Chương 15: Pressure and Containment

A couple of days passed before Lira allowed herself to return to the book. Mostly because she forced herself not to rush. The first spell had been simple. The second had required control. Together, they had already changed how she thought magic worked. Fire was starting to feel like something within reach, especially now that she could control it with a thought. So she practiced. She tried to light candles from across the room, and she tried to light candles she couldn't see.

She found out it was a matter of visualization. As long as she could picture it in her head, she could light it with her incantation. When she threw a candle with her eyes closed so she wouldn't know where it would land, she couldn't light it. That was the extent of testing she did with the first spell. It was a simple spell, unlike the second one, where she needed to actively control the flame. She tried to write her name with the fire, containing it enough to scar the paper.

She couldn't do it with thin paper, which would always burn hot enough to leave holes, but she was able to do it with thick vellum made of cow skin leather. She figured that with practice, she could probably learn to write with fire. She tried carving a statue using flame on a small piece of firewood. It seemed easy at first, but then she ran into a different struggle. She wasn't as skilled a carver as she was a calligrapher, which meant her visualization wasn't as good.

She figured a person with different life experiences might find writing harder and carving easier. Still, with each practice attempt, it became easier, and the strain became more manageable, as if her mind or her soul was getting used to the magic. She sat in her alcove, shedding her work accessories and cleaning her hands and face. Lira pulled the fire primer from its hiding place and opened it to where she had left off. A third of the book remained.

She did not rush this time, nor did she try to force understanding. She read calmly and freely.

"Fire within does not seek the world without. Containment is not denial. It is a decision. What burns inside must be given shape, or it will break its vessel." Lira frowned slightly as she read. Her instinct was to investigate the meaning, but she forced herself to relax and continue reading.

"The world presses inward. The self presses outward. Between them lies contention. Where pressure meets resistance, something must yield." Her fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the page. A faint discomfort stirred behind her eyes. She ignored it.

"Isolate the space. Deny the exchange. What is yours remains yours. What is outside is refused." The words felt heavier the longer she looked at them. She gave a sharp exhale and kept reading. The ache in her head did not let up. The words repeated, not in meaning, but in increasing pressure. Despite the mild discomfort, she kept reading, entering the now familiar trance, losing track of time in the book. And then it clicked. Lira gasped.

Her eyes snapped open as pain lanced through her head, sharp and sudden, as if someone had split her skull with an axe. Her vision blurred, and her stomach twisted violently. Stolen story; please report. She doubled over, clutching her head.

"Ah…" The sound came out strained, barely held back. For a moment, the world tilted. The candlelight wavered, stretching into streaks as nausea surged through her. Then, just as quickly as it came, it began to recede. Lira stayed hunched forward, breathing hard as the worst of it passed. Her thoughts were slow to return, dragged back into place piece by piece. And with them, a phrase. Longer than the first two.

"Paldina filla coopar tarasana Kurur." She swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her eyes flicked back to the page. The book was open to the last page. There it was, written there. Five words, written in the way, phonically in the common script, are buried between dense blocks of text. Just like the last time, she had not noticed it before. Lira leaned back against the chair, her head still throbbing faintly.

"… that was not a cantrip," she muttered. The governess's book came back to her immediately. Higher tiers increase in complexity and power. It was recommended to learn three cantrips before attempting a tier one spell. Was the backlash because she had only learned two, or was it because she hadn't familiarized herself with them long enough? She reached for her water skin with unsteady hands and drank what little water remained. It was not much, but it helped settle her stomach.

The pain faded slowly, leaving behind a dull echo. Lira closed her eyes for a moment longer, then opened them again.

"If that is the cost of power…" she murmured, "…then so be it." She hoped she hadn't done any permanent damage. Next time, she would be more careful. There had been signs that something was wrong. The pain had started as soon as she began reading. She could have stopped if she hadn't been so stubborn. She looked down at her hands. Then back to the book. For a long moment, she hesitated. Then she straightened.

"One try," she said under her breath. She raised her hand slightly and focused inward this time, not on the flame or the candle, but on herself. On the space around her. On the idea of holding something in place.

"Paldina filla coopar tarasana Kurur." For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then warmth enveloped her. She could feel the inside of her dress heating, like a summer breeze against her skin. However, this warmth did not extend outside her clothes. She placed her hand over her skirt, and the heat did not radiate outward, completely contained within her dress. Held close to her body, as if something invisible had sealed it in place. Lira's breath caught slightly. Her eyes widened just a fraction.

"This spell is a game changer," she whispered. She looked at the incantation again. Just like before, she could not read it or understand the individual words, but the general meaning felt clear. A contained warm pocket of space. She did not need to actively hold the spell like with the fire manipulation. It stayed in the background of her mind, maintaining itself. Lira focused on ending it, and it vanished just like that. The warmth faded almost immediately, bleeding back into the cold air.

She shivered, already getting used to the warmth, and cast it again.

"Paldina filla coopar tarasana Kurur." The warmth returned once more, and Lira sighed in relief. Her gaze drifted slowly back to the book. It remained open at the last page. Sadly, that meant it had nothing more to offer. Her eyes lingered on the incantation. For some reason, one of the words felt familiar.

"Filla" repeated across all the spells, so she assumed it was the word for fire, heat, or maybe magic itself. No, that wasn't the word giving her that sense of familiarity. It was the third word.

"Coopar." Where would she have encountered it before? It wasn't like she had a habit of reading forbidden texts… That thought stopped her in her tracks. She stood up suddenly and started running toward her dorm room. Halfway through the library, she came back to her senses and slowed to a brisk walk so she would not attract attention. It was past noon, and maids and footmen were bustling in the corridors, busy with work. She couldn't be the only one moving as if she were being chased by a ghost.

When she reached her dorm, it was empty, luckily for her. She opened the chest with her belongings. Inside was her satchel filled with clothes and knick-knacks, but stored beneath a false bottom was her father's ledger. She opened it and scanned the text within. It was a lexicon, a language aid meant to record the meaning of words.

Each word was written in three ways: first, a glyph, a symbol in the original language; second, the same word written phonetically in a common script; and finally, the translation in a common language. Each line held a word, a sound, and a meaning. And at the bottom of the first page, there was a glyph: a circular shape with two ridges facing inward. Next to it was the sound: "Coopar," just like in her spell, and next to that, written in plain common script in her father's handwriting, was the meaning: Containment.