"Your arms are shaking," Aristide observed. "Are you tired?"

"Yes!" Nerluce snarled.

He'd been tired for the past quarter candlemark but no one had bothered to relieve him. Aristide's question wasn't meant to relieve him, just to mock. He was sitting nearby, leaned casually against a wall as he thumbed through the pages of a book that looked older than Ethera. Nerluce ground his teeth together and blinked - hard - several times, trying to keep the beads of sweat rolling down his face from pooling in his eye socket.

"You're almost at a half candlemark," Aristide said, glancing off somewhere. "Did you know that if you made it a full candlemark you would beat the recorded time of one of Ethera's greatest Seraphs?"

"Yes!" Nerluce said again.

Aristide had been reminding him of this fact since he first started. Not just today, but since his first year at Ethera. He'd been hearing it for two and a half years now so yes, he knew.

Humming, Aristide considered the act of Nerluce knowing very gravely for someone who knew that Nerluce knew. "If you beat it, they'd probably make you a Seraph right then. Your name would go down in history."

"Screw-"

Nerluce lost his balance and came tumbling out of his handstand. He let out a frustrated groan as Aristide snickered.

"I am going to throttle you," Nerluce threatened.

"You seem a bit tired to be doing that right now, don't you?" Aristide asked, tipping his head in that obnoxiously adorable way of his.

Nerluce let out another frustrated cry.

"What's gotten into you this time?" Taayir asked, eyes alight with a suspicious glare as she approached them. "You're supposed to be training, not messing around. Aristide, do you have nothing better to do than bother Nerluce?"

"I am helping him," Aristide said. "The job of a Seraph will always be one of... distractions. He ought to remain focused."

"How considerate of you," Taayir said. "Go help the girl over there with her water Magick."

"As you wish, Elder Priestess Taayir," Aristide said with a dramatic sigh.

As he left, Nerluce let out another huff. His arms ached, sore from holding the weight of his body for such a long period of time. He rolled his shoulder and looked up at Taayir, whose gaze was still fixed on him. "What?" he asked.

"Aristide is right, you know," she said.

"Yeah, I know," Nerluce said, waving her off. "He always is."

Taayir smiled and sat down next to him on the cold stone. For their physical Magick classes, they usually took them outdoors. However, it being the dead of winter in Ethera, there was a bit too much snow out today and they were inside one of the classrooms that had been gutted of all desks and traditional learning equipment.

Taayir was much more fond of having them do handstands until they couldn't take notes the next day.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Still not able to make fire with a snap of my fingers," Nerluce said. "Which, should I mention, is a required ability to become a Seraph."

"You'll get it," Taayir said, brushing him off. "This is about making your body and your Magick stronger. You still have plenty of time. Besides, learning to change Magick midway through is an extremely difficult skill to master. It is also something that cannot be taught. You will just sort of... do it one day and know how to. Like whistling."

"Whistling?" Nerluce asked.

"Plenty of people can't whistle," Taayir said with a shrug.

Nerluce stared at her before shaking his head. "You can- Anyone can learn how to whistle! Not just anyone can learn to change element types."

"Yes they can," Taayir said. "Some people... are just better at it than others."

They both did their very best not to look at Aristide.

Nerluce couldn't help it and turned his head. He watched as Aristide stood beside the girl, moving his hand gracefully back and forth, pulling water from the air and holding it there for a breath before it sparked and turned into a lake of fire. It burned so brightly and so blue before Aristide flicked his wrist and the fire became snow and it scattered over the girl's head, tangling in her thick hair.

She was pretty. Aristide too. Together they made a prettier picture, especially when he reached to brush away a couple of the snowflakes on her cheeks.

Like whistling, Taayir had said. Yeah right.

"If I had just a little bit of that talent..." Nerluce grumbled.

"You do have a little bit of that talent," Taayir said.

Nerluce made a face.

"Stop," Taayir scolded. "You aren't like anyone else in Ethera. You are mastering an Element that is not your Affinity." She smiled at him. "And just because Aristide can do it, doesn't mean you are under any obligation to."

"Did you know that we're practically the same age?" Nerluce asked.

"I'm aware he's eighteen, yes," Taayir said.

"I turn eighteen this spring. So why..." Nerluce squeezed his eyes shut, searching for the words. "Why is he so much better when he has at most six months on me?"

Taayir shifted. "You need to stop comparing yourself to Aristide," she said. "And to Lyana too for that matter."

"I wasn't-"

"You are, I know it. I see it in your eyes." Taayir scowled at him. "And take it from me, kid, you need to stop now or else you are going to be miserable. They are not normal people." She sighed and the fire inside of her dimmed a bit. "They were either born really, really lucky or really, really unlucky depending on who you ask."

Nerluce looked down.

"Aristide was eleven or twelve and I was... in my early twenties when we first were partnered together for a mission." Taayir turned to look at Nerluce and he realized she, too, was probably younger than he first surmised her to be. "They told me that this kid, still wet with the oil of his Seraph ceremony, was the only one with enough Magick to match me. Holy shit was I pissed."

"I'd be too," Nerluce said.

"But that was never an insult to me," Taayir said. "Just a compliment to him."

"So are you less miserable now that you stopped thinking about him as a rival?" Nerluce asked, raising a brow.

"Maybe."

"That doesn't sound too convincing."

Taayir laughed and shook her head. "Shit, kid, it wasn't supposed to be. Maybe comparing yourself to Aristide and Lyana is what got you this far. It's probably what got me." She pulled her arms behind her head. "I feel sorry for those unlucky bastards."

"Yeah," Nerluce said. "Me too."

He wasn't sure if Taayir was talking about herself and him or about Lyana and Aristide. He didn't know which one he was talking about either.

"I have a question," Nerluce said. "About Magick."

"I am a teacher of Magick," Taayir said, looking at him suspiciously. "What is it?"

Nerluce sat up a bit straighter. "I know that Aristide was born in Tilica. I know that Lyana comes from Reidith." He shifted a bit. "But... neither of them come from one of the families well known for Magick. It doesn't make sense," he said. "Isn't Magick supposed to be... inherited? Great Magickians giving birth to great children. Isn't that the whole idea behind things like the Hebikoti Clan."

"Yeah, it is," Taayir said with a sigh before she too sat up. "The records in Ethera are old. The stories... older still." She rubbed the back of her neck. "In the old days, we'd get a kid like this... once every one or two centuries. Born from nothing but with enough Magick, people start to notice." She leaned in then and her next words were hissed. "There have been five in the past twenty years."

"Five?" Nerluce echoed.

Taayir nodded solemnly. "That's not to mention the number of powerful Magickians coming from the old families. Your sister, the Seventeeth Prince of Tilica, the twins of the Dumore, and dozens more. All of them should be once-in-a-generation powers but instead..." She shook her head. "All of this Magick is surging into the world. I can only wonder for what purpose?"

"Does it have to do with... with Kierli? With the prophecy?"

"The High Priestess seems to think so," Taayir said.

Nerluce let out a shaky breath. This conversation with Taayir had taken an unexpected turn. The world was changing, rapidly and harshly. Nerluce just wondered... what would happen once they used it all up? Once all the Magick was gone?

Once again, Nerluce's arms were shaking but it wasn't because of his exhaustion.