Magi's Path (Aether's Revival Book 3) by Daniel Schinhofen (motivational books to read txt) 📕

planned to wait to use it until the finals, but right now, she wanted to stay undefeated with her friends even more.

As Walun came forward with measured steps, the hairs on his neck stood up again. She hasn’t moved from that spot and she’s growling again... Just get a little closer, then rush her… but why hasn’t she used her aether at all? She’s an earth magi. She may be a weak one, but still... where are the dirt balls?

The crowd was getting excited as the distance closed and Daciana hadn’t run away again. The smarter ones in the crowd were thinking similarly to Walun. What trick did she have up her sleeve, and when would she spring it?

“What is she doing?” Yukiko murmured.

Gregory wondered the same thing, so he triggered his aether sight. His breath caught when he saw the sand in a half-circle around Daciana. Yukiko and Jenn glanced at him, and he dropped his sight. “She’s trapped him.”

Fifteen feet away, Walun took a deep breath. Daciana hadn’t twitched, wavered, or shown whether she was going to attack or run. Resolving himself, he tried to spook her by covering his hands in flame, real flames not made of aether. Daciana’s eyes narrowed and she shifted back slightly, making no other movements. With nothing left but to do as he’d planned, Walun rushed forward.

Daciana felt a spike of fear when Walun covered his hands in flame, and she rocked backward in instinctual fear of fire, but that was it. When Walun sprang forward, her snarl turned into a smile. Walun’s eyes went wide in fear, as he knew he’d just done what she wanted.

The hard-packed balls of earth shot out of the ground all around Walun— from behind, both sides, and even under his feet. They were everywhere but directly in front of him. The earth had been compressed as hard as Daciana could make them, so they hit like fists, making Walun flinch with each hit. He stopped rushing in and hunched over to protect himself.

Daciana drove forward the moment he stopped moving. A barrier of aether sprang up in front of her just before she slammed into Walun. Off-balance, hunched, and not paying attention to Daciana, Walun was flattened when the wall hit him. Stars swam in his eyes and his breath was driven out by a hard fist to his core. Wheezing, he tried to cover up as her barrage of blows bloodied him.

“Yield!” Walun shouted.

“Break!” Igorson called out.

Daciana stopped pounding Walun and got to her feet. She looked down at Walun, who was blinking at her, clearly unsteady. “You shouldn’t listen to Shun,” she said simply before bowing to him.

Walun heard the words, but his brain was too muddled to understand them. He blinked again when Mindie leaned over him. Her hands were warm on him, and he exhaled as the pain and confusion in his head cleared. “Thank you,” he told Mindie.

“You’ll be fine,” she told him.

Taking her offered hand up, Walun looked for Daciana, but only caught a glimpse of her tail going into the tunnel across the arena from him. “How in Aether’s name did she do that?”

“Good question,” Igorson grunted. “Now clear off the floor.”

~*~*~

When Daciana got back to the stands, her friends hugged her, and her father was beaming like he’d personally won the match.

“How did you do that? Where did you even learn it?” Nessa questioned her as they took their seats.

Daciana’s eyes went to Gregory for a moment before she looked back at Nessa. “A senior magi suggested that I look into stories of historical magi. There was a story about Sage Stonefoot using a similar trick during the Second Eurtik War. He used spears of stone instead of dirt balls, but the concept was there. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to try.”

“How does that work?” Victoria asked. “I thought you formed and threw them at the same time.”

“Normally,” Daciana explained, “but there’s nothing to stop me from forming them and leaving them to wait. I formed them under the top layer of the sand and left them there until he came to attack me. I drained my earring dry doing it, too.”

“So different from my magic...” Nessa said. “I can’t form the wind and leave it there. It’ll dissipate without my magic holding it together.”

“That’s the same as mine,” Yukiko said. “If I don’t keep my magic wrapped around the shadows, they won’t stay shaped. Earth has an advantage in that, it seems. To think an earth magi I know once lamented her magic.”

Daciana flushed red. “I deserve that.”

“Just you three left undefeated,” Gregory said. “Maybe one of you will be by the end of today.”

Chapter Sixty-four

 

Gregory laughed as the last fight their friends had for the day ended. “Only one loss each. That leaves the council with a lot of calculations to do.”

“All three of them making it to the finals is slim,” Jenn said.

“I’m not sure,” Yukiko said. “They only lost to each other, while the others with a single loss might have lost to people with worse records. However, it’ll clearly be the council’s decision on the matter.”

“Well, we have seen all we need to,” Lightshield said. “It is just a matter of waiting to hear who is chosen. Tomorrow is a big day for you,” he said, looking at the apprentices. “Do make sure you are back and sleeping before it gets too late tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” they replied back.

Nodding, Lightshield left, the other clan members following him.

“Hmm... we have dinner reservations to see to,” Hao said, getting to his feet. “We should be on our way.” Yoo-jin, Umbrose, and the apprentices went with him.

Gregory gave the novices a grin as they passed him, heading up to their families. They were grinning back