Foreword

I looked at the girl on lying on the river bank in front of me. Kara’s eyes were closed and she wasn’t breathing. Just why had she stayed with me down there, why in the name of Mother Earth had she decided to stay in the Dark Floor even though I had ordered her not to! It wasn’t that I liked her - shit, she had been a constant pain to me while I had been working there at Library, at last as bad - or even worse than her fellow Magical students. Still, she hadn’t really known me like Rurik, or she hadn’t been like Halvard; so there was no need for her to die. I was still gasping for breath, but I wanted to scream out in agony. Why did she stay with me, why?

Still, I couldn’t help looking at her with my skill when she was lying there, her dark, wet robe showing her lithe body, her dark hair wet against her head, circling her round face that looked almost pretty without that more or less constant ‘Magician’s snarl’. A few hairs were on her cheek, a cheek that seemed to be losing its color while I was watching. Moments like this I really hated my skill, when I couldn’t help sensing the shimmer inside her beginning to die away, like embers dying in a light rain.

It wasn’t really a conscious thought to use my magic and try to touch those dying embers while pumping her small chest continuously with my hands. Most likely I didn’t say anything aloud, but internally I must have been shouting ‘No! No more deaths!’. Even if had no plan, I sort of took those embers in my hand and started blowing fresh air into them. Even if I wasn’t really using my hands for that but just pushing her chest, like forcing her to breathe. I tried to rationalize to myself what I was sensing.

Then suddenly, my stupid plan seemed to be working somewhat, since the shimmer inside her became slowly brighter and suddenly, without any real warning after one more push to her chest, she started shaking and coughing. Then she coughed a few more times more forcefully and some water came out of mouth and she also tried to gasp for air. Then her eyes opened and she looked straight into mine. However, it wasn’t the look in her eyes that caused me to shiver - it was the fact that to my senses, she now looked like a natural Mage. Instead of the dark hole of the Magicians, there now was the glow of the natural Mage inside her!