Eskander (working title)
an excerpt

From Chapter 2: "The Die Is Cast" (Julius Ceaser)

Suddenly the Fedona shard, large and clear, shone white, and Esk felt a surge of energy flow through him, and suddenly he saw the world in a new light. Or felt it. Every tiny little piece of energy, every minute possibility and he could do what he wished with any of them. He was a god. The power was his to do with it as he would. He was life, he was death. He was invincible, indestructible, immortal. Magic wasn’t quite as brutish as history would have it; indeed quite the opposite. It was ordered, sensible and mathematical down to the tiniest pin prick of energy. He turned around and looked at his father.
‘I can change this city. I can heal the wounds you have created. I can do anything!’ Liko then stepped forward. He looked troubled.
‘Let go of the power, Eskander. Let go of it now or it will force it’s way out of you, and it won’t be pretty. The magical energy will seep out from every pore in your body, desperate to be spent. You will be scorched, pulled apart, blinded by painfully white light, deafened, electrified, eaten away at from the inside out until nothing remains. It will hurt. A lot. Just let go… slowly. Or we’ll all die.’ Esk felt chilled. This power… it needed using. He could feel it, all around him, strange and alien but exhilarating for it. The little morsels of energy all around him, there the room’s heat, there tiny ounces of electrical charge, and there what he wanted. His kinetic energy, as he jumped. He pushed energy slowly into it and it became the same size as the downward force on him. He hovered. Then, slowly, timidly, he began to make it larger, until he was rising at a nice speed. Then with a push of energy, he forced the entire western side of the temple into thin air and flew out of the space. The energy reveled in being spent. With a kick of his legs, Esk flew upwards and landed gently on the roof of the castle. As an afterthought, he forced Liko up there with him, to keep an eye on him. Then, looking towards the west, he stared at the wall. It was a long way off, but he could do it. He focused, searched. There it was, the wind pushing against the wall. He poured all the rest of his energy into increasing it, and stood back. The wall struggled to remain up, but the wind Esk was brewing was fierce. It took much concentration to isolate the wind, but he managed it. Suddenly a large part of the wall gave way, and flew off into the sky, to land in pieces in the castle grounds with a welcome boom.
‘No more divisions,’ he said satisfactorily.