Chapter 16 — The Terrible Truth of Time Magic

  “There has been grumbling about the promised apology gifts. Other than the opportunists seeking advantage from your failure, most understand that worthy gifts take time to produce, but if you have any progress to report that I could use to raise anticipation…?”

  Leaning back in his desk chair and letting the suggestion hang in the air, Rente Ravelle gave Ria a meaningful look.

  She couldn’t help feeling relieved. From the moment she had received the summons to come to his office, Ria had worried that some new crisis had sprung up, or a new allegation had been made against her, or something else that would add to her troubles.

  This, she was ready for. After all, there wasn’t much else she had been allowed to do during her week spent recovering!

  “While Healer’s Hall wasn’t an optimal location to do the work…,” Ria started and failed to hold back a proud grin as she summoned directly onto the administrator’s desk both the jade statue of Lady Averlee and the stylized orichalcum glyph sculpture made of flowing gold. “Much work remains to be done, but this is my current progress.”

  Leriah’s dad leaned closer to get a better look, eyebrows rising. “You are making the gifts yourself?”

  “Kiera Vorshan with Golden Dawn and Arthur of Vorshan’s Hills with Bountiful Harvest—Master Enchanter Rigure’s grandson—have been assisting me with the statue of Kiera’s grandmother, Lady Averlee. Wendra Astacio from my own Order is assisting with the orichalcum glyph. So, I wouldn’t say that either is solely through my effort alone.”

  “I see. What work would you say remains?”

  Ria suppressed a mental cheer that neither of her efforts had been rejected. After the time and effort already put in, having to start over at this point would have been a heavy blow! Instead, her craftsman’s spirit was aflame with the burgeoning success!

  Feigning composure, she coughed into her hand to clear her throat and professionally continued her report, “For the orichalcum glyph, generalizing and testing are needed. Sculpting the gold and supporting glass is relatively easy.”

  The process had not been without complications. To keep the glass from becoming magically conductive, Ria found she couldn’t shape it with crystal magic but had to use heat and hardened air to press it into the shapes she wanted. For ‘crystallized’ glass to be magically conductive and melted glass not, she thought it unexpected and interesting.

  Administrator Rente nodded approval. “That is wise. I have some reservations about gifting a glyph too closely connected to your bloodline and personal existence. Let me know when it is ready, and I will arrange the presentation before Serenity Hall’s representatives and the interested academy administrators and research scholars.” Turning to the statue, he prompted, “The one for the Golden Dawn?”

  She was glad that he hadn’t taken the unfinished state of the sculpting as the extent of her skill and was eager to explain her plans, “After the remaining fine details of the sculpting are completed, Keira has agreed to help me embed the Heavy Rays spell with its custom glyph into the jade. Additionally, there’s some further detail work I want to do by adding crushed sunstone and gold onto the exterior. The imbuement has been a learning process, and I have recent insights that should further improve the quality.”

  Leriah’s father’s attention caught upon the mention of insights, and his eyes moved from the statue to Ria with interest. “Oh? Something you have been able to apply to your own light magic?”

  “It is,” Ria affirmed and formed a ball of light in her left hand and a ball of shadow in her right, carefully demonstrating the balance of radiance and void.

  Administrator Rente silently observed for several heartbeats, his irises lit by both the radiant light of her magic and with cycling sprays of faint lightning energy.

  Ria blinked. If not for the focus required to demonstrate the new insight, she would have been momentarily stunned by how her improved vision had clearly discerned such minute details from the administrator’s eyes.

  “This… is a more than welcome surprise.” The hints of a victorious smile teased the Ravelle man’s devilish face as he slowly rubbed his chin in thought. “Gaining an understanding of the complementary properties of opposites to an extent that touches upon a truth of Natural Law is a feat not often achieved by students. If you can successfully impart that truth into the statue, this would certainly qualify as a worthy gift. Is that the reason for the inclusion of shadow energies and concepts?”

  Letting the magic dissipate, Ria shook her head. “At the time, including the opposing concepts was just an inspiration I had while working through my frustrations.” She paused and reconsidered. “Though, maybe it was all part of the same process, after all…”

  “No need to overthink it,” Administrator Rente waved off. “That you have taken the task seriously will earn you respect that will prove useful in the future.”

  The reply brought Ria’s thinking to a halt.

  Had Administrator Rente planned that from the start? Intentionally choosing a punishment with the potential to turn her mistake into an opportunity?

  Was he actually serious when he asserted that he set up the duel with Phaelys as a favor to her? Could he have been acting to help her all along?

  Ria wanted to scoff cynically at such naive thoughts, but…

  No. It wasn’t important now.

  “Thank you, Administrator Rente.” Ria bowed in her chair. “I will do my best that the end result be worthy of my House, my Order, and my pride.”

  To Ria’s further surprise, Administrator Rente seemed genuinely pleased by her choice of words. “See that you do.”

  As she waited for the start of her enchanting class, having arrived early for once thanks to the timing of her meeting with Leriah’s father, Ria couldn’t help her thoughts wandering. Earning praise from Administrator Rente felt good, even if feeling good about it left her annoyed somehow. But that wasn’t the reason for her contemplative mood. Rather, it was the prior evening’s practice with Aldri and Wendra and the obtained results.

  In a way, she was a real ‘time mage’ now. But the truth of the matter left Ria feeling cheated. In the stories, the time mages could travel back in time or freeze their enemies in place or peer into the history of ancient relics. Yet, all Ria could do was a brief Cloak of Haste.

  Brief.

  It wasn’t an understatement.

  The problem wasn’t the magic itself but the limitations of the human body—as much as she was still human. That was the reason Researcher Erithon’s book read like an anatomy text. And it wasn’t just the air issue—which in theory had a simple solution, but in practice, adding air directly into the brain tended to… do very bad things to the target. Hence, the importance of the diver ducks that had an existing and working solution.

  Yet, solving the air problem was just the beginning. Temperature regulation was another problem. Changing the flow of time around a target also changed its exposure to energy, both mundane and magical. That meant slowing the flow of time around the target decreased energy transfer, and accelerating the flow increased energy transfer. In other words, trying to freeze time around the mage would result in the mage actually freezing to death, and the reverse would result in the mage overheating and oversaturating with ambient energy until he or she combusted, exploded, or disintegrated.

  All of that was before dealing with the pressure changes which had all kinds of strange effects on the body, from snapping bones and rupturing organs to causing the blood to fill with bad air or even spontaneously boil.

  Nevermind the soul straining problem. Not that Erithon had a solution for that one—short of ascending, which theoretically resolved the problem by having the soul within the effect of the spell instead of residing in the divine realm.

  Thankfully, Researcher Erithon had done all this work already, providing several comprehensive solutions depending on the time mage’s needs. But until she conquered the complex new glyphs and geometry needed for properly casting one of those spells, she was stuck doing it the hard way.

  The most comprehensive solution required space magic to achieve: creating a pocket dimension around the caster, creating a time-space tether then severing the connection to the outside flow of time, and magically providing the environment needed to sustain the caster’s life.

  Clearly, not something Ria was anywhere near capable of doing with wild talent alone, and not an approach useful for interacting with the world, say during combat.

  So, she was currently limited to one of the lesser approaches. Fortunately, she already had a safe way to solve the air problem, one that she had used before: using alteration magic to turn the bad air in her lungs to clean air, just like she did when she left a crater in front of Shining Sun Hall. Of course, that was a solution that required covering her whole body with the haste magic to work. Further, by extending the haste magic slightly past her body, her ‘clean air’ magic also solved the pressure problem as long as she didn’t create too large a difference in the flow of time. Which, at least where ‘haste magic’ was concerned, just left the air-temperature problem, and crossing the highlands had taught her how to deal with that.

  That was three separate magics she had to maintain, and including her entire body in the time magic was by itself incredibly draining on both her energy reserves and her mental focus. Hence: brief.

  At least, something good had come out of all that headache-inducing effort; she had convinced Aldri to teach her some spatial magic to practice. It was a small thing: warping space to move a small object a short distance. Ria summoned the gifted practice cube and again sensed her way through the embedded spell matrix. More new glyphs for her to learn. Dangerous ones that required new ways of thinking about the fabric of reality.

  Density of time was one of those strange new concepts that came with properly learning time magic. It didn’t change the direction of the flow, or even the ‘speed’ really, but rather, how ‘in the moment’ one was. The denser time was, the slower the flow of everything around it appeared. The converse happened when time was less dense.

  This natural property of time was why slowing the speed of the flow had nothing to do with traveling against the flow—that is: actually traveling backward through time.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Amid all of the mind-bending new concepts, having Cousin Wendra there proved fortuitous. Her scholarly-minded cousin was quick to grasp the concepts in innovative ways and came up with an idea for Ria to not only make time denser for herself but to pull that density from everything around her, creating an effect similar to Aldri’s signature ‘slowing bubble’. Though unrelated, the end result was that Wendra had been promptly and officially recruited into the spell creation effort for the Tower of Dreams infiltration.

  There was so much work that would be needed to meet Orlisi’s deadline—and that was on top of the study and practice Ria needed to do for her classes-

  Ria glanced up in surprise when a dark-haired girl wearing a Silent Sky robe sat at the usually empty desk beside hers.

  “We finally meet in class,” the girl greeted, trying her best to look confident.

  “Nescia!” Ria blurted out, having totally forgotten about Leriah’s friend with everything that had been occupying her thoughts. She took in the girl’s conservative appearance. “You really do look different in class!”

  A relieved smile replaced Nescia’s nervousness, and the girl complained, “Isn’t it rude to say it with such surprise?”

  “That’s not it.” Ria shook her head to lightly deny and stuck her tongue out. “I mean, you look approachable and reliable, like this.”

  “As opposed to when I’m dressed up, huh? Judgements on my appearance aside, it is good to see you have returned to classes…” Nescia's gaze stopped at the black spikes peeking out from Ria’s hair, and smile fading, the girl cautiously asked, “But not everything went well with your recovery?”

  Ah, of course. This was Nescia’s first time seeing the changes.

  “Yeah, it’s weird not being human anymore…” And it was even weirder admitting that aloud for the first time, but Ria set the feeling aside and plowed on, “It’s not without benefits though. My magic is denser now, my body is stronger, I can see more colors, and I have super hearing.”

  Not gonna to mention the smelling part. Nope.

  Nescia seemed suitably impressed, her anxious brows relaxing some. “Wow, that sounds… not bad at all.”

  “The worst part is these crystal spikes catching on my pillows when I try to sleep!” Ria complained with exaggerated offense and was rewarded by a giggle slipping out of the girl.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Nescia managed, trying to hide the resulting grin behind her hand. “Um… speaking of changes, I saw the recent article in the Daily Shadow. Are you going by Celestria now? Should I continue to address you as Ria?”

  Others around the room were taking note of the seat change, and Ria could hear the gossip starting to make the rounds—whether Nescia was cozying up to her because of her change in status. Some of what was whispered wasn’t very nice.

  “Ria is fine,” Ria replied and offered what she hoped was a reassuring and encouraging smile—and hopefully not too fangy. She really did need to spend some time practicing with her mirror!

  “O-okay, I will continue like that then,” Nescia accepted and set about readying note-taking supplies for class, a slight color showing on the girl’s cheeks.

  Ah, a new topic was needed if she wanted to keep things from getting awkward!

  “I found out that my Grand Games team will be having our first match in… Roksairen, I think it was called. Do you think we will be traveling by airship?” Ria tried, mentally face-palming the moment the words left her lips. How would Nescia know that? Just because her family built airships? So, stupid.

  “It is exciting that the regional games will be starting soon. From what I have heard, most teams do use airships, so the students won’t have to miss too many classes. Some of the wealthier Orders pay for their teams to use the teleportation network, though.” Nescia’s eyes sought out Ria’s mantle, and her friend went stiff. “Ah-! I forgot. Sorry…”

  “About my Order?”

  “Yeah…”

  Ria laughed and waved a hand to deny any offense. “Don’t worry about that. I like my Order. It’s fun.”

  “Really?

  “Yep. Really.”

  The arrival of Master Temiere and the start of class brought their chance to chat further to a close. With her thoughts still on the Grand Games as she took in the lecture, Ria pondered what magic she should prepare for Silverday’s spy event training.

  “Oooh, setting up a prank, Tensley? Who’s the target?”

  “Nah, he’s definitely going peeking at girls!”

  “Scouting,” Tensley corrected as his spell completed and he faded from sight amid chuckles from the seniors.

  Getting Presius’ approval to miss practice came with unwanted complications and extra tasks, but it was also the least risky way to plant an astral beacon on his latest target to be harvested by Master Leita’s astral harvester leech.

  Invisible and wearing a prank cloak just to be safe, Tensley exited the Silver Lions’ changing room and carefully walked the underground corridors of the Grand Arena’s contestant facilities. The advanced spell taught to him by Master Leita made him almost undetectable even to energy sensing, but it wouldn’t save him from bumping into someone.

  His primary destination was Amethyst Destiny’s changing room. Like the Silver Lions, they were one of the teams that paid the arena for dedicated changing rooms and training space. His target wouldn’t actually be inside, but that was the point. Tensley had timed this for their block of scheduled arena use.

  The improvements in his affinity, attunements, energy pathways, and even his body from stealing the bloodline essence of two elves had far exceeded his deservedly skeptical expectations. The results left him even more eager to move on his next target.

  Though worth it, choosing a second elf had been a risk. Now with the elves threatening a quarantine, choosing a third elf would be like kicking a giant marsh wasp hive. That was fine though; there were plenty of non-elves on his list, and he had long decided on his next target.

  Irritatingly, it had taken almost a week to plot out how to place the pearl-like beacon without being suspected. Now was his chance. Or at least, he hoped so. Thus far Xander’s Luck hadn’t been on his side.

  As a prominent third-year, Gervain Tevius resided in Crystal Tower rather than the easier-to-infiltrate student dorms. Coming up with a reason to be present in Crystal Tower wouldn’t be difficult, but the chances of the towerkeeper or someone noticing him sneaking into the target’s room were higher than he liked. No doubt, using invisibility magic within the tower was sure to draw the towerkeeper’s attention.

  Hiring Twilight’s Coak to tail Gervain and report his daily patterns was likewise a risk, since they would know someone looked into the guy right before he got sick with the ‘mystery disease’ going around. It would be more than suspicious.

  Thankfully, he had the scouting information the Silver Lions had already compiled, and that gave him a place to start. What he had quickly discovered was that the older boy was popular—like all the notable members of Amethyst Destiny. Unlike the Vesali members of the team, Gervain was from a minor House and much more approachable, which meant the guy had fans that would approach him whenever he was in public. Rabid fans.

  Every time Tensley followed Gervain, the third-year boy was being accosted by commoner girls and daughters of minor noble Houses giving him letters, flowers, or energy rejuvenation potions, each trying to be memorable. Worse, Tensley often spotted girls watching from afar, waiting for a chance to catch the older boy alone.

  Tensley, as a Divinesday Champion from a minor House and also part of a top-4-ranked team, didn’t understand why Gervain was so much more desirable. Was it because the boy was a third-year?

  Tensley’s attention was pulled from his frustrations as he drew near the entrance to Amethyst Destiny’s training rooms. A group of six girls, mostly first-years, had gathered.

  “...is it really true that Gervain is still seeking a marriage partner?” a timid first-year was asking one of the second-year girls.

  Like hells! How stupid can you be? The creep isn’t seeking a partner! He’s playing the field! or so Tensley wanted to yell. The guy had taken five different girls out for a private lunch or dinner or on secluded walks in just the past three days—and those were just the ones Tensley had witnessed!

  Of course, Tensley couldn’t warn these girls. But at least he could do them a favor by taking away their reason to chase after the guy. Of all his victims, Tensley felt this guy deserved it most.

  The second-year girl looked annoyed, probably at having so much competition already show up when practice wouldn’t be ending for more than an hour at the earliest. “Even if he is, waiting out here like this is embarrassing. Better would be if we could sneak our letters into his clothes without anyone noticing, but that’s hardly better than just paying to have it sent…”

  An earlier overheard conversation had revealed that Gervain kept the letters so he could write female fans back (and arrange meetings no doubt). So, the girl’s idea wasn’t a bad one. And, in fact, was Tensley’s backup plan, having already prepared a forged letter and envelope with an astral beacon inside. A hair from the girl that the letter was ‘from’ had been used to divination-link the letter to the girl, but avoiding leaving any physical evidence behind would be preferable if possible.

  Holding his breath, Tensley slipped past the girls and through the open archway. Once inside, he slowly let the breath out. The archway hadn’t been enchanted to remove invisibility or warded against non-members—something that would have exposed his attempted infiltration in front of witnesses.

  Like the training rooms used by the Silver Lions, the entry room was a lounge that split left and right to the changing and storage areas and gave access to a meeting room. The rooms used for training and rules compliance and the waiting room that allowed access to the arena competition grounds were deeper in.

  Not hearing anything other than the whispering of the girls waiting outside and his own loudly beating heart, Tensley quickly made his way to the boys changing area.

  The reason he was taking such risks was because his third-year target specialized in entropy and momentum magic. Adding those aspects to his smoke would make him tremendously stronger. Just imagining his smoke being able to smother and suppress fire and light magic even more than it already could, and add onto that increased capability to slow physical projectiles like arrows and rocks from Rockshot… all which would be improvements unlikely to raise excessive suspicion—unlike if he were to suddenly gain an aptitude for crystal magic or, say, House Emberflow’s embers.

  It was true that Master Letia had explained how he could achieve similar effects with shadow magic, and while he was still considering it, there was just something not very heroic about shadow magic.

  Scanning the magically-secured cubbies holding the team members’ stored clothing and non-arena items, Tensley quickly found one with Gervain’s distinctive black and silver robe and breathed out a sigh of relief. If the third-year target had stored the robe in his vault then he would have been forced into using his back-up plan with the fake fan letter.

  An exercise of will summoned the siphoner device Presius had provided for the espionage task, and Tensley pressed it against the cubby, activating it long enough to remove the robe. Working quickly, he used a letter knife to worry a small gap in the robe’s hem, enough to let him slip the astral beacon through the stitching and into the fold of fabric.

  Once the beacon was filled with sufficient energy and in place, a second use of the siphoner saw the robe returned to the cubby.

  There was reason for his haste. The siphoner had also disrupted his invisibility spell. His racing heart galloping like a full complement of calvary on cobblestone, Tensley desperately listened for any signs of being noticed while he recast the difficult spell.

  What he heard made him freeze in place and almost fail the casting. Ophesia and Nielle. Their voices were hard to mistake, as was the subject of their conversation.

  Tensley carefully snuck toward the open meeting-room doorway, only to realize that the Vesali cousins’ conversation was coming from the girls’ changing area opposite.

  The meeting room was thankfully unoccupied, but he couldn’t help noticing event strategies written down on the room’s large write-boards. Moving closer to the large table that filled the center of the room, Tensley’s eyes and curiosity caught on an open journal with the same strategies noted down. Turning back a page revealed summaries of team members’ strengths and weaknesses.

  He nabbed the journal and sent it to his vault. He was almost certain it was fake—and probably the reason that the entry archway was unwarded—but it was perfect for his cover mission. As part of his task for Presius, Tensley had to steal things from their competitor teams and place the items where they could implicate members from the same team or other teams. The purpose was clearly to sow strife among the Silver Lion’s opponents, interfering with their team cohesion and putting them off their game.

  Ophesia and Nielle were still arguing when Tensley reached the open doorway leading into the girls’ changing area, and he had a choice to make.

  Contrary to his seniors’ teasing, he wasn’t intending to peek when he set out. It wasn’t a noble thing to do—something a corrupt noble would enjoy—and would be particularly dangerous in this case. But, he was fairly certain they were talking about Ria. And if he did happen to improperly witness the pair in a state of undress… beauty existed to be admired, didn’t it?

  Smirking at the thought, Tensley committed to the act, silently darting through the open doorway-

  “Umph!”

  -and smacked right into a solid surface.

  If it wasn’t for the sound-dampening of his advanced invisibility spell, he would have been doomed.

  He still felt stupid. Of course, the arena would have wards in place to prevent boys entering the girls’ dressing areas! Was that why the seniors were laughing at him as he left?

  Instead of worrying about decorum, after ducking back out of view, Tensley cast Whispering Winds to better hear the conversation—what he should have done in the first place if he wasn’t being stupid.