Free The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel by Laura Resnick Page B

her equivocation clearly incensed him.
    “It’s getting late,” she said hastily. “Try to get some sleep.”
    “When will you be back?”
    “Soon,” she promised. “Goodnight.”
    “Here, take this.” Brannon handed Chandra a small piece of flame quartz on a string. “It’s for luck.”
    “Thanks, kiddo.”
    Chandra left Brannon, knowing he’d lie awake for a while thinking about the exciting things that had happened and that might happen again. She went back to her own room and began preparing to planeswalk.
    Ideally, she’d rather do this outside, alone in the mountains. That was where she felt the most centered and focused, the best prepared for planeswalking. But it would be a little difficult to concentrate on entering the æther if she had to keep both eyes peeled for assassins outside the comparative safety of the monastery walls.
    Even
inside
the walls, she needed to be alert, considering that goblins had invaded her room and a small bush had tried to kill her in the herb garden.
    A death sentence from oufes was a nuisance, she decided.
    But alone in her room, with the door closed and the table pushed in front of it to keep out intruders, she could prepare in safety and depart unseen.
    Of course, in an emergency, she could planeswalk without as much preparation, but it was dangerous. Also pretty nauseating. The first time had been like that. She hadn’t known what was happening, and the disorientation had been like some horrific combination of being poisoned, beaten, dropped down a well, and scalded. With no idea what was happening or where she was going, she’d thought she was dying. Indeed, she nearly
had
died. It was just luck, survival instinct, and some innate, previously unrecognized talent that had led her through the Blind Eternities to find the relative safety of another plane.
    There, she learned what she really was, and had also learned how to travel more safely between the planes of the Multiverse. And, with practice, she was getting better at it.
    She sat down on the floor of her dark room and began by focusing on her breathing.
    In, out. Slow. Even. Relaxed. Inhale, exhale
.
    Each time a thought intruded, she banished it and focused again on her breathing.
    Innnnnn. Outtttt
.
    With each cycle of her slow, rhythmic breathing, her bond grew stronger with the eternal flow of mana throughout the Multiverse and its infinite planes. Her bond to mana, that ethereal fuel for all magic, was strong on Regatha, and she would use it to carry her through, but there were other planes and other sources of mana ready for those who understood the use of the power.
    Chandra felt a welcome tingle of heat begin to flow through her. She opened herself further, accepting the intense flow. She felt fire in her blood, in her bones, in her belly. She heard the roar of flames around her, and she felt their glow all through her body.
    Still concentrating on maintaining a deep, relaxed breathing pattern, she sensed her physical presence on Regatha beginning to dissolve into flames as she slipped into the Blind Eternities. As she disappeared from her humble bedchamber into the hot blaze of a fiery chasm, she recognized the formless void that existed outside of time and space.
    Green, blue, white, red, black. Undulating rivers of vibrant, multi-colored mana swirled around her in a dizzying whirlwind. Overhead. Underfoot. On all sides. Tumbling like waterfalls, twining like ribbons. Vibrating like the strings of a harp, filling her senses, flowing endlessly …
    She moved as if swimming in invisible lava, pushing her way through something rich and heavy that she could neither see nor touch, but which surrounded her, engulfed her, and melded itself to her. Its fiery heat both energized and drained her, consorting with that Spark inside her, that innate quality that kept her from being devoured by the void.
    She spread her hands wide, palms facing outward, and concentrated, trying to sense the energy of the planes