Nero’s heart kicked into a frantic rhythm.

A hard lump of fear rose to his throat. Horrible memories crashed over him, sweeping away the fragile weeks of calm, Frank had given him.

He hung in the air in tense silence.

The wolf spat out the severed hand and tried to spring a few meters up to reach the still-levitating boy. But then, in the middle of jump a crackling bolt of lightning lanced through the beast’s belly. 

The creature crumpled to the ground, jerking in convulsions. Threads of electricity scorched its fur with a black smoke curling up in the air. The embedded bolt winked out, leaving Nero hovering in stunned quiet above an dead monster.

Nero wheeled in the direction the spell had come from.

Oliver stood there, ringed by more "wolfs". Only then, when he could completely observed those creature, still levitating Nero realised. "They looks like wolves, but actually it was more right to call them wolf-bears." 

Yellow arcs crackled over Oliver’s body, snapping side to side and keeping the rest of the pack at bay. A green glow wrapped the stump where his right hand should have been. Nero watched, wide-eyed, as the bleeding stopped and new flesh knit itself over raw bone, the missing hand growing back.

“It’s regenerating,” he thought.

“Vargs,” Oliver said suddenly, almost conversational, even a touch amused. “A breed of wolf-type monsters that live in forests like this. Start writing, kid.”

Lightning flashed in Nero’s eyes. Two glowing wolf bodies hit the dirt with a thud. Meeting his teacher’s gaze, Nero accidentally turned over while opening his blank notebook.

“Monsters are what you get when ambient mana poisons an animal. It clouds their minds, warps their bodies.” Oliver added.

“This is all very educational, but maybe you could put me down now?” "Loki" managed, after scribbling a few lines. Being suspended with no ground under his feet, was starting to make him woozy.

Oliver chuckled and dropped the levitation. “Loki” flumped onto the grass, fumbled his notebook, then hurried to Oliver and prodded the newly regrown hand with his pencil.

“So… how?!” he blurted, still poking.

“Just magic... runt. And nothing more than that.” Oliver shot back.

"Did he just call me runt...." Nero thougth. 

Leaves rustled, somewhere just out of sight. “Loki” whipped out his wand and aimed at the sound.

“Pfft. I doubt your little spark will do anything to it,” Oliver said, squinting. After a beat he added, “Relax, it’s a mere rabbit.”

He’d gotten what he wanted from this spot. All that remained was to check the water magic situation more precisely, it's absence. But Oliver didn't know the truth about it.

Neither Nero...

“Now we head down and move to part two,” Oliver said. When “Loki” nodded, they started back.

In time they came down to a small stream so Nero could demonstrate his inability to cast, and so Oliver could see what would happen.

They stopped on the right bank. With a lazy flick of his fingers, Oliver lifted a neat block of soil, clay, and pebbles to sit on. He settled in and waited a breath before speaking. “Show me.”

Nero had tried water magic over and over since that night. Every attempt brought a horrible panic attack and physical pain. He didn’t know why, but he still wanted to keep trying.

That's why he spared the grisly details of that “night” and told Oliver simply what happened after he used water. Oliver acted as if he believed him and asked for a demonstration anyway.

"Well, okay." 

“Loki” stepped closer to the stream and bared his wand. Oliver watched him sharply. He wanted to be sure the boy wasn’t exaggerating the way kids his age often did.

“Loki” glanced back at his teacher, looking for approval. He wasn’t a masochist after all. When Oliver gave a short nod, he lifted the wand toward the water.

He didn’t speak. As he raised the wand, an answering bulge rose from the stream, a large globe of water frosed for a second... then its suddenly blow's up and "Loki" with a slight moan fell on his knees.

Oliver’s eyes widened the instant the globe burst, drenching them both. Nero’s skin went pale, his arm trembled and the wand slipped from his fingers. Sweat beaded across his brow, and a sour, caustic knot climbed his throat.

“Loki!” Oliver barked, lurching up.

“Loki” dragged in rough, even breaths, forcing each inhale that felt like it might fail at any moment. Warmth touched his chest. Bright green light sank into him.

He noticed Oliver’s hand held out toward him, green wisps flitting around them like fireflies. The sharp pain that had speared through him dissolved. The pallor, the ragged breathing, the jittering hands, all of it washed away in a green flash.

“I don’t even know whether to be pleased or not,” Oliver muttered, mostly to himself.

"You asked about an demonstration... aren't you."

He’d just seen the boy summon fire. If “Loki” had suddenly cast a different element without having been born to it, the spell should have failed before it formed. This was different. The spell was almost fully formed, then shattered as if “Loki” had broken it on purpose. And that kind of violent backlash wasn’t a prank.

Oliver ruffled Nero’s hair, took him by the wrist, and sat him on the earthen block. “You really used two elements before?”

“For sure,” Nero said, with a thin edge of worry.

An idea popped into Oliver’s head. "Element affinity testing." It was required anyway, and he’d simply forgotten until now.

He asked if “Loki” had ever done one, the answer was no. Oliver turned that over for a minute, then murmured, “We’ll do it here,” a cocky smile tugging at his lips.

A light breeze lifted Oliver’s hair as he paced around “Loki,” thinking through the steps. Five elements to check. Fire and water were already on the table, with caveats but were. That left earth, wind, and trunder.. Why not, If a kid had two, he might have more, including odd cases like gravity, plant-craft, light, and so on. Either way, they had to try.

He conjured another low seat and sat across from “Loki.” “Unfortunately, we’re not in a lab, so we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

He traced a curve in the air with his index finger. Dust motes and grit gathered, sketching a tiny top-down tableau of the two of them. The little figures sat. One crossed its legs; the other reached out to touch, showing the process.

Oliver would place a hand on “Loki,” who would instinctively feed mana into Oliver’s palm. Then Oliver would try to cast with “Loki’s” mana. If the element accepted the subject’s mana, the spell would form. If not, it would half-form using Oliver’s own.

After a few more minutes, they began. “Ready?” Oliver asked.

“Always.” Nero shot back.

“You’ve done this before?”

“Nope. Pretty sure we already covered that.” the boy said lightly.

Back when Nero had a tutor, there was no point in testing. He’d already shown water affinity. Everyone assumed he’d have one, maybe two tops.

Oliver set his right hand on Nero’s shoulder. The sudden touch made Nero flinch, but he steadied, closed his eyes, and sank into meditation.

Oliver extended his free hand and shut his eyes too. Warmth pooled below his sternum and flowed outward like a slow tide into his right arm.

“I feel something weird. Like… I don’t know,” Nero murmured, as the drifting current slipped from him into Oliver’s palm.

“That’s mana. Sit tight. It might tingle.” Moisture beaded in the air near Oliver’s hand, drops merging, until a water orb hung in front of them.

Oliver’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “That’s… excellent,” flashed through his mind as he glanced at “Loki,” still sitting, breathing even, centered.

Yes, that was the boy’s mana. If Oliver could form a spell with it, why did the kid himself suffer such a brutal reaction?

“Okay. Let’s run the rest. Wind, for example.”

Another pulse rolled through Nero, this one feather-light, almost weightless. A small draft whispered from Oliver’s outstretched hand, rustling a few leaves on the ground. Oliver tilted his head. “That’s it?”

Nero cracked an eye, leaning back to look up at him. “That’s it?”

“Guess you’re not such a prodigy after all. Sit back down.” Oliver flicked a playful knuckle to Nero’s forehead and nudged him into meditation again.

“Or maybe you’re the one who can’t,” Nero started to say, but a sharp gust slammed into his side and nearly lifted him off the ground.

“Point taken...” he said, sinking back into place.

Smiling faintly, Oliver lifted his hand again, faster this time. “Loki” tensed and relaxed in rhythm as mana streamed out of him in a steady current.

Under other circumstances, Nero would have been scared. He knew what happened to someone drained dry. But his thoughts broke off.

Dust, grass, grit, and tiny stones knitted into a small, rough clod.

A bead of sweat slid down Nero’s cheek. Oliver’s eyes went wide.

He hadn’t expected a third element, not at all. He’d been going by the book. “Allright, I take it back,” he said into the charged quiet.

Nero snorted, smug and yelped as a needle of pain stabbed his back. He spun toward Oliver, swearing as much as a twelve-year-old’s vocabulary allowed.

A bright, yet oddly muted, purple light filled his nearly golden eyes. Dozens of violet lightning sprites flickered around him. A sizzling crack tore through the clearing in a powerful burst that painted the trees in amethyst. Oliver squinted at the glare.

It vanished as quickly as it came, along with Nero’s pain.

“Loki!” Oliver howled. He gripped the boy by the shoulders. “You saint... no, listen. I swear I’m going to make you the greatest mage. You just have no idea how special you are.” He hadn’t even bothered to check the rest of the odd elements. If a kid manifested one secondary element at this age, a second usually didn’t show up for two or three more years at best.

Four near-working primaries, plus lightning. Purple, granted, but who cared. Oliver was over the moon. He’d expected a boring, hopeless noble’s son. Instead he’d found raw ore.

Reality reasserted itself. Oliver blinked, stepped back. Four elements, water issues aside. An absurd mana reserve for his age. Constant disguise magic wrapped around him. Oliver knew he might never get an answer, but he asked anyway.

“Loki… who are you, really?”

“...Me?” Nero pointed at himself, unprepared for the question.

====

Author's note: Hello there, I want to thanks everyone who were with me and LLOM (Lorème and the lord of magic) this year. I hope you enjoyed this time, and u'd keep enjoing next year. Thanks a lot. By! 

P.s. I prepared something really cool and pretty for you, for the day end of the year, so just wait a bit, I hope you'd like. xD

P.s.s. LIna-YO