Rainbow Magic (Dragon Rider #1) {EDITING}

Lessons in Magic

"Concentrate."

Sora gritted her teeth, narrowly diving out the way of one of Oz's signature punches, like she'd been doing for the past twenty minutes. The Monster kept telling her to 'concentrate', but she had no idea that meant. What was she supposed to concentrate on?

Not getting hit was her answer... and yet the voice kept bugging her.

It wanted something from her, and she didn't know whether that was a good thing or not. Especially not when she thought about what Shenlong's power had done to Silver and her arms.

"Enough." Oz sighed. "You're not paying attention."

"Eh?" She blinked.

"Focus on the fight, idiot." He folded his arms. "Otherwise you'll become very well acquainted with the wall soon."

"I was... but the cloak keeps telling me to concentrate," she mumbled, biting her lip. "And I don't think it means on the fight..."

"She."

Sora stared at him. "Huh?"

Oz shook his head. "Never mind," he said, switching the conversation topic so fast it nearly made her head spin. "So your cloak is telling you to concentrate?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"Then concentrate on the cloak... close your eyes, and focus." Oz snorted at her worried glance at his hands. "Relax, I won't punch you... I'm surprised I even need to clarify that," he muttered. "I only hit you when you're being idiots."

She resisted the urge to snort, closing her eyes instead, her attention fixing on the cloak around her shoulders—which was still in coat form.

"Look beneath the surface, Truant."

Scowling, she obeyed his instructions, reaching out tentatively with her mind for the sheer power she could feel inside the silky fabric.

"Can you see the store of magic inside it?"

She nodded, peering at the reddish glowing substance she could see pulsating inside. It was constantly moving, it glittering in its own light as it continued to swirl about within the confines of its boundaries.

"Good... now for the hard part," Oz said, taking her hands in his own. "I want you to try and channel it to your fingertips—I'll be able to feel it when you do."

"How?"

He chuckled. "I forget you can't even use magic... most others would already know what their pathways look like, but for now, you'll just have to take a small handful of that magic inside you and push it through your body. Your pathways will reveal themselves to you."

"Pathways?" she asked, her face scrunched in confusion as she mentally grabbed a hold of a handful of the cloak's magic. It was slippery, with an odd rubbery feel to it, which didn't exactly make it easy to pick up.

"How do you think magic travels through your body?"

"Umm... I didn't really think about it," because I didn't think it'd matter for me anyway. The words were left unsaid, but Oz picked up on them—if his expression was any giveaway.

"Well, just grab a small handful—and I'm talking about a teaspoon sized portion here—of your cloak's magic and channel it through your body. We'll go from there, OK?" He tilted his head, staring down at her intently.

She closed her eyes yet again, reaching out cautiously for the thick rubbery magic she could feel circulating through her cloak. It was tricky to keep a hold of, her frustration building as it shied away from her again and again.

"Stay calm."

Sora couldn't.

She was flustered, frustrated, and she'd just found out she might have the slim possibility of wielding magic. So she yanked a handful of magic free, pulling it into her body with little thought... until the burning sensation became known as the reddish magic seeped into her body.

It darted in a strange pattern of straight and diagonal lines, crisscrossing through her body, and with it came pain. Unimaginable pain—similar to that she'd felt when she'd stood in front of those flames.

"Cut it off, Sora!" Oz hissed.

But she couldn't.

It kept moving through her, igniting what Oz had called her 'pathways', burning her body inside and out. Oz was shouting something, but she could no longer hear the words. Her body felt oddly light, pain receding as blackness started to tinge the edges of her vision which widened when she saw what was happening.

Instead of continuing to race through her body, the reddish magic was disappearing—sucked towards the centre of her chest, vanishing into murky blackness once more... and then there was no magic left inside her.

The pain disappeared, as did her sight, and she vaguely remembered feeling herself slam into the training mat beneath her... then, nothing.