Next with Magic

Sophia looked at the flame pillar slowly subsiding and revealing nothing but a small patch of burned grass. She could feel the faint magic behind her, before the longsword appeared in front of her throat.

“Nice try,” Kieran said from behind her, “But not e—”

He noticed that she had sheathed her sword and her hand was on her back, palm facing towards him. A sudden wall of compressed air hit him square in the chest and flung him back. Kieran managed to land on his feet and slid back a few meters further until he came to a halt, dropping to his knee.

“You were saying?” Sophia teased with a wide smile.

A few fist-sized rocks were floating above her outstretched arm. Kieran got back up and flashed her a challenging smile. Sophia obliged and shot one of the rocks at him. Kieran dodged slightly to the side and noticed a smile on her face. He reacted instantly and raised his arm in defense. The small rock exploded into tiny fragments that managed to slightly cut into his flesh. Kieran saw the next volley of rocks coming his way. He dashed forward before they could reach him, ducking under the first one. They exploded behind his back, only a few fragments hitting their mark. One of the inscriptions on Kieran’s body began to glow and all of the shallow cuts were nearly healed already before he took his next step. With long strides he closed the distance towards Sophia. She just finished incanting her next spell and a stream of flames erupted from her hand. Kieran ran right into the fire. A few of his other inscriptions began their work a. He felt the heat enveloping him and the violent magic energy getting absorbed into his body. He lunged forward, releasing some of the newly acquired energy through his legs, further accelerating him forward. Kieran broke through the flames and saw a surprised Sophia hastily trying to form another spell. She was too slow. Kieran stopped his sword with its point only a hair breath away from her face.

“Dead,” Kieran said calmly and lowered his sword, “If this would have been a real fight, you would be dead. Again.”

Sophia blinked a few times, still processing what had happened just now.

“How did you?” she muttered and looked at Kieran’s body, “Show me.”

Kieran sighed, dropped his sword, pulled the leather cuirass off, then the gambeson and lastly his linen shirt. Some of the inscriptions over his chest, shoulders and upper arm still glowed. Sophia stepped closer and touched one of the glowing lines.

“You absorbed,” she mumbled and looked up into his eyes, “my spell?”

“Told you I can absorb magic…” Kieran responded, “Although it was only part of your spell.”

“Yeah, but the human body is not made to absorb magic in any other form than it’s pure state! That’s why we use spells! It lets us change the magic energy into whatever we desire, after we safely pulled it out in its pure form. But you just absorbed magic in an elemental state… fire nonetheless! The most volatile one of the elements!”

“I guess I did…”

“You guess?”

Sophia stepped back, her eyes glued to the slowly dimming inscriptions on his body.

“Does it…” she began hesitantly, “hurt much?”

“You get used to it…” Kieran answered with a shrug.

“Interesting…”

She watched the last glowing line fade and then cleared her throat.

“Well, I’ve now seen and experienced how you fare against sword and against magic…” Sophia said and unsheathed her sword again, “Let’s see how you do in the next round.”

Kieran could not help but smirk a little. He had to admit that the young mage started to intrigue him. She was still unexperienced in real fights, but he felt her potential. Kieran went back a bit and readied himself.

“Don’t you want to put that back on?” Sophia asked and pointed with her sword at the clothes Kieran had tossed to the side.

“It makes no difference and I don’t want to damage them… at least so soon,” Kieran replied with a shrug, “Unless this is too distracting for you, Miss Mage.”

Sophia glared at the half naked man and she noticed something, His physique was that of a man in his prime, no signs of emaciation. If Sophia hadn’t seen Kieran personally in his cell yesterday, she would have never guess that the man had been in prison for years without proper food.

“As you wish, Mage Murderer,” Sophia uttered.

Her eyes and the gems inside of her sword began to glow brightly, after she had whispered a quick incantation. Sophia lunged forward with more than triple the speed she had shown in the first round. Kieran watched her movement closely and a faint smile appeared on his face.