Free The Guardian's Grimoire by Rain Oxford Page B

hugger. She was anti-hunting.” And so was
I, even if I wouldn’t admit it. I thought hunting for food was different than
hunting for sport, but a dead animal was a dead animal, and I didn’t want to be
the cause of its death. I just didn’t want to starve, either. Besides, I was no
vegetarian.
    Edward nodded his understanding. “This is different
than your world’s love of sport hunting. Meat is a necessary part of the diet,
but maybe you would prefer fishing,” he suggested.
    “I hate fish.”
    “That’s fine. There are no fish around Shomodii;
they’re afraid of the bigger sea creatures here.” He picked up the yorkie
easily.
    Once back at my new home, Edward started breaking
down the yorkie while I started trying to build a fire. Edward told me Duran
did have matches and lighters, but he didn’t have any since most wizards just
used magic. So I tried the stick method. Soon, I came to the conclusion there
was no such thing. Friction from sticks couldn’t really make fire; the
ancestors were lying.
    Edward came to see my dry, cold logs. “Why haven’t
you started the fire?”
    “The logs are faulty. They’re not flammable.”
    Edward set the clumps of meat on the large rocks
surrounding the burn logs. He picked up the grill gate and set it down on top,
then arranged the meat on it. When he took his hands away, the wood suddenly
came alive with flames. He had set the fire without any work.
    “Show off.”
    He grinned and sat down on the ring of logs placed
around the fire. “Fire is easy for most people, especially emotional people
like you.” I glared at him, but he ignored me. “There is magic energy, much
like the physical energy you know of, that is in everything. Your mind is able
to control this energy, which enables you to impact your surroundings. However,
you put your soul into what you do, so the magic you do shapes you. If you use
it to kill a person, you will be hurting or even destroying your soul.”
    “What about that creature I killed?”
    “It was not a person; it was a mindless killer with
no soul. You have a lot of raw power that you need to learn to control. The
energy reacts to your emotions when your mind is not in control.”
    The yorkie was done by then and I got a decently
large chunk, but I waited to see if there was any weird Duran way of eating. He
raised it to his mouth and mumbled something before he bit into it, but
otherwise ignored me. He didn’t seem to like to talk while he ate.
    The food was tough, lean, and very red, though cooked
thoroughly. Edward had glass plates and knives, but no forks, and he didn’t
seem to notice that it was very hot. It was sweet, as Edward said it would be,
but he should have warned me that it was pretty salty. My eyes were watering
before my hunger had subsided enough to stop eating.
    “Is there anything to drink?”
    “There’s water, milwyd juice, and Kamitsue juice. I
don’t suggest the milwyd juice; I think you’re allergic to it. Stay here.” He
got up and started for the porch.
    “Do you think I’ll run off and get lost?”
    “Possibly. If you do, an animal will take the food,
so don’t run off,” he said. I gave him a sour look as he went inside. He came
out a few minutes later with a large, black clay jar and two small matching
cups. When he handed me one of the cups, I was surprised to find it as heavy as
stone, and I imagined what the large carafe weighed.
    “How long is the daylight?”
    “Duran’s system of time is different than yours. Your
world is divided into hours and minutes, ours is don and doned. They can sort
of be translated to hours and minutes. You need to learn how long they are
because it is difficult to compare them. Earth uses a base twelve for time and
ten for counting. We use base ten for both. There are twenty don in a day and
fifty doned in a don. Duran also spins slower than Earth, and it’s bigger, so
our days are longer than Earth’s. Earth’s year and Duran’s year is about the
same;