This week I made the decision to break the story into two pieces. The first part I will consider a prequel and write separately. Going forward, I will adjust the word count to reflect my decision to drop the first part.
That said, this week I wrote 5,614 words. Brought the word count up from 20,130 to 25,744 words.
The story was a lot of fun to write this week. Dealing with training and a dragon made for some entertaining scenes. I also introduced Samael to this part of the story for the first time personally.
Here are some snippets from this week’s labors:
Left to himself, Samael set the figurine on the table and fell into pacing as he waited for Jedrek to return with news and naims. No one who have his dragon but him, especially with the dueling returned safely to Vale.
That child was enough of a problem without some random naim linking his most powerful dragon. The one he intended to level Halcyon with as soon as he could work out how to command it. He turned and threw another shard of ice at the wall followed by a fireball which knocked several bricks out of place.
After staring blankly at the hole a moment, he rounded his desk and pulled the top right drawer open. He moved several papers around before finding the crystal he was seeking. Tucking it away in a pocket he walked to the door.
In the hall, Jedrek was speaking with a nervous looking sorcerer dressed in uniform. Seeing Samael step into the hall, the man stood at attention.
Samael waved him off with an air of annoyance and addressed Jedrek. “I need my wall repaired. Have the naims sent to my lab. I’m going out.”
“Yes sir. No word yet on who linked Pyre.” Jedrek raised his voice slightly to be heard by the elder sorcerer as he rushed down the hall. Once he was out of sight, Jedrek refocused on the sorcerer before him. “Like I was saying, the one that worked was a young naima. A boy might work. It is possible that linking won’t be possible until we know who has linked the dragon, so that is first priority. If we can bring whoever linked him here, that would be ideal.”
“First decade?” the sorcerer looked disturbed by the request.
Jedrek’s expression hardened at once. “I believe I made myself perfectly clear as it was made to me. Do I need to find another?”
“No, no. I’ll bring them.”
“To the lab. Within the hour.”
The sorcerer nodded and made his way down the hall.
“No, we are moving on.”
“Come on, I won’t do it again.”
“Do you know how you lit the block on fire?” Halvar crossed his arms.
“No, but I think I just slipped over into it. I felt when I did it. I think I can stop it from happening again.”
“Nope,” Halvar said, shaking his head. “We move on. I’ll show you stairs. That way if you light the block on fire again, you’ll be standing on it.”
Zuriel rolled his eyes and walked back to their starting point. Aila came into the courtyard as Halvar prepared to explain how to form stairs.
“Hey,” Zuriel waved to her.
“Are you guys training?” She asked as she drew close.
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing, you want to join us?” Zuriel asked.
“Fair warning, he tried to light me on fire.”
“I did not!”
Halvar pulled his shirt where it was singed. “Uh, what did this then?”
Aila laughed. “That looks like it was burned.”
Zuriel sighed. “Fine. I accidently lit a block on fire which Halvar was leaning against. It might have singed a few hairs.”
“Stairs.”
“I think I’ll watch from over there.” Aila smiled and pointed to a bench on the far wall.
Zuriel turned his attention back to Halvar who was explaining the logic of making steps.
“You need to trust yourself, which will be hard because you will probably drop yourself a few times, but you’ll grow more confident and it will happen less. Try it.”
Zuriel looked at the ground and imagined the first two stairs. He lifted his right foot and planted it on the first. It was lower than he thought. He brought up his other foot and stood on it. He tried to lift his right foot to go to the second but caught the bottom of it. He tripped and fell landing on his hands and knees.
“Not bad.”
“Why do I feel like I am going to spend the next few weeks on the ground.”
“Probably because you are going to spend the next few weeks on the ground. I am sure that will mostly be with Cyrus. I don’t think Rafael will have you falling much. Unless he wants you to practice healing yourself. Hey! You can practice healing things you do to yourself in our morning sessions.” Halvar said mockingly.
Now back on his feet, he rolled his eyes at Halvar and tried the stairs again. He made it up onto the second stair, then Halvar instructed him to step back at which point he missed one and fall on his back.
After an hour of increasingly infrequent stumbles, he could manage three stairs without much issue.
