Chapter 17 Caelus #2
“Into the link that I could feel fraying more and more every second,” she whispered.
Her eyes glazed over, lost to the memory.
“I poured every ounce of my power into trying to drag you back. Everything I had, even if it meant I followed you into the next place... And when my darkest powers were exhausted, I found a small pocket of lighter energy right at the bottom — like a pebble at the bottom of a deep well. So, I threw that in, too... And I think that pebble is what brought you back.” Her eyes cleared, latching onto mine once more.
“That pocket… it felt different. Brighter. Weightless. Full of possibility.”
I cleared my throat, nudging the overflowing emotion back down. “Then that’s what you have to find.”
She huffed an exasperated breath.
“He’s right, Nyss,” Charon added. “You can’t keep throwing all of your power — or all of yourself — at everything all of the time. You’ll burn out.
“Find where they deviate. Look for the lightness within yourself.”
Nyssa snorted at precisely the same moment as I scoffed, amusement mingling together within our chests.
“What was it you once told me?” I asked him, the tail end of the question rising in pitch. “Okay, big guy.”
My laugh was echoed by Charon’s startlingly similar one. How in Tartarus had I missed that? How had I been so blind as to not recognise my own brother?
The thought sobered me and Nyssa’s joy stuttered as she sensed my inner turmoil. So, I offered her a small smile along with a distraction. “Try it again. Please.”
We’re revisiting this later, she sent along our mental bond.
It’s fine, there’s nothing to revisit. Try the flower again.
Her returning frown said that we would absolutely be talking about this later, whether I wanted to or not, and despite myself, I cracked a grin.
Nyssa lifted her palm again, closing her eyes, and worked to slow her breathing. The skin between her brows puckered adorably and I had to fight the urge to smooth it with my thumb — it seemed I was always fighting the urge to touch her.
With pursed lips, she exhaled deeply. When she opened her eyes again, I forgot to inhale.
Her shattered green irises were luminous, bathing the flower in a wash of neon green. She stared at it intensely, her concentration unbroken by anything — not even the dragonfly coaxed over by the light of her eyes to land on the very tip of her thumb.
Her breath fluttered the edges of the flower’s tiny petals, and as I watched, they slowly unfurled.
I took a tentative step forward, overjoyed to witness the wrinkles and bruises disappearing, the flower springing back to life.
Nyssa’s almost electrified eyes widened as her power took hold.
It was not content to leave the petals unblemished.
No. Instead, her mother’s power — her power — did not relent until the flower was nestled safely on a freshly grown stem, complete with an entire root system, just waiting to be planted.
“I did it,” she whispered, the plant clutched delicately between her fingers, like she was afraid the magic would reverse if she were anything but reverent.
“You did it.” My face split into a grin so wide, hers couldn’t help but follow suit.
The knuckles of her free hand rubbed across her sternum — where my pride was undoubtedly filling her chest.
Good. I hope it fills her so fully she knows nothing else but how spectacular she is.
The goddess before me was beyond words. She was beyond anything I had ever hoped to find for myself, and yet somehow she was mine? After everything — she was mine?
I dragged her into a fierce kiss, plant be damned.
She melted into it with a happy moan — until Charon cleared his throat from somewhere to my right.
“If you could quit interrupting us, that would be grand,” I drawled, only half kidding.
Nyssa pulled back with a soft chuckle, the plant still tenderly clasped in her hand.
“Now you just need to practice that over and over, on increasingly larger subjects,” he said in a way that conveyed the smile in his voice — pointedly ignoring my complaint.
Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I could lay eyes on him again. There was a lot I wanted to discuss, and it would have been nice to actually see him when I grew the balls to do it.
My train of thought was interrupted by the rhythmic thud of leathery wings as Velira swept through the pass, circled overhead, and landed gracefully on the black sand. On the juncture between her neck and back now sat a leather harness, made to match Nyssa’s fighting gear.
“Nice necklace, Vel!” I called to the dragon, who growled as she shot me a look of scathing reproach. “Oh, come on now. You love me.”
She curled her lip up somewhere between a snarl and a grin — I chose to accept it as the latter.
Nyssa laughed delightedly as she ran up to her beast and scaled her foreleg. Tossing a smirk over her shoulder, she said, “Vel says you’re lucky I love you, otherwise you’d be her roasted caramel right about now.”
Charon snorted at the same time I did, which was more than a little disconcerting.
“I’ll meet you back at the Academy!” she called down. “I have to test this thing out!”
Velira crouched, muscles coiled, then launched herself into the air with a loud snap of her wings. In seconds, they were sky-bound and growing smaller by the second.
Be safe, Nightshade. I love you too.
A warm, fuzzy feeling shot down the bond, which grew fainter by the second.
“What do we do now?” Charon asked.
“Don’t you have places to be?”
“Probably. But I don’t feel compelled to be there right now… Shall we play two truths and a lie?” His voice was laced with mischief — exactly how I remembered it.
I grinned despite myself. “Sure, why not?”
“Excellent! I’ll start,” he said, pausing to consider his statements.
After almost no time at all, enticing me to believe he had them ready to go in his mental arsenal, he casually offered:“I cheat in every game of Pay the Ferryman, I once beat Hermes in a footrace, and I was the fourth in a quartet involving two naiads and a demi-god — uhhh, what are you doing?”
I had just closed my eyes after dropping onto the damp sand, elbows perched on my knees, toying with the grass ring in my fingers.
“I’m imagining you.”
Charon’s laugh ricocheted off the lake in loud bursts of echoing joviality.
“Shut up,” I scolded. “It’s actually really hard to talk to invisible people.”
He chuckled again. “You can fix that, you know?”
I sat up straighter, curiosity replacing the chagrin. “What?”
“Your powers have… changed. I know that. You know that. Does Nyssa know that?”
My lips flattened into a thin line.
“I didn’t think so.” He sighed. “That’s not my secret to tell, though. So, I’ll tell you the same thing I just told her: find where they deviate. Follow the darker one.”
My forehead scrunched into a frown and I closed my eyes again, profoundly dreading what I’d find.
Dreading he was right.
My lightning stemmed from my heart, as evidenced by the bolt-shaped scars covering the golden skin of my body, emanating outward from the centre of my chest and down my arms.
I could feel the overzealous pulse of pure electricity there, right next to the warm reassurance of my soul-bond. And there — exactly where Charon had guessed — lingered a thinner, colder something.
I was almost hesitant to reach for it — knowing that once I did, I wouldn’t be able to go back to a blissful state of ignorance.
“I can see by your face that you’re hesitating,” Charon admonished. “Don’t be a baby, Caelus. Grasp it. Use it. Find out what you’re capable of now — what more you can do to protect and aid her.”
Well, that was exactly the right thing to say.
Steeling myself, I did as he bid and reached tentatively towards that new power. It came willingly to the surface. It felt simultaneously slippery and sharp; meek and overpowering; dark, and yet not terrifying.
My eyes snapped open and I inhaled a stuttering breath, just as Charon gasped.
I saw it.
I could see him — well, most of him.
He was devoid of colour and largely transparent — exactly how Nyssa had described a shade — and looked one breeze away from dissipation.
“Your eyes,” he said, his wavering form peering closer.
“What are they doing?”
I met his gaze and his brows lifted. He waved a hand in front of my face.
“You can see me, can’t you?” His tone was wondrous and awe-struck. His hand hovered in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I nodded, my lip tugging up into a half-smirk. “One. A very particular one,” I laughed.
“Tartarus, that was quick.”
“Can you hurry up and tell me what’s wrong with my eyes before I lose whatever hold I have over this power?” I grunted.
It wasn’t difficult, exactly, to hold onto this new power, but it felt skittish. Foreign.
I didn’t trust it.
“The black ring around your irises is thicker. Like it’s trying to overpower the silver.”
“That’s exactly how it feels in here too,” I said, patting my chest. “Like the new power is trying to overthrow my lightning. I don’t like it.”
“Hmm. Try to wield it. I know you can form shadow doors now, but that’s minor—”
“Minor?! Travelling anywhere in any realm is a minor use of power?” I scoffed, disbelief raising my tone half an octave.
Charon levelled me with his steady, colourless gaze. “Yes. Nyssa devours entire souls with this power. If she wanted to, she could raze an entire realm’s worth of them with barely any effort at all.”
“She’s that powerful?” I breathed, ice creeping through my veins.
“Yes. And she’s given you a sliver of it, whether she meant to or not. So, wield it. Let’s see what you can do.”
He stepped back, crossing his ghostly arms.
“Form a dagger in your palm,” he instructed.
I lifted my right hand, palm up, and willed a dagger to appear.
None appeared.
I stared harder; willed harder.
Shadows pooled in my palm, then slipped between my fingers — but still no dagger.