Page 13 of Reforging Onyx

He rose and straightened up, looking around. Dominic had said he’d be in a warehouse, but he couldn’t see much. There were targets in front of and around him in a semi-circle, but a light-colored bubble encompassed the area and darkened everything beyond the immediate vicinity. It was almost like the spell Dominic had used in the crate, but there was significantly more range.

He was trapped, but with his magic simmering just beneath his skin, he felt freer than he had since he’d before he’d been captured.

His senses were strange and off-kilter, with everything seeming so intense, but he didn’t know how much time he’d have before Dominic was attempting to subdue him again to put him back under. Now that he’d had a taste of his magic again, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle losing it again.

Maybe this had been a bad idea, because now… He would have to fight.

But for the time being, he wanted to enjoy what he had. He could figure out the rest later, after he’d touched his magic and tested from within the bonds.

Onyx summoned a small spark at first, his face lighting up with rapturous joy when he saw the fire flaring into life in his palm. He made it bigger, then bigger still, then bigger even than that, manipulating the flames into a crackling sphere of intense heat. It floated above his palm, and he gazed at it in wonder. He’d killed so many supes the last time he’d had his magic. How many could he kill before they subdued him this time?

The wild, careless part of him wanted to find out.

He couldn’t see anyone, though, and trying to discern the location of anyone watching would take time and energy he didn’t necessarily want to spend on something so mundane.

He glanced around himself, inspecting the different stationary targets, then he hurled the ball of fire directly at one of them, pretending he was hitting Dominic’s smarmy grin dead-on. The fireball exploded, but what he assumed were magical defenses kept the flames from starting to spread. He itched to take those apart, but he didn’t even know how to do much beyond destroying things with fire. He’d never learned how to do more than basic warding with his magic, and taking spells apart sounded intricate and difficult.

He wished he knew how so he could summon fireball after fireball and leave the warehouse a smoking crater with his body at the center of it.

He would be free.

Instead of focusing on self-destructive thoughts, he manifested flames into existence. Fire, fire, and more fire appeared: it all came so easily to him, just like breathing, and he hit each target with deadly precision as he smiled fiercely.

He wasn’t giving this up again. Not without a fucking fight.

There was a sound from somewhere nearby, and Onyx whirled around to attempt to face the source, but he couldn’t find it.

“Can you summon fire at the location, rather than hurl a ball at it?” Dominic’s voice came then from all around him, somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint no matter how much he turned to try to find it.

Promises or otherwise, would Onyx really pass up an opportunity to set the other witch ablaze, given half a chance?

Onyx scoffed. “Not as much fun,” he remarked anyway. But he demonstrated that he could, focusing on one of the distant, untouched targets and watching as flames slowly started to lap at it from the bottom up. It was harder at that distance, and it took more effort, but he could.

“Remarkable,” Dominic said. “I don’t think we’ve seen an elemental power of your strength in hundreds of years, if not longer. Have you learned finesse with your fire, or only with offensive weaponry?”

Onyx hadn’t expected any questions at all, let alone follow-ups, and it caught him off guard. He let the targets he’d set aflame continue their constrained burning, even as he shook his head.

“I just want something on fire, and I make it catch fire,” he said, as though that was the reasonable answer. “Why would I need finesse?”

Because finesse with his magic would’ve let him release or melt the chain he was shackled to, undo the protective spells, and potentially protect his mind from another sleep spell.

But posturing was better than admitting weakness, especially when it had the added benefit of being true. With his sheer strength, why bother to learn how to refine it?

“Some of the deadliest weapons are also the most beautiful,” Dominic said, his voice still coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “And while I could make an illusion of fire be beautiful, I would never be able to make such beauty with fire.”

Onyx thought fire was beautiful in all of its forms, but he’d never learned to fine tune it into something others might think were beautiful too.

An illusion of a phoenix, with a body and wings made of licks of flame, flew into the arena in a shower of sparks. It looped through the space a couple of times before alighting on one of the targets and perching there like any live bird might sit.

“A pale shade of what could be done with fire,” Dominic lamented.

Onyx could never hope to replicate such a stunning mirage. “That’s because fire doesn’t need to look like a bird to be beautiful,” he countered anyway, stifling his yearning.

Dominic chuckled. “That’s true; it doesn’t.”

Onyx gestured casually to point to one of the burning targets. “Let go of the protective spells and I’ll show you how big I can make it.”

The fire seemed to jump just a bit, then Dominic told him, “They’re gone.”