As soon as I touched Kira our ever-present bond sparked bright, like a fire suddenly flaring to life. I always felt her in the background of my mind, but her presence became almost overwhelming when we touched.
She reached for Auric with her other hand, connecting the three of us. “Can you sense each other?”
“Yes,” Auric said, his eyes closed. “Much stronger than before.”
I closed my eyes and reached out, sorting through the tangled threads of identity and emotion to separate Kira, Auric, and myself. I focused on the feeling of Auric and followed the trail back, going deeper than ever before. He was a mix of excitement and nervousness, but I stretched beyond all that until I found his core self. His strength, his wisdom, his innate goodness. And there, wrapped up in all of that, was his air magic.
“I feel it too,” I said.
“Now draw upon your magic while reaching for the other one’s power,” Kira said. “Try to combine the two elements of fire and air to create lightning.”
As I seized the magic, I felt both Kira and Auric inside me, tugging and pulling, searching and finding. Fire came to me as if by instinct now, but drawing upon Auric’s magic was a lot harder. Every time I tried to grasp it, it seemed to slip through my fingers.
I heard a low buzzing sound and opened my eyes to small sparks flashing in front of us. My hand tightened around Kira’s as I tried to build up the magic, but then it fizzled out and was lost. The sparks vanished.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Damn. We almost had it.”
“Maybe we just need more time for the bond to grow stronger,” Auric suggested.
Kira sighed. “We don’t have time. We face the Dragons in only a few days, and we have to be prepared.”
“Then we keep trying.” I reached out and grabbed Auric’s hand too, forming a circle between the three of us. Instead of closing my eyes, I looked straight into Auric’s gray ones. And then I reached for the magic again.
A bolt of bright white energy shot down from the sky and hit the tree beside us, making us all jump. The energy disappeared instantly, but left behind the impression of heat and power, along with the blackened remains of a tree trunk.
“We did it,” Auric said, his voice impressed.
“Yeah, we did,” I said, dropping their hands. “But I’m not sure what good it does us. We can’t stand around in a circle holding hands every time we need to call lightning.”
“Sark and Isen summoned it at the Air Temple without even touching,” Kira said. “We simply need to practice more.”
“At least we know it’s possible now,” Auric said.
Kira held out her hands as she glanced at both of us. “Let’s try it again.”
I groaned, but took hold of both of them and called forth the magic again. The lightning came easier this time, but it was erratic, hitting the surface of the water with a jagged strike. We were going to have to spend all our free time practicing this to be able to actually control the magic in a way that would be useful in battle. Right now we had just as much of a chance of hitting each other as the enemy.
“Good,” Kira said, after the next three attempts. “Now do it again.”
“Couldn’t we go back to the other kind of training?” I asked, flashing her a naughty grin. “I liked that a lot better.”
“We all did,” Auric said.
Kira shook her head. “We will at night, and during the day we’re going to do this. Every day until you’re throwing lightning from your hands like you throw fire and air.”
I groaned, but then turned to Auric. “Fine, but let’s at least make this more fun. Ten coins says I can throw lightning before you can.”
His eyes gleamed as he smirked at me, that old competition between us coming back to the surface, except this time in a friendly way. “You’re on.”
