Alliyana Etheria's Perspective
The second day of the expedition.
Early noon. The sun hung pale and high above the pine canopy, casting narrow spears of light between the trees. The wind was cold, but not biting—just enough to sting the lungs with every breath. The forest had grown denser, quieter. The usual chorus of birds had gone silent sometime after dawn.
The soldiers were tired. Their boots sank into half-thawed mud with each step, and the sound of armor shifting was slower now, less disciplined. Even the paladins seemed heavier than before. Everyone looked forward, but no one looked around.
I was walking, as usual—at the edge of the group, a few paces behind the lead carriage. Not out of defiance. I simply liked the space. The solitude.
And I was trying to cast a fireball.
My hand gripped a short wooden stick, no different from a travel stave. Crude, but enough to focus mana.
I gathered air near the tip, guiding it in slow spirals. Thin filaments of mana peeled the layers apart like pages from a damp book. I began separating the oxygen—isolating it from the inert clutter that filled the rest of the atmosphere.
I compressed it.
Gently. Then more tightly. The pressure hummed faintly through the stick.
It should've ignited.
But it didn't.
I exhaled sharply, the cold air clouding in front of my face.
They didn't even know what oxygen was.
Mages of this world call it "the essence that burns." And yet, they manipulated it perfectly. Compressed it. Ignited it. Controlled the blast with grace. Without ever naming it.
It irritated me.
I could conjure pressure. I could feel the variables. But I couldn't cast anything away from my body. Every spell I used was an extension of my limbs. Even barrier magic required my blade to act as a frame—my knife near my skin, or drawn mid-swing. Even simple heal requires my hands near the subject.
Direct input. Direct output.
Even my wind magic was a cheat. I wasn't conjuring it. I was redirecting it—pushing air from my palm to the stick's tip like a funnel. Crude and limited. A flexible application of fluid dynamics, not true elemental magic.
But the mage? She had conjured air at the tip of her wand without manipulating it upwards. Suspended. Controlled. Ignited it without touching.
The tip of her wand became a secondary origin point.
That was the difference.
She wasn't redirecting mana. She was creating a remote combustion chamber—controlling the air pressure, the heat, the target… all without touching a thing.
I stopped walking for a moment, holding the stick up.
The air still spiraled around it. The mana was right. The pressure was right.
But it refused to catch.
I let it go with a sigh. The wind unraveled the spiral like fraying thread.
I wasn't ready. Not yet.
Night came quietly.
The air had cooled, settling into the kind of stillness that made even the fire whisper. Most of the soldiers had turned in, their tents faintly lit from within by dim crystal stones or fading lanterns. The forest around us was darker than ink, but not silent—branches creaked, wind rustled gently through pine needles, and somewhere distant, a bird cried like it had just remembered something painful.
I sat near the campfire.
Its light was soft now—amber coals nestled deep in soot, crackling like old bones shifting in their sleep. Most of the camp had gone quiet, wrapped in canvas and wool, breaths rising into the cold like offerings. Only the wind moved freely, brushing the tops of the tents and sweeping needles from the trees above.
I sat alone. Thinking.
The possibilities still danced behind my eyes—chemical reactions, magical compression, mental projection. The stick I'd used earlier was beside me, half-buried in the dirt.
Then I felt a presence.
She didn't say a word at first, just approached with that unhurried grace I was beginning to associate with her.
"May I sit with you?" she asked, her voice low and warm.
I nodded. "Why not."
She lowered herself onto a stone opposite me, smoothing the folds of her traveling dress. Her red hair shimmered faintly in the firelight, coiled behind one shoulder like a sleeping ember. For a moment, she didn't speak.
Then, quietly, "Your name?"
"Alliyana."
She gave a gentle nod. "Isabelle Nazaad."
The name lingered in the air.
A duchess. That explained the bearing. The quiet elegance that never felt forced.
"I'm not from here," she added. "Zepharim. Born in the southern court. Raised under its ceiling of glass and pride."
I tilted my head. "So what are you doing up here? In the cold, marching with strangers through corrupted woods?"
Her smile was tired, but honest.
"At first, you reminded me of my daughter."
She paused. Looked into the fire.
"But sometimes, talking to you feels like speaking to an equal."
I said nothing.
Then I asked what I really wanted to know.
"How did you do it? The fire. At the tip of your wand. Without touching it."
She let out a quiet sigh—part laugh, part exhale.
"You've been doing magic with outdated knowledge," she said, voice teasing but not cruel.
"I read everything I could."
She met my eyes. "Books can teach. But magic lives in intuition. And in the body."
She straightened slightly, lifting one hand and slowly pointing to the air just in front of her.
"Each person," she said, "is born with a zone of control. A region of space they can command with their mana. It's not about strength—it's about presence. About how far your mind believes your reach extends."
I absorbed the words silently.
"Everyone can use mana," she continued. "But not everyone can become a mage. The average person's zone ends at five meters. Most mages reach forty. Archmages… over one hundred."
I nodded once.
"And mine?" I asked.
She hesitated.
"I watched you today," she admitted. "Trying to conjure fire. At first, I thought you were just… an eager child."
She folded her hands over her lap.
"It pains me to say this to someone so young—but your zone is only about two meters."
I didn't flinch.
I saw the regret in her eyes before she spoke again.
"But that's not a curse," she said. "It's a gift of a different kind. A zone that small lets you feel everything in it. Not just control it—sense it. Most mages project their will. But you… you receive it as well."
She smiled gently.
"There was once a swordsman. Greatest who ever lived. They said he never blocked a strike—because he was never where the blade would fall. Once the theory became the norm, people naturally theorized his aptitude."
I understood her.
She wasn't just a mage. She was a nurturer. Someone who couldn't bear to crush a child's ambition—even if that ambition was aimed at a wall.
But I didn't feel crushed.
My heart pounded, not with dread, but with something else.
Excitement. My eyes widened. My smile broke before I could stop it.
"Then tell me how," I said. "How do I cast within that zone—away from my body, but inside my control?"
She gave me a look—half amused, half impressed.
"You were too focused," she said. "Trying to perform new spells with old language. You see mana as a system to master with outdated reasoning."
"And?"
She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice.
"Have you ever felt something near you? Something you couldn't see—but knew was there?"
I paused. Then slowly, nodded.
The dodges. The near-misses. The timing that never quite made sense. Even the way my knife found its target before I consciously reacted.
The tension. The twitch of danger in the air. The pressure just before an attack landed.
Yes. I'd felt it. And suddenly, everything clicked.
I laughed. A low, breathless sound that startled the quiet.
"I'm no different from the zealots," I said.
She blinked.
I've been using old magic theory and overcompensating with science.
I looked up at the stars.
"All this time… I thought to myself that I had moved past rituals. Their worship. But I was doing the same thing."
She didn't respond. But her smile turned knowing.
I wasn't wrong to trust in old magic texts. It was simply outdated. All this time, I was working with an old framework compensating it with science.
I'd started mistaking the knife for the hand. The scaffold for the ground. Tools. Not ends.
Much remains undiscovered in this world. Not through text—but lived. And I seem to have forgotten that.
Even an old man needs reminding afterall.