The Mage's Limits: Mages of Martir Book #2 Read Online Free Page B

his wand felt real , more real than it had ever felt before, as though up until now he had not actually been holding it at all.
    Time itself seemed to have slowed down around him. No; not slowed down. Darek was seeing time as it actually moved, rather than how his senses interpreted it. Everything around him looked slower, but in truth, his human senses had simply been blinding him to the true nature of time.
    That was how Darek knew he had done it. He had achieved the impossible: He had broken through the ceiling.
    And it felt great .
    I feel so powerful, Darek thought. Is this how the Magical Superior feels? Is this what it feels like to be strong? It feels like there are no limits to my power. I feel more alive than I have in thirty-five years, as though I spent my entire life dead up until this point.
    Darek wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He didn't understand why he had always been warned against breaking through the ceiling. He suspected that his teachers had simply been falsely concerned over his well-being. After all, none of them had ever broken through the ceiling, so how could any of them know whether it was as bad as those old books said it was?
    His face broke into an enormous grin. He wanted to compose a hymn to Xocion right there and then, even though he wasn't much of a poet. He no longer felt afraid of Uron or anything else in the world. He believed, as sincerely as he believed anything else, that there was no force in this world that could stand against him now.
    “I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you.”
    Darek looked to his right. A skeleton stood there, with eyes glowing bright green, its mouth etched in a perpetual, creepy grin. Unlike everyone else in the room, the skeleton moved as normally as he did.
    “What?” said Darek. “Who—no, what —are you? Where did you come from?”
    The skeleton chuckled. “Just an interested observer who has decided to see just who was dumb enough to 'break through the ceiling,' as you mortals call it.”
    “Dumb enough?” said Darek. Anger rose within him like a geyser. “Who are you calling dumb? I have transcended my limits. You want to fight me and prove who's the real dumb one around here?”
    The skeleton stroked its chin, its bony fingers as thin as sticks. “Fighting me would be a very dumb move on your part, Darek Takren. Thank you for the offer, though. Perhaps I will take you up on it later, once your sanity has returned.”
    “Sanity?” said Darek. “I am already sane. I am saner than I have ever been.”
    “That was what the last mortal who broke through the ceiling said,” said the skeleton. “Then he became a raving lunatic. Not that I care. Sane or insane, you mortals are much the same to me.”
    “Why are you here?” said Darek. “If all you're going to do is question my sanity and insult my intelligence—”
    The skeleton held up one finger. “I apologize for that. I just wanted to let you know that your high is about to end and it will probably be very painful once it does.”
    Darek blinked. “Wha—”
    Without warning, the Xocion ice statue before him exploded. At the same time, Darek's arms and legs became tired and heavy again, making it impossible for him to stand. His breathing became so intense that he start coughing and choking, perhaps even coughing up blood, but his eyes were screwing up so badly that he couldn't tell for sure what was coming out of his mouth.
    A chunk of ice from the exploding Xocion statue knocked him flat off his feet and onto the floor, the impact of which, combined with his sudden, extreme fatigue, forced him to black out completely.

Chapter Three
     
    T he minor spirit, more properly called a katabans, known as Durima hauled herself up over the edge of the cliff and onto solid ground. She rested there for a moment, her wet fur heavy on her shoulders, but after a few minutes, she sat up and deposited her catch—three disc-shaped fish that she didn't know the species name of,