Chapter 90 Chapter 90
After Maxwell left with his friends, Valerie decided to use the quiet to practice her magic since she still hadn’t quite figured out how to control it. She recalled what Maxwell had told her, that she had trouble releasing it, and that this seemed to be the root of the problem. It was easy for her to sense light and the magic connected to it, but making use of it was a whole other thing…
She ended up sitting on her bed, staring at her palm with furious intensity, willing the magic to come to life. Scrunching her nose, she glared and glared, but nothing happened. At one point, she became so frustrated she just wanted to give up, but she didn’t want to rely on Maxwell’s help all the time… there had to be a way to get it to work on her own. She gnawed on her lower lip, getting lost in her thoughts.
If she remembered correctly, she had been very calm the moment it had finally worked, so she should try to concentrate. Maybe then it would work better than before.
While she was sitting on the bed, Mochi snuck into the room and jumped up to lie next to her, watching her curiously. The small demon seemed to sense what she was trying to do, tilting its head as it waited for something to happen. Valerie smiled at the cute sight and relaxed her body, calming her thoughts to focus on the flow of magic within her.
She closed her eyes and stopped trying to force it, instead feeling its familiar warmth as it coursed through her body. Now that Maxwell wasn’t here to suppress it anymore, it felt rawer than usual, like a river that was only waiting to turn into a wild maelstrom. She carefully tapped into it and coaxed the magic to become visible, to leave its confinement within her body.
Curiously opening her eyes, she saw a glowing orb floating in front of her. It gleamed beautifully, and she found herself getting hypnotized by its otherworldly shimmer. It was warm and made her feel fuzzy inside.
She smiled, touching the orb and soaking up its light. The magic was swallowed by her hand, sinking into her skin and becoming one with her. Now it was much easier for her to interact with it, and she began to understand what she needed to do to control it.
Tiny stars shot from her fingers, Mochi watching them with wide eyes. The cat soon jumped after them and attempted to catch them in its paws. Valerie smiled while she observed the mischievous demon and let even more orbs appear around it that it could chase after. It jumped at a ray of light, and when it touched it, the magic got absorbed into its body, making it glow brighter. She was fascinated by this, finding the sight beautiful.
“Do you want another one to play with?” Valerie grinned. Tiny spheres of light floated through the air, and the cat couldn’t get enough of hunting them down.
She soon lost track of time, playing with the demon for longer than she should have, considering that she wasn’t used to the magic yet. A strange burning manifested in her fingertips, and whenever she tapped into her magic, it intensified. At first, she didn’t even notice, but when her hands got shakier and her fingers began to tremble, she looked at them in shock.
“Did I… overdo it?” she uttered, eyes widening when the burning began to spread, moving up her arms, reaching her chest. She took a deep breath, and then another and another. The ache intensified further, and now she began to panic. “Damn it, stop.” she hissed, clutching her shirt right where her heart was.
It was pounding harder, the strain of controlling the demonic magic too much for her. She had to turn the flow of magic off somehow, but it was like a wild river, impossible to stop. Desperation grew within her as she stared at her hands that radiated blinding white light.
Why did it always go out of control? It was supposed to be a part of her, not turning against her at the slightest bit of weakness. She gritted her teeth, trying to get herself together. The pain was overwhelming, so much so that her senses began to fail her. She hardly heard Mochi’s frantic meows, and didn't feel its paws graze her thigh. There was only one thought within her mind: She had to get the pain to stop. The magic was ripping her apart—she needed to do something if she didn’t want to die.
However, her emotions were playing against her. The more nervous and scared she became, the more untamed her magic became. She was a tiny bird caught up in a hurricane. Whatever she did, it wasn’t enough to stop the raw force she was dealing with. There was one other person who could have helped her, but he wasn’t here. She had no idea where he was and when he would return, but since he knew that something was wrong, he hopefully already was on his way here.
Sitting on her knees, she hunched with pain, curling herself into a ball. Beads of sweat formed on her brow. This was draining to the point where she almost lost consciousness. Her body was glowing brighter and brighter until she saw only white.
“This… can’t be it,” she breathed tiredly. “Come on, calm down.”
“Valerie.” a voice screamed at her somewhere in the distance. It was familiar, but her hazy mind couldn’t remember where she had heard it before. The loudness of her heartbeat easily drowned the voice out, snuffing the sound.
The moment someone touched her arm, the wild flow of magic calmed and vanished as if it had never even been there. It was a liberating feeling that caused the pain and the burning in her body to ease. Maxwell sat behind her, enveloping her waist with his arms to steady her, and she let him, leaning her back against his chest. Her head rolled sideways, resting just below his collarbones. She was breathing heavily in exhaustion, the burning still prevalent in her drained body, but relief easily let her forget about the numbness of her limbs.