I finally got back to the conference room and found that Jovenor was leaving. He took one more suspicious look at me before he went through the portal he had made. "An oracle was captured by the Dark mages a few days ago. The message the oracle was carrying is said to be connected to the Siege of this generation. All they know are rumours because the oracle was captured before the Elders heard the prophecy," Ciara addressed me when I came in probably on what they had been discussing with Jovenor.
"Kevin, what is that magic you were using in the forest of Alms?" Kendall asked me.
"It is commonly known as domain magic," Ciara answered. I, on the other hand, had no idea what it was, "and none of you are to use it. It can only be performed by the Siege, and rarely by the alpha. The homage has never been seen using it. It is a kind of magic that allows one to achieve near omnipotence, but it is also very demanding. I am very surprised that you were able to pull it off."
"That was a small place, so I was confident I could do it, but if we were on a battlefield, that would have been a different story. I am still terrible at the spell, and I have not yet achieved anything remotely close to omnipotence. I could only focus on two things at most," I explained.
"It was creepy, how were you able to use wind magic when you were using it?" Isaac asked.
"Huh, no, it was nothing like that. When using the spell, my surroundings simply become an extension of me, so it wasn't wind magic, just imposing my will on everything within the region of my control," I explained.
"Oh, so you mean, without domain magic, you cannot actually control air?" Kendall asked.
"Yes, exactly," I said.
"Now that we have got all that settled, we can…." Ciara was cut off.
"What do you mean, settled? Kevin hasn't explained how he can lift the totem yet," Jacob began ranting. Clearly he wasn't going to let this go all that easily.
"I actually have no idea why that is," I quickly said to get him off my back.
"Any more questions," Ciara asked looking around for anyone who still wanted something addressed.
"Cheer up guys. We just had a victory," I tried to lift the spirits of the room.
"That is only because you came and besides, they said they hadn't even planned to fight us in the first place," Isaac said, deep in thought.
"Let us all go home and get some rest, okay. It's no use thinking about all that now," Ciara said before opening a portal. I was about to ask them why we hadn't taken our combat suits off first when I saw the suits shredding off and leaving our original clothes in their place, "one more thing, Kevin. What did you mean when you said we were never going to be unavailable again?"
"Perhaps you will have your answer once we go through the portal," I said adding a smile to my abstract answer. The portal opened up into the school library which struck me as an odd place for them to be.
"Why do we use the library of all places?" I asked.
"The artras from the previous generation enchanted the last aisle of the library so that no one comes here and so that no one can eavesdrop on conversations held here. You could even shout and the librarian wouldn't hear a thing. There are many other places like this all over Armenville which were used by the other generations as meeting spots. We have just taken a liking to this one since we don't even have to get out of school to get here," Kendall explained.
"Wow, so amazing, I wish we had learnt magic as children. All this wouldn't be so new to us," I said somewhat absentminded.
"That reminds me guys," Isaac spoke up all of a sudden with a hint of alarm in his voice, "during our battle with the Dark mages, I remembered something."
"I will ignore the jokes you are causing me to come up with and ask you to continue," Kendall said rubbing tears from his eyes. I had noticed the irony in Isaac's statement and giggled at my friend's foolishness. Isaac shrugged it off and continued, "It was a memory from before we were seven."
This got all of our attention. I hadn't told the others of the memories I was getting back from that time either, but the possibility of them getting their memories back had not crossed my mind. "Seriously, I was about to ask you when you learnt how to use air magic so well, but this is more interesting. What did you remember?" Jacob said.
"That's just it, the memory answers both those questions. I didn't want to believe it until I tried the spell and it worked. In the memory, we were all there, including Charles and we had been practising magic. I had just learnt how to use wind magic. I know it all sounds bizarre, but it all felt real," Isaac explained.
"When you mean all of us, do you mean Ciara too?" Kendall asked all signs of his jokes gone from his face.
Isaac spent a while straining his mind before he replied, "I can't tell. I'm sorry, we were only children. It would be easy for me to simply say she wasn't there, but I don't know if that is true considering there are other images I can't make out of the memory," he said.
"So you are telling me there is a possibility that we learnt magic before we turned seven," Jacob said deep in thought, "Ciara, is it possible that our memories were altered? It can't be a coincidence that none of us can probably remember a single incident from before we were that age."
"I don't know. It isn't impossible for someone to have no exact memories from before then because when I look at it, not much can really happen before someone turns seven," she said, "we'll discuss all that later. Right now we should all be getting home and Kevin should be getting back to his last known position before he gets me into more trouble with the Elder council."
"Sorry about that, Ciara, but I need your help with something before I let everything return to normal," I said.
The rest of my friends left on their way home whilst I walked with Ciara to my home. "Where to?" she asked as we left school grounds.
"My home…."
"Can't I just get us there with teleportation?" she asked.
"The nausea could make me lose my grasp on time. Besides, there is something I want to discuss with you," I said and I am not sure if I will ever get another opportunity to do so.
"What is it?" she asked growing concerned.
"It's Sonia," I said.
"What about Sonia? You guys getting cosier than you should?" she asked.
"No, not at all, that ring she wears. I didn't ask about it without a reason," I said.
"What is it?"
"Sonia knows about magic. She isn't planning on telling any of us yet," I said.
"And how do you know about that?" Ciara asked. I pretended not to notice the hint of suspicion in her voice and continued with my explanation.
"That ring protects her from magic. So whenever I stop time, she continues moving. It is partly the reason I showed up late," I said.
"Why would it be the reason you showed up late? From what I gather, you have stopped time with her wearing it enough times." Curse her deductive reasoning.
"She's at my house right now. I had my brother get her to take it off before I stopped time," I said.
"This keeps getting more and more interesting," Ciara said folding her arms across her chest. 'Why me…'
"Personal matters aside, is it possible for you to re-enchant the ring so that my time powers affect the wearer so that at least she can be affected by my time spells," I asked her.
"Personal matter aside, what is going on between you two?" she asked sounding even more taken aback and suspicious. This was not going at all the way I had hoped for it to go, "You know you cannot lie to me when we are alone or else you will lose your powers as a Siege."
"Yes, and I also know that anything that I tell you when we are alone is supposed to be kept secret or you also lose your powers as an alpha," I said.
"So you lose nothing by telling me what is going on between you and Sonia. Isn't that right?" she asked flashing a wicked smile that caused shivers to run down my spine.
"There is nothing going on. At least, to the best of my knowledge, the girl just seems to always follow me or at least talk to me. I don't understand her one bit. Anyway I was about to go Armensia when she stopped by our place and asked to hang out for a while," I said. I was going to stop there, but Ciara was in the mood to hear the story up to the end, "we were watching a movie when I stopped time. Gary helped me get the ring off of her and this may be the last chance we ever get to at least rewrite that one part of the enchantment."
Ciara continued walking in the direction of my house after that without another word. She looked like she was deep in thought. I followed in silence until we reached the front door and she decided to break the silence. "How many more secrets are you going to keep?" she asked so softly I almost didn't hear her.
In truth, I didn't have the answer she was looking for. I could tell she was not enjoying any of this. "I am sorry for dragging you into this. If it protects my friends, I will gladly keep the secrets?"
"This doesn't protect anyone. Secrets are only known for breaking relationships, not holding them together," she tried arguing.
"You already know how I do my things. I solve what I can without involving anyone else. I would never have involved you if you didn't force my hand and now I am wishing I never did regardless."
"I made my decision because I knew you had a lot you were hiding and I wanted to help you. Still, I could never have predicted that you were keeping this much from us. You literally live a day longer than twenty four hours every day," she argued. I could see that her eyes were starting to water.
I wiped a stray tear from her face with my thumb before I telepathically relayed to her a message, 'There are people inside this house that weren't affected by my time spell. You might want to put your mask back on.'
With that said she regained her composure before I turned the lock and stepped into the house.