22. Elara
Chapter 22
Istood frozen in the doorway even as the Boy rushed into the shadowed space, his cape billowing behind him, hand held on the hilt of his sword.
I don’t know why I hesitated, it wasn’t like it was holy ground, and yet somehow it felt like it. The way the moon shone down and cast everything in lines of silver, the stars winking in the black sky and seeing everything. Everything glittered and glowed as though it was magic, that feeling of stars sparkling over my skin in such a way I swore I could feel it.
It felt like if I stepped in there I would taint it. Or maybe it would be less magical. I didn’t belong there.
I didn’t belong anywhere.
The words my mother had used so often plagued my mind as I stood there, Queen Dalyah’s voice echoing loudly in the shadows that circled the training pit. It rattled in my head, screaming at me.
I took a step back, even as that feeling of starlight rattled me right down to my bones, the strength of it tugging and pulling. As though it wanted me to enter. As though I did belong. Somehow, that strange feeling felt more real than anything else, as though it had been there all along and had just woken up.
I belonged there.
Heart pounding in my chest, I took one step onto the sandy floor near where the Dillynth trained, the tiny particles of sand instantly moving into my socks as I followed the Boy toward the edge of the training ring, and the shadows that lingered there. With every step that feeling wrapped around me, as though it was pulling me in. Everything about this felt sacred, from the aroma of smoke and the lingering magic, to the way the stars sparked and flowed overhead, as if they were watching.
It was a good thing I saw where he went, between his silence and the black that circled us he had vanished into nothing. Aeinya's previous analogy of wraith suddenly fit perfectly.
“Boy,” I hissed into the dark as I stepped into the shadows where the Tyro would train, a line of shelves and cabinets fading into view. He had a tall cabinet open, his frame little more than shadow as he searched for something.
“What are we–”
My voice fell to nothing as he turned to me, a long grungy length of ribbon draped over both hands. My shoulders tensed. I knew what that was, only because I had seen it for the first time less than a fortnight ago.
“Fae hair.” All of that confidence and belonging drained right out of me. A rock of dread, the same as when I had first learned what they were, lodged itself deeper into my gut.
He nodded once and held them out to me.
“What do you want me to do with that?” I was still whispering, even as he tried again to get me to take it, this time gesturing toward the training yard and then making the hand motion we had seen the Tyro use.
The motion that those first year accolades learned when they held the hair; when their magic first sparked. My eyes widened and he motioned for me to take the ribbon of hair again. We were going to spark my magic.
My stomach was still twisted, but this time for a different reason as I held my hands out, the Boy placing the long strands on my open palms as though they were precious. Maybe they were.
The Fae were awful, vile, creatures. I would always hate them, always fear them after the centuries of enslavement of my people. Yet, the second that hair touched my palm it was as though I had been plunged into cold water. All of that starlight rippled like an icy wave over my skin, the chill moving from my hands and over my body before it was once again replaced by a warm heat. But this wasn’t only that prickle of stars and energy I had felt before, this was fire. Fire, and ice, and a tangle of stars.
It was all the same sensation, the same feeling that had overtaken me before that white power had exploded from me. Except, somehow, this was stronger.
This was everywhere.
It was flying, and falling, and swimming in the coldest cleansing water all at the same time. I wasn’t breathing, but also had too much air in my lungs. I was cold, but too hot. I stared at the hair, at what I could see of my palms as if they would explode, or glow, or catch fire, or who knew what, but even as my body was caught in a windstorm, the world around me was calm.
Could the Boy not feel that? Could he not feel that sensation of everything and nothing all at once? Did he not feel the floor falling out of the world?
Eyes wide, I looked toward the Boy, his hands moving to my shoulders as he turned me toward the arena, gesturing toward the length of sand and a line of training dummies on the other side. The old things leaned against the stone wall of the turret, sagging and forgotten. He made the motion of magic, as if I was going to explode them all.
“I can’t,” I whispered, the feeling still rippling through my body. “I don’t have a Catalyst.”
I had spent an entire night trying to replicate what I had done. Hours were spent staring at my hands trying to make the magic come again, but now I froze.
The Boy stepped to my side, his hands gesturing from me, to the hair, to himself, and then to the arena, using the motion we always used when we pretended to throw magic at each other.
That time I swear I could hear his voice, ‘try’.
Exhaling, I screwed my face up and turned toward the arena. That feeling was everywhere, that everything and nothing swirling through my body and over my skin in an exhilarating tango.
Whatever was inside of me was dying to get out. Yet, I hesitated. I didn’t know why, this was silly. I had done worse things, broken bigger rules, but this…
The Boy stood there, right beside me, his hands moving forward as he exhaled in demonstration.
I half expected something to fly from him, he was so sure in his movements, but there was nothing, even though that tingle that was overtaking me was suddenly everywhere.
The Boy moved again, and this time I followed his movements, my hands cradling stretch of hair as though I was both Catalyst and Requisite. The tingle grew as I moved, my palms burned as I pressed them forward, but there was nothing.
No white light, nothing exploding from my hands to destroy and burn more bureaus. Just heat that was everywhere.
“See I–” I stopped even as he continued to move, his hands and body moving in the same motion again and again. He kept moving, kept breathing, the silent message clear.
‘Again.’
The darkness of his shroud didn’t even turn to me, he kept moving, his breathing a steady beat in the night. That tingle continued to roll over my skin, the waves of it matching his breaths, to match my own as I moved alongside him.
My hands and body moved as he did, the motions a fluid dance as again and again I pressed my hands forward, each time expecting the flash and explosion as they had before. Each time feeling that energy grow and pulse through me only for it to remain trapped.
“This is silly.” It wasn’t, but I sure felt like it. I stepped back from the movements as though it was them that were burning through me. “I have no Catalyst, I have no magic. What happened before, it was nothing… it was…”
I couldn’t even say the words, I knew they were a lie. I knew what I had seen. Standing there, still holding the length of grimy hair, I stared into the inky pitch of the training arena, waiting for some answer to step forward and tell me everything.
“I don’t know what the difference is.” I was pretending to fight the same as before. I felt the same tingle… but nothing was happening.
“Perhaps I–” I stopped myself again. I knew I hadn’t imagined it, I knew it had happened, but I forced the words out anyway. “I can’t make anything happen.”
The Boy clicked loudly, calling me out on my very obvious lie, that shroud still calmly vibrating as he stepped closer, his hand held out, the black leather glove palm up. I took it without question.
He pulled me before him, his towering frame stepping behind me as his gloved hands moved around me. The slight chill of the arena became a firestorm, that feeling of heat accelerated, but for a different reason. The Boy had helped me through movements like this before, but just like how he shielded me in the hall, this was different.
Something was different between us. Something had changed. Me seeing that small part of him might have been the trigger, but I think it all began long before that.
His body was right against mine as we moved, his hands cradling mine as he led me through the motions. Or, at least that’s what I thought we were doing. It was suddenly very hard to think. His chest shook against my back as he breathed, his hands gentle as they cupped my own, his body fluid as together we moved.
It was the same motions as before, but it felt different somehow. Feeling him against me, feeling his strength made all of those tingles become a whirlwind. All of that fear and trepidation vanished.
I had seen the light explode from my hand before, I could do it again. I didn’t know what about the Boy made that possible, but he was the trigger.
I pushed my hand forward in a faux attack, this time expecting something to press from me. There was no explosion, no attack, only a dull white glow that spread around us in an orb, trapping us in a globe of light amidst the pitch of the arena.
I had never seen anything like this, even from my brother who brandished his power of let any chance he could. Besides, this was gentler, kinder.
Beautiful.
Gasping, I stopped moving, stepping away from the light and right into the firm weight of the Boy who was frozen behind me.
“Did you see that?” I knew he had. He was stiff, his breathing near frantic as he continued to gaze up to the stars that twinkled brighter than they had before.
“How?” I couldn’t form words. I couldn’t form thoughts. I only stared at the line of the light before the night devoured it.
“Again.” I was already in place, hands already out, but he hadn’t moved. He stood there, that black shroud angled toward me.
“B–” I really didn’t want to use that name again. “Are you alright?”
He jerked as I stepped to him, grabbing his hand. I guess he hadn’t been looking at me at all. My heart thundered in my chest as his breathing rattled against the shroud. He was scared. Panicked.
Ice plunged over the heat that had been rattling through me.
“Don’t worry. It’s still me. I’m not–” He shook his head, cutting me off as he cleared the distance between us in one step.
His breathing continued to erupt in short bursts, his panic matching my own as he grabbed my hand, his one gloved hand reaching up to my face again only to freeze in place as it fluttered above my skin.
I was frozen below him as he moved his hand back, his other hand dropping mine. But he didn’t step back. He didn’t move. That length of black fabric didn’t deviate from its intense focus on me.
I didn’t even realize what he had done until his hand grabbed mine.
His hand.
Not the soft leather I was so used to. Not the cotton gloves he wore at night. His hand. His skin, so hot against mine. The world froze, the slight ice of the air shimmering over everything. His touch, there was something about his touch that was more like magic than anything that was buzzing through me. He entwined his fingers with mine again, that other hot palm reaching up to my face only to stop in the exact same place.
This time it was his skin, his hand so calloused and soft, his skin that soft tanned shade. The heat of his skin radiated toward me; it buzzed through the air as though something was pulling him closer.
All of the buzzing heat exploded over my skin the second his soft and rough fingers pressed against my jaw. The touch was so soft, so light. I may not have even felt it if not for the way it sucked the air from my chest. The way it radiated over everything as his palm pressed to my jaw.
I had turned eighteen many moons ago. So many my age would be married with bellies swollen with child. But there I was, standing in the dark, the touch of a man’s hand against my jaw the first of its kind I had ever felt.
His touch lingered there for only a second before he moved behind me again, his hands still pressed against mine, his chest against my back. His breath shook in my ear as we moved, his bare hands softly cradling mine.
It was hard to think past the swirl of emotion in my mind, hard to breathe past the tangle of excitement in my throat. Rampaging starlight was fluttering over my arms with each motion, the heat of him radiating through me and mixing with heat from the hair, that feeling of nothing and everything making my head spin.
I pressed my hands forward in the attack motion and the arena erupted in light.
It wasn’t the glow of before. It was a pillar of gold and white that spun from my hand, that blazed through the darkness in the light of a sun.
The ribbons of white and gold twisted one over another before slamming into the base of the turret in the middle of the arena. Fingers of light spread over the surface, twisting through the cracks of the bricks before they hardened into something I knew all too well.
“Ice.” The word was a whisper as I stepped forward, the Boy still holding tightly to my hand as we watched the gold burst into a tower of flame right where my attack had impacted against the stone.
“Fire.” The blaze extinguished itself, the ice melting to the sand and leaving behind a trail of green vines. “Soil.”
I had barely gasped the word when a rush of air exploded from the turret, the ricochet of whatever power I had created pushing against both of us and sending us back.
“Air.”
My head was spinning, the world shifting as I stared at what I had done, and what had erupted from me.
Magic. But not just any magic.
All of it.
Every kind of magic had rushed from my hand and exploded over the arena.
That shouldn’t be possible.
Not without a Catalyst.
Not at all.
Turning toward the Boy, the world shook ominously, my vision fading. I had meant to ask him what had happened, if he had seen the same thing, but I couldn’t make the words come. Everything was spinning too fast, the world had lost all shape.
All of that energy and heat and power had been drained from me, taking whatever energy I had left with it.
“Ar–” I tried to say his name, whatever name it was, as all of the spinning turned to black and the world disappeared.