He tried to grope for it but felt like he was just pretending. There was nothing there, at least not to him. Maybe as a mage he wasn’t quite formed right. Maybe he couldn’t do things normal mages could do. Or maybe he was just too sleepy…

“Aven! Can you feel it?”

“No,” he said sleepily. “There’s nothing there.” Resigning himself to sleep that was soon coming, he took a deep breath of the fresh air, scented by the river, and felt the warm sun on his face. So restful. The soft, dappled light felt sweet on his skin. He could sit in this sunlight by this river forever.

“Oh! Oh! You’re doing it!” she cried.

“I am?”

“Don’t stop! Oh, of course. The mushroom isn’t there to you like it is to me. You need light. You need air.”

That made sense in his mind, but how to put it into practice? He took another deep breath, this time imagining the cold and fatigue fading away. They didn’t.

“Reach out to it,” she whispered.

As he took another breath, he felt outward from his mind. He felt nothing different. This was never going to work. Except… was that what she spoke of? A light and thin energy, ephemeral, fleeting, bright. He focused on it, and it grew and grew, ready to blind him.

Energy, he realized. Pure, raw energy. The light—the sun. It was his.

He lurched toward it mentally, dying of thirst, starving, full of greed for more.

The cold was gone, the fatigue was gone. Then after a moment there was warmth, a fire—a blaze. His body trembled with energy. He had to get up, to move. He had to do something, he had to jump, he had to run!

His eyes snapped open and locked with hers. Excitement twinkled in her dark eyes as she smiled at him. Her face in that moment was the most beautiful sight he would ever see, he was sure of it. The sun—the sky—he had never felt so alive! By the ancients! His thoughts flew by in a torrent, an engorged river rushing toward the sea. Everything of the last few days and more flew by him in an inebriated swirl. He saw Evana’s glare as she pronounced him a dead man, the drunk hitting the wall with a thud, his mother and father worrying for him, the clouds churning, the sky darkening and brightening. He saw Mara standing by the horses, the first time he spotted her. He saw himself lean toward her to kiss her, desperate to touch her, to feel as alive as he could possibly be—

When had the images changed from what had happened to what he wished to happen? And what did that mean? But he was too full of energy to make sense of it, thoughts rushing around in a whirlwind.

“Is… is this what it always feels like?” he whispered, staring into her eyes.

“Sometimes it’s even better.”

He let out a low breath. “Praise Anara!”

She chuckled. “You’re too full! You took too much. You’re drunk on it. Do something!”

“Like what?”

“Shake us down some leaves, clean the bridge off, tease the horses, something! Anything! And listen—feel—as you do it.”

He glanced around. He looked up at the sky; orange leaves still clung to the oaks. He couldn’t hesitate. He tried not to think. He just imagined the air racing through the treetops, like he would feel riding on horseback, but he was the air, powerful and fast—

A gust swayed the trees mightily, like a storm was approaching. By the gods, that was him. This was power like thunder rolling, like wind off the ocean—and he barely knew anything. Leaves swirled down from the treetops, and she smiled up at them, blinking in the flickering sunlight.

The heat in his chest had dissipated. He felt normal again. He hadn’t quite felt it fade because his thoughts had been on the wind. Perhaps that was his problem. He’d focused on the drunk, the Devoted Knight, his own annoyance at his lack of control, and he’d failed to notice the slight coldness, the fatigue.

She nodded. “Well, then, good start. For a prince, I suppose.” She winked. “You seem well rejuvenated now. Let’s go. Try to keep listening to that energy inside you. I may be tempted to steal a bit here and there to see if you notice. So you better be paying attention.” She narrowed her eyes at him playfully and shook a finger.

“And if I’m not?”

“Rocks and pebbles for dinner again.”

“I’m doomed to starvation from your horrid mistreatment.”

“You princes are soft! A mage must be hard. Rocks make warriors.” She snickered, punching him lightly on the shoulder as he rose. “Now shut up and get on the horse.”

“Missed it again.”

He smacked a palm to his forehead, tugging on the opposite wrist with his chains in the process. This was the third time now she’d stolen some energy and he hadn’t noticed.

“Two out of five isn’t bad.”

“It isn’t very good, either,” she laughed. “That was a lot of it, too. Were you nodding off over there?”

“After the night we had, how can you blame me?”

She only shrugged. Her eyes darted around them every once in a while, and seriousness would temporarily cloud her face. Did she hear something, see something? He couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. She squinted hard at the road up ahead of them. In that spot, rosebushes sprang from the ground and straight into bloom, flowers red as blood.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“What makes you think I did that?”

“You were just eyeing that spot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He snorted.

“Well, I have all your excess energy. I must do something with it.”

She really wasn’t much for lying, was she? “You could give it back.”

“How will you learn to fend for yourself then?”

“Excellent point.” He pondered for a moment. “Can anyone pull energy from anyone? Is there a way to stop it from happening?”

“You want to stop me?”

“Well, no, but it seems like it could be—”

She grinned. “It’s okay. You should want to stop me. You’ve got to be able to recognize it’s happening, first, however.”

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Assuming I figure that out.”

“Mages can extract energy from many things, but you will pull more effectively from your element. So, since you’re a creature, I can pull energy from you more easily than, for example, you could from me. Magic is often not balanced in each small instance, but overall, it seems to even out. As you discovered, you have sources like the sun. If that isn’t abundant, I don’t know what is.”