Senior Spark by Marie-Hélène Lebeault

Author:Marie-Hélène Lebeault [Lebeault, Marie-Helene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marie-Hélène Lebeault

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE DANCE

MAGNUS

The corrupted node pulsed like an infected wound, fire and ice locked in combat that was tearing NPU's magical infrastructure apart from the inside.

I could feel both elemental signatures as Nix and I approached the chamber's center. The fire was wild, desperate, trying to burn through constraints it didn't understand. The ice was rigid, terrified, suppressing everything it touched because that's what it had learned to do for survival.

They weren't conscious, exactly, but they remembered. Muscle memory of magic. Desperate instincts trapped in patterns that no longer served.

They were us. Before we'd learned to trust. Before we'd discovered that opposition could create structure instead of catastrophe.

"They're afraid," Nix whispered beside me, her flames reaching toward the corrupted fire with recognition that looked almost like grief. "The fire signature, it's not trying to destroy. It's trying to protect itself the only way it knows how."

"Same with the ice," I replied, frost forming patterns that mirrored the desperate control radiating from the corrupted signature. "It's suppressing because it doesn't know how else to survive contact with something that opposes it."

We stood at the edge of the corruption, feeling it pulse with destructive opposition that was spreading through ley lines like poison. The containment barrier behind us flickered again, Professor Frostwick's magic straining to hold back cascading failure.

"So how do we fix it?" Nix asked. "We can't just suppress the signatures, Professor Blitzen said suppression is what's causing the problem. But we can't let them keep fighting either, or they'll destroy NPU's entire magical infrastructure."

"We show them the dance," I said, the answer crystallizing with sudden clarity. "We don't suppress or contain, we demonstrate. Let our elements interact with the corrupted signatures and show them what balanced opposition looks like."

"You want to perform the Boundary Dance while simultaneously channeling power into destabilized magical infrastructure?" Nix's flames spiked with what might have been panic or exhilaration. "Magnus, that's…”

"Exactly what we've been practicing," I interrupted. "Trust without control. Opposition without suppression. Faith that our elements know how to communicate even when conscious minds are terrified."

I held out my hand, frost forming invitation patterns across my palm. "Together?"

Nix stared at my outstretched hand, at the corrupted node pulsing behind us, at containment barriers that were visibly weakening with each heat pulse.

Then she took my hand, fire meeting frost in patterns we'd practiced until they felt like breathing.

"Together," she confirmed. "Let's teach these trapped elements how to dance."

We moved into first position, but instead of just creating opposition between our own elements, we extended our magical signatures toward the corrupted node. My frost reached for the trapped ice essence. Nix's fire connected with the desperate flame signature.

The moment contact was established, I felt the corrupted ice's terror flood through our connection. It had been suppressing for so long, containing, controlling, preventing contact with anything that opposed it, that it had forgotten how to exist any other way.

I understand, I thought toward it, letting my frost communicate what words couldn't. I spent three years doing exactly the same thing.

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