It was on the last day of the celebration when mother came up to me and hugged me. “You’re becoming quite a wonderful young man. I’m proud of you.” Her hug and words of encouragement were a gift that I’ll always remember as well. Mother and I aren’t the closest of family. Often she was busy teaching the students or dealing with them, and many of them helped raise me as much as she had. Father, I spent every morning with learning the blade, until here recently, and we had bonded and grown quite close. (Even if he is an old perverted geezer!) My relationship with mother was more distant, however, and even a few words of praise from her made me swell with pride.

“Thank you,” I told her honestly when returning her embrace. “I try and make you and father proud of me.”

Mother just nodded and then ruffled my hair lightly while holding me. “Do you want to know something interesting?” Without bothering to wait for my reply, she continued. “One of the girls the other day thought she could sneak around and learn magic on her own. It was rather amusing, to be honest. This has been my home for many hundreds of years now, and I know the feel and flow of every ebb of mana across it, down to the tiniest stream. From the oceans,” she looked me straight in the eyes, “to the deepest recesses of the forest, I know my land.”

“And,” she continued, ” I know who’s practicing what with the magic on my land.”

She was silent for a few moments to let the deeper meaning of her words sink in. Then, she hugged me again and lightly kissed me on the forehead. “You have some of your mother’s blood in you Mik’hail, and we’ll always be connected. No matter what the future brings, or where you go, you’ll be my child. Remember that, and remember I love you.”

“But,” she chuckled lightly seeing how much I was starting to squirm and fidget. “You have to choose your own path, whatever that might be. If your poor mother can ever help you find answers to help guide you along that path, you can always come and ask me anything. I’ll do whatever is within my power to support my child – even if that means allowing them to find their own path in ‘secret’. If my child needs me, they can always come to me.”

Finally, she let go of me and just smiled lightly. “All I ask is that you remember one thing, my boy. The blood in your veins is greater and stronger than most other’s across the land, and the strength it might bring to bear is something not to be abused. Learn. Grow. Prosper. Follow your own path. All I ask is that you walk in the light and never fall to the darkness. That’s all this old lady wants from you.”

She knew. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, mother knew I had magic and that I’d been practicing it in secret. And, from the way she talked, she probably knew from the moment I first started learning on my own all those years ago. She never mentioned it, as she was giving me the freedom to strive and learn on my own. I should’ve known! It was the same with me as a toddler while trying to explore and walk the island – she let me roam and explore day by day at my own pace until I’d finally mastered the strength to go wherever I wanted freely.

And I’d always thought she’d been busy and wasn’t paying attention to me. That’s not true either. I’d learned all the flows of energy throughout the forest and had gotten to where I considered it ‘my forest’. I knew when animals, people, or anything happened within the forest. I had built a connection to it, with my magics.

Never once had I thought that mother was a much greater wizard than I, or that she had lived on the island much longer than me. I’d mastered the forest and knew it. Mother is Mistress of the Isle. I was never out of her sight. No matter where I’ve been, or what I’ve done, she’s had a protective eye on me, watching over me. She simply gave me the freedom to learn, stumble, fall, and get back up on my own.

My eyes opened wide at the sight of yet another amazing woman who’d been near me all this time, without me even knowing it. I’m definitely going to have to make some time so we can spend it together and get to know each other better. There was a lot of things which I was still trying to learn with my magics, and mother had just indirectly told me that she’d answer whatever questions I might have.

I’ve studied the blade with father and De’Nara. I’ve studied hiding, hunting, and exploring with Le’Nara. It’s time to get serious and put some true effort into expanding my magic with Mother. I don’t know if I’ll leave the island when I turn twelve, but I can’t stay here forever. I’ve got to follow my own path out into the world some time, wherever it might lead me.

“Are you ready?” Mother asked; almost as if she was reading my mind.

“Ready? For?” Did I miss something?

Laughing lightly, mother ruffled my hair once again and then in a bright flash of light, we were elsewhere. A woman screeched, and several people stopped to stare in our direction while someone yelled for the guards.

“Why, to leave of course,” mother answered as if nothing at all was unusual about the scene around us. “I haven’t given my child his gift yet, and it’s time that I do so.” Slowly she started walking down the street and looking around as if she was looking for something in particular.

Two men in chain armor clanked down the street yelling for us to stop and mother simply waved her hand and they both disappeared. The screeching woman yelped again and then collapsed in a faint. The road and courtyard where we strode down was rapidly clearing of people. Apparently, the folks here weren’t as used to magic being used as I was back home.

Before long, the road was clear and it was just the two of us leisurely walking down it while mother peered into the different shops. I couldn’t be certain where we were, but the city itself was huge and packed tight with shops one against another. Refuse and waste littered the streets and horse dung stained the cobblestones.

We rounded a corner and was stopped by a human roadblock of men in armor. A dozen guards with shields lined up across the street, swords were drawn, and a dozen more was behind them with bows readied to fire. A knight in steel armor rode upon a massive black charger behind them, and he pointed a lance in our direction. “Surrender witch and be destroyed!”

Mother tilted her head and laughed lightly. “Shouldn’t it be ‘surrender OR be destroyed’? What’s the point in surrendering, if you’re just going to be destroyed afterward?”

“Witchery is forbidden in Kent!” The knight was almost frothing at the mouth. “Stop thy slanderous tongue witch, and surrender now!”

Mother laughed lightly and then waved her hands as if dismissing a fly. “Mik’hail,” she looked over at me, “this gnat is annoying me. Deal with him kindly. I’ve got other things to be doing right now and can’t be bothered.”

“Deal with…” ME?!

“Yes. Yes. Mother’s busy right now. Shoo shoo!” She waved her hands at me as if I was a fly now also!

Mother! What the hell!

“FIRE!” The knight lowered his lance and the twang of a dozen bows rang in the air all at once.

A volley of deadly arrows rushed through the air towards us, and mother was busy looking in her bag as if she hadn’t even noticed! With a sudden forceful yank of energy, I pulled energy from the earth all around. Tearing up a huge section of the roadway between the guards and us, I instantly shaped a wall between us. Arrows thwapped and bounced off it, or stuck in it, and the knight was yelling at his men again. “ARCHERS RELOAD! SWORDS ADVANCE!”

This was becoming a dangerous situation quite rapidly, and I had to do something to defuse the problem before mother or I ended up seriously injured. I’ve never experienced real life or death combat before, but I had seen people die a horrible death in my past life. I wanted to avoid that at all costs, so I refused to use any sort of lethal magic against these people who were just protecting their homes and enforcing their laws. We were the invaders here and had no right to harm them.

But, at the same time, I wasn’t going to just stand here and become a pincushion and die! I couldn’t think of any magics to put them to sleep, and as they reloaded and charged closer, I simply fell back on the magical talent which I’d been practicing the most – my earth magic. The energy in this city was bright and vibrant so I can see why Mother would travel here as the place felt full of power. Thoroughly enjoying the experience, I tapped into it and pulled as much as I could safely hold and maintain at once.

And then, eyes blazing brown from the earth energy flowing throughout my body, I released a wave of magical force all around us. Well, almost all around us – the energy circled around mother without touching her at all. I have to ask her about that trick sometime!

With several loud bangs and clangs, the guards toppled over that were running towards us. Their shiny metal armor was now brown, rusted, and fused together solidly. The archers were looking perplexed, as their arrows had melded themselves to the bows they were holding and refused to fire. The knight was slathering like an idiot and kicking his spurs into the side of his horse trying to get it to charge, not yet realizing that its feet – and everyone else’s nearby were buried nearly a foot deep in the stone.

Mother finally looked up from her bag and glanced around before laughing lightly. “Nicely done, my boy. I’ve got what we need now. Are you ready? If they don’t want our business here, we’ll simply go elsewhere.”

Before I could tell her that might be a good idea, there was another bright glow of light and we were suddenly standing in front of a counter in some large shop. Several people jerked suddenly and looked at us nervously, but no one was yelling for the guards or trying to fill us full of arrows. In fact, the woman behind the counter simply looked up and asked us in a lazy voice, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Certainly.” Mother held out a steel card to the woman who took it and looked at it lightly. “I’d like to transfer a thousand gold coins from this account to a new account for my son. He’s proven he’s ready for it, and he’s old enough now to get one.”

“Certainly ma’am.” The woman wasn’t even looking at us now, as she was starting to pull out papers from beneath the counter and scribble on them. From what I could tell, paper pushes in ALL worlds seemed to be bored with their jobs.

My knees were starting to feel a little weak now that the adrenalin was running out of my system, so I wobbled over and flopped down in one of the many chairs nearby. Apparently, Mother was setting me up my own bank account.

I just find it shocking to think that she might have been testing me in a life and death situation somehow to see if I was ready for it first!

But then again, Mother might not have even seen it as a life and death situation. She acted more like the men were nothing worse than pests to be shooed off.

Just how powerful was she exactly?!

To be honest, I think I might be afraid to know….