“Good! You are a natural, Thayer!” The voice shouted from behind me. I smiled as I looked over my shoulder and saw the effects of Thayer’s spell. His Fire reduced the haystack target that once stood eighty yards from us into a smoking scorch mark. Thayer turned around and gave me a giant smile. The scar over his nose was the first physical trait an observer would notice about my friend. Then they would notice his size. The man was a wall of muscle as wide as he was tall.

The animosity I felt for him years ago was gone now, replaced by respect, trust, and love.

“Your turn, Kaiyer,” said the voice at my side. I looked at my instructor. He was human, with long gray hair that went down to his shoulder blades. His body was old and shriveled, but his small face looked young and happy. He smiled and nodded at me in encouragement as he leaned on a simple cane of bamboo.

“You’ve got this, Brother,” Thayer whispered from behind me. My own target stood one hundred yards from us. Once upon a time I would have had trouble seeing the details of the straw stack. My vision had been normal. Now I was changed. I saw each individual strand of hay in the stack, the threads of the white cloth that laid over it, and the wetness of the red paint, still drying in the breeze.

I focused on it until the rest of the world faded to smoky mist. I felt the power of the Earth rise up through my bare feet, swell in my legs, churn in my stomach, and heat my heart to bursting. The Air swirled around me and weaved between my fingers like her coppery golden hair. The thought of her made the Fire inside of me burn hotter.

“Careful!” the voice of the old one said next to me. I thought about her lips touching mine, the pain when her nails raked across my back and chest, I felt my hands close around her neck. “No! Stop!” The old man screamed behind me before the sound of the explosion. The world turned to fire and pain. My lungs burned to a crisp and then reformed in a split second, both the pain of their destruction and the pain of their creation passing through me.

The Fire burned my skin to black before stripping my bones of their flesh and muscles. Then they too reformed. The pain was intense. It would have been unbearable.

But I had felt worse. So I withstood it.

I opened my eyes to the blue sky. I could smell the burning grass, my roasting flesh, and the carbon scent of rocks being melted into glass. I sat up, naked; I had burned my clothes and hair off, again.

Thayer lay twenty-five feet from me, his body smoking, pieces of his clothes charred black and brown. He coughed suddenly and gray smoke puffed out of his mouth like he had taken a long drag of a pipe.

“Shit,” he said as he coughed again. “I really need to find a new training partner.” He sat up and glared at me.

“You okay?” I asked. We had inflicted worse on each other as both enemies and allies.

“Yeah. I don’t like you anymore though,” he couldn’t say the words with a straight face and we both started laughing.

“What happened, Kaiyer?” the man with the cane said. He appeared unharmed even though he was standing as close to me as Thayer when I lost control of my magic.

“I don’t know for sure. It seemed to be going fine. I could feel the power. When I tried to harness the Wind I started to slip free again.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t want to tell him about her. I didn’t know what he would say. What they would all say. We had a river of hate for the Elvens. But I feared they would not want me if they knew how deep mine was, and why.

“Your Earth control is amazing, the best I have ever seen, but your Air is terrible. Absolutely terrible. I want to help you, but I can’t unless you open up to us. What is it that you are feeling when you harness it?” he sat down on his knees in front of me. It was how we all sat so we could get up quickly and kill if needed.

“I’m sorry. I just lose it.” He frowned and his face reminded me of a monkey's. “I’ll keep working on it though. Maybe it will be easier for me to do it alone.” I looked back between him and Thayer.

“Okay Kaiyer. Let’s take a break from this and go for a run.” I smiled. I was good at this. “Let Thayer lead.” The big man smiled his broken grin. His teeth and jaw had healed from the many times I shattered it during trainings. Only the scar over his nose had never healed, but I hadn’t given him that.

He jumped up like a deer and bounded through the field toward a thick green forest. I easily caught up to him. Although he was bigger than me, I was faster and stronger.

“Grab the O’Baarni some dinner when you are out there, boys,” the old one called behind us as we disappeared. Good. We would be able to hunt. Thayer gave a shout of joy and increased his speed when he hit the forest. Hunting with Thayer always meant we would find something big to kill and drag back.