Let the Bird Fly

The moment Ayen shimmered out of sight, the yard… shifted.

The ground under Kade’s boots seemed to soften. The fenceposts leaned just slightly, as though breathing. The training dummies loomed taller in the corner of his eye and shorter when he looked directly at them.

He took a step forward, and the sound came half a second too late.

Ayen’s voice floated from somewhere behind him. “Most people can’t tell what’s real in here. They start to wonder if they’ve gone mad. The trick is… you never know which of your senses is lying.”

Kade’s magic flared in his hands, raw and blue, heat building instinctively. He shoved it outward like a blunt weapon, a rush of force sweeping across the yard…

only for it to vanish into nothing. No sound, impact, or resistance.

“Poor thing,” Ayen crooned, “you missed me.”

Her voice was suddenly in front of him. Then to his left. Then whispering right into his ear with a grin he could feel.

Shapes began to move in the mist curling at his ankles, shapes with too many limbs, faces shifting into people he half-recognized, then melting into strangers. The air smelled faintly of rotting flowers, the scent sharp enough to make his eyes water.

Something brushed his shoulder.

He spun and struck out with his magic again, but the blow rebounded back on him, heat flooding his own hands until his palms ached. His breath quickened.

On the fence, Galir watched in silence, eyes narrow. “If you can’t trust your senses, you can’t fight,” he murmured.

Beside him, Hanel nodded. “Exactly. She’s feeding him false information until he tires himself and does the work for her.”

In the yard, Kade’s pulse thudded in his ears, except… the sound wasn’t in rhythm anymore. It was faster, then slower, then in reverse. He couldn’t tell if his own heartbeat was lying to him.

The world around him swayed. Ayen was gone, nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“You’re strong,” she murmured. “But you’re in my memory now. And I don’t lose in my own mind.”

The grass beneath his boots rippled like water. The fence tilted forty degrees without moving. When he blinked, the sky inverted, the two moons beneath his feet, the black ground above. His stomach flipped.

Instinct told him to push through with brute force, to shape light into a neat, precise weapon like Hanel had drilled into him. He gathered heat into his palms, forced it tight, controlled.

The blast shot forward with a crack, striking the warped air where he thought Ayen was. The sound of shattering glass and breakage echoed, but the world didn’t break.

From the fence, Galir stepped back automatically as a real section of lawn erupted in a smoking crater around him.
beside him, Hanel, arms folded, was already holding a golden barrier around them.
“He is aiming at illusions,” Hanel said dryly. “That does nothing but destroy the yard.”

Galir raised an eyebrow. “…That’s expensive turf.” Akalis wouldn't like this, he thought absently.

Meanwhile, Kade’s second strike fizzled against another bent fragment of reality. His heart pounded. The illusion pressed harder, the air thickening like syrup, each breath tasting faintly of ash.

Stop fighting like them, the heat inside him seemed to whisper. You know better.

And he did. He had lived in imagined worlds for years, drawing them in his mind to escape white hospital walls, the beeping machines, the endless hours of stillness. He’d made creatures that no one else could see, companions who could smash through the loneliness.

Now, they could smash something else.

Kade let go of control. His magic roared out of him in sweeping streams of bright blue. It gathered high above, twisting, beating the air until it formed wings… vast, burning wings.

A giant bird took shape, feathers of light flickering like fire through a storm, eyes bright enough to scorch through the illusion. It screamed, a wild, echoing call, and dove.

The world shattered. Silver light broke into shards that melted into the real yard. In front of him, Ayen stumbled back two steps, eyes shining.

“Oh,” she breathed. “That’s… beautiful.”

Her smile returned, sharper this time. “Let’s see if it can bleed.”

****

Ayen’s smile twisted, delicate and sharp, as she stepped forward into the fractured light of the shattered illusion. Her fingers flicked in a lazy arc, and the world shivered again. This time, the giant bird wasn’t soaring, but falling.

“No,” Ayen whispered, voice low and teasing. “Look closely, Kade. Your glorious bird has been pierced. It’s dying, falling apart.”

The brilliant wings, once aflame with motion, flickered into dullness. The fire dimmed. The vast eyes that had burned bright now shuttered as if closing forever. The bird collapsed into a heap of flickering subdued blues, dissolving into the cracked earth beneath them.

Kade’s breath caught.

Then the world seemed to shift again as Ayen’s illusion darkened, the colors bleeding away until everything dissolved into a thick, suffocating blackness. No light, no sound, no sense of up or down, just an endless void swallowing Kade whole.

****

Hanel’s eyes narrowed as he watched the exchange. “That thing looked alive. That is no ordinary trick,” he murmured, almost to himself. His arms folded, head tilted just so, tracing the movement of Kade’s magic severed from him, the bird, as though alive, circled Kade, waiting to be noticed again.

Galir shifted beside him, lips pressed tight, an echo of wonder flickering deep in his eyes. The rigid lines of his stance softened briefly. It reminded him of a time when magic was not a trial or burden, but a spark of something joyful.

“This… It’s not just magic shaped,” Hanel added, voice carrying awe. “It’s alive. It’s responding on its own.”

Ayen’s smirk didn’t falter, but her eyes glittered with an unspoken acknowledgment. She’d ruffled the nest, and now it stirred fiercely in return.

****

Inside the darkness…

Kade’s breath hitched, panic flickering inside him. But then, beneath the heavy silence, beneath the void’s grip, he felt it. That stubborn pulse. The living thread of his magic, a warmth growing against the cold.

He reached inward, closing his eyes against the darkness that tried to drown him.

Listen, the bird whispered from deep inside his chest, a heartbeat of fire and light.

Feel.

His mind painted the bird’s wings, vast, fierce, alive, with the pure, raw certainty of connection.

Slowly, the blackness cracked. The void trembled, fracturing like glass.

A sudden burst of shimmering light exploded outward. The giant bird, born of blue flame and shadow, burst from the darkness in a roaring dive, wings wide and fierce.

Ayen’s eyes widened as the living creature struck with the force of a tempest. The blast hurled her off her feet, sending her tumbling hard across the training yard. She landed with a heavy thud, a gasp tearing from her lungs as dust and scattered grass curled around her.

Kade’s bird flared once more above him, protective and proud, before dissolving in a swirl of blue light that shimmered out like falling embers.

Silence followed.

Kade’s chest heaved, his hands trembling as the adrenaline faded. He crossed the yard. Ayen groaned, already sitting up, one hand pressing against her ribs while the other glowed with the faint light of healing magic.

“Are you...”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, her grin tired but bright. “Don’t you dare apologize.”

Kade stopped and tried again. “I wasn’t going to...”

“Liar,” she said with a laugh, wincing at the movement. “But I like you anyway.”

Hanel was already walking toward them. His green eyes swept over Ayen, lingering on the pale sheen of fatigue under her skin, the tight way she held her breath, and for the briefest moment, the lines on his face softened.

“You pushed too hard,” he said quietly, crouching beside her.

Ayen rolled her eyes. “I’m always pushing too hard.”

“You say it as though it was a good thing."

She didn’t respond, but her shoulders curled inward, just slightly.

Galir approached behind them, hands shoved into his pockets. He hadn’t said a word since the bird had taken flight, but now his gaze flicked from Ayen to Kade, then back. Something unreadable crossed his face.

“Good fight,” Galir said simply, looking to Kade.

Kade smiled at him, surprised by how much those few words meant.

Ayen leaned into the grass and stretched out on her back, arms sprawled. “I think I’m in love,” she muttered to no one in particular. “That bird was real. I mean, your magic actually felt alive.”

Kade dropped to sit beside her in the grass, the weight of the fight settling into his limbs. “It’s always like that. Not the bird, I mean... it changes every time. But it listens to me, and can make things from my imagination.”

Hanel gave him a long look.

"You had trouble with the sigils even though you could see them in your mind."

Kade glanced up, fingers sifting through blades of grass. “When I follow what you tell me, it doesn’t work the same. It feels stiff. But when I do what feels right, what I imagine and believe in... it’s like… my magic breathes.”

That earned a hum from Hanel. Approval maybe, or something contemplative.

“I understand it better now,” Kade said. His voice was soft, as he felt his magic shift inside, warm, tired but giddy.

He didn’t say more, but the way his shoulders eased, light and certain, made it clear: this was a turning point. Not only because he had won the duel, but because for the first time, he hadn’t fought like anyone else.

He had fought like Kade.

Beside him, Ayen gave a small laugh. "Well, you are fun and unusual. I’m glad you’re here.”

Hanel stood, his shadow falling over both of them. “That is enough for today,” he said firmly, though his eyes lingered just a second longer on Ayen. “You’ve both done enough damage.”

Galir snorted. “Akalis is going to kill you when she sees the yard.”

“I’m blaming Kade,” Ayen said immediately.

“Fair,” Kade replied, grinning.