Research

Gisa

Gisa stared at the stacks on newspapers, documents, court cases, and books scattered around the room. This was the first time she'd set foot in the school library the entire semester. She'd booked a study room and hauled her collection of information up with her. She had tens of articles pulled up on her laptop as well as videos and images. All of her information was found by searching one key word: Audenzitios.

She had a document open on her computer where she stored as much information as she could. Anything about Audenzitios' armies, power, relations, prowess, before, during, and after the war. Gisa was almost surprised they hadn't killed her mother when they'd finally won the war. She'd razed battlefields with a single breath, killing thousands of soldiers. Gisa had never used any of the spells, but she'd looked through her mother's list of killing spells in her book. Just looking at them had made her head spin. Gisa had no idea how much power her mother even had to do that not only once, but repeatedly.

She shivered as a phantom wind slid by.

Focus.

Gisa skimmed through the first few newspapers after the island was created and locked up. There was a photo of the mother guardian shaking the hand of the king. The mother guardian may have been slightly annoying at times, but she was the only person on this side of the island's barrier that had ever wielded such power as Gisa's mother. It made sense that she was the only one who could have trapped the villains. But then… she stopped practicing her magic.

Something nagged at Gisa from the corner of her mind. Lucy had said that her mother swore off magic to make their lives better, but couldn't magic help people? They had healers and such in the kingdom. The king even had magical guards. She knew that at least one of Prince Michael's guards had magic. She'd seen him playing with fire once when he thought nobody was looking.

Gisa frowned, looking back on all the lessons her mother had given her on magic. Her mother had always believed she'd leave that prison of an island. It was only a setback in her plans. Though Gisa could tell her mother had begun to age. Without her magic, she wouldn't be able to stop that. Outside the island and the barrier her mother had such a great amount of power that unless she were to engage in outright combat on the battlefields, she'd never replete it.

"Sixty-thousand soldiers were killed by the beast alone in four weeks." one article had said about her mother.

Her mother had lectured her about how to use magic since she was a child. She wished she'd taken notes. Repleted magic was hard to refill. You needed time. Even her powers weren't infinite. She'd have to be a god. Gisa had never really explored how much power she'd had. At first even doing simple spells to change someone's hair or nails, as she'd done with Lucy, gave her a splitting headache. But now all she had to do was whisper the spell, and cast it wherever she meant to without a second thought. She knew that enchantresses like herself could explore the depths of their power. It was a meditative state. But it was dangerous to do without another user. Some people had so much they would drown in their own magic before they ever hit the bottom without the help of someone else. It made Gisa curious. Would she ever get the chance to explore her magic? Maybe she should take magic classes.

She sighed, pulling up a new tab in her computer to search the course catalogue. Emma had been nagging her about picking classes before it was too late. There was only one week left until the classes started.

In her schedule they had already mandated she take an English, a math class, and something called natural science. Gisa wanted to scowl, but the fact that she'd passed all of her classes and was now able to advance made something in her chest warm a little. They were allowed to take between five and six classes a semester without getting special permission. Not that it bothered Gisa. She didn't really want to take classes at all. Though, that depended on what the magic classes entailed.

She searched the course code that Michael had given her and put in her student I.D. to access the classes she'd been approved for. Magic history, Magic 101, and Magic lab. She read the descriptions. Magic history seemed about as boring as she'd thought, though maybe she'd learn something about enchantresses. There was a class that was for enchantresses specifically, but she wasn't allowed to take it yet. Instead there was magic 101 which had to do with rules and regulations, approved spells and uses… Then lab, that was where she got to learn how to actually use it. Gisa smiled.

She finished selecting time slots for her classes and sent a photo to Emma. She immediately responded with a smiley face.

She sighed loudly, looking back at her research spread out on the table in front of her.

There was an old document detailing each major villain they placed on the island. Their estimated population at its creation had been a half million people or so. There were easily four or five million now.

She scanned the document's first few pages before she came across her mother's name. The details were astounding. Her age was unknown. Not that it surprised Gisa. Her mother might be one of the oldest beings in their world. The details of her powers. Gisa raised her eyebrows at some of the details about her mother that even she hadn't known. Descriptions of her powers took up three pages. They knew she was an enchantress, but they didn't have a very extensive list of her spells at all. Gisa had learned more about her mother in a few days than they had here. Though a few of them detailed the horrifying ways she used her magic. Even Gisa's stomach twisted. Audenzitios was the last one to be captured, holding the battlefield for three days on her own before they finally took her. Her mother must have used every last drop of her magic. Only something like that would ever make her mother go down like that.

"You have to be careful how much power you use." Audenzitios said, staring at a sword hung on the wall. "I have so much that it took an entire war and battles myself to use all of my magic. I might have won the war if I had been willing to give up the power, but I could not do that." Give up her powers.

It hit Gisa like a brick to her face. That was it! That was how the island was made! The Mother Guardian had given up her power to win the war.