of arcana appeared around her and he found himself locked in place. Fortunately, it was his own spell that kept him moving, so while his limbs were frozen, he was able to keep flying away from her.

She watched him rise up, statue-like, and dart up to the second level, and said, “If that’s how you want to do this, fine by me!”

A few seconds later, she was up in the air, following him with her own flight spell. Hers seemed a bit less controlled, causing an actual current of air to whip around her and her hair to flair out wildly. The nightgown barely rippled, as if it were made of lead instead of cloth. That was probably for the best, if for no other reason than to preserve her modesty.

Nym couldn’t have moved his jaw to speak even if he wanted to, but inside he was repeating every curse and swear he’d ever heard. Of course the girl was also a mage, and if she was living in a place like this, probably a better one than him. Amos was an idiot, and he’d still beaten Nym just because he actually knew what he was doing.

The paralysis spell was kind of interesting though. Parts of the spell looked like they were based in water magic, spun to be frozen, but counter-balanced with fire and earth so that it was only a muscle lock. It didn’t actually chill him, which he appreciated. More importantly, it seemed to target his limbs while leaving him limited mobility in his trunk. Since he liked being able to breathe, he was a fan of not having his chest paralyzed.

But what it all pointed to was that she was capable of casting second circle spells more advanced than anything he’d ever thought up. Fortunately, it was a universal truth that it was easier to break things than to build them. While he fled using his own flight spell, he picked at the weave of magic holding him in place. It was cleverly tucked in on itself, but once he found the ends of the knot, he slid shards of arcana in to pull it apart.

The spell broke with a thrum and a wave of arcana burst out in all directions. The girl let out a shriek of surprise as the arcana washed over her. It broke her flight spell and she fell to the floor, which was a good fifteen feet below her.

Without taking the time to think about what he was doing, Nym conjured up a cushion of air to catch her and set her down gently. It worked, kind of. She slowed down for a split second, enough to bleed off the momentum, then fell through the cushion the last few feet and barely landed on her feet. “That was close. Thanks!” she called out.

“You’re welcome,” Nym told her before he could think better of it.

“Will you come over here now?”

“Nope!”

The girl shot back up into the air, the aura of arcana covering her whole body. She raised a hand and shot out a needle of pure arcana. Nym’s eyes widened in surprise, but he was not the same boy he’d been months ago when Amos had done that to him. He swatted the arcana off to the side easily. He really should figure out how to do that. It looked easy enough, just a shaped shard of arcana that was fired into an enemy mage’s soul well via merging with the arcana aura. It didn’t even need to be aimed as long as they were actively channeling arcana.

Now that he thought about it, that was a good way to end this game of tag they were playing. His only concern was accidentally killing her via arcana poisoning. He didn’t know how much arcana her soul well could hold or how much of a gap there was between incapacitation and death. After all, he was the invader here, and it was bad enough that he’d snuck in to rob them without adding murder to his conscience.

While he was debating it, the girl hadn’t been idle. Three more needles shot out of her at different speeds and angles. He deflected one, dodged a second, and took the third in his thigh. Immediately, wild arcana rampaged through his soul well. His flight spell stuttered, suddenly too expensive for him to maintain. He tumbled out of the air, clipped a book shelf on the way down, and spun to the floor.

His muscles spasmed as arcana flooded into them, but Nym was already working on breaking it down. The girl had underestimated his soul well, and he actually managed to contain and expel over half of the arcana injection before he hit the ground. The rest had seeped out, but he’d given himself arcana poisoning so many times with his own experiments that learning how to handle it had become a necessary skill.

He was back on his feet now, one hand on a nearby table to steady himself. A gust of air blasted across his exposed skin, alerting him to the girl’s presence. She hovered in front of him, scrutinizing his appearance. “Well,” she began, “That was fun. It’s a poor disguise though. Where did you even get these rags?”

“Rags! These are my clothes!” Nym protested.

“What class are you in? Did my brother put you up to this prank?” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

“I… what?”

“Come on, take off that stupid mask. I want to talk about your flight spell. It’s so much more controlled than mine.”

“Air is kind of my best element,” he found himself saying, and immediately wondered why he was engaging the girl in conversation. She seemed happy to go along with it though, and if it gave him the time he needed to clear the arcana out of his body, he’d play along.

“I figured. That air cushion you caught me with held against my dispersion rune construct long enough to slow me down. Which, uh… thanks for that.” Her cheeks flushed. “I can’t believe I lost my concentration on my spell. It just got all weird for a moment and I couldn’t hold it together. What even was that?”

Nym was all the sudden reminded that nobody else had ever shown the ability to see arcana in the world around them like he could. He wasn’t about to reveal it to this strange noble girl though, and he honestly wasn’t sure why the arcana backlash did that.

“Just… uh… I think from when I broke the paralysis spell you used on me.”

She appeared thoughtful for a few seconds. “Ah, I see. You linked it to follow the arcana feed back to me when you dispersed the matrix. That’s really advanced stuff. Also, take off the mask now.”

“I’d… rather not.”

She reached out a hand to grab the top of the mask and pull it off his head. Nym flinched back out of her reach. “Come on,” she told him. “I’m not going to have a conversation with nothing visible but your eyes.”

Nym shied away, and she lost patience. With a spell enhanced leap, she pounced on him, dragging the mask off his head and sending him to the ground with her landing on top of him. “Hah!” she crowed, holding up the mask in victory. Then she looked down and her expression turned to confusion. “Who are you? You’re not in any of my classes.”

“I don’t go to the Academy,” Nym said, struggling to get out from under the girl. She couldn’t possibly weigh that much, but she had him solidly pinned. He suspected the culprit was her nightgown, which had acted as if it was far heavier than it should be while she was flying. Something in the runes stitched into them must have increased its weight for everyone but her.

“You don’t? But you can do magic. I saw you cast second circle spells.”

“Self-taught,” he told her. “Get off of me.”

She didn’t move. “If you don’t go to the Academy, then why are you here? Did my brother hire you?”

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who your brother is. I’m not here because I want to be.”

“This is very confusing. How did you get in then?”

“Magic,” he deadpanned.

The last of the arcana leeched back into his soul well, and Nym used it to form two air cushions. One was underneath him, and the other under the girl. He pushed hers straight up and his horizontal. She rose maybe a fraction of an inch before her night gown dispersed it, but that was all he needed to go careening across the floor and get out from under her.

The plan worked perfectly, until he slammed headfirst into a book shelf at full speed. Everything started spinning then and it was an effort of will to keep from throwing up on the rich, thick, plush carpet. Things were bad enough without adding property damage to the mix.

The girl squeaked in surprise as she fell to the floor, and again when he smacked into the book shelf. Nym barely noticed it, but several books fell off the shelf onto the floor around him. It only clicked in his head what was happening when she caught one three inches from his nose.

“Okay, that’s enough. After that one, I think we need to get you to a healer. Come on, get up. I’m not carrying you there.”

“Why are you helping me?” he slurred out.

“Because you’re fun and you can do magic.” She thought for a second. “And because I’m bored and I want to know what your story is.”