Oraunt, the capital city, was a huge place. Most of the buildings were made from gray stone and clay shingle roofs. The city was split up into different sections, like the temple district and the marketplace. In the center was a large plaza with beautiful gardens and a two-story statue of Eolys, the city’s patron god. On the north side stood Oraunt Castle, which was the main government building on Kelstone, and the meeting place of the Kelstone Counsel. Taking up the eastern block was the Mages Guild and Arcane Library, behind that was the Arcane University. On the other sides of the square were the Fighters Guild, the Oraunt Herald, and various other offices.

Luckily, the inn they stayed at was close to the plaza, so they didn’t get too wet the next morning when the rain suddenly started, and they made it inside the university before it really started pouring.

They quickly found out that, like the Mages Guild, the Arcane University was for mages only. If you weren’t a member of the guild, you weren’t allowed in.

Ayden rolled his eyes at that and took her hand. “Come on, we’ll get you into the guild.”

“You have to be able to use magic to join,” Tess reminded him.

“Just the ability, you don’t have to actually have any spells,” he told her, leading the way.

They didn’t have to go back outside to get there, though. This part of the university was connected to the guild and to the Arcane Library. Several other blocks were also taken up by other university departments, dominating a large area south of the plaza.

“But I don’t have magic,” Tess told Ayden as they came to the guild doors.

“Yes, you do.”

“I do?” she asked, surprised. “How long have you known that?”

They stopped just inside the lobby. “A long time. Since I realized I can feel it in people. Probably eight or nine years.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d care. Besides, the likelihood of you having the ability is high since your mother’s a mage.”

Though Julia was the only one in Tess’ family to ever have magic, which meant it wouldn’t be very strong. People like Ayden had the most, the people who came from a long line of mages. His father was the first non-magical person to ever marry into their family. His ancestry was what gave him a good deal of mana and power from the day he was born. In lesser mages, it could take years to have enough to cast a single spell. It wasn’t unusual these days for a person to be in their late teens before they could. Because of this, there were some people who refused to marry a non-mage so as to not dilute the bloodline.

“You should have still told me,” Tess said. “Mom should have told me. I mean I might have cared.”

Ayden shook his head. “You’re mom is magically weak so she can’t feel it in others.”

“Oh.”

“You can start using it now if you want to, it’s not like there’s an age limit.”

She pondered it for a moment. “Might be fun just to see what it’s like.”

He nodded. “The only thing is you don’t want to use too much or it’ll take away from your physical energy and that wouldn’t be good for your fighting.”

“No problem. It’s not like I really care about magic, I can just try it out.”

“Not that easy,” he said. “Once you start using your mana it becomes a real part of you. Like… suddenly having another stomach to feed. It’s a hunger and you want to feed it, you cast spells to satisfy it.”

“Like sex,” she said. “I never cared about it until I did it and now… well…” She grinned.

“Yeah, kind of like that. Though magic is a hunger to everyone who uses it. Sex drives vary, not everyone’s as insatiable as you.” He smirked. “Also the more you use, the more your mana builds, the more you want to use it, and the more energy it takes.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should leave it alone then.”

Ayden was a little torn by that. Part of him kind of wished she would, then she would understand magic more, maybe even be honestly interested in it and he would have someone to share his passion with. But fighting was her passion and he did love how energetic she was, that would lessen if she got into magic.

“Why didn’t you have to pay?” Tess asked after they signed her up and were out of earshot of other mages. “My mom said she had to pay a lot of gold.”

He looked a little sheepish. “Farlon bloodline.”

“So? Is it like mage royalty or something?”

He shrugged. “It’s also because my grandmother's on the Mages Council.”

“Oh.”

The lobby of the university looked very much like the library. It had cream walls with walnut beams that led up to a great domed, stained-glass ceiling. In here, the glass depicted a scene of the god, Eolys, bestowing mortals with magic. The mana was symbolically shown with firelight butterflies flying toward them and then entering the mage’s chests. The people glowed and held their arms wide to accept the gift of power. Most of the glass was dark colors, which made the light colors of the butterflies, the gods light skin. and the glow around the mages stand out in sharp contrast and seem brighter.

Instead of the place being filled with books, it looked more like a museum. Magical artifacts were displayed everywhere in glass cases, and the walls were filled with paintings of important mages. In the very center of the room was a stand that held a large crystal on top of it. The translucent stone was two feet tall and a foot wide, it narrowed into almost a point at the top.

Tess stepped up to it and looked at the small picture on the table beside it. It had little boxes in different shades of blue along the left side and then a bunch of text in a language she didn’t know. “What’s it say?”

“It’s explaining about this,” he told her, pointing to the crystal. “It’s called a Jugal Mage Crystal, named after the guy who created it. He was actually a pretty weak mage, but he was a great researcher.” Ayden didn’t bother looking at the text, he already knew.

“With the help of a powerful mage friend of his, he made this to use in all of the Mages Guilds, for people like him who didn’t have enough innate ability to feel the magic in others. It was to help with initiations, to see if someone could become a member and what spells they could start with. What it does is show the amount of magic ability a person has. Someone with none will cause no change when they touch it. But mages will make it turn blue, the more powerful the mage the stronger and darker the color.”

“Unfortunately, Jugal disappeared a few months after creating this. He and his friend had set out on a sea voyage together, trying to find the mythical Isle of Tredus, but they never returned. All of his research was with him and was lost. So, this is the only one in existence.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not actually listening anymore. She placed her hand on the crystal. The bottom of it turned a dim light blue color. “Cool,” she murmured. She took her hand away and turned to him. “You touch it.”

“Check this out,” he said, heading toward a nearby case.

She grabbed him and pulled him back. “No, you don’t. Touch it.”

He sighed. After a quick look around, he reluctantly touched it and watched as it turned a deep and vibrant blue, filling the crystal almost completely.

“Whoa!”

He put his hand down. “Don’t start telling everyone,” he muttered.

“Why are you so worried about people knowing how powerful you are?” she asked. “You’re awesome, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Just don’t please.”

“Yeah, fine,” she said. “So, what happens when two people touch it at the same time?”

“Nothing.” He turned and headed off to look at something else.

They spent the next few weeks either in the library or at the university. Tess actually started reading storybooks to pass some of the time, while Ayden was absorbed in learning everything he could while they were there. They got a letter from her father after a week, telling her that no other ogres were found. So she couldn’t even live vicariously through others. Instead, she was stuck listening to Ayden.

“… the spells we have today are all based on the originals,” Ayden was telling a very bored Tess as they sat in the library. “There hasn’t been an original created in hundreds of years. Like for example, snowball and ice shard are both really just manipulations of the original ice spell.” He flipped through some pages of History of Magical Manipulation in front of him. “There’s a list in here…”

“Whoa. There’s a teleportation spell?” Tess asked, suddenly interested, she grabbed the book and turned it back to a page that had the word on it.

“Yeah, it’s way too dangerous though. They’re still working on it. The people who’ve tried have either died or were seriously disfigured. It only works to move through an open area too, not walls or anything. It’s got similar problems to the polymorph spell in that—”

“You mean like changing into something else?” she asked in amazement.

He nodded. “Yes, except that’s never turned out well either. Messing with the body is something that should probably be left to the healing clerics.”

“Why can they do body stuff, but mages can’t? It’s all magic, right?” Tess asked, forgetting that she was taught this in school.

“Not technically,” he said. “Magic is actually something innate that’s passed down in people, like how you got your brown eyes and hair from your dad. But what they call divine magic is a god given thing. Only people who have been preordained by a god, who have a god’s birthmark symbol on them, can use it. Mages have mana energy to use created spells, while clerics and priests obtain theirs through prayer, their power comes straight from their god, which is why the powers they have vary depending on their god.”

“Why didn’t Matt have powers like his mother did when he had Malluk’s mark?” she wondered.

“You also have to be inducted into service to be a cleric or higher in the temple,” he answered. “Anyone less dedicated is considered unworthy by the gods. Just like Sera never had any power before she was a cleric. And Matt never wanted to be a cleric or priest.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Why do you still read so much?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Why do you want to read all the time when you already know everything?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know everything,” he said, taking his book back. “Now do you wanna know about spell origins or not?”

She crossed her arms on the table and put her head down. “No, it’s boring,” she grumbled, then yawned. “Can we just go back to the inn?”

“Sure.”

A week later, Tess was lying on her stomach on the bed, flipping through the Oraunt Herald when Ayden got back from the university. “Why teach a class when you’re not even powerful enough to do what you’re teaching?” he complained.

“Wasn’t the class called Manipulation Theory?” she asked, not looking up from the paper.

“Yeah, but still, an example would have been nice.”

She smiled at his huffiness, he so rarely got ruffled. “Maybe the more powerful mages have better things to do,” she offered.

He just shrugged.

“So what spell was the manipulation for?” she asked.

“It’s just theory on all manipulation, which is the beginning of spell creation,” he told her. “The arcane writing class was good though. Professor Waldon has actually used it before.”

“Why do you need special writing?”

“Others can’t learn a spell unless it’s written down. That’s where the scrolls come from, off of an original. Anyway, the guy was like a hundred years old. That’s why I took so long. I stayed and talked to him for a while. He’s got a lot of experience, and he can actually do spell manipulation unlike Professor Mild Mage,” he said, ending with air quotes.

She was a little surprised at him using what was considered a derogatory term, but just nodded and turned a page. “So’d you learn anything?”

“Yeah,” he said, sitting beside her. “You know what sucks though about arcane writing, is how dangerous it is, I mean, manipulation can be too, but not like that. You can’t even really practice arcane writing, I mean if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing then…” He sighed instead of finishing. He was thinking of his mother. That’s how she died—she had been writing a spell that she had created, she used a wrong character, and it killed her. Of course, it didn’t help that she had been working on a spell that was based off lightning.

Tess set the paper down and rolled onto her side to look up at him. “You’re not gonna do that right?” she asked, worried.

He touched her cheek. “No, messing with certain things away from a place like this—a place that has the resources—is too dangerous. And since we rarely come here…” He sighed again. “I just wanted to check it out.”

“You’ll do it someday though, won’t you?” she asked sadly.

“I’d like to,” he said with yearning in his voice.

She frowned deeply.

“But don’t worry,” he said, making his tone light now. “I’ll wait until we're older and you’ve gotten tired of me."

“That’s not funny,” she grumbled. “I’ll never be tired of you.”

He leaned over to kiss her. “So, what’s in the paper? Anything interesting?”

“Not really. Oh, there’s a play tonight. It’s about Hector the Valiant. It's based on that book you got me for my birthday last year.”

“Wanna see it?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’ll be cool.” She turned over to lay on her back, the newspaper crinkling under her head. She yawned and then sighed as she looked out the window. “Why does it have to keep raining? It’s depressing, and it makes me tired.”

“It’s the pregnancy doing that,” he told her.

She unconsciously put a hand on her stomach. It growled. “More hungry, too.”

“You have more to feed now.” He stood and took her hand, pulling gently. “Come on. We can get an early dinner and then see the play.”