Weilding Magic , livre ebook

Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press - Al-Maadeed Kummam

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

58 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Tia, a powerful young magic wielder, has found a home in Paiza, a city filled with steam-operated inventions. She works alongside the court magician Burk to fortify the city after the attack of last spring. She is filled with excitement at the prospect of knowing Rhein, the king, more, and is thrilled with the news that her friend, Anna shares. All this brings Tia joy and high hopes of having a bright and happy future in Paiza.

Yet just a few months after the battle of the wall, and as the city celebrates the fall and changing of seasons, the shadows of Tia’s past return. During the Falling Leaves festival, one of the high members of the court of wizards visits Tia and presents her with a choice: either return with him and continue her work as a fellow member or destroy the city she loves and all her friends with it.

Having to make a difficult decision, Tia returns to the court of wizards.

At the court, Tia must learn how to control her emotions while fighting the despair that comes with leaving her dream life behind. At her lowest point, a visitor from Paiza comes to the court to deliver hope. She tries to find ways to leave the court that became her prison, until one day she stumbles onto a dark secret. A secret that could change the use of magic forever.

Will she be able to find the strength to face the most powerful magic wielders in the realm? Could she save herself and her beloved city? Or will she fail and lose herself along the way?

Informations

Publié par	Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press
Date de parution	02 avril 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789927161803
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

To Abeer For wanting this story to be “more”

CHAPTER 1
I am Tia, Wielder of Stars and Protector of Paiza. I can do this.
I tried to settle my nerves as I directed my powers into a pipe made of see-through glass that was set on a table in front of me. It was filled with raw gray steam and I only had one job; to fuse my magic with it and turn it into the shimmering clear steam everyone wanted.
“Steady, child,” Burk whispered from across the table.
I closed my eyes and let my magic seep through the glass. I bit my lips as I felt the steam’s particles dance around my magic. I pushed further. Come on, melt together. But the particles stayed apart. They were grazing my magic, teasing me and floating away the more I pushed.
Come on!
“Steady,” Burk whispered again.
I pulled back, then with an irritated huff I pushed with everything I had. The steam expanded and all I heard was a loud bang as I was thrown onto my back. The whole room became engulfed in black smoke.
“Oh, dear,” I heard Burk say, as I sat up.
He waved his hand, calling a spell. The cloud of smoke floated out of a small window behind him. I rubbed my cheeks and traces of soot were left all over my fingers.
“Bubbles! I give up,” I said standing up. This was the fifth pipe that exploded in my face, today.
“I have to admit, I knew that wielders’ magic couldn’t replicate the Steam Fusion spell,” Burk said, dusting off his robes, “but since your powers are that powerful, I had hoped you could do it.”
“If the ancient spell is working just fine, why do you need to replicate it?” I said, as I grimaced at the sight of my fuzzed up curls.
“If we can replicate it, we can give the secret to the cities and kingdoms around us to prevent any future attacks,” Burk explained with a frown as he called upon all the glass shards and discarded valves to float into a big bin.
“But if they knew the secret, everyone would produce the clear better steam and Paiza won’t have all this wealth.”
“Sharing the wealth does not mean losing it.”
“Not everyone likes to share,” I sighed, slumping into a metal chair. I took a deep breath and let my eyes wonder around the small square room Burk and I had been working in for the past three hours, trying to figure out if wielders’ magic could reveal the steam’s ancient secret. The room was gray and mostly empty except for a table, a couple of metal chairs and few dusty stacks of paper left in the corner. It wasn’t special, but its location was. It was located inside a factory, where most of the steam transformation business occurred. Before coming here, Burk and I had unsuccessfully spent days trying the spell in our workshop back at the castle, without much success, so Burk thought perhaps being in the factory would inspire me.
Obviously, it didn’t.
“Why can’t we try this at the clock tower again?” I said. It was the location where the fusing magic was happening.
“The magic there is too powerful, we can’t perform any spell without it interfering or clashing with your powers,” Burk said as he pulled up a new pipe filled with steam onto the table, before adding in his usual cheerful tone, “cheer up, child. We can’t expect to figure out the secrets of a thousand year-old spell in mere few attempts.”
“A spell that you guessed. No-one even knows the actual spell! Not even the high members of the Court of Wizards!” I said, frustratedly, as I banged my head on the table in protest.
Burk winced, not at my outrage, but at the mention of the high members, who we only talked about once after I’d revealed that I, too, was a high member. You see, all magic across the kingdoms are controlled by a group of very powerful wielders who reside at the Court of Wizards. I grew up there, but it was a horrid place. After I was named a high member, following the discovery that I was a very powerful wielder, they forced me to abuse my powers. I fled there last spring to come work as an assistant to Paiza’s only magician, Burk, because Paiza was the only city across the land not under the rule of the Court of Wizards.
“And if they knew the spell…” I trailed off, not wanting to say they would take Paiza . It was a place I grew to love, the place I now called home.
“Look at me child,” Burk said, squinting his eyes in a very stern way. I did as he asked. “What do we say when we think dark thoughts?”
I took a deep breath, recalling every word.
“They have no claim on me,” I said, reciting each word individually with determination, hoping that one day I would believe them.
“No, they do not,” Burk said before returning to setting up the pipes again.
Bubbles. He was right. I’ve always said I ran away from court, but in honesty being a high member was just a job that anyone could quit from. Yet, the thing was, nobody ever did. The place was like a prison with all the laws and the way they controlled my every move. I hated it there, so I left. Yet, according to Burk, they didn’t come looking for me. There was no news of any missing high members, in any magical correspondence.
Perhaps they gave up on me? Or perhaps they were waiting for me to show myself? Sadly, I did show myself a few months ago when Paiza was attacked by a neighboring city, and I had to reveal my true powers to literally everybody. It was quite the theatrical fight. Burk was super proud. It was also a loud fight, loud enough for the court to hear about it.
My head throbbed and my shoulders tensed.
“I don’t want to try the spell again,” I whined. He frowned in a sad way. “I can’t, Burk, like for bubble’s sake. I can’t.”
“How about a tour of the factory then?” said a voice from behind me that sent my whole surroundings bursting into bright colors.
I turned and smiled at the sight of Rhein, my favorite inventor and the King of Paiza, in all of his black outfit glory, standing at the door.
“Hey. I thought you were working all day today,” I said standing and waiting to be hugged, because after failing all morning, I needed a hug.
His face was lit up by his croaked smile that broke the harshness of his scar, as he opened his arms to embrace me.
His blanketing arms were immediately around me and the warmth and strength of his body pushed all my frustration away and filled me with coziness and comfort.
“Chi had to attend to a matter in the farm, so our meeting was postponed,” he said, breaking the hug.
Then out of nowhere I felt something shoved on my head, gently, but suddenly.
“Bubbles, what is that?”
“A helmet,” Rhein said with a smirk as he tightened a strap under my chin, “for your safety.”
I reached up to touch it. It was made of leather and covered my whole head, leaving only my face and few purple curls. “I probably look like an upside mushroom.”
“A very cute mushroom,” he said, cheekily. I giggled and his hands tightened their grip on my waist, which sent flutters of butterflies across my body. He leaned in, kissing the star tattoo under my eyes before Burk, spoiler of joy, coughed.
“Hello, Burk,” Rhein said, his eyes still on me.
“Greetings, your Majesty,” Burk replied in a very official tone.
“May I borrow Tia for the rest of the day?” Rhein asked, as if him taking me wasn’t already decided.
“Of course, your Majesty, of course. We can work on the spell tomorrow,” Burk said with a dramatic bow.
Rhein took my hand and we left. I then realized that when I came this morning, I was perhaps too anxious or too sleepy to register the beauty of the place, or perhaps it was the new prospect of spending the rest of the day with Rhein, but the factory was spectacular.
The whole place was one big hall with a high ceiling and huge windows that were covered in spots of soot and steam residue that allowed just enough sun to sneak through and glow up all the copper and iron metal inside. It was like one huge greenhouse for inventions. We stood before a metallic moving belt that cut the hall into two parts. One was clean and had some metal chairs along the belt, which were occupied with inventors wearing their goggles and leather helmets. Each one had a specific role along the belt. Some screwed valves into containers, tested their pressure and others just moved rods and pushed buttons, which I assumed was very important work. On the other side and closer to the windows, a cluster of tables with tall piles of papers and tiny sharp gadgets were located along with a group of very chatty inventors.
In between the organized chaos, three pillars shot up to the ceiling with open spiral staircases, that led to a circular balcony that floated above us like trees. The place was a metallic forest.
“This way,” Rhein said, as we walked between the busy inventors, who didn’t flinch at the sight of the King walking among them. They were used to him. His visits had increased over the past couple of months, as work on new inventions to enhance Paiza’s security and production of steam increased.
As we walked across the belt, the machine’s noises grew louder and when we reached the other side of the hall, Rhein stopped. Before us and across the whole wall, was one big flat machine. Glass shields protected dials, tiny valves and metal wheels that were scattered across it, whilst the huge pipes that emerged from it, were installed into the belt.
Three inventors hung onto the machine via thin ropes that descended from the ceiling and were tied around their waists. They flew gracefully from one square to the next, check