Read Online Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) by Gregory J. Downs - Free Book Online Page B

body. Open the eyes of your mind. Let the mazes of glass guide you…” The Malcyte’s voice faded into a meaningless babble as Elia obeyed, opening her mind to Striding.
     
    Something inside her lurched, as she reached for the Power of Sea. This wasn’t right. It shouldn’t work this way… somehow she knew it, and yet… it was happening.
     
    “ Bleed the glass, strike the flame, burn the spirit, fire tamed…”
     
    This wasn’t how she made fire… she was sure of it, now. The sense of wrongness in the back of her mind was almost overwhelming. She felt that continuing to listen to the Malcyte’s voice would either drive her insane, or corrupt her soul.
     
    Don’t do it this way, then.
     
    The solution was so obvious it almost made her laugh. Doing her best to block out the Malcyte’s chanting, she cupped her hands and concentrated on the bending of reality that allowed her to summon flames. The chanting reached a climax…
     
    “ Let the fires of Kerbus fall!” screamed the Malcyte…
     
    … And Elia felt a spark jump between her palms. All around her she heard exclamations of triumph as the other Acolytes conjured flames of various sizes. Out of the corner of her eye, Elia thought she saw Tressa frowning at her, and she realized that the spark had not made a flame.
     
    “ Acolyte Elia?” the Malcyte called.
     
    She tried again, thrusting her arms skyward. Another spark, then two… and a fountain of white flame burst upward from her palms, lashing the hall’s high ceiling with dark soot and sending waves of heat down from above on the rest of the group.
     
    “ Ahhh…” Elia gritted her teeth, trying to stem the flow. She hadn’t meant to do this… not exactly… and now it was all she could do not to let the flames break her grasp and burn her to death.
     
    Curses sounded all ‘round, and the Acolytes near her all leaped from their platforms, letting their smaller flames die out in their haste to get away. All, that is, except Tressa, who kept her flame strong in her good hand, staring at Elia with a curious half-smile.
     
    “ By the Goldenmount!” shrieked the Malcyte, pointing at her with disbelief, his long black hair blowing wildly in the hot wind her fire was causing. “A Fellspark! You… you’ve… made a Fellspark!”
     
    With a difficulty beyond imagining, Elia forced herself to quench the power within, cutting off the flow of fire and squeezing her hands together, shutting off the white flame in a single, decisive motion. It burned her hands abominably, but she knew not what else to do.
     
    “ If I have done wrong, O Teacher, I am sorry,” she said, doing her best to imitate the dialect and speech of the Kinn, and dropping awkwardly to one knee on her platform. The Malcyte just shook his head, smoothing his black robes and staring vacantly at her.
     
    “ I… will consult the Spines,” he said finally, and quickly jumped from his own platform, practically racing to get out of the room.
     
    What have I done now? Elia wondered. If that wasn’t enough to bring the Golden One down on her, she didn’t know what was. And why had he tolerated her, anyway, since he’d known she could do something like that from the start?
     
    The Kinn Acolytes had all left their platforms, congregating in a tight group, shutting out the few Rain Cave nymphs, who in turn would not let Elia near. So she simply stayed where she was, sitting on her platform, staring into the gloom, wishing for the thousandth time that none of this had happened to her.
     
    After a few ominous minutes, someone tapped Elia on the shoulder. She was so deep in thought that she almost jumped, and the sight of Tressa’s scarred visage staring at her from inches away didn’t help, either.
     
    “ You could have killed me,” the Kinn said, expressionless. She was speaking in the commontongue again, and it took Elia a moment to think, and respond in kind.
     
    “ I… I didn’t mean to. Sometimes it