Our first day of travel was… boring. Walking for hours on end takes a lot longer when you’re actually doing it, as opposed to just dreaming about it. I could tell that Cassie thought so to, because she ended up getting her spell guide out and reading as we followed the road. Of course, it only took a few minutes for the to end up with her on the floor, desperately clutching the book to her chest for safety. Seeing that, I did what any friend would do and laughed at her as she picked herself up.

  Nothing really ended up happening until it was nearly sunset, several hours later. Neither of us particularly wanted to walk in the dark if we could avoid it, and we had been on the move for quite some time now. I got the sense that it would be a good idea to settle in for the night, partially because of the time but mostly to avoid Cassie asked to every few minutes.

  We ended up stopping by the side of the road, where we found a large enough gap in the shrubbery to be comfortable. It was only when Cassie theatrically flopped against a thick oak that I realised something.

  “Cass?” I called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know how to start a fire?”

  I watched as Cassie paused in her dramatics, before turning to face me. “Uh… what would happen if I said no?”

  “We would be quite cold, I imagine.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. How did neither of us think of this? It’s not exactly a warm time of year, either.”

  Cassie held up a hand to stall my spiralling, before turning to the bag she had flung to the side and digging out her spell guide. “I know for a fact that there’s a spell in her for small flames. It can’t be that hard, right?”

  I stared at her. “What, you’re just going to learn an entire spell - a process which took you almost a week at the fastest, might I remind you – in one night.”

  “Nope,” Cassie objected as she began to flip through the pages. “I am going to learn an entire cantrip in one night. It’s not even a complicated one, I just need to… aha!”

  She held up the book for me to see, and I saw on the page ‘Minor Flame’. I looked over the page, noticing that compared to something like Shield the spellform for this was basically 2D. I shrugged.

  “I mean, I guess I can’t think of anything else. Just don’t screw it up, okay?” Cassie nodded, but I held her gaze. “Seriously, like half of Almon’s horror stories about mana backfire were about fire magic, I want you to be certain.”

  “Alright, I get it. I’ll make sure before I cast it. Oh, could you go get some things to burn? We probably need that.”

  I sighed, before dumping my own pack and wandering of into the more dense woodland surrounding the road with only a slight hesitance. I looked over at the setting sun and picked up the pace. Ever since the night of my awakening with the wolf attack, I had found myself on edge whenever I was in the woods at night. Which was silly, because I had been in nighttime forests plenty and only been attacked once. Still, I couldn’t shake the blanket of panic that fell over me as the canopy grew thicker overhead, blocking out the last light of the day.

  The shadows seemed deeper now. I stooped to pick up a bundle of leaves for the fire and saw movement in the corner of my eye. I twirled, dropping the leaves and grabbing my sword in a relatively smooth motion. When I turned I saw nothing but menacing woodland. After a few seconds of tense observation I realised that my hands were shaking slightly. The trees seemed to mock me as sheathed my weapon and returned to collecting material for the fire.

  The next several minutes were torture, and by the time I had a decent collection of wood and leaves I was sweating. I practically sprinted back to the campsite, thankful I hadn’t gone far. As I got back I slowed my pace, not wanting to worry Cassie. I paused to bring my breathing under control, and my panic began to slowly subside. I started to feel foolish for freaking out the way I did. Of course there was nothing out there, following me in the woods.

  As the campsite came into view I finished composing myself, electing not to mention the panic I had felt. There was no point in worrying Cassie over my own foolishness. Speaking of, Cassie was buried in her spell guide with an intense focus that I knew better to disturb, so I just set the pile of flammable material down near the centre of the camp and settled in against the same tree Cassie was leaning on.

  As I sat down, I felt the fatigue of the day wash over me. Whatever adrenaline had been guiding me in the forest had abandoned me now, and all that was left in its place was exhaustion. I shut my eyes for only a moment, sinking deeper into the arms of sleep by the moment. Sat half-upright leaning against a tree wasn’t the most comfortable place in the world, but in that moment I could probably have slept in mid-air.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  I snapped awake when I heard a yelp, followed shortly by a whimper. I opened my eyes to find our makeshift campsite strangely bright. After a moment I realised that the pile of firewood had been arranged into an approximate pyramid, and it was also on fire. I also saw that Cassie was sat by the fire, book fallen to the side as she cradled one hand. Her vitae was roiling, like a tempest was being stirred up inside her.

  I scrambled up as fast as I could, rushing over the moment I realised something was wrong. I crouched next to my friend as she rocked gently back and forth, unintentionally hiding her hand. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she was muttering something under her breath. I don’t even know if she realised I was there.

  “Cass, I need you to show me.” I ordered, gentle but stern.

  She didn’t respond verbally, but she did slowly release the death grip she had on her wrist and move her hand away from her chest and into view. I felt her other hand reach for my own, grabbing it with surprising force. I couldn’t blame her, now that I could see her injury.

  Her hand had been burned, badly. Her fingertips were almost black, and her entire hand was a deep red with patches of where the top layers of her skin were just… gone, all the way up to her wrist. For a moment I could do nothing but stare, but Cassie’s grip tightening on my hand brought me back.

  “What happened? Hey, look at me Cassandra. What happened?”

  Cassie’s voice was faint when she spoke. “Fuck, I… I cast the s-spell, and-” she cut herself off as she opened her eyes, getting a look at her hand for only a moment before shutting them again with a small pained sound.

  Right, questions later. Maybe heal her first, dumbass.

  “Cassie, I need you to keep your eyes closed and let me in. Trust me, you won’t want to watch this.” I waited for a small nod before continuing.

  I placed my free hand just above the wrist of her wounded hand. It would probably be easier with direct contact, but I wasn’t grabbing that wound. Thankfully Cassie had already lowered whatever natural defences she had against my intrusion. I reached within myself to draw from the well of vitae that dwelled there, in my panic probably taking more than was really necessary. I flooded the hand with vital energy, and suddenly I understood the damage. I knew how the tissues in her hand had been warped and eaten at by the flames, how the tips of her fingers had damage that extended almost to the bone. More importantly, I knew roughly how to fix it.

  I started at her wrist, covering the base of her hand in a blanket of vitae, healing almost indiscriminately. I let it run wild for a time, but eventually leashed it again. Letting the body heal that how it wanted would leave a scar, and Cassie didn’t deserve such a mark. I took over, wielding the vitae with far greater dexterity than when I had first healed that rabbit almost a year ago.

  Rather than a blanket, the energy was now a splash of numbing water, killing the sensation in her hand for a time. Then it was a scalpel, peeling away at the damaged flesh caught in the healing and removing it. Next it was a needle and thread, sewing together the points where her skin had been split by the burns. Finally, I used it once more as a tool of mass healing, though now it was chained to my will. Rather than follow the designs of Cassie’s body, it healed her hand to my specifications, and soon the space from her wrist to the base of her fingers was pristine.

  I smiled a little at a job well done, but I wasn’t finished yet. I moved on to her fingers and took a moment to examine the damage. The burns here had burned all the way down to the muscle, and if I wasn’t here the mobility of her fingers would have been at risk. Thankfully, the numbing effect I had applied to her hand applied here as well, although much as I wished otherwise I couldn’t block her every sensation. Still, it was better than before.

  I repeated much of the process with her fingers, although I actually needed to provide a second burst of vitae to finish the job. I had ended up discarding most of the flesh at the tips of each finger, deeming it easier to just regrow fat and meat. Muscles were still a bit complicated for me to risk such a procedure on Cassie though, so I helped them regrow into their proper shape. Still, regrowing even that much flesh from practically nothing left me drained in more ways than one.

  By the time I was done I was exhausted, and I flopped back the moment I drank what little vitae was left. I felt like I had run a few miles while solving progressively harder logic puzzles and been beaten with a stick. I was also strangely cold, like the very source of my body heat had been stolen from me. I felt for my reserves to find them shockingly low, far lower than I had thought. I guess I had been using more than I had believed. I guess it made sense, I had regrown a significant portion of each of her fingers from the bone up with nothing but vitae.

  I looked over to find Cassie unconscious, right next to the fire. Her rest looked a little fitful, but her hand was still on my lap, and I could see that it was fine now. That sight alone filled me with relief. I planned to move, to drag both of use back over to the tree. When I tried to move my arms under me to push off the ground however, I found them leaden. I could barely lift my eyelids, let alone my entire body. After a moment to double check that Cassie was fine, I let myself fall away from the world.

  My mind wouldn’t rest, though. Images of Cassie’s hand kept flickering through my mind, not just from the outside but the internals too. In the moment my mind had been clinical, focused entirely on fixing my friend. Now that it was all over, I watched the memories and felt the panic that had been just beneath the surface almost swallow me whole. That injury, horrific and scarring for almost anyone else, had been on Cassie. If I hadn’t been with her, she would have had to live with the scarring from a misfired cantrip for the rest of her life.

  Somehow, it happening to Cassie made it so much more real. My mind briefly flicked back to when I was attacked by those wolves. I had never actually seen that wound, but I saw the blood afterwards. Still, not only had I only been injured for maybe twenty seconds, but that was me. At the end of the day, healing seemed to be my whole thing.

  Cassie though, she was just a girl at the end of the day. A brilliant girl, smart and full of joy and very good at magic, at least usually. Still just a girl, though. I needed to make sure that something like this wouldn’t happen again, not to her. It was with that thought in my mind that sleep finally, blissfully claimed me, and I dreamt of whispering forests and crackling fires.

  Extract from 'Morely's Guide to the Mystic Arts', written by George Morely.

  "To cast a spell is a deceptively complex process, no matter the caster. From an outside perspective, it appears to be a simple process. Wave a hand, murmur a few words that only the Gods can hear and voila! This is far from the case.

  "Spellcasting a fundamentally individual art. This applies to all spellcasters, even wizards. While a wizard may be casting using a spellform made by another, channelling magic through a focus made by somebody else, their magic is their own. Their unique combination and concentration of affinities, temperament and skill make each and every spell one of a kind, in the smallest ways possible. This is not to say that the outcome of casting a spell will change much, but the minutiae will be unique.

  Take the humble Fireball spell. Simple on the surface, this second circle spell is in fact one of the most complicated spells within its tier. With an entire dimension dedicated to sheer explosive power, the second has to bear all of the weight of the organising the force, velocity, direction and magnitude. It is because of this that the Fireball spell is one of the few fire spells above first circle that lacks an inbuilt Dispel, as the addition would push it up an entire circle of magic.

  If a wizard dedicated to evocation were to cast the Fireball spell, the magic performing the workings within the spellform would do so more reflexively. It would not understand, for magic is not alive, but it would remember. This may only add up to a half-second decrease in cast times in incredibly extreme cases, at least until the Changes take hold, but a half second can be the difference between life or death with a spell like Fireball.

  Remember, a spell's circle is determined by complexity, not difficulty. That is why Dispel is a first circle spell despite being known to be one of the most difficult spells to commonly cast, and why most students of illusion drop out of the University.

  Now, some of you reading this book will be at the very beginning of your magical careers, and likely a little lost by the terminology used above. If that is the case, then for your sake beginning of the guide will be recapped her for you, as you clearly weren't paying attention the first time.

  'A spellform is the method that a wizard uses to cast spells. They are metaphysical constructs of layering dimensions that act as blueprints for a wizard's magic to follow, directed and shaped by their gestures and incantations to properly relate the instructions within a given spellform. Later in this guidebook we will be covering the act of reading, altering and creating your own spellforms, but for now all you need to know is that they are the foundation upon which a wizard's magic is built upon. Learn spellforms well and more magic will be within your reach than a thousand potions. Fail to grasp them and fail.'

  There, for all of you who refused to read one of the most important passages in the guide. Enjoy.

  The next chapter will cover the potential alterations to one's form brought on by the Changes."

  Extract End.