“How so?”
“You haven’t argued all morning.”
Roar released a slow, relieved breath. “We don’t argue all the time.”
Jinx raised her eyebrows. “Yes. You do.”
Roar ignored that. “So you’re my new trainer.”
“I am.”
“What do we do first?”
A wide grin spread over Jinx’s mouth. “If you’re going to train like a hunter, it’s time you looked like one.”
Half a bell later, Jinx had filled Roar’s arms with things she said were absolutely necessary, piling on more as they went through the row of stores near the center of the village. When they left around noon, Roar’s coin purse was considerably lighter, and Jinx’s infectious enthusiasm had begun to take over. Roar wore knit trousers that fit snuggly, but stretched and gave with her movement, along with a new pair of boots. And rather than the billowing shirts she had been wearing before, Jinx insisted she buy a sleeveless top that fit as well as her pants. Over that, she now had a leather harness to match the ones worn by the rest of the hunters. Hers even had detachable shoulder guards that were thick and sturdy but with a somewhat feminine design burned into the leather. She’d also bought a cropped jacket that would keep her arms warm, but left all the various holsters and loops around her middle uncovered so that she could easily get to supplies in an emergency. On a whim, to guard her forearms, they’d added vambraces that each had three small loops where she could store vials of magic.
Of course, at the moment, all of the loops and hooks on her harness and vambraces were empty. But Jinx promised to take care of that soon. For the first time since the twister, Roar did not feel like this life was hopeless. She felt almost like she belonged.
They broke for lunch at the inn. Then in no time at all, she and Jinx had saddled up their horses and were heading out of the town into the dusty red landscape.
“We don’t want to upset the Sacredites,” Jinx had told her. “If they think we’re bringing storms near the town, even magicborn ones, I doubt they’ll be so keen to grant us shelter.”
They rode for over an hour, dust rising in their wake. In the distance large rock formations could be seen, the same red hue as the sand. But when Jinx pulled her horse up to a stop, it was in a flat area with mostly dry, dusty earth, a few swaths of red sand, and one lone tree—its branches bare and the bark bleached nearly white by the sun. They tied their horses to the tree, and Jinx told Roar to wait while she walked over the land. She stopped here and there, placing her hand upon the earth as if listening to it in some way. When she was about a hundred paces away, she stopped and knelt. This time when she pressed her hand into the dirt, she did more than listen. The ground rose under her command, creating a long line of earth that became a knee-high barrier or marker.
She dusted the sand from her hands and jogged back to Roar, grinning.
“Before we get to the fun stuff,” she said, “there’s a few more things to take care of. You have your crystal and your firestorm powder?” Roar nodded. “Good. A certain someone was very insistent that we take all precautions. And you have plenty of leaves of Rezna’s rest in case a storm comes while we’re out here?”
Roar looked down at the vine coiled around her wrist and the bitter leaves that grew there. She was so tired of having to use them. Each time, they left a foul taste in her mouth and the weight of hopelessness on her chest.
“I know this is a lot,” Jinx said, “but it’s temporary. Just until we learn what we’re dealing with here.”
Roar dragged her bottom lip through her teeth and asked, “What if it’s not? What if I’m never able to do what you do?”
“Very few people can do what I do. I’m special that way. You don’t think my magic was awful in the beginning?” Jinx touched the side of her head where her hair was cut short. “I keep my hair like this as a reminder to myself that I am in control, because for a long time I wasn’t. When I was six, a little boy in my town cut my hair to be cruel. Right there in front of everyone, it grew back. In fact, it kept growing, fast and out of control. Then that boy and a few other children started throwing rocks at me. And even though it hurt, I couldn’t get my magic to stop them. I could not get it to do anything useful. It only made my hair grow down to my ankles. For weeks afterward, my mother had to cut my hair ten times a day. I think it was because deep down I was scared to leave my house and face the other children. And as long as my hair kept growing, I did not have to.”
“Children can be so cruel.”
“They’re afraid of anything that’s different. And I was too. But eventually, I stopped fearing my magic, stopped fearing what made me different, and my abilities became less volatile. I still had the occasional incident, but I was able to harness my magic to make my life better instead of worse.”
“I can imagine earth magic is very useful.”
“It is. But it took time to realize the full scope of my abilities. I thought at first that I could only do small things—making plants grow faster, fruit grow larger. It was not until later, until I needed my magic to be bigger, that I did anything more advanced. That’s how Duke found me actually. My mother died when I was in my teens, and it wasn’t safe to stay behind in the home we shared. So I set out on my own. My connection to the earth made it so that I could always find food. Or grow it if I needed it. And when storms came, I could coax the trees to provide shelter. But one day I happened to be traveling along the same road as Duke’s crew when a firestorm hit. There were no trees, not that they would have done me any good. We were all more than a little shocked when the earth opened up to swallow me and the hunters both until the storm passed.”
“That’s amazing.”
Jinx’s smile was so genuine and content. “It took me a while. But I know myself now. I know my worth. My mother always said that every kind of magic requires balance. You might see only the bad things now, but the good exists. You just have to be willing to find it.”
Jinx went to the saddlebags on her horse and began rummaging for something. She pulled out a small crossbow with a long rope attached. Roar recognized it as the tool the hunters called their anchor. Jinx tied one end of the rope to Roar’s harness, then attached both the crossbow and the small pouch that held excess rope to a metal loop on her hip.
The witch stood back and grinned. “Now you look like a hunter.”
Roar’s heartbeat picked up, excitement thrumming through her, and she smiled back.
“We’ll start with something simple,” Jinx said. “A thunderstorm. Your goal is to get to that line of earth I made. My goal is to stop you.”