Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal by Joshua Hoyt Page A

talked about a male enchanter whose counterpart was an enchantress. I always thought that it had been just a story, but now that you bring it up, I wonder.”
    Aithnea suddenly got up and started looking at the bookshelves.
    Cody squinted inquisitively at Tom. “The other night, I saw flashes of orange come through the window and hit the man. Do you remember that Tom?”
    Tom looked away from Cody and nervously wrung his hands. “I d-d-don’t know, Cody.”
    “ But...” Cody started but was interrupted by Aithnea.
    “ Here it is,” Aithnea said as she thumbed through a book. “This book talks about a man who had a limited amount of ability in magic. He was able to do simple cantrips, but nothing that was really noteworthy. The man said that he had learned the cantrips from an ancient dragon.”
    “ Dragon!” Cody exclaimed. “Now we know that it’s just a hoax.”
    “ Not necessarily. Sometimes words that people use have different meanings in different ages. He may have been referring to an ancient witch or something like that,” Aithnea said. Turning back to the book, she continued, “The man said that he had been born with the power but didn’t know how to use it correctly until the ‘dragon’ took him in and taught him how.” Aithnea’s finger was moving quickly along as she skimmed the page. “Ah, this is interesting. It says here that the man mysteriously vanished one day but before he vanished he had an offspring that supposedly had the power. It says that the man had an affair with an enchantress and that the enchantress was taken. No one knows where she had been taken. The story continues talking about how if a male progeny were to come along that he may have some of the ability as well.”
    Cody sat back hard. “Psh, that’s ridiculous, I have never heard of a male enchanter or of any man being able to wield anything more than the simplest of magic items.”
    “What would happen if a man was able to use magic?” Tom asked. He began to fidget with his belt strap.
    Aithnea paused in her reading and looked up at Tom. “I’m not sure, but according to this story the man didn’t have much magic. But that could be because he didn’t have a counterpart. Or maybe he just wasn’t born with a high amount of life energy.”
    “Life energy? Don’t we all have life energy?” Tom asked.
    “ Well, yes, but there are different grades, and amounts of life energy that a person has,” Aithnea said. “An average person may have a high amount but if the grade is not high enough, they can’t use magic. Witches can take that energy from a person and combine it with their own to produce the right kind. I have high amount of energy and it is high quality but it needs to be replenished through meditation and study.” She looked at the boys to see if they understood.
    “ So, Aithnea, if a man were to have the right kind of energy and enough, what would that mean?” Cody asked, looking at Tom.
    “ Well, that’s the problem. I have never heard of it other than in stories and they don’t really give many details,” Aithnea said.
    “ But what would happen if it were possible.”
    “ I would imagine that if he had high energy and the right grade. And he was to have a counterpart that was an enchantress then, theoretically he, or they would be very powerful. The problem would be how the bond between the two would be made. How would balance be maintained between the two sides?” Aithnea said.
    She put the second book down and went to the bookcase again scanning the bookcase for yet another book. Tom quietly thought about what had happened to him the other night. What did it mean? Maybe I just imagined the energy leaving my fingertips and flying toward the man holding Cody . Tom furtively looked toward Cody, wondering if he had seen where the missiles had come from. Cody was staring at Tom with a dazed half smile.
    Aithnea looked up at that moment, looking back and forth between the two boys. “You guys