Chapter 6 Elle
Elle
“Again.”
I pushed myself up from the moss-covered ground for what felt like the hundredth time, spitting out dirt and what I hoped wasn’t blood. My entire body ached, the marks on my skin pulsed with an angry heat, and I was seriously reconsidering every life choice that had led me to this moment.
“I can’t,” I gasped.
“You can,” the Sage said calmly, sitting cross-legged on a mushroom that glowed with soft purple light. “The marks wouldn’t have chosen you if you couldn’t.”
“The marks made a mistake.”
“The marks don’t make mistakes. They make choices others don’t understand.”
We were in a training grove deep within the hollow tree, where the walls curved into a natural amphitheater. Bioluminescent fungi provided dim, uneven light that left pockets of darkness, making it hard to track movement. Which was probably the point.
“Try again,” Sarnyx said from where she leaned against the wall, thorns extended from her arms like she was born with them. She’d been my opponent for the last hour, and she wasn’t holding back.
“I don’t even know what I’m trying to do,” I protested.
“You’re trying not to die,” she said helpfully. “Very important skill here.”
“I meant with the magic!”
“So did I.”
She moved, faster than anyone covered in thorns should be able to move. I threw myself sideways, barely avoiding the thorned whip that grew from her hand. It cracked against the ground where I’d been, leaving gouges in the moss.
“Better,” the Sage observed. “You’re learning to read intent.”
“I’m learning to run away.”
“Same thing, initially.”
Sarnyx came at me again, and this time I felt something. A pull in my chest, like someone had hooked a line behind my sternum and yanked. Without thinking, I slammed my hand against the ground.
The reaction was immediate and violent.
Roots exploded from the earth—not small ones, but thick, angry things the width of my arm. They shot toward Sarnyx with intent, wrapping around her legs before she could dodge. She cursed creatively as more roots responded to my unconscious call, creating a barrier between us.
“Finally!” Bryx cheered from where he sat watching, Peeble perched on his antennae like a tiny crown. “She did the thing!”
“I did the thing?” I stared at my hand, which was now traced with gilded light that matched my marks. “I did the thing!”
“You did the thing badly,” Sarnyx corrected, slicing through my roots with her thorns. “But you did it.”
“The Root responds to need,” the Sage said, standing with fluid grace. “Your need to survive finally exceeded your fear of the power.”
“I wasn’t afraid of the power.”
“You’ve been terrified of it since you arrived,” Kaelren said from the shadows. I hadn’t known he was watching. Of course he was watching. “Terrified of what you might be. What you might become.”
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, Dr. Brooding.”
“It’s not analysis if it’s obvious.”
He stepped into the light, and I tried not to notice how the fungi’s glow played across his carved marks, making them look like living things.
“She needs combat training,” he said to the Sage. “Magic is useless if she dies before she can use it.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“I’m aware.” His silver eyes fixed on me with cold assessment. “You fight like someone who’s never faced real violence. Like prey that’s never been hunted.”
“I’ve never even been hunting—”
“Irrelevant. You’re soft. Weak. The realm will eat you alive, probably literally.”
“And again, thanks for the pep talk.”
“I’m not trying to encourage you. I’m trying to keep you breathing long enough to be useful.” His voice was harsh, angry. “The marks chose wrong, but since they’re stuck on you, you’d better learn to survive wearing them.”
“Back in Arkansas, the worst danger was mosquito bites and the occasional tornado warning. Here, even the air wants to kill me.”
“Then learn to kill it back,” he said coldly. “Or die. Those are your options.”
The Sage laughed, that sound like wind through dead leaves. “This should be educational. For everyone.”
Before I could ask what that meant, Kaelren was moving. Not the supernatural speed the others had, but something worse—inevitable, like gravity deciding to take a personal interest in my destruction.
I managed half a step back before his hand was at my throat. Not choking, just present. A reminder of how easily he could end me.
“Dead,” he said quietly.
“You didn’t give me time to—”
His foot hooked behind mine, and suddenly I was on my back, looking up at him.
“Dead again,” he said. “The realm won’t give you time. Neither will I.”
“This is stupid,” I said, but I was already rolling away, some instinct screaming at me to move.
Good instinct. His hand hit the moss where my head had been, hard enough to leave an impression.
“Better,” he said. “Fear is a teacher.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m educating you. Enjoyment is irrelevant.”
He came at me again, and this time I felt the Root respond. Not consciously—I was too busy trying not to die—but the marks on my skin flared, and suddenly there were vines between us. Thin ones, nothing like the roots from before, but enough to tangle his feet.
He destroyed them with a gesture, his carved marks flaring silver-black, but it had bought me seconds. I used them to scramble backward, my hand finding a fallen branch.
“Weapons are good,” he said. “But only if you can keep them.”
He moved, the branch was gone, and his hand was at my throat again. This time, though, something else happened. Our marks touched—his carved ones against my natural ones—and the world stuttered.
For a heartbeat, I saw through his eyes. Saw myself, dirt-covered and exhausted but still defiant. Saw the marks spreading across my skin like living art. Saw the moment he’d first felt them choose me instead of him, the rage that still burned—
We broke apart, both gasping. The grove had gone silent.
“What was that?” I breathed.
“Nothing,” he snarled, backing away like I’d burned him. “A fluke.”
“That wasn’t nothing—”
“It was a mistake. The marks responding to proximity. It means nothing.”
The Sage watched us with interest. “The connection is forming whether you want it or not.”
“Then sever it,” Kaelren said, and there was something close to desperation in his voice.
“I cannot. It is what it is.”
“It’s a curse,” he spat. “Bad enough she stole the marks. Now I’m leashed to her incompetence?”
“The best bonds always are inconvenient,” the Sage said mildly.
Kaelren looked at me, and for a moment his walls were down. I saw fear there. Not of me, but of what was happening between us. A connection neither of us had asked for, neither of us wanted.
Then the walls slammed back up, and he was cold again.
“Again,” he said. “And this time, try to last more than three seconds.”
“I lasted at least five that time.”
“Four. And only because I was distracted.”
“By our mystical proximity?”
“By your terrible footwork.”
But I caught the lie in it. He was as shaken as I was.
We went again. And again. And again. Each time I lasted a little longer, learned a little more. The Root responded more readily, creating obstacles, diversions, sometimes actual weapons from the living wood around us. But it was wild, uncontrolled. I was as likely to trap myself as my opponent.
“You’re thinking too much,” Eltrien observed from where he was preparing some kind of healing salve. “The Root doesn’t respond to thought. It responds to instinct.”
“My instinct is to run away.”
“Then use that. The Root excels at creative escapes.”
Sarnyx laughed. “She needs to fight, not flee.”
“She needs to survive,” Kaelren corrected. “Fighting is optional. Living isn’t.”
“Pragmatic,” Vashael said, her pollen cloud shimmering. “I approve.”
“Nobody asked for your approval,” Sarnyx muttered.
“Nobody ever does. I give it anyway. It’s a service.”
They continued bickering, but I wasn’t listening. Something was happening with my marks. They were warm, almost hot, and spreading faster than before. I could feel them creeping down my arm, across my chest, like molten fire under my skin.
“Sage,” I said, and something in my voice made everyone stop talking.
The Sage was beside me in an instant, their green eyes examining the spreading marks. “Interesting. It’s accelerating.”
“Is that bad?”
“That depends on your definition of bad.”
“Death. Death is my definition of bad.”
“Then yes, it might be bad.” They touched my marks, and I saw their fingers come away with shimmering residue, like pollen. Their expression shifted to something like concern. “You’re approaching the first threshold much faster than I anticipated.”
“What threshold?”
“The point where you must choose: control the power or let it control you.” The Sage’s voice was grave. “Most marked ones have weeks to reach this stage. You have hours.”
“Why? What’s different about me?”
“Your grandmother suppressed your inheritance for your entire life. The marks were dormant, waiting, building pressure like water behind a dam.” They traced the golden lines spreading across my skin.
“When they finally manifested, all that accumulated power tried to emerge at once. And then you crossed realms, which forced them to activate to keep you alive. And then I touched them, which opened the floodgates further.”
“So you’re saying this is your fault?” I said, hearing the panic in my voice.
“I’m saying the marks were always going to consume you quickly. I simply accelerated the inevitable by a matter of days.” The Sage’s green eyes met mine. “Your body is trying to transform all at once rather than gradually. The threshold that should have taken months is happening in hours.”
“Can you stop it?”
“No. I can only help you survive it.”
“I choose control,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.