Book One – Chapter 6

The very existence of Vichae defied the established laws of reality and the doctrines of wizardry — the laws that you were officially taught and the understanding that you were given, that is.

At Emery Thurm, Yves had been taught that reality comprised physical matter and energies, the latter perceptible through second sight. A wizard could consciously take in Adhar, raw energy, and use it to realise the abilities predestined by his spectrum and disposition. These abilities, the diverse strains of magic, manifested in varying degrees of matter and energy. Worldbender elementers, for instance, wielded control over the tangible elements of water, fire and air, which were in essence purely physical. Lighthifter illusionists, in accordance with their disposition and skill, could materialise illusions spanning from the entirely physical to the solely visual. Meanwhile, light fragments had no matter. They bore the purest of world energies, which is why they allowed unimpeded passage. While both lifeless and living entities could not touch them, Lightshifter light wizards had the unique potential to manipulate these fragments, a magic devoid of any physical substance.

Beyond the instructions in magic, Emery Thurm propagated that the world cradled energies beyond the grasp of wizards. Witches harnessed not the raw and free energy that was Adhar but that confined within nature or bestowed through Teharun.

At least, that was the doctrine every diligent student internalised, and what got the average wizard through the average wizard life.

Yet, in the face of Vichae, this bastion of knowledge crumbled into implausibility. Based on this foundation, it seemed impossible that witches could conjure something that passed through light magic while it partially or fully absorbed all other types of magic. Why did a Vicha absorb energy conveyed into physical matter but, in turn, pass through lifeless and natural things that were fully physical? And in the haunting absurdity that transgressed all that was logical and real, why and how did it selectively touch and consume the energies and bodies of higher life forms?