THE APPLE OF SNAKES

xxix. silver lining

The fire felt warm over Nerluce's palms.

He smiled despite himself as the small flame came under his control. It hovered there, breathing with him before he pushed. It was a full-body push of flexing muscles and moving arms. Nerluce kept his eyes focused on the flame. He kept his breathing steady. If he stopped breathing it was very possible that the fire would go out as well.

With a final flex from his biceps, Nerluce pushed the fire away from his body and relinquished his control on it as Lyana snatched the fire's power. The exchange of control was a delicate matter and it had taken forever for Nerluce to master. Magick was a rather honor-bound energy and operated on a first-come, first-serve system. Two people could not control the same fire at the same time. They could not turn their enemy's fire against them.

Which was what made their current exercise so difficult and yet so practical.

The entire second-year flame Affinity students - or what was left of them at least - stood in a large circle, passing the flame from person to person. You couldn't steal control from the person before you. Lyana was, by far, the most powerful person in the class and yet she couldn't steal the fire that Nerluce controlled, the least powerful person in the class. She had to take control the moment that Nerluce relinquished it.

In the beginning, they'd done a lot of talking through it. Saying they were letting go so that the person next to them would be ready to take it. A moment's delay and the fire would go out. Fire was different from the other elements. If a student with a water Affinity missed a beat and let the water drop to the ground, they could gather it up again easily enough. Fire would go out and it couldn't be started again by anything short of a master.

None of them were even close to igniting on their own. Not even Lyana - the most powerful - or Aristide - the most magickally experienced. Which Nerluce admittedly was glad about. Yet, it would be a skill they'd learn before becoming Seraphs. It was one of the final tests and the third-years were frantically practicing it.

Nerluce wanted to talk to Taayir about getting a head start on learning that. He knew that even if he had a year to prepare and practice... he'd need more. He'd always needed more time than the average fire Affinity.

Because he wasn't a fire Affinity.

Nerluce shook his head. He needed to focus on the task at hand. It was hard, though. Nerluce kept drifting back to that night and everything he'd learned about himself. He wished he never had. He hated thinking about it. He hated making these excuses for himself. Because what if they didn't stop with his lackluster performance in fire magick? What if he kept making excuses and then he'd start excusing his behavior and then he'd slip into his father?

He shuddered at the thought. And then refocused on the fire. Which was what he should have been doing all along. Taayir would have his head if she noticed his distraction. She stood almost directly across from Nerluce in the circle, participating alongside them. She did it mainly to show that even the most experienced could make mistakes. She didn't make many. They'd been doing this exercise for almost two weeks straight and so far she'd only messed up once.

Nerluce felt he had messed up at least a thousand times. If not two thousand. He always misread Lyana on his left or Corbett on his right. It was easier taking control than relinquishing it and mainly the mess-ups on his right were Corbett's fault.

The flame flickered and went out. Nerluce was impressed it had managed to stay alight for as long as it had. They'd passed it around the circle almost three whole times. Yet it always caught on one person in particular. The only person who made even more mistakes than Nerluce in this exercise - and it really was only in this one exercise in particular - was Aristide.