2 Lost and Found

Alya shivered the very moment she stopped touching the book. Carefully, she openeder her hand and felt her palm. It was sweaty. Her finger travelled upwards until they touched something. It tickled in both her right hand and her left hand's finger. Alya brushed over the hairs carefully, it was there.

This was not a spell she had ever heard of. Until now, all she remembered seeing was the basic householding spells. Single memories had popped up after time. She remembered her parents and school, but only since they were connected to magic. Her parents knew basic spells for cooking and farming. Alya herself had been interested in magic since she was a child. By herself, she had found multiple basic spells. Her uncle, whom she most vivid image of, used to praise her. He was a magician in the King's court. In truth, that was all she knew about him. He would often come to the village to help the locals out, but most of the time he spent travelling.

Lastly, Alya tried to remember herself. She was listed in the magic academy of Polia only since her uncle gave did something, otherwise a commoner like her would have gotten nowhere. She had a friend at the academy, Nena, who practiced spear- fighting and magic like most of her family. Like most common people, Alya had black hair, brown eyes and pale skin. She did not know the history behind everything.

Last of all, her book. Alya had travelled through the woods and arrived in a hidden temple of sorts. It was filled with wooden coffins and one small dais, on which she found the book. She thought about the content and remembered the page with the eye. It was a scary though, but she wanted the eye. Alya had lost her vision throughout whatever had happened, she could not become anything.

So, she opened her eye. She looked around the room, like she would have before, she looked at the ceiling and, lastly, at herself. It was a weird sensation, she had never seen herself like this, how everybody else saw her. She looked fine, Alya was okay with her own appearance. The bags beneath her eyes would disappear in no time, maybe.

The sky was blue and the sun shone gently. It had been a week since Alya woke up at the inn. The commander stepped through the gate, "Alya! Hey." She sat on her stumps in the small garden, watering the plants when he entered. She did not turn around, but Olaf knew that would not help, she was blind anyways.

"Olaf? Are you done with work already?" She touched the earth beneath a smaller plant and cast a spell. Green light formed small drips and fell into the dirt.

"I don't work all that much when there's no war." He laughed. Olaf had spent most of his younger years with other boys on the streets. He always wanted to fight with magic. His mother had always been ill when he was young, he worked on his magic to become a paladin. He went to the academy to study light magic and warhammer combat. He got good grades, was called to the army as a knight, but never learned what he needed. After leaving school, he never got his hands on new books. He could still not heal his mother, maybe no spell for her illness had been found yet, even the doctors did not know what she was ill with.

He always practiced, he experimented with light magic on animals. All he ever achieved through his methods was the ability to become a veterinarian. Now, a new patient had been found.

"Do you mind?" Olaf closed his hands together and concentrated. He slowly opened them, light escaped through the widening gaps.

"No, it's fine." She felt his hands touch her head. Looking through her eye, she saw Olaf. He had closed his eyes. In his hands, she saw light. It remained still for a second, dimmed and then with high frequencies, bounced around on her face. It reminded her of the dancing light of torches, of something she had almost forgotten.

The night, the crowd, they stood and listened. They had light-brown skin and dark-brown hair. They had all come there secretly, just like Alya, "But, what for?" She thought.

Alya turned her head towards the loud noise. Olaf opened his eyes as well, "What is going on there?" Metal clashed and shouts echoed through the town.

"I'm going to look, you stay here." Olaf sprinted out of the garden. The next moment, a horn was blown inside the city.

From beneath her robe, Alya took out the book. It calmed her. She held her hand above the page, allowing her eye to see and brushed over the symbols with her fingers at the same time. She had done so and went through the whole book two times already, so she started at the first page.

From the images in her head, she tried to assign words to the symbols before, but the story was always easier to follow inside her mind.

She looked down, her large arms were covered in brown hair. She was dreaming in another body. Alya looked around, she sat in a small inn room. A bed, a small bedside table and a cupboard. A single candle lit the room. She closed her eyes, and waited. The black inside had many spots, they appeared and disappeared from moment to moment. Only some remained. The few grew larger and brighter, small blue fires burned in her vision. She turned her head, another blue fire burned on her side. When she opened her eyes nothing remained, only the wall to another room.