[Lullaby of Stillness]!

Her ribbon-bound hand swept forward; white mana slipped from the silk like spilled milk, blossomed into notes, and drifted through the drake's chest. Its roar softened into a puppy's whine, then sank into sleep like dusk over a lake.

Alicia braced her hands on her knees; her breath came in harsh gusts, like bellows feeding a forge. Weariness crashed over her like a black tide. —No... I'm dead tired... is wielding mana that rejects me really this exhausting?

From the first clash, Alicia had muzzled her flames, casting only arts her mana wasn't meant to command. It was an experiment, a stone tossed into deep water. The result floated up clear; the power matched the books. But so did the backlash, a storm that struck flesh and mind.

Her body ached in ordinary waves, yet her brain throbbed like a swollen hive. Heat pooled there like an iron brand; veins drummed, ready to burst like overripe fruit. It didn't last long; at first, each spell only stung for a breath. Then cool washed up from her chest, like a summer stream over sunburnt skin, and the pain melted like frost.

Strange, yes, that chill blooming in her sternum like a hidden spring, with no line in any book to explain it. But mid-battle, a gift is a gift; why question rain in a drought?

She raised her hand again, and the ribbon flashed blue like winter lightning. That hue ran against her nature, water to her fire, opposite poles of the same sky. Fire mages could sometimes fake light or earth, like walking on stilts, yet none touched water. She would break that rippled surface today.

Spirits of water, elements of water, stay by me, stand with me! — [Siren]

It wasn't a high-tier weave, just a simple water skill, but perfect for a fireborn like Alicia. She voiced the long chant out of worry, like carrying an umbrella under a cloudless sky.

Water twined into a whirl beside her, a little cyclone that opened like a blue flower. From its heart, a slim girl's arm reached out, clear as glass, all water from fingertip to shoulder. As the old saying goes, women are made of water; the spell took it literally. Despite the name [Siren], no sea-witch climbed out; what formed was a cute sea-fairy girl. Blue hair, blue eyes, blue skin; the water-spirit floated at Alicia's side like a moonlit jellyfish. She seemed to adore Alicia and cupped her cheeks with translucent hands, cool as dew.

But Alicia hadn't called her here for petting; this wasn't a tea garden but a battlefield. How does this thing attack again?

Whoosh—!!

She didn't get to figure it out; danger prickled like cold rain, and her body stepped back on instinct. The sprite had no such instinct; three claws swept down like sickles in a storm. A water-spirit should shrug off steel, yet those talons ripped her open—ripped her, in the raw, like paper in rain. Three lines marked the cuts; her body parted into five pieces, then fell with gravity and splashed into a puddle.

Alicia watched the 'dismemberment' with a stone in her throat; construct or not, the girl had a human face. She had called her, so a thin thread bound them like a red string. Blame pricked her like thorns; the sprite died because she didn't know the spell.

She lowered her head, then lifted her eyes to the drake as it clawed again; a snarl cut across her face. [Grand Fireball]!

She aimed not to kill the drake, but to carve the deepest wound with pure flame. The name was plain, but the power burned true. A fireball budded in her palm, then shot out in less than a breath, like a comet loosed. It slammed the unready drake and drove it downrange until the world blurred. Scales charred away like burnt leaves; the flesh beneath turned golden under the roast.

Bzzzz—!!

This time the surge hit harder than her earlier brain-throb; a needle of sound drilled her ears. She clapped her hands to them, wincing, mind a shaken hive. Why the delay, when she'd cast water for so long, like rain over fire, only to suffer now? Her heart felt seized by a fist that squeezed tighter, tighter, ready to burst like a crushed pomegranate.

Cool rose again from her chest, a river under ice, and hauled her back from the cliff's edge. Haa... haa... haa. She gulped air in ragged pulls, like a beached fish, sweat beading cold across her brow. The hurt was gone, yet her face stayed corpse-pale, like moonlight on bone.

She looked down at her chest, and questions swarmed her skull like starlings. —What... is it?