Kira pressed herself against the cave wall, heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
The mage-light glowed from across the cave, steady and peaceful, as if it had not just blazed like a small sun in her hand. As if she had not screamed and thrown it like a child startled by a shadow.
She stared at it. It is still glowing, she thought, It did not break. It did not stop.
Her breath came in shallow gasps. Her hand, the one that had held the light, tingled strangely. Or perhaps that was just her imagination. Perhaps everything was her imagination.
You are not imagining, said a voice inside her that sounded like her father. You felt it. You saw it. Now breathe.
She breathed.
Slowly, deliberately, she forced her racing heart to calm. She counted her breaths the way he had taught her when she was small and frightened by thunder. In for four, hold for four, out for four. The panic receded, just a little. She looked at the light again. Still glowing. Still waiting.
I have to know, she thought, I have to see.
She did not stand up right away. That would have been too much. Instead, she crawled.
Across the cold stone floor of the cave, on hands and knees, she made her way toward the fallen light. The glow grew brighter as she approached, but not blinding. Not like before. It was just light. Warm, golden, ordinary.
She stopped a few feet away and sat back on her heels.
The light rested against a small outcropping of stone, exactly where it had rolled. It had not moved. It had not changed. It simply glowed, steady and patient, as if waiting for her to decide what to do next.
Kira watched it, and as she watched, she noticed something.
The light was dimming. It was slow at first, barely perceptible, the kind of change you might not notice if you were not staring directly at it. But Kira was staring, and she saw it clearly.
The glow faded. Softly, gradually, like a candle burning low.
She held her breath, waiting.
The light continued to dim. The warm golden hue cooled to pale yellow, then to a faint white, then to nothing at all.
Darkness rushed back into the cave.
Kira sat in the black, surrounded by the howl of wind outside and the pounding of her own heart. She could not see her hand in front of her face. She could not see the light. She could not see anything.
It went out, she thought, It just went out.
She reached out slowly into the darkness, hand extended toward where she knew the light should be. Her fingers moved through empty air, searching.
Before her hand touched anything, the light returned.
A dim glow, soft and tentative, like the first hint of dawn. It emanated from the glass sphere, still resting against the stone, still untouched.
Kira froze.
Her hand hovered in the air, inches from the light. She had not made contact. She had barely even gotten close. And yet the glow grew slightly stronger as she held her hand there. Not bright, not blazing, but unmistakably present.
She pulled her hand back.
The light faded.
She reached forward again.
The light returned.
Kira sat in the cave, cross-legged on the cold stone, and moved her hand back and forth like a child playing a game.
Hand forward. Light glowed. Hand back. Light faded.
Hand forward. Glow. Hand back. Fade.
She did it five times, ten times. Each time the same. Each time impossible.
You have to touch it, she thought numbly, Everyone knows. You have to make contact for it to draw mana. That is how they work. That is how they have always worked.
But she was not touching it. She had not touched it since she threw it across the cave. And yet the light responded to her presence as surely as if she held it in her palm.
What is happening?
The question echoed in her mind, and she had no answer. She knew many things about the mountain, the trails, how to survive with so little, but she was woefully drawing a blank on anything related to mana.
She thought about everything she knew. It was not much, the knowledge of a village girl, taught by parents who had chosen to live outside the system. But she knew the basics. Everyone knew the basics.
Magic tools drew mana from their owner through contact. That was why they were personal. That was why Marren's light had lasted fifteen years, because he fed it a tiny stream of his own mana whenever he used it, and it stored that energy to glow.
If you lost a tool, it eventually went dark. If someone else picked it up, it would not work for them unless they had enough mana, and even then, it required touch.
Everyone knew this.
But the light was responding to her without touch, without contact, without any of the rules she knew.
She looked at her hand. The same hand that had always been there. The same fingers, the same palm, the same scars from small accidents and hard work.
But inside that hand, inside her, something had changed.
She thought about her birthday. Sitting by the fire, reaching inside, finding nothing. The quiet disappointment. Going to sleep with the same one point she had always had.
But she was not one point anymore.
She closed her eyes and reached inside, the way she had done thousands of times in her life. The way that had always returned the same answer. One point. Nothing. Worthless.
The warmth inside her was not worthless anymore.
It was still small, smaller than she had thought in her panic, smaller than it had felt when the light blazed in her hand. But it was larger than before. Larger than yesterday. Larger than it had any right to be.
And it was still growing.
Even as she watched, even as she breathed, even as she sat in the darkness with her hand hovering over a fallen light, the warmth inside her grew. Slowly, steadily, inexorably.
I do not understand, she thought, I do not understand any of this.
But beneath the fear, beneath the confusion, something else stirred. Something that felt like her mother's voice, patient and sure.
Hard things are yours in a way easy things never are. No one can take them from you.
This was hard. This was confusing. This was terrifying.
She closed her eyes and fell into deep thought.
Kira opened her eyes.
The light still glowed dimly, responding to her proximity. She reached out and let her fingers rest on its curved surface.
Immediately, the glow brightened. Not blinding this time. She was prepared, and perhaps she had more control now, or perhaps the light had simply adjusted to her. But it brightened steadily, filling the cave with warm golden light.
She held it in her palm and watched it glow.
I have to understand, she thought, I have to know what I am now, what I can do.
She thought of her father's lessons. Tracking required patience. Observation required stillness. Understanding required time. She had time. The storm still raged outside. The cave was secure. The night was long. She set the light down beside her, where it continued to glow without her touch, and she began to think.
Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would start experimenting. Tomorrow she would find out what she was capable of.
For now, she wrapped herself in her blankets, pulled them tight against the cold, and watched the steady glow of Marren's light. The wind howled. The snow fell. And Kira sat awake, mind racing, already planning the tests she would run when morning came.
She did not sleep again that night, but for the first time since the soldiers came, she was not afraid.
She was curious.