My eyes fluttered open as the early rays of the sun hit them. They were instantly drawn to the head lying on my chest. Moving a hand, I caressed her back. “Morning,” came Victoria’s soft voice. Her head lifted as she tilted it to look at me.

  Her eyes locked with mine. We stayed like that for a few seconds before hers suddenly widened. “You’re awake!” She excimed as she scrambled to sit up. Her legs straddled on either side of me. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel fine. How long was I out?” It had to have been a while for her to be reacting like this.

  “A week.” Came Marcy’s clipped voice. “It’s a good thing you are awake, breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. Take a shower before you come down. You both reek.”

  Victoria tried to hide it but I caught her sniffing her armpit. She must have agreed because her nose instantly crinkled at whatever she was smelling. Sliding off me, she stood next to the bed in a single-piece nightgown. I, however, was naked except for a pair of boxers.

  I raised an eyebrow at her in question and she shrugged. A hand outstretched to me, she offered to help me out of bed. Taking it, I slid to the edge of the bed. The moment I tried to stand, I was gd I had taken her hand. My legs were wobbly and didn’t seem to want to listen to me. Her hold was the only thing keeping me from crashing to the ground.

  Pulling me close, my arm went over her shoulder as she dragged me to the shower. “Why am I so weak?”

  “You need to eat. While we could give you some water, we couldn’t feed you with what we had access to. Until you feel better, try to take it easy.” Victoria replied as she pushed me into the shower.

  In the shower, I leaned against the wall. Letting the water cascade down my body as she cleaned herself. As soon as she was done, she did the same for me. Both of us silently agreeing to wait to talk about what had happened until breakfast where both her mother and uncle could answer some questions.

  Finally, we sat at the table and started to eat. It was Gregory who broke the silence first. “Do you feel any different?”

  “No, should I?”

  “Not really,” he said, “What is the st thing you recall?”

  “In retion to what?” I asked, wondering if he was asking about the odd nightmare, before the coma or after.

  “How about this;” Marcy interrupted. “Start with what you recall about the spell and work your way forward. Tell us everything you remember. We will try to expin anything we can as we go.”

  “Well, I remember the spell starting and feeling as though someone was running a file along my insides while stabbing needles into various pces,” I said, trying to not shiver at the pain I could even feel through the memories.

  “That would be the spell. The grinding was Victoria shaving your mana pool walls down while the needles were us clearing the mana pathways.” Marcy said, nodding for me to continue.

  “I don’t remember exactly when I passed out but I know it was retively soon after it started. After that, it got a bit weird. While I know it was a dream, it felt real.” I said, debating whether or not to tell them about the dreams themselves.

  “What did you dream about?” Gregory asked his attention fully on me. The food on the table entirely forgotten by each of us.

  “It was a world covered in a gridwork of rooms. Each door leading from one to the other. I was running as fast as I could. Fire and water chasing me as they raged through each room I escaped from.”

  A hand grabbed mine under the table and squeezed as Victoria asked, “How did you know the world was covered? Could it have been a rge facility? Could you have just been going through the same rooms over and over again without realizing it?”

  I returned the squeeze as I answered her, “There were times I was nearly caught by one or another. One such time I managed to escape by breaking a skylight. The pressure of the water tossed me high into the air. Before I came crashing down, I managed to get a look at the world around me. Whatever it was stretched from horizon to horizon in every direction.”

  “What caused you to be caught?” Marcy asked. “Which were you caught by?”

  “I was caught by the water. When I jumped over a fissure my leg caught and something in it cracked. I managed to keep going for a bit longer but there was no way I was going to be able to jump over the next fissure. The water caught up and I drowned.”

  “Good.” She said, nodding.

  “Good?” I asked, a bit confused as to how drowning was good. “Even if it had been a dream, how is drowning ever a good thing?”

  “It wasn’t really a dream,” Gregory said, holding up a hand to stop Marcy from answering. “The pce you were running through was the outer yer of your core. The same core that Victoria was grinding away at with her mana. Mana that was interpreted by your mind as fire.”

  “And the water? What was that?”

  “Your mana made free by the fire.” He answered. “It was fighting the mana left over by Victoria after the spell ended while also breaking the rest of its confines. All the fissures you jumped over were weak spots that the mana exploited. Filling and expanding them until the mana below was freed.”

  “But I thought that it would be a bad thing to remove too much of the outer yer of the core. Something about it failing.”

  Marcy sighed, “Sometimes I wish I had started to teach you about all this when I was teaching Victoria. The root yer is still there. Those buildings were akin to vines strangling a tree trunk. Your mana just washed the st of it away while it built a yer of protection on the surface. Now, did you experience any other dreams or did you wake up after that?”

  “I experienced another dream.”

  “Let me guess, a ke with multiple moons high above?”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  Marcy ignored my question, instead ordering me to describe the scene.

  “It was a forest clearing. In the middle was a ke just rger than the clearing the house is currently in. Above were six moons of various colors and sizes. Other than those moons, it reminded me of times I went camping.”

  “Six moons?” Victoria asked.

  At the same time, Marcy’s eyebrows raised as Gregory asked, “A forest clearing? As in dirt?”

  “Yes and yes, why?”

  “What colors and sizes were the moons?”

  “Three tiny moons, red, grey, and blue colored. A small brown moon with a rge shiny silver one orbiting it.” I stopped there, their faces growing more confused with each one I listed.

  “And the st?” Marcy demanded.

  “The rgest one was a golden yellow.”

  She snorted as Gregory roared in ughter. When he finished he said, “Of course it is. Damn, Victoria you got lucky with this one.”

  “Why? What element is represented by a golden yellow color?” She asked.

  He waved off her question, “Neither of you need to worry about that. Christian, what you saw was your spirit pool or mana well. It is what is inside your core yet, at the same time, it is your core. The rger the pool, the more mana you can use before having to wait for it to refill. How fast you can draw on the mana depends on how deep and wide your rivers are.”

  “But I don’t have any rivers,” I said, confused about the ck and what it would mean.

  “It’s a forest with dirt, you can make rivers with some time and effort. If it was a metal or stone ndscape then it would be harder if not impossible.” Marcy said, looking at Victoria with a sad expression on her face.

  “Wait, what is yours made out of?” I asked Victoria, though something told me it would be stone.

  “My mana ke is inside a rge mountain cave with four orbs of light flying all over the pce.”

  Pulling her into my side, I asked another question not reted to the ground of that space.“What do those lights and moons represent anyway?”

  “Elements and your affinity to them,” Gregory responded. “The rger, the stronger the affinity. Based on your color description, you have the minimum affinity for fire, air, and water to live.” He waved at me to stop the question he knew I was about to ask. “Not something you need to know. Your affinity for earth is a bit better with a sub-affinity to metal that is fairly decent.”

  I noticed he didn’t list what the yellow-gold color represented. Leaving it for another time, I asked, “What does affinity have to do with magic?”

  “How easy you can cast various spells as well as how strong they can be. With enough training and mana, you can learn to cast spells of all types and elements with pure brute force.” Gregory smiled at me, his teeth in full view. The sight creeped me out. Something about it told me he was going to force me to learn every element I could and push me until I could cast everything or I shattered.

  “But for now, finish your food. Training won't resume until tomorrow. I have to run into town anyway to get your new sword as well as a few other materials.” Marcy said.

  “I need to head to the castle for training materials,” Gregory added. Both got up, taking their ptes to the kitchen. My free hand reached for something to grab and py with. The only thing in reach was the fork on my pte. Without realizing it, I resumed eating as my mind wandered over what I had just learned. Eventually, I fed the st bite to Victoria who took it without pause before holding up a bite of her food for me. After that, we cleaned up and returned to her room. Cuddling through the rest of the day.