Fight or Flight

Chapter 17

Enola

Three weeks later...

The faint magical hum of crystals rang against my slightly-less-rusty mage senses. I kept my eyes closed in concentration as I focused on the various crystals in the cavern walls. Most of them were half-drained by now, from the times I had drawn on them to refill the depleted crystals Simon had brought back. The magical current running beneath my lair would fill them back up in a week or two, but for now it would be best to draw magic from other crystals instead.

I kept searching until I found more vibrant sources of magical energy. These were harder to get to – they were probably in the walls of the tunnel leading deeper underground from my new den, or in a cavern past that tunnel – but they had plenty of magic to spare. Five... six... eight... there. I focused on twelve fully charged crystals, then turned my attention back to the depleted crystal held in my hand.

Moving magic like this was a tricky procedure, even for a dragon. Most dragons would not be able to manage it, and the only reason I could even consider it was because I had been forced to rely on crystals for magic for the last three decades. Move too quickly and something inside the crystal would 'crack', making it impossible for the magical energies in the caves to restore it later. Move too slowly and the magic would return to the crystal – though in my case, minus whatever magic that my magedebt gobbled up. The trick was to take just enough, and move it into the waiting crystal...

I pulled about an eighth of the magic from the first charged crystal and directed it into the crystal in my hand. The hungry void of my magedebt pounced on the magic as it flowed through me, devouring some before it could guide it onwards... but enough of it made it to the depleted crystal. A slight whisper of magical energy brushed against the scales of my hand as the crystal began to hum with the faint magic within it.

My mage senses seemed to flicker as magic flowed through me. I took some magic from the second crystal, then the third, moving it into the depleted crystal... but I had to pause after moving magic from the sixth crystal. The depleted crystal was just barely halfway full of magic, but my head was beginning to pound from the magical hum around me.

I opened my eyes and sat the half-charged crystal down. It rolled along the ground before clinking against the two crystals I had already charged today. The half-charged crystal glimmered with a soft yellow light, even though it was faint compared to the steady glow of the purple and green crystals that had been fully recharged. They sat on the ground in the pink light of the crystals in the walls of my den, and shone back at me with their magical glow.

And the ache between my horns seemed to pulse in time with the glow.

This was the worst part of recharging crystals. My ability to sense magic had been dulled by the magedebt, to the point where it did not bother me to be around the crystals. But when I moved magic from one crystal to another, my mage senses would start to work again. Not nearly at the level they once had – I doubted I could sense anything more than a cavern or three away now, when before I had been able to sense things on the ground even when I had been flying high in the air – but it was enough. I could feel the concentrated energy of the crystals all around me, each humming in slightly different tones as they demanded attention.

It would fade in a few minutes. And the momentary annoyance was worth it – the greed of the human mages meant I would soon have some gold coins to add to my meager pile of copper coins. That would give me more options. Instead of having to answer Simon's questions to satisfy the magedebt his favors were creating, I could throw one or two of the gold pieces at him. Preferably hard enough to leave a mark. Or I could buy spices and seasonings with the coins myself, and avoid the magedebt entirely.