I spent the next couple weeks training. In the mornings until the afternoon, I would retreat to the forest to meditate. In the afternoons, after eating, I would join Gerrard and learn the intricacies of mastering air. 

Now that I had figured out what it was that I most desired, I could now work on actually figuring out how to attain it. I wanted to be happy and the only way I would be happy was to find the countercurses and break the curses that I had. In my time meditating, I would sort through the information that I had so that I knew exactly what to ask Mikael when I found him.

If I found him.

Master Yoqi was cryptic as ever. He still wouldn't disclose the information on the whereabouts of the old wizard to me. He said that I wasn't ready and that I needed to come to the answer myself. As if I knew where he was somewhere within the depths of my mind. In the meantime, until that "answer" came to me, I mulled over the information that I had gathered about the curses.

The blood oath curse was a tricky one. My blood was infused with that of Elijah's and as long as Elijah's magic-spiked blood was pumping through my veins, I was cursed. The only way to get rid of the curse, as far as I was concerned, would be to get rid of his blood in my veins, but there was no way of doing this. I had researched several different ways of trying to purify blood. I had raided the monk's library and poured over books about magaical herbs and medicines that could cure cancers, but I found nothing on how to remove poison from the blood.

I then realized that the curse that Elijah had bound me with was created by the ancients. They most likely had no knowledge of cancers and blood poisoning. So the answer surely wasn't in the books. When I presented Master Yoqi with my dilemma, he didn't say anything. He told me once again to continue to look within myself for the answer. I honestly didn't know what he thought my capabilities were. He must have thought that I was an arsenal of information, but every time I went back to reflect, I came up short. I had nothing.

Then there was the elemental curse, which was giving me an equal, if not greater, amount of trouble. I was even more lost when it came to this curse. At least for the blood oath curse, I had a rough idea of where I had to go for the countercurse, but for the elemental curse, I was lost. 

My mother had thought that a sacrifice was needed to break the curse. Jeya, the seer that I had met in Aghbad, also said that sacrifice was the most ancient type of magic. She said this was because magic was all about a balance; that if I wanted one thing, I had to give up something of equal importance. She said all of magic was like that--in order to conjure up an energy ball, you give up part of your own energy. All of magic worked that way, but I couldn't understand where my mother's idea went wrong.

Her plan had been to sacrifice herself out of love for my father. Since the elemental curse at its root was a love curse, the sacrifice needed to be one of love. That much made sense to me. The curse could have gone wrong in one of several ways. It could have been that she didn't love my father enough and that the sacrifice wasn't valid. This was unlikley, because from the way that her mother had talked about her father to her and from the way her father was so unwilling to think about her mother because of the incredible amount of sadness it gave him, she knew that the two were irrevocably in love. Just like she and Trey were. So that was ruled out.

The other mistake could have been that the curse was initially put on the original water master who had toyed with love. If it was a water master's fault from the beginning, it should have been a water master to reverse the curse. My mother was not a water master; she was a fire master. So it was possible that the curse didn't work because she was not master of the right element. This option seemed more plausible to me, but I was still uncertain about it. 

Another part of my mother's sacrifice that I didn't quite understand was why she killed Mikael's brother. There had to be a reason for her to kill him. I knew my mother wouldn't just murder the person that had been helping her for no reason. He must have had a part in all of this, but what that role was was beyond me. Perhaps it was because he was so powerful magically. Perhaps my mother accessed his power somehow after killing him to help fuel her own sacrifice. Or perhaps there was some other reason that I was unaware of. This was another question I had for Mikael.

The last mistake that I could think of was that a sacrifice should go both ways and since my father didn't sacrifice his own life for my mother's the curse didn't break. If this was true, it meant that Elijah had been right and it was partly my father's fault that my mother died, although it was the poison in her blood that killed her. Perhaps if my father had also tried to risk his life for my mother's, the curse would have been broken. Although, my mother would have still died because of the poison in her veins. 

This is usually where I hit my roadblock. Whenever I thought about the inevitability of my mother's death and how I was under the same circumstance, I would be overcome with grief and sadness. All alone in the forest, this sadness became so much more real for me. It hurt to think about and so this is usually when I would leave my meditation and go back to the peak to find Gerrard.

Training with Gerrard was, to put it nicely, difficult. He was much stronger than I was and it didn’t help that he was a natural born air master. He could pick up new spells and tactics much more quickly than me. I struggled with learning the skills and this frustrated me, but it only pushed me to try harder.

Kiya was usually the one who helped us train, while Master Yoqi observed us at the end of our training, giving us a few pointers here and there. I was surprised at the strength of the old man. Although he seemed crippled physically, what he lacked in physical strength, he more than made up for in magical ability. I had asked him once how he was so powerful and he had laughed and told me that the possibilities that a disciplined mind can provide are endless. The man was a huge proponent for concentration of the mind and he made sure to incorporate this into everything he did.

Kiya, his daughter, it seemed, was simply a younger version of her father in female form. She was incredible. She had all the grace of a swan and the speed and agility of a hummingbird. Kiya’s nickname was actually the Hummingbird. She was so fast and quick on her feet. Her arm and hand movements were quick, gentle, and graceful. When she moved while battling Gerrard or me, it was almost like watching a ballet dancer. I was envious of this smoothness of her moves and so I trained harder than I had even in Aghbad to try to be more like her.

One day, after a particularly grueling session of advanced magic, I sought out Kiya’s company when Gerrard went away with Master Yoqi to meditate. She was in the back part of her father’s cabin settlement, tending to his soybean plants. She was squatting on the ground and she had a few glass containers and tubes with her as well as a small fire contained in an iron bowl.

“Hi,” I said, sitting myself down next to her. She glanced up at me and smiled.

“Are you in need of something, Caley?” she asked me, her feminine voice soft.

“Some company. Gerrard is with Master Yoqi and I didn’t want to be on my own right now,” I replied. She looked at me, her full attention on me now.

“Are you thinking about something?” she asked, her thin eyebrows knitting together. I shrugged.

“I just feel like I’m not making very good progress with mastering the air spells,” I said. She chuckled lightly, covering her mouth.

“You have only been practicing for two weeks. Did you expect to master the element in that amount of time?” she asked me.

“Well, I expected to see some progress. The other elements seemed so much easier. I feel like all of this thinking before acting is messing me up,” I said.

“In the end, it will make you stronger,” she told me. “Patience is a virtue, Caley Lucia. The flower that waits for all of its nutrients may be the last to bloom, but it is also the most beautiful when it does,” she said. I chewed on my lip, thinking about her words. It seemed like Kiya and Master Yoqi had a quote for every situation.

“What are you doing?” I asked her, looking at the system of glass tubes and containers she had in front of her.

“I am doing an extraction,” she answered.

“An extraction?” I asked. She nodded and held out a soybean to me. I put my hand out and she dropped it into my palm.

“My father explained to you how these soybeans contain enough nutrients in them that the equivalent to eating just three in a day is like eating three full meals, correct?” she said to me. I nodded, rolling the bean around in my hand. I had experienced for myself the magic of the soybeans that the monks grew in their yards. Indeed it was true; just eating one soybean gave me the strength that a full meal would give.

“Sometimes, we perform extractions to take the nutrients out of the soybean and separate them. For example, the soybean is composed of several essential amino acids. These can be extracted, separated, and then manipulated and combined in other forms for various uses,” Kiya explained to me. “With that, we can make other products like medicines.”

“Hmmm, I think we may have done extractions in my Potions class back at Trinity,” I told her.

“It is a simple process. Two containers, one tube to connect them. You need to coax the fire with magic and infuse some spells to get the process going. It takes very little energy to separate the nutrients of the soybean,” she told me.

I sat back and watched her for a few long moments. She let me try it, too, and while I was helping her, a thought struck me.

“Could you extract substances from anything?” I asked. She looked at me, coaxing the fire with a circular movement.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Like, is it possible to extract a substance from other things besides food?” I asked her.

“Extracting nutrients is very similar to taking the energy of an object to use for yourself. When you want to use the energy provided in a stone, you draw on it. You are essentially extracting its energy for yourself. The theory is the same, but the process is different,” she replied.

I sat back and thought about this, my mind reeling. Was it possible, then, to extract Elijah’s blood from my own? I decided to tuck the idea into the back of my mind. It was yet another question I would ask Mikael when I found him.

After talking to Kiya, I went off to practice some of the spells that I was learning. The one spell that I was really working on mastering was the force field spell. Gianna had taught it to me when I was training with her, but I was far from mastering it. I wanted to be able to put up a force field without it depleting too much of my energy reserves. But the spell was difficult—Kiya said that even the most experienced air masters had trouble with it. I was steadfast, though, and I worked at it consistently.

After my solo training session, I went back to mine and Gerrard’s cabin. When I went in, I saw Kiya and Gerrard sitting at a table and talking. Kiya had made food for us, so I went up to them and joined them.

“What are you talking about?” I asked them.

“Another history lesson,” Gerrard replied, his attention still on Kiya and her soft, melodic voice.

Kiya and Gerrard seemed very close. The time that I spent away meditating, the two would meet and talk about magic. She would tell Gerrard all of these things and then Gerrard would tell me at night before we went to sleep. One of the things that Kiya had taught Gerrard about was the history of Aerya and explained to him about the Great Wars of the past. She told him how a long time ago, about a hundred years after magic had first been created, many magical civilizations arose all around the world. Magical civilization first began as one large community where all magic users lived together. This was during the time of the Ancient Egyptians and Romans.

The first magical community arose in Ancient Egypt, within the sands of what is now the Sahara Desert. It was called Elysium, or Paradise. This was the community that the original witch and her first batch of Magii were a part of. After a few generations, though, problems began to rise within that single community. The fire masters didn’t like living with the water masters and most of the other Magii disliked the water masters because of the curse that the original witch had placed on them. The strife caused the water masters to leave Elysium. They were the first to leave and they dispersed themselves where water could be found. Most settled along the Mediterranean, but many Transported to islands like the Caribbean and Madagascar, South Africa, Indonesia, Greenland and Iceland, and what is now the Russian Siberia. The water masters became widely dispersed throughout the world and despite the curse, their civilizations flourished. Many civilizations had initiated a rule that required people to be married with children by a certain age so that even if the curse struck and people were killed, the population was rapidly expanding. It was the only way that the water masters survived as long as they had.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Magii in the original community also began moving out. The fire masters were the reason for this because they insisted on being the ones in power since they were better equipped to control the arid land. Many of the Magii left Elysium and they, like the water masters, also set up civilizations all over the world in places that would enhance their magical abilities. After this, Elysium was full of fire masters and they got rid of the name.

For some time after this initial break from Elysium, there was peace. This was called the Time of the Ancient Civilizations. Each civilization was on its own, undisturbed by unwanted presences. But no period of peace could last. Soon, different civilizations tried to take over the land of others. The fire masters wanted control of the Mediterranean, even though that land was better suited for water masters. The earth masters wanted greater control of the South American countries, where the water masters were inhabiting. And the air masters were in control of most mountainous regions, but the water masters wanted access to that land, too. And so, the period of the Great Wars started. Those wars were bloody and full of death. Not only did the people suffer, but the land did as well. At one point in time, it seemed like the land was rebelling against the strife of the Magii. This is when plagues and disease became common, most of which were naturally based. It was Mother Earth punishing the Magii for fighting over the land instead of respecting it as they should have.

The period of the Great Wars left the civilizations even more broken than they were before. Some were more powerful than others and they took advantage of that. This was called the period of the Kingdoms of Magic. This is when the rise of kingdoms became prevalent. Nations would take control of other smaller nations that were suffering and they would expand to become kingdoms. The fiercest of these were Aghbad, for the fire masters, and Atlantis, for the water masters.

When Gerrard had told me this, I had stopped him immediately.

“Atlantis?” I prompted. “The floating city of water? That’s real?” I asked.

“Apparently. And at the time, it wasn’t actually a floating city. Its empire extended from Rome to Siberia. It was one of the biggest, rivaled only by Aghbad, which stretched from the Sahara to the Gobi,” Gerrard replied.

“What do you mean, at the time?” I asked.

“According to Kiya, legend has it that after the War of the Kingdoms, which happened after the Kingdoms were established, the Kingdoms were reduced back into small nations, like the ones we’ve visited so far. The war apparently took a huge toll on the Aquaria, the water masters, because the fire masters really wanted some of the land in the Mediterranean, but the water masters occupied it. The fire masters were ruthless and so the people of Atlantis enlisted the help of an air nation—the predecessors of Aerya actually—who were a community of monks like the people here. They asked the air nation to lift their civilization off the ground and into the air and then submerge it under water so that the fire masters couldn’t find them. And ever since then, Atlantis has never been seen,” Gerrard explained to me. I sat with my mouth slightly open, my mind reeling.

Was it possible that there was still a water nation out there? Was it possible that the city of Atlantis was still underwater somewhere, hidden from the world, undisturbed and suffering? I voiced these thoughts to Gerrard who frowned in response.

“I guess it is possible,” he said. “It’s been hundreds of years since the city was last seen. It’s possible that the nation still exists and has been in hiding for all that time,” he mused. “But at the same time, it was a city of water masters. The curse had to have hit them, too,” Gerrard said.

“But Kiya said that there was that law that required water masters to be married with children by a certain age. What if the city does exist and it initiated that law, too? Gerrard, there could still be water masters out there,” I said, my voice dripping with hope. Gerrard gave me a pity smile because he knew I was getting myself worked up about something that was a complete uncertainty.

“Caley, I know you want to believe that…but there’s no proof of its existence,” Gerrard said.

“There was no proof of Mikael’s existence, either. And yet, he’s still alive. There’s always a chance, even if there’s no proof. All the ideas of the world began with no proof. It’s when people entertained those ideas that proof came to existence,” I said.

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Master Yoqi,” Gerrard said.

“Gerr, I’m being serious. What if it still exists?” I asked.

“What if, Caley? What good will it do to you if it did exist?” he asked me.

I frowned at him and crossed my arms. Just the sheer assurance that I wasn’t in this alone was good enough for me. But he wouldn’t understand because his situation was different than mine. If there was a nation of water masters that still existed, then maybe they would have some information on the curse because they had withstood the test of time. I didn’t care what Gerrard said.

I wanted to find Atlantis.

___________________________________________________________

A/N: Woo. I sprung a lot of information in this one. There's a lot in here for you to think about. Since Caley has been meditating so much, I wanted to make a bulk of this chapter  about the countercurses, since I haven't been really writing about what Caley's been thinking about them. 

With the information I gave about what Caley thinks about the countercurses, what do YOU think the countercurse will be [for both curses]?

Also, do you think that Caley's right? Is it possible that a water nation still exists? Will they find Atlantis?

Leave me a comment with your thoughts! And don't forget to vote! (I updated twice in the span of 7 days; that should be reason enough to vote, just saying.)

Until next time...

XOXO