Winter 10, Shimoth 4986
Lily tried to avoid spending too much time in her room in the weeks following the Winter Solstice. But the Guild seemed to be doing its best to make that as hard as possible. She didn't know if her frustration at being trapped in the tower was tainting her vision or if things really had gotten worse, but the days were anything but pleasant.
Where her instructor normally just sniffed when Lily failed to turn in her extra work, this time he veritably screamed at her in front of everyone, and sighted her lack of willingness to do the work as evidence of her inevitable fate of failing all three of her clearance exams. When he started accusing her of getting Han in trouble on purpose, Lily left the room, ditching the rest of the lecture and blocking out his yells as best she could as the door swung closed behind her.
Ranito started to pester her every day about giving more samples, and Bruce had even begged her to give three scales instead of the usual one. "Mage Ranito thinks he's close to a breakthrough, Lily. Please?" Reluctantly she agreed but put her foot down when they brought out a pair of scissors, asking if they could finally cut her hair. They didn't insist or force it, but they did do their best to try and guilt her into giving in. It didn't work, and Lily left Ranito's lab, smoldering at their underhanded efforts to coerce her into doing something she didn't want to do.
Even when the residents weren't being cruel, the tower itself seemed to be against her. As she read in the library, the magic lights went out. And it just had to be at a time when a blizzard blowing outside blacked out the windows, throwing the entire room into darkness. The librarian announced loudly over the tizzy that some experiment or other further up the tower must be interfering with the light devices.
Lily had solved the problem by lighting some floating fires over each table, and though they thanked her, it was only a half-hour or so before even her fires were snuffed out by some kind of spell or interference. She'd lit them again. And again, a half-hour after that. But when they went out once more, she apologized to the others but explained that she would be going to her room to finish her reading.
A full three weeks after the Winter Solstice incident, Lily still hadn't been let out of the tower or given any news on the exam. So when she saw Vevi in the basement, Lily greeted the Mage by saying, "You said I could take the exam whenever I wanted."
Vevi's smile faded, and the hand she'd started lifting in a cheerful wave drooped, "Almost, Lily."
Lily huffed and made to pass without another word when Vevi reached out and grabbed Lily's arm, saying, "To that end, we need you in one of the other practice rooms," she tried to smile again but Lily narrowed her eyes at the Mage then looked down at the hand still holding her arm. A ruby ring glittered on Vevi's finger and explained the woman's ability to hold on with Lily's frustration boiling just below her skin.
She shook the Mage off but nodded, following Vevi to one of the side rooms she'd been told were used for combat spells. The strangeness of the room was almost enough to distract Lily from her frustration. It seemed to stretch on forever into the distance, and the stone of the walls and floors were scared with black marks and melted patches.
Most of the council she'd met on her first full day waited for her there, and a quick scan showed that all of them wore fire resist rings. The apparent leader, with the receding hairline, cleared his throat and addressed Lily, "Good afternoon, m'dear. With your request to take the clearance exam, we realized that we have yet to gauge your power capabilities. We brought you here in the hopes that you could show us exactly what you can do."
The woman with the monotone voice gestured into the expanse of the room, "You may do anything you wish with your magic in this room. We would like you to do as much as you are capable of, enough to make you dizzy if possible. If you happen to pass out, all the better. Mage Vevi and Mage Han -as the two you clearly trust most- will see you safely to your room if you do."
Lily blinked at all of them, then at the room, then back to them, and tilting her head asked, "Anything? Anything that will make me tired?"
"The largest and hottest fire, or most complex, you can manage, please," Ranito answered, opening his ever-present notebook and preparing to write.
"Hmm..." Lily hummed, thinking hard as she stepped away from the senior Mages. They hadn't said that this was a direct part of her test, but that didn't mean she couldn't use it to try and get her point across for how much control she'd gained over the years of practice with the Warlocks.
Holding both hands straight out in front of her, Lily took a moment to breathe and relax, then sent a wall of fire out from her fingers to fill the width of the room and shoot an unseen distance down the length. "Something like this?" She shouted over the roar of the flames. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the Mages fall back a collective step despite their protective rings.
"I can make it hotter." She scrunched her face and focused, forcing more heat into the fire until it glowed nearly white. Something like this would make her dizzy. She could feel it already. "This really isn't practical, though," Lily shrugged, letting the fire cool just a bit so she could still appear relaxed, "It's a lot harder to control collateral damage like this."
"Very good, Lily!" the balding Mage shouted.
Lily sighed, hardly considering this a test of her abilities, but then she got an idea. Hadn't Ranito also said she could do something complex? She dropped one hand so she could turn to look at the Mages as she kept the fire going, "Do you want to see what I used to do to practice at my old tower?"
"Please!" Ranito called, writing furiously in his book without actually looking at the page.
With the first happy grin in weeks, Lily turned back to her fire and pulled it back in. Bringing it down to a small flame at her feet, she shaped it into the image of a rabbit and set it to hop around her as she turned back to fully face the Mages. Their eyes were wide in what Lily hoped was awe. Finding encouragement in that, she made four more bunnies to join the first.
"My treasures loved chasing these..." She didn't have to shout anymore, which was good because her voice faltered.
Vevi stepped forward, "That's amazing, Lily. You would make a great illusionist." Lily shrugged, looking away from them and down to her rabbits, thinking of her treasures.
"Your treasures?" the monotone woman asked, "Do you mean the other experiments?"
Lily nodded, and balding Mage asked, "Can you do that with them? Show us what they looked like?"
Oh, to see her treasures again... Lily brought the five rabbits together and reshaped them into the form of a great wolf whose head reached all the way to her ribs. In life, it had had silver fur, but Lily couldn't change the color of her fire, so now it looked orange and yellow. With a flick of her wrist, she created a second fire and had to concentrate to shape it without losing the first image. This one was a cat, just as large, and with scales that had been red.
"I can't do the colors..." Lily said, her shoulders slumping, "They glittered like metal and gems." She knelt, feeling drained but holding onto the fires with all her might, "There were at least ten or more at any one time, but they didn't live very long. They would breed them for the next generation, but they rarely lived past one litter... This one... he lived the longest and was the first."
The cat approached her just the way she remembered and Lily reached up to pat its face as it moved to headbutt her affectionately. But the fire wasn't solid, and her hand passed right through the flames.
The wolf faded into a regular fire then died. Just like the beast itself so many years ago. Lily's power pulled into her core as tears began to flow. She managed to hold the cat a little longer and tried to at least pretend to grab it by the scruff to hold it close before its flame retreated back into her heart.
She crossed her arms over her chest and cried. "They were so beautiful. Like living treasures. And they loved me, I could tell. They only tolerated the others." Vevi came to rub her back, and Lily had to hold back actual sobs, "They were all I had, and I cared for them whenever they would let me out of my room. But I couldn't save them, I couldn't..." She choked, and Vevi wrapped her arms around Lily.
Lily leaned into the woman's embrace, "They wouldn't let me see them if I couldn't maintain control. So I practiced and practiced..."
"Her power goes inward with grief. That is a good sign for the exam," Ranito said clinically, as his pencil continued to scratch in his book.
"So we've accomplished two things today. Very well, if you can stand, you can go back to your room, miss Lily." balding man said.
Ranito interjected, "She may be able to do more. Go hotter. The tower was melted and..."
"Not now, Ranito," Vevi snapped over Lily's head.
Lily struggled to stand, and Vevi helped her up, "The images are harder than just making a hot fire..." Lily breathed, squeezing her eyes shut to try and banish the wash of dizziness that flooded her.
Vevi patted her gently and pulled her slowly towards the door, "I can imagine Lily. That's enough. Thank you so much."
"Can I take the exam now?" Lily asked as she hobbled out of the room.
"You already are, Lily. Soon... Soon..."
***
