Aithne sighed as she nestled against Urag’s hot skin. She liked the rise and fall of his chest as his breathing stabilized, the sound of his heartbeat throttling down, the contented snort-like rumbles he probably didn’t realize he made, the comforting feel of his arm holding her.

 

It had been far too long since he had agreed to sex, citing concern for her safety as if her body was somehow more vulnerable after giving birth. Not, of course, that she would dream of complaining about it. Besides, he had not restricted other…

 

“What spells do you know?”

 

Urag’s question cleared Aithne’s mind in an instant and she stilled. “Um…”

 

Dammit. The question she had hoped he wouldn’t ask now sat on her plate, a meal made of hidden pitfalls and potential disaster. She tried to quell her fear; since meeting Urag, he had subverted her expectations of anger at every turn. In fact, in the entire eight months, there was only one time she had ever seen him angry.

 

The only problem was, that time had been because of something she had done.

 

“I know how to teleport. Um. And…” She took a breath and pinched just a bit with her fingers. “Fuu Blap.” The blanket at their feet straightened a little before she released it. She had practiced the spell daily when she was sure there was no one around. It wasn’t a particularly useful spell, but it had helped her learn some modicum of control.

 

She kept her head on his chest but her peace had been washed away; she waited in trepidation for his response, for him to connect her ability with what had happened in the library. There was some comfort at the lack of any tell-tale signs of impending anger, such as a rising of his heartbeat or a deep inhalation in preparation for a yell.

 

As always, his response was one she would never have been able to anticipate. “That’s all?”

 

Aithne blinked. All? “Um. Yes? No one has shown me any others.”

 

“Shown you? Why would you need someone to show you? You read Principles, right? And I saw you with Lowrey’s Fundamentals just the other day. “

 

Aithne nodded.

 

“Well, that’s all you really need. Hells, most don’t even need that. Every first year walks in with a handful of spells they accidentally ‘invented.’ It’s funny to watch them act as if no one else in the world ever managed to turn water into ice or conjure an elemental.”

 

Aithne nodded again, mostly because she couldn’t think of a different response, but his words stung a little. She had thought she was growing in her understanding of magic, but apparently she still knew less than someone who had never read anything.

 

“Of course, as you said, you didn’t know you could use magic when you were young. A little surprising but not uncommon. Most people who come here as students have known about and have been trying to use their abilities for years. Look.” He shifted and she lifted her head and drew back. He turned on his side and faced her. “Some people need to read even something as basic as Shelinng several times before they understand it.”

 

Aithne couldn’t hold back a wince at the thought. “Maybe they just kept falling asleep while reading it.”

 

Urag chuckled. “That could well be. My point is that your understanding of magic is almost entirely academic. You read these books and understand the concepts as quickly as anyone I’ve ever met. I could just give you a list of spells to learn and you would be able to get by in most situations. In fact, that’s what a lot of the students here end up doing.

 

“But that’s not true magic. Anyone who can tap a leyline can cast those sorts of simple spells. That’s where we get hedge witches and court wizards. Just casting what’s in a book requires no imagination, but imagination is what is needed to be truly powerful. The true secret to magic is that it is a limitless resource - its potential is limited only to the imagination of its wielder.”

 

He reached for her, cupped her head in his large hand, gripped it for a moment. “That is what you lack right now – the imagination to use what you have learned on an academic level in a practical way. Break through that wall, and nothing will be able to stop you from gaining true magic.”

 

Imagination? Though she knew what the word meant, it sounded foreign to her ears. Every moment for as far back as she allowed herself to remember had been focused on the here and now; how to please her Master. She had not dared to think beyond that.

 

No, that wasn’t right. It hadn’t even occurred to her to think beyond that. She was a slave; there was no room for imagination. To try to think beyond the now, to picture things that could be if only, would only lead to trying to see herself on a different road in a different life; a recipe for unmitigated pain. Imagining what might have been only emphasized what could never be.

 

Best to keep it locked away. She could not afford the potential pitfalls such a luxury as imagination would bring. Still, it seemed clear Urag wanted her to progress, so she nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, thank you. I’ll try to…do that.”

 

He nodded back. “Don’t beat yourself up if it comes slow. Some people are born to be scholars; they just lack the imagination needed to progress further than that. There is no shame in it.” He lifted away his hand and began turning away, then stopped and turned back. “Oh, out of curiosity, you said no one else has shown you any other spells. I know that kitchen boy showed you the teleportation spell, but who showed you Muur’s Intermediate Pull?”

 

Aithne froze, blindsided by the question she had been fearing. She fought to keep from gasping for breath as panic pounced from the shadows. The thought of lying briefly fluttered through her mind but she killed it the moment it appeared. Lying to her Master was utterly out of the question. Instead, she took two deep breaths and forced the name through her lips while bracing for his inevitable onslaught once he put two and two together and learned who had really destroyed his bookshelves all those months ago.

 

“Merks?” It came out as a squeak and she clamped her teeth together once the name was spoken to keep her teeth from chattering.

 

Her Master looked nonplussed. “Merks? Why would he…”

 

Aithne did not dare move. Whatever punishment her Master chose for destroying his bookshelves was his to mete and hers to receive without complaint.

 

“…oh, because he used it when he…and then you heard him and…and then he…and then you…Oh! So that’s what he was trying to say!”

 

Aithne watched his face go through a rapid sequence of expressions as he put the pieces together, from puzzlement to growing awareness to calculating to clear understanding and, finally, the last burst as it all came together. She cringed as he lifted up and…

 

…laughed. And not just any sort of laugh; the massive bed shook with the force of his guffaws. Some of the smaller trinkets on the shelves fell off. Tears rolled down Urag’s face as he beat his knees with his fists.

 

Aithne went through a similar wave of emotions, but hers ended in deep puzzlement followed by growing concern as Urag’s face turned a much darker shade of green as he wheezed for breaths between chortles. She placed a hand on his shoulder and patted his back with the other in some desperate if ineffectual instinct to try to help him breathe.

 

It took several long minutes for the laughter to fade and for him to get his breath back. Aithne continued to rub his back as his color slowly went back to its normal hue.

 

“Ah, that was the funniest thing I have ever heard. Serves that little iyåsweh right! I wish I could have been there to see his face when you…” He was forced to stop as another wave of laughter overtook him.

 

“So you’re not mad at me?” The words slipped from Aithne’s mouth without much in the way of conscious thought on her part; she did not want to spend the next days or weeks wondering if punishment was forthcoming.

 

Not that it seemed likely – that hadn’t been the kind of Master he had been so far. But some little part of her was always certain the hammer just hadn't hit the nail yet, and when it did, everything would prove to be a lie created for the sole purpose of getting her to break as many rules as possible.

 

“Mad at you? Why would I be mad at you? As far as I’m concerned, this is still all that iyåsweh’s fault.”

 

The sense of relief that swept over Aithne was overwhelming. She sagged against Urag, laying her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes and listening to the sound of his continual soft chuckles and tried not to…

 

The sound of wails interrupted her thoughts and she scrambled to climb out of bed, but Urag was faster.

 

“No, stay there. I’ll get him. It’s my fault he’s awake anyway.”

 

He strode toward the doorway to the dining area and Aithne settled back in the pillows and watched the way the muscles on his back, buttocks, and legs moved with each step and found desire creeping through the pall of relief to leak back into her loins. Though she still ached from the pounding of his penis against her cervix just half an hour before, she longed to feel him inside her again.

 

Of course, he wouldn’t allow that, but he had certainly shown himself to be open to other alternatives. She let her mind trail along those paths until he returned with Chtonji.

 

It only occurred to her sometime the next day that, just perhaps, her fantasizing was proof her imagination was not as locked away as she had thought.

 

She chewed on the thought as she gathered a stack of scrolls and moved to the cabinets where they belonged. It was one thing for the mind to wander of its own volition (although even that had been stripped away during the height of her time with Borkul). It was quite another to purposely attempt to imagine.

 

But perhaps she didn’t need to start with that. Urag had also inferred that she hadn’t understood what she had been reading; not really. The more she thought, the more she realized he was right. She had been reading for information’s sake alone; she had only focused on the how. It hadn’t occurred to her to frame her reading on the basis of why.

 

Perhaps if she began with that, the imagination part would kick in on its own.  She would start all over again, but this time focus on more than just the words on the page.

 

She nodded to herself as she shoved the scrolls into place, then turned and walked to the First Year shelves and pulled down a copy of Shelinng. She took a moment to stroke the cover - it held a special place in her heart, difficult as it was to get through - then sat at a table and opened the cover and began to read.

 

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