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Henry stalked down the corridor, using anger to keep the tears at bay.
How dare Cedric speak to me like that? he asked himself. If I was king, I would... I would have him executed! Chop his head off and leave it on a pike outside of the school for everyone to see that...
Henry let that thought trail off inside his head, suddenly uncertain of where it was leading. Everyone in the kingdom knew the prophecy that Cedric had thrown in his face. A few generations ago, the Seer of Talothis had foreseen that a child of the royal family would be born with the magical ability to save the failing kingdom of Mythesti. Every royal child, whether of direct descent or part of a branch of the family, was tested for magical ability on his or her sixth birthday. Henry was the first child since the prophecy was spoken who actually had magical ability, and in the last five years, the prophecy and Henry's role in its fulfillment had been all he'd heard about. The pressure he felt was enormous, though he'd never told anybody that he felt that way, and now Cedric was telling him everything that he'd ever feared. Henry was desperately afraid that he would fail to save his kingdom.
So would I chop off Cedric's head because he was disrespectful, or because he was telling me a truth that I don't want to hear? Henry asked himself. Would I be warning people not to speak rudely, or not to be honest with me?
He stopped walking. He took a deep breath, and then he turned around. He may not have been happy with Cedric's words or his tone of voice, but Henry realized that if he didn't want to fail, if he didn't want to let everyone down, he needed Cedric. He went back to the workroom, prepared to beg if he needed to.
When the door opened beneath his touch, Cedric looked up and Henry could see regret pasted across the journeyman's face. He opened his mouth to speak, but the older boy held up his hand, indicating that he wanted to speak first.
"I'm sorry about what I said," Cedric admitted quietly, and Henry nodded his acceptance of the apology.
"And I'm sorry for... overreacting," Henry stated. "You're right. I should be able to do what you asked me to. I should be able to do anything you ask me to."
Henry looked down, ashamed. "I... I really need your help," he said quietly. "I don't know why I'm not... why I can't..."
Henry felt Cedric's hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see the journeyman's slight smile.
"Don't worry, Henry," he assured him. "We'll figure it out. How about we sit back down and begin at the beginning? You show me what you can do, starting with your first year spells, and we'll figure out where your skills need strengthening, okay?"
Henry nodded and let himself be led back to the table, where he resumed his seat. Running his fingers along his staff, he found the rune for the very first spell he'd ever learning. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his energy and felt the wood beneath his hand warm to his touch. As he released his spell, everything in the room that was magical began to glow with an eerie green light.
"Excellent," Cedric said as he looked around. "The glow is strong, and it shows variation to indicate the strength of each object's magic. Now, the next spell."
Spell by spell, Henry spent the next few days casting his entire repertoire as Cedric watched carefully. As the spells progressed through to the higher levels, the journeyman began to take notes about what he observed when Henry cast, and at the end of the week, he shared his notes, explaining in detail what he'd seen.
"So your individual spells are fine," Cedric told him. "You cast them exactly the way they are supposed to be cast, and that's the problem."
"How is that a problem?" Henry wanted to know. "If I'm doing what I was taught to do, why is that bad?"
Cedric took a deep breath and took a few moments before answering. "By this point in your training," he explained, "you should be... personalizing your spells. For example, when I cast the detect magic spell, things glow blue instead of green. I've always found the green a very unpleasant thing to look at, so when I grew powerful enough, I changed the spell a little. You're not doing that sort of thing."
"But nobody ever told me that I was supposed to!" Henry exclaimed. "How was I supposed to know?"
"It's usually something that just happens," Cedric said with a shrug. "I'm guessing that you've been so focused on getting everything exactly right, that you've never loosened up enough to experiment."
"So that's what we work on next?" Henry guessed, and Cedric nodded.
"Which spell's effects do you like the least?" the journeyman asked, and Henry took a few moments think about his answer.
"The entangle spell," the prince said at last. "I've never understood why, when every other apprentice spell is about rock and sand, that spell is vines."
Cedric nodded. "So we'll work on that one. What do you think it should be then?"
"I think it should be more like mud rising up from the ground to encase you," Henry explained. "Maybe the mud could even solidify into rock to hold the person in place?"
"So do it."
"How?" Henry wanted to know.
"Figuring that out is your challenge, my dear apprentice, not mine."