Chapter 353: The Changing Flame

“How many of you have been to the rainbow tower?” Miss Sutton asked.

Selina, Chelios and two other students raised their hands.

“Good, so some of you have seen how glass prisms break light into colours.” The teacher drew a triangular prism on the board. “Those of you who haven’t been to Noarc’s tower, have you seen coloured glass or a coloured gem, like a ruby or a sapphire?”

The other four students raised their hands.

“Excellent! That will make this easier to explain. Now, I have a simple question for everyone. At least I hope it’s simple.” She drew four tall rectangles on the board: one red, one green, one yellow and one blue. The chalk shimmered, changing colour each time it touched the board, and returning to its natural colour after the blue rectangle was completed.

She then drew four straight lines, one ending against the left side of each coloured rectangle, creating an image of a light beam striking the rectangle.

“Now, let’s say the straight lines are light, and the rectangles are coloured glass. So, each beam of light strikes the coloured glass on the left side, then comes out on the right side? What colour will each light beam be when it emerges on the right?”

Someone snorted.

Selina and some of her classmates looked at each other, waiting for someone else to answer.

The question did seem to be too easy, there must have been a trick to it. Unsure, Selina didn’t raise her hand, but neither did anyone else. No one wanted to be the one taking a chance at being wrong when the answer seemed so obvious.

Miss Sutton mimed looking at a time keeper. “Come on, we’re not moving on until one of you answers.”

Reluctantly, Mariama’s hand went up. “Uh…well, if it went through the red rectangle, the light would turn red. If it went through the blue one, it would turn blue. If it went through the yellow one, it would be yellow, and the green rectangle would turn it green.”

Miss Sutton paused for a few moments, watching the young girl squirm. Selina had the feeling her teacher was enjoying herself, then she finally broke the tension with a big smile. “You are…absolutely correct Mariama!” She drew the appropriately coloured lines exiting the right side of the rectangles.

“And now you know the basics of what we call the Filter Theory, which is the most accepted theory for how affinities work.” She tapped her belly. “Like we’ve talked about before, inside all of us there’s a mana pool, and around that mana pool are our mana fibres. We haven’t been able to examine them visually, but people with affinities have described how their own fibres ‘feel’. And what they say, seems to indicate that mana fibres in people with affinities are shaped slightly differently than in those without.”

She tapped the coloured rectangles. “So imagine that each fibre also acts as a kind of ‘filter’, filtering the mana you make in such a way that it’s ‘touched’ by a particular element. So what does this mean in practice? It means that the mana you produce is much more efficient at powering spells of your own element. Spells you cast of that element will require less mana, and be far more powerful than average.”

She looked at Mariama and Selina. “Which means that your mana will be much less efficient at powering spells of the opposite element. The stronger the affinity, the less efficient it will be, and the more likely the mana will be to ‘act up’ while you’re building a spell array. So, for those with a very strong affinity, casting spells of the opposite element might even be dangerous.”

Selina nodded silently. She’d expected that would happen.

Miss Sutton continued the lesson, explaining how affinities were used throughout history. She talked about the ancient kingdom of Windemere where those with a wind magic affinity were seen as blessed people, and how they used their spells to power windmills so each harvesting season the grain was efficiently turned into flour. The kingdom always had flour to trade for other goods with their neighbours. She explained how people with water affinities used spells that changed currents to push ships through the ocean even when there was no wind.

Then she spoke of fire.

“In the lost Kingdom of Ozuko, there were many people with fire affinities. And they had two jobs: to make clean water and to help make it rain,” she explained.

Selina’s hand immediately shot up.

“Ah yes, Selina?” Miss Sutton asked.

“I thought you said that people with fire affinity couldn’t use water magic very well, or at all?”

“Aaaaah, but here’s the thing, Selina,” Miss Sutton said. “If you apply magic and science together, then you can do all sorts of things that might surprise you.” She picked up a cup of water from her desk. “Watch closely.”

With a short incantation, Selina felt a wave of heat pass through the room and a gathering of mana near the cup in her teacher’s hand. Something about the mana felt…comforting.

Then came a hiss and a bubble as the water boiled, sending a line of steam into the air.

“Take note of the steam. When water boils it evaporates, meaning it turns into vapour. However, if it gets cold enough, then it will turn into water again. That’s a process called condensation, which is what we call the moisture that one sees on a window in colder climates during the cold season. Now, here’s the interesting thing about evaporation and condensation.”

She muttered another incantation, and the mana Selina sensed felt…awful. Strange. Unfriendly. As Miss Sutton finished the spell, a thin wall of ice rose from the floor beside her. It was no thicker than a pinky, and no wider than Selina’s arm-span, but it would’ve been even taller than Alex.

The teacher brought the steaming cup close to the wall of ice and—as the steam touched the frozen surface—it began turning into water droplets that quickly froze into icy protrusions on the wall.

“Each of those droplets are pure water,” their teacher said. “When water evaporates, it leaves many impurities behind. Contaminants like sand, grit and even salt. So for example, if you were to boil seawater, you would make pure steam. Then when it condenses, you have pure water that you can drink. We call this ‘distilled water’. You understand? If you have or ever develop an interest in alchemy, you’ll be using distilled water a lot.”

“So…wizards with fire affinity could boil sea water to make pure steam?” Selina asked.

“Exactly, and if you evaporate a lot of water at once, then it will travel up into the clouds where it is muchcolder. Then, if that much water condenses all at once, and under the right conditions, it can trigger or increase rain. See? With science and magic together, there’s many amazing things you can do, if you learn about electrical current, how heat travels, the minerals in earth, and the way water flows. And—Selina?”

“How does heat work?” she asked.

Silence spread through the class.

“Oh my, well, that’s an advanced question,” Miss Sutton said. “Well…um…how can I put this? This is verymuch oversimplifying it, and you’ll learn much more about heat during magical theory and alchemy courses in later years. But, for now, heat is a bit like ‘energy on the move’. When something burns, energy is being released as heat and flame. The fire feeds itself on air and fuel, and heat results. Heat conducting along metal is energy travelling along it.”

Selina’s mind was working quickly.

A tiny hope bloomed in her chest.

She thought back to what Alex told her about using more flame to fight the fire in the windmill:

“The thing is, the fire needed the wood, air, and monsters inside the mill to keep burning. So if I made a bigger fire, it would eat all the fuel and air inside the mill. Then the first fire wouldn’t be able to burn anymore,” he’d said.

Fire to eat the fuel of another fire.

Fire to stop fire.

Fire to end fire.

Fire would burn up all the fuel, and then there would be no more heat after that.

And now this stuff about heat…fire was transforming energy. Changes. Changing.

Heat was something moving from one place to the other…so wherever the heat was going would get hotter, wouldn’t it? So then…

She put her hand up again.

“Yes, Selina?”

“What is cold?”

Miss Sutton chuckled. “Well you are just full of difficult questions today, aren’t you? Cold is hard to describe, but the easiest way I can explain it is that…cold is where heat and energy isn’t. The less heat and energy in the air…” She made a little shivering motion. “…the lower the temperature will be.”

“So…” Selina said, her hope growing. “If you can move heat and fire, can you create cold?”

Miss Sutton paused, thinking about the question. “In theory…you might be able to, but it would be very difficult, I would think. I imagine it would be a lot easier to have a wizard just cast a spell of elemental water, or a spell of paralemental ice. There’s no real necessity for such a thing, but who knows? Does that answer all your questions?”

Selina Roth’s mind was on fire. She barely managed to squeak out a: “Y-yes, those are all my questions. Thank you, Miss Sutton.”

“You’re most welcome. Okay, then,” her teacher said. “Now, let’s talk about how air magic works. With air, we—”

But Selina wasn’t listening.

Her imagination was aflame. What if fire didn’t have to come with shame? What if she could use it—just like her brother used the Mark—to do something different? Something good? Fire and ice.

Snow from fire.

Good fire that ate destructive fire.

An Eater of Flame.

Silently, she sat, trying to listen to the lesson while her mind danced with images of flame. For the first time in years, those images didn’t completely fill her with shame and fear.

A sense of wonder returned, and though some shame remained…for the first time, she felt like she could do something about it. Hope. Selina’s mind drifted back to Miss Sutton’s voice when she heard, “assignment for next class” and realised her classmates were all standing. Immediately, she was out of her chair, shoving books into her book bag, and heading to the line forming by the teacher’s desk. She waited patiently for her turn, knowing her question wasn’t going to be a short one. It seemed like everyone had long questions that needed long answers today. Mariama’s was about the elemental plane of air, and how that intertwined with lightning magic. She was second to last in line just before Selina; whose patience had been erased by the time Mariama’s turn came.

When the young girl had gotten her answer, she noticed Selina standing there. “You want me to wait for you?”

“No. You go ahead. I’ll catch up to you in a minute.”

Mariama shrugged, “Okay, see you in a bit.”

Chelios—flanked by two friends—paused at the doorway for a moment, giving Selina and Miss Sutton a wave goodbye.

Selina was almost vibrating with excitement.

“Umm…I was wondering if I could ask you kind of a hard question, Miss Sutton?”

“Oh my, well you’ve been asking me hard questions all morning, Selina. You certainly had me earning my wages, that’s for sure.” Miss Sutton smiled, placing a book in her bag. “I’m glad today’s lesson sparked so many questions in you. It shows how engaged you are and that you’re making some sound connections from the material. That’s the definition of learning. So, now tell me what you’re curious about?”

“Ummm…” Selina said. “Making a spell that could…move heat and fire and then make things cold where the heat was…could someone make a spell like that?”

Miss Sutton paused. “You seem really interested in that.” She frowned, then cleared her throat. “Your brother has told me…something of your past. Are you doing okay?”

“...yeah, I’m okay.” Selina said.

“I didn’t want to be indiscreet in front of the other children, but…I’m glad I have the chance to check-in with you. Just so you know, if you ever find parts of our lessons involving fire affinities too difficult, don’t hesitate to excuse yourself for a bit.” She smiled and patted Selina’s shoulder.

“Now, to your question…if someone could make a spell like that. People don’t usually make spells unless it’s out of necessity, and most people use cold magic to make cold, or water magic to make water. …it might technically be possible, though. I think you’d need to ask a wizard far more experienced than myself.”

The words “technically be possible” were enough for Selina.

“Miss Sutton…when you have help hours after school…. I wonder…if you could teach me a little more about how heat and fire magic works?”

Miss Sutton paused… “Whatever I can. And whatever you’re comfortable with.”

And so a door had opened for change to come to Selina Roth.

Just as a wildfire brought change to the land.

What would grow after that change?

Selina was hopeful for something good.