Skif turned back to the hearth, opened the jar of blue sand, and scooped a handful out into his palm. “This is my favorite part,” he said over his shoulder at me, and then tossed the sand into the fire. The flames changed color in a matter of moments, burning blue and steadily getting greener, until they were a dark emerald. “It’s a mystery how Elder Numa knows they’re being summoned,” Skif mused, and he returned the jar to the table and then came over to sit by me, “but they’ll be here shortly.”
It took a long minute for me to be able to tear my eyes away from the beautiful fire, but eventually I looked at Skif. “Do you see the dragons often?”
“No one does,” he answered. “Never seen one in my lifetime. Word is they’re hibernating.”
My eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “How do you know how many there are?”
“Elder Numa knows.” He pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his forearms over them. “They’re one of the first Dragonkin.” At the look of surprise on my face, he nodded. “Part of their magic is immunity to age. They’ve been around since the beginning, and they’re the only one I’ve ever heard of that can talk to the gods directly.”
“They talk to the gods?” I asked in wonder, suddenly more nervous about meeting them. He smiled as he nodded once more, and I glanced again at the fire. “What other magic do you have?”
He didn’t answer straight away even though he smiled again at the question, but then something pushed through the leather flap covering a window at the far end of the cottage. It was a branch from the tree just outside, and it grew and stretched all the way across the room until it reached me, and then it dropped a pinecone in my lap and shrank until it retreated. I laughed, holding up the full, healthy cone.
“Controlling plants requires a bit of creativity in a fight though,” Skif chuckled.
He reached out to take the pinecone, and once he held it in his hand, he raised the index finger of his other. A small flame emerged from the tip of that finger, and he used it to light the topmost spike of the cone like a candle. We watched it burn for a few moments before he tossed it in the air and flared his other hand open, and with the gesture, the flame shot down the center length of the pinecone. It burst, sending sparks flying and scaring me so badly that I flinched backward to scramble away. But he caught the flaming seeds before they got too far, holding them in midair so that the embers decorated the space between us like stars.
“That’s…” I could barely speak through my awe. “That’s incredible.”
“Thanks.” Skif grinned, using his magic to toss the remnants of the pinecone sideways into the hearth. “More useful,” he said, and reached into his boot, from which he pulled a knife, “is my immunity to injury.” He flipped the knife so he was holding the blade, and extended the handle to me. “Go ahead,” he said when I took it from him, and tapped a spot on the inside of his forearm.
“Cut you?” I asked, glancing from the weapon to his arm with extreme reluctance.
“Give it your best,” he challenged.
I set the blade against his skin, but was too afraid to apply much pressure, and he laughed at my hesitation, nodding with encouragement. So I pressed harder, somewhat worried that his skin gave to the knife, but I decided to trust him and try it. I swiped, and though his skin moved like flesh under the pressure, the blade slid over it like water over a stone, leaving no trace of injury. No cut, no blood. No damage to the weapon. I couldn’t help but grin.
“Can you heal like Denig?” I asked, giving him the knife back.
He shook his head. “And I have to be thinking about it in order to keep from being hurt. If I’m caught off guard and wounded, I’ve got to wait for it to heal like everyone else.” He added with a laugh, “Everyone except Denig.”
“What’s his third ability?”
“He hasn’t got one,” Skif answered. “How about you? Other than the lightning?”
“I can manipulate corruptions,” I answered. “Like dark magic, or rot in a tree.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Let me guess your third, then. It’s not an element, is it?”
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“Lucky guess,” he chuckled. “But if you’ve three abilities, two of them tend to be a similar type, see? Elements,” he gestured to himself, and then at me, “manipulations. Had Denig a third, he likely would’ve been able to heal others as well. Or change his human appearance or his state of being—that’s the shapeshifting.” I nodded in understanding. “You, in this case, either manipulate the will or the senses.” That sparked my curiosity, but I waited to see if he’d guess correctly. “The senses?” I shook my head, and he laughed, “I tried.”
“How does that work?”
“The senses?” he clarified, to which I nodded again. “You can change what people see, hear, smell, taste, and, to an extent, feel. It’s a fun magic if you’re fond of mischief.”
“I could imagine,” I agreed with a laugh.
Before either of us could say anything else, there was movement at the entrance of the cottage, but it wasn’t a person who entered. A thick cloud of dark gray smoke billowed through the cracks between the leather and the doorway, filtering in but not spreading through the air like a normal cloud of smoke. It was concentrated, rolling with purpose low across the floor. It collected just in front of Skif and me, and flowed upward and gained in thickness, until it had become a very solid person.
They weren’t at all what I expected. Elder Numa was dressed in robes the same dark gray as that smoke had been, and their hair was braided at the back of their head, and it and their eyes were a color impossible to distinguish in the low light of the cottage. One second I was sure both were black, but then they turned and caught the light of the fire, and eyes and hair appeared almost the same color as their robes. Nor could I distinguish whether Elder Numa was male or female. Not by their face, nor their body, which was hidden beneath their clothing.
“Hello, Kiena,” Elder Numa said, in a voice that did nothing to enlighten me but felt entirely too familiar—the kind of familiar to numb the brain. It was neutral, and smooth. Soft. And their lips curled as if they could read my confusion. “Lean forward,” they said, holding out their hand, and in the palm of it shone a bright light. It wasn’t like Skif’s fire, or my lightning, or even the small energy I’d seen Sevedi use in Ronan. It was very much like Elder Numa held the sun in their hand, and it illuminated the entire room. “It’s my turn for a close look at you.”
Though I was wildly unsure of myself, or what that meant, Elder Numa’s presence was easy and comforting. I did as they asked and leaned forward, squinting my eyes from the light. They leaned in too, and moved the glow from one side of my face to the other, studying me for a long minute before letting out a soft laugh and leaning back again. They dropped the light, and it had been so brilliant that my eyes set to readjusting to the darkness.
“Skif wants to know if you’re related,” Elder Numa said, with that hint of laughter still in their voice.
I glanced at Skif, chuckling at the embarrassment on his face. “I wouldn’t mind knowing either.”
“Your father, Nilan,” Elder Numa said, their voice so low I wasn’t sure how I could even hear them. “Born to Niemi and Agnes. Niemi’s mother, Ceana, and her mother and father, Una and Tero.”
“Hah!” Skif exclaimed, grinning ear to ear. “My great, great grandparents!”
Elder Numa tilted their head in acknowledgment, saying, “Third cousins.” I couldn’t help but grin myself, because I had blood relatives—diluted family, and not immediate, but family all the same. “You are the first since Una to stray from the elements,” they told me, passing that friendly look at Skif. “They run strong in your bloodline.”