Queen Lyshara kept her promise.

  The morning after our meeting, she had a servant deliver a set of essence stones. I was more than ready to practice magic again.

  Evie and I rode out for my training. A river wound through the outskirts of the city where she said I would learn something new today.

  Evie stood across from me, her usual shyness missing as she got into her teacher mode. She was different when she trained me, more confident, more focused.

  “Water isn’t just about calmness,” she said, stepping barefoot into the shallows. “It can be defensive, like a wall... but it can also be a bde.”

  I mirrored her, feeling the cool water rise around my ankles.

  Evie crouched near the edge of the river, letting her fingers glide through the surface.

  “You’ve done well learning to conjure water,” she said, looking up at me with a small smile. “But conjuring isn’t the only way. You don’t always need to create it from your mana.”

  I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “What do you mean?”

  She scooped up a bit of water in her hand, then let it slip through her fingers again. “This river already has water infused with natural essence. That means, if you have an affinity for it, you can control it without conjuring it yourself. You just need to feel it. Connect to it. Think of it like… persuading the water to move, not commanding it.”

  I crouched beside her, watching the way the current curled around her hand.

  “Conjuring rge amounts of water drains a lot of mana from you. If you’re near a source of water, rivers, kes, or even mist in the air, you should rely on that.”

  She stood and took a few steps back, gesturing toward the riverbank. “Try it. Start simple. Defense. I want you to lift a wall of water between us. Don’t conjure it with your mana, draw it from the river.”

  I nodded, stepping closer to the water. My fingers hovered above the surface. I closed my eyes, trying to tune in.

  The water was constantly in motion. But beneath that movement was something still. It’s essence. I focused on that. It felt just like my mana.

  “Start small,” Evie said from behind me. “Guide it, don’t fight it.”

  I extended my hand. Mana pulsed from my core into my arm, then into my palm. I didn’t try to force it upward, I imagined the water rising on its own, as though I were just lending it the strength to stand.

  At first, nothing happened.

  Then, slowly, a ripple.

  “Good,” Evie encouraged. “Now lift.”

  I gritted my teeth, pouring more focus. The water trembled. Then, suddenly, with a deep whoosh, it surged upward.

  A thin wall of water formed between us, maybe five feet high. It wavered at the edges and some of it spshed down again, but it held.

  Evie grinned. “That’s not bad at all.”

  I exhaled sharply, surprised at how winded I was. “That… took more than I expected.”

  “Water’s tough,” she said. “It doesn’t want to stand. It wants to flow. Fire’s easier in that way, it wants to move, to spread.”

  I wiped the sweat off my brow. “So… what’s next?”

  Evie raised her hand, and with a flick of her wrist, the wall colpsed in a noisy spsh.

  “Offense,” she said, her voice almost pyful.

  She raised her hand, fingers moving through air like flowing water as her hand glowed, and a whip of water formed in her hand. The water didn’t dissolve like it had when I tied to create a wall, nor was it unstable, it was still.

  I watched in awe.

  “You made that look easy.”

  She smiled faintly. “Because I’ve been doing it for years. But I started where you are now.”

  I looked down at my hands. “Alright. What should I do?”

  Evie stepped close. “Let’s just use your mana this time. First, shape your mana,” she instructed. “Before you transform it, you have to mold it into the form you want.”

  I nodded and focused, pulling my mana from deep inside me and guiding it toward my fingertips.

  “Now,” she continued, “extend it outward, think of it like stretching a rope. Don’t worry about turning it into water yet. Just focus on creating the whip out of your mana.”

  I exhaled slowly and pushed my mana forward.

  A thin tendril of purple light extended from my hand, flickering a lot. It wavered, uneven and weak, before flickering out entirely.

  I groaned. “That was pathetic.”

  Evie giggled behind her hand. “You’ll get it.”

  I clenched my jaw and tried again. This time, I forced the mana outward faster, shaping it into a whip-like form. It held for a few seconds, longer than before, but when I flicked my wrist, attempting to strike a rock nearby, the mana shattered apart into a small puddle of water.

  I let out a frustrated breath. “It keeps breaking.”

  “Because you’re forcing it,” Evie said patiently. “Mana flows. You can’t grip it too tightly, or it’ll colpse. You can grip it properly only when it’s transformed into an element. Try again, but this time... ease into it.”

  She took a step closer and gently guided my wrist.

  “Let it flow naturally.”

  I swallowed, refocusing and shaped the mana slowly.

  It extended, smoother, more steadier, forming a faint, translucent whip of energy in my grasp.

  “Yes,” Evie encouraged. “Now, change its nature.”

  I focused, remembering the feel of water. I imagined my mana becoming liquid, shifting from energy to water essence.

  And then, it happened.

  The translucent whip rippled, shifting into something fluid yet solid, a short whip of water.

  I gasped in surprise. “I did it!”

  A small smile tugged at Evie’s lips. “Now, hit the rock.”

  I turned toward a nearby stone and swung my arm. The water whip shed forward, but the moment it made contact, it broke apart, spttering across the ground.

  I cursed under my breath.

  Evie lifted her hand, and in one swift motion, cracked her own whip against the same rock. A sharp snap rang out, and the stone was left with a faint, wet gash. Her whip held together perfectly.

  I sighed. “How do you make yours so strong?”

  “It’s just practice,” Evie reassured me. “Not talent. I was bad at this too, my dy.”

  She stepped closer again. “You’ll control it soon. We’ll train regurly.”

  I turned to her, still a little frustrated but undeniably excited.

  “Then I guess you’re stuck with me.”

  She smiled softly, her shyness creeping back now that we weren’t mid-training.

  “I don’t mind,” she said quietly.

  I ughed and, without thinking, leaned in and kissed her cheek.

  Evie froze.

  For a moment, she didn’t even breathe. Then, her entire face turned bright red.

  I grinned. “Thank you, you’re a great teacher and very beautiful too.”

  She turned away so quickly she nearly tripped into the river.

  I chuckled. Yeah. Training with Evie was going to be fun.