Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
R emnants of rain clung to the grass, crystal-clear orbs sparkling as they caught the sun’s return. Though the ground still glistened, the sky above had cleared to an impossible blue—serene and deceitful.
“This isn’t going to be easy.” Apprehension coated my mother’s voice, but I couldn’t tell if it was fear of what I could become… or fear that magik might consume me before I ever got the chance.
“I’ve never been fond of easy,” I replied.
She didn’t smile. Her brows knitted together as she searched my face, the tension in her shoulders never easing.
“I’ll have to push you past the point of breaking.”
Air filled my lungs. “It’s okay, Mom. I can do this.”
She gave a single nod, then stepped back.
“Harnessing is relatively easy. You would’ve done it by accident the first time you touched Xayreia—that’s the name of the tree where Elessandria was conjured.”
I remembered the moment—placing my hand on the roots of the tree and feeling something shift. There were no incantations. No glowing lights. Just… connection.
“All you have to do is open yourself up to the magik,” she said.
“Sounds easy enough.” I tried to breathe through it, but her worry was infectious.
She pressed her mouth into a tight line. “Remember, your tree isn’t like Xayreia. She’s younger. It’ll be harder for you to harness her power.”
“Excellent,” I muttered.
She ignored my sarcasm. “Go on. Give it a try.”
I stepped toward the willow, placing my palm gently on her bark. The surface was cool and rough beneath my skin.
I waited…
One minute… then two…
Nothing.
I turned to Mom. “Is that it?”
She took my hands in hers, eyes fluttering shut as if she could feel the current within me—or the lack of it.
Her green eyes opened, sharp with disappointment. “No magik. Try again.”
I tried again.
And again.
And again.
For what felt like an hour, I reached for something I couldn’t grasp. Still nothing.
“When we were at Xayreia, you had your eyes closed,” Maalikai said gently. “Like you were listening. Breathing with it. You looked… like you belonged there.”
His words steadied me. His faith gave me breath.
I reached for the tree once more—this time closing my eyes, quieting everything inside me.
I stilled.
I listened.
And there it was. A heartbeat. So faint, I almost missed it. The tree was alive—its roots buried in something sacred, humming with power from the core of the Earth, from the Gods themselves. And somehow, it knew me.
A tug pulled at my core. Gentle at first. Then everything erupted. Heat flared under my skin. Something wild and ancient hummed through my veins.
Magik—raw, crackling, alive—coursed through me in a blinding surge.
“Emylia, break the bond!” my mother screamed.
I tried but I couldn’t. My hand was fused to the tree. I was caught in a current that refused to let go.
“Shit,” Sebastian swore.
Pain exploded across my chest. And then— Darkness. When my eyes fluttered open, I was flat on the ground, stars spinning across my vision.
“Ow,” I groaned.
The weight pressing me into the earth shifted.
Maalikai.
The smell hit me instantly—burned flesh.
Panic jolted me upright. “Get him off—get him off me!”
He rolled away, groaning as Sebastian pulled him to his feet. My stomach dropped.
His arms… his face… blistered red. Burned wherever our skin had touched.
Mom was at his side in an instant. With a flick of her fingers, water surged from the air itself, coalescing into a shimmering sphere. She wrapped it around Maalikai’s body, guiding it along the raw patches of flesh until the water vanished into his skin, leaving only a silvery shimmer behind.
Of course.
She was a healer.
The best.
She hadn’t just earned the rank of high healer in her early twenties—she’d rewritten what was possible. And now I understood why.
She used magik.
Emerald eyes narrowed on me as she stepped closer, testing the space between us. Her fingertip brushed my skin… and she recoiled instantly, cursing.
“You’ve taken too much. You need to expel some of it.”
“Or what?”
She hesitated.
“Or what?” Maalikai echoed.
“If she doesn’t release it… the power will devour her.”
“Shit,” Sebastian muttered, now beside me, careful not to touch me. “What do we do?” he asked.
“There’s nothing we can do,” my mother said. “She has to do this on her own.”
I forced myself to stand. The magik inside me was too much. I could feel it—swirling like liquid lightning behind my ribs, through my veins. In every molecule inside my body.
I closed my eyes and tried to summon the lightning.
Nothing.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
“Think back,” Mom urged. “When you unleashed your powers before—what triggered it?”
“We were being attacked. I was furious.”
“Okay. Your powers are tied to emotion. Any powerful emotion will do.”
I tried—anger, fear, desperation. But all of them fizzled.
“It’s not working,” I whispered, the panic rising. “I can’t—I can’t do it.”
“Emylia, look at me.” Her voice cut through the chaos. “You are the daughter of the most powerful wielder in existence. Don’t fear your power. Command it.”
But the smoke was already swirling around me, clinging to my skin. The storm was already rising.
I was out of time.
This was it.
I looked at her. At Sebastian. At Maalikai. My heart fractured, the truth rising in my chest like a scream.
Tendrils of destruction had reached my limbs, inking through me like they had a mind of their own. Fire brandished my skin, feeling like the calm before a volcano erupted. If the molten that swam through my veins did’t find a way out, it would burn through my body, cindering me to ash. If I didn’t get a hold of this power and expel it, this would be my last couple of minutes, if that.
Nothing. Still nothing.
I was going to die.
“ Princess . Please.” The devastation in Maalikai’s voice broke me.
“I can’t.” I’d resigned myself to my failure, knowing my defeat signified my death. But there was nothing more I could do.
“No.” Maalikai’s voice came out in a heady rush. “Elessandria will not claim you. You can do this.”
“I’m not ready to go. But if this is how I die, then Gods… let them know I didn’t go quietly. I love you all. Fiercely. Completely. Always.” My voice broke. My soul felt like it was splintering.
Lips pressed against mine, claiming my soul and wrenching my heart back. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who held me.
Sebastian.
The kiss claimed me—deep, searing, alive. His scent—salt and smoke and something wild—wrapped around me like a shield. His body pressed against mine, his mouth moving with an urgency that shook me to my core.
He pulled back just enough to whisper, “I’m not losing you. You don’t get to leave me.” And then, “Remember what I told you? You are a weapon. You are chaos. And you are everything.”
But I didn’t feel like I was any of those things. I felt like I was drowning in this power, being pulled down and the life wrung out of me.
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know how to fight this.”
His eyes hardened, shadowed in something that crackled my soul to life. Arms wrapped around me pulling me to his chest. Warmth tugged at my core as desire unfurled and recoiled impossibly tighter. Fingers bit into my skin as he clung to me, his fingertips claiming me as his. Breaking contact for a brief second, his lips brushed my ear as he whispered so only I could hear, “Tonight, I’m going to lay you down and lick every inch of you until you scream my name. I don’t care who hears it.”
Godsdamn it.
My thighs pressed together as I fought the all-consuming desire to tempt fate and throw myself at him.
“I’m going to have my fingers so deep inside you, that you’ll forget your own name as you shake and quiver until your juices cover both of us.”
Thunder shook the earth, lightning split the sky. Flames erupted at my fingertips—embers dancing like stardust. Fire crackled through my arms. Lightning danced over my skin. A deafening crack. A white-hot bolt struck the ground, close enough that the hair on my arms stood on end.
Sebastian.
Sebastian let out a chuckle, still holding me close, one of his fingertips rubbing back and forth on my wrist. Such a simple movement, accompanied by such a dirty mouth. He stepped back, laughing darkly.
“That’s it. Show me what you can do.”
I sensed Sebastian retreat, but only slightly. I couldn’t see him, my vision was blurred as power surged into my hands, it was like I was looking at everything under water.
Energy flowed and ebbed from me, conjuring in the base of my right hand. Fire consumed my fingers, tendrils of embers floated into the air, burning out before they touched the leaves of the willow. As I concentrated on the fire, wisps of flame grew, growing until it encapsulated my whole hand.
Not sure how to expel it, I crouched down, trying to douse the flame in the rain-infested grass—the grass sizzled beneath me, my handprint branded into the earth.
“How did you do that?” my mother asked Sebastian, breathless.
He shrugged. “I just made it easy for her to focus on one emotion. She always feels anger, but I could tell it unsettled her today. So, I thought we should try to harness a different emotion, one which I felt confident would work. I just gave her something specific to focus on.”
“Which emotion?” Maalikai demanded darkly, like he already suspected the answer. It was a question I would rather fire consume me than to answer.
“Doesn’t matter,” I muttered. “Can you just heal him, please?”
All eyes shot to Sebastian’s cindered flesh. Where his lips had brushed mine in that soul-claiming kiss, heat blisters already bubbled. Third-degree burns blistered his skin, his lips oozing with clear liquid. If we waited much longer, I wouldn’t be sure if my mother would be able to heal him entirely. And he was way too good-looking to blemish even a minuscule part of him.
“Oh my Gods. I did that.” Whispered words whooshed from me as I took in the devastation that a single touch from me was worth. Sebastian had paid a price far too high to save me.
Sebastian’s hand cupped my cheek, guiding my eyes to his. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.” My voice broke as the weight of what I was capable of sunk into my very core.
Sebastian captured my soul as he stared me down, pure determination radiating from him. “I’d walk through fire for you. This is nothing.”
I watched anxiously as my mother produced a ball of bluish-tinged liquid, a glowing balm of water trailing her fingers. She guided is over Sebastian’s face, down the exposed length of his arms, where his skin had touched mine. It only took a second for the red raw blemishes to fade away to its immaculate former self, a shimmery silver tinge coating his skin.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, his words a whisper in my ear. “I love you. And nothing you do will ever change that.”
I melted into him, my head finding his shoulder. “Not even if I’m a ruthless, magik-wielding monster?”
“You love me, don’t you? And I’m far worse than anything you could ever be.” There was no triumph in his voice–just quiet certainty. A truth he’d long made peace with. No fire, no fight–only the hollow weight of someone who’d stopped hoping to be forgiven. And beneath it all, an air of fragility–like even he hated how right he was.
“You’re not a monster.” I shot back, the words ripping from me before I could stop them. “Don’t you dare call yourself that.” My chest was heaving, my hands trembling with everything I didn’t know how to say. “You’re not broken. You’re not cursed. You’re just–” My voice shook, fierce with something I couldn’t name. “You’re just you. And that’s never been something I needed saving from.”
His eyes softened, as if he believed differently. “Well you could never be a monster. And even if you commanded the power of Ezekiel himself, I would still love you until my dying breath.”
I let him hold me, the weight of his words sinking in. Finally, I relinquished his embrace, turning to my mother. “Will it heal completely?”
She nodded without hesitation. “Yes.”
There was no question in her tone, she had healed enough injuries to know with complete conviction.
A slow sigh escaped me, I so didn’t want to be responsible for Sebastian’s disfigurement.
“Okay. Let’s go again.”
Mom whipped around, emerald eyes piercing me and making me recoil. “Absolutely not.”
Was she serious?
“What do you mean? I did it! I harnessed it.”
“It almost killed you,” she shot back, her eyes as hard as steel.
Silence leadened my limbs as I met my mom’s stone cold stare. “You said it yourself. For this to work, you needed to push me past the point of breaking. Well this is it. This is the edge.”
“I was too close to losing you.” Her voice broke with emotion.
I understood what she was risking. Losing someone she loved, would fucking suck. But this was bigger than her. Or me.
If I could do this, if I could learn how to harness and use magik at will, it could be a changing point in this war. I could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. No one in my village would ever have to fear for their lives again. My family, everyone I loved, and a couple of those I didn’t, would survive.
That was worth risking my life.
“I need to master this.” I stepped closer, eyes fixed on her like the words alone might tear me apart.
“No.” A slight tremor broke her voice, betraying her softening will. Her hands curled at her sides, as if bracing for something she couldn’t stop.
“If I can master this, I can protect everyone. That’s worth the risk.” I held her gaze, shoulders tense, as though trying to steady myself against the rising storm in her eyes.
“No, it isn’t.” Her voice cracked, raw and low. “Not if I lose you.” She took a step back, like the truth had cost her more than she was ready to admit.
“Sebastian’s here. You saw what he did. He can help me control it. And now that I sort of know what to do, I’ll be better. I promise.” I practically begged her.
“What if it doesn’t work again? What if next time you can’t control it?” Her voice broke, cracking under the weight of fear she’d been holding back. “I can’t risk losing you again. I won’t.” Her hands trembled at her sides, like just the thought of it was too much to bear.
“You said you believed in me. Prove it.” Silence stretched.
“I do believe in you,” she finally whispered. “I just… can’t lose you.”
“Then let me try. One more time.”
She was softening, I saw it in her eyes. I knew her well enough to know she was going to cave, because she knew what was at stake. One life didn’t outweigh the lives of our whole village, someone who cared as deeply as she did, couldn’t ignore the logic.
“Oh, it will definitely work, and I’m more than happy to assist in any way I can. Even do some private lessons, if she needs.” Sebastian grinned.
I glared at Sebastian, ordering him to shut up, with one lethal glance.
“If that doesn’t work, I’m happy to step in instead of him." Maalikai offered. "Maybe it will give her that extra bit of motivation."
I ignored both of them. “Please, Mom. I can do this. You just have to believe in me.”
Her perfect brows knitted, furrowing her forehead. “I do believe in you. I just can’t risk losing you.”
“Think of all the lives we can save . ”
“None of them are worth your life,” she shot back with so much venom it was like someone else faced me. This wasn’t the cool, calm, and compassionate woman I’d known my entire life. This woman would set the world on fire for me.
Instinctively, I took a step back, the venom in her words settling uncomfortably around me. Never, not even once, had I seen her put her needs in front of anyone else. This was the woman I had watched free ladybugs that had fallen into pools of water for Gods’ sake. But I guess my life was the limit.
I took a step forward, taking her hand in mine. “I can do this. You know I can.” A moment of silence stretched between us. “I can’t be responsible for their deaths. I have to learn how to control this.”
One second collided with another. Chewing on her bottom lip, she visibly caved.
After another long pause, she nodded. “Okay.”
I kissed her cheek. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
I took several paces back from her, my hand hovering over the bark of the willow, power crackling between my fingers even before I touched it.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Her skin had a grey paler, like this was claiming something of her that she would never forgive herself for. But her eyes were bright, ready to harness me into a weapon, even if it destroyed us both.
“Yes.” I dug my heels into the dirt and locked my knees, prepared for the onslaught of power to hit me.
Air whooshed from her before she drew another breath. “I want you to name your willow.”
I blinked. That was not what I’d been expecting.
“What?”
She stepped closer, her fingers brushing lightly over the bark, reverent.
“Giving your willow a name imbues it with its own unique power,” she said, voice low, almost sacred. “It will bind her to you, and she will become yours.” Her gaze lifted to meet mine, steady and sure. “It should also give you something tangible to hold onto–something to anchor you–when you’re trying to call upon her power.”
“Okay… um.” This was the last thing I’d been expecting, I was drawing a complete blank.
Maybe I could somehow combine the names Xayreia and Elessandria, since Xayreia produced my willow’s seed and that’s where Elessandria was conjured.
Maybe Xaylessa?
I opened my mouth to reply—but a word slipped out before I could stop.
“Akaela.” I hadn’t meant to say it–it just came out.
Once I said the word out loud, and tested it on my tongue, I knew it was right. The willow seemed to relax under my touch, humming with magik, as if she approved.
She nodded once, approving. “Good.”
She circled me slowly, hands clasped behind her back, her presence calm but commanding. “This time, instead of focusing on your emotions to control your power, think about what it feels like when you draw from her–what it feels like to harness it.” She paused behind me, her voice soft but steady. “So, instead, feel where in your body you’re pulling the power to. Focus on the source. Anchor it.”
“The center of my chest, where the sternum is.” It was hard to ignore the power once I’d siphoned it, so the answer was easy. Instant.
“Then guide it.” She spoke the words softly, but there was weight behind them–like they meant more than they let on.
I turned to face her, my question barely more than a breath. “How?”
She tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing as if she were watching for something only she could see. “Once you start to feel the power manifest,” she said, her tone sharpening, “capture it immediately. Don’t hesitate. Then sever the bond with Akaela–cleanly. Completely.”
“You’ve got this,” Sebastian added.
He was lounging in the grass just under the canopy, looking bored. But I knew he was just as alert as the rest of us, waiting to leap forward should I need anything from him. It was all a facade for me, to show he believed in me. It didn’t have the desired effect, I was more nervous than ever.
Taking a deep breath, I placed my palm on Akaela. Tendrils of dark power swirled into me—inky and wild. Like a storm made of shadows and stars.
It knew me. And I knew it.
The chaotic storm of mass destruction, almost obsidian, swirled inside me like a midnight sandstorm. But it was my hectic hurricane of destruction, my power to wield. As that thought consumed me, it almost shuddered to a halt, turning to face me, as if I was its master and it recognized me.
“I’ve got a grasp.”
“Now sever the bond with Akaela.”
It was harder than I anticipated to break the bond with Akaela, as though the magik froze my hand in place. It took everything I had to sever the bond, prying my fingers from the Akaela’s bark.
“Focus on harnessing the power and drawing it to your fingertips. Imagine water flowing from your fingers until you can mold it into a single droplet.”
Air punched from my lungs at the mental force I expelled trying to force this tornado of a storm through my limbs until it reached the tips of my fingers.
Sweat dotted my forehead, soaking my hair and making me sticky with perspiration. But I did it. Just when I could feel a single droplet of water form on my fingertip, the magik withdrew.
Gone.
The power non-existent.
What in Nexus?
“It’s gone. I can’t feel the magik anymore.”
My mother stepped forward, taking my hand in hers. A minute passed, and then another. “I can’t feel a single trace either.”
“Is that normal?” I asked cautiously.
Her brow knotted, creasing her forehead with barely visible lines. “No.”
Well crap.
That wasn’t a good omen.
“Try again,” she ordered, her voice stern.
The second time I managed to form the connection to Azalea quicker, drawing out the ancient power and claim it as my own. And a second time as soon as I pushed the power to my fingertips, the water dissipated before I could produce a single drop.
Mom checked me again, finding no residue power.
“Again.”
Six times I tried.
Six times I failed.
On the seventh—I held on too long. Drew too much.
Shifting the power through my veins, I forced it to my fingertips. A single drop of water stained my hand, then another. I pushed further, harnessing the full extent of my power, pushing so hard that my body was fatigued with the exertion. Within seconds, my whole hand was soaked with water. When the last tendril of power was sapped from me, I opened my eyes, a smile plastered across my face.
“I did it. Did you see?”
I examined each of their faces, but none matched my own enthusiasm.
“Em.” Sebastian stepped forward, water dripping from his golden brown hair. My eyes shot to the sky, watching as rain steadily cascaded.
Damn it.
My fingers were soaked with water—but it wasn’t my magik. Outside the canopy, rain had begun to fall. I didn’t conjure it. It was the storm.
“I failed,” I muttered.
“Maybe the tree doesn’t hold enough—” Maalikai began.
“Wait.” I stepped forward.
I watched the rain blanket the Earth, the skies filled with dark, ominous clouds “Where does your ward end?”
All three of their gazes snapped to me. Without a word, they all stepped out of the cover of the tree, being pelted by the same deluge as I was, soaking them to the bone.
“Why?” She asked.
“I’ve got a theory. But to be sure I need to step out of the ward.”
“Emylia…” Judging by her tone, it was an immediate no. But this was important, so ’no’ was not an option.
“It will only be for a second. And if it makes you feel better, these two can escort me out of the threshold.”
After holding me under a stare that could extinguish fire, she acquiesced. All three of us followed her along the cliff for a couple hundred yards before she stopped.
“Two more steps and you will be outside my protection.”
“How do you know? Is there a marker?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I can feel where the magik ceases.”
Clearly she was better at magik than me.
No surprises there.
“Are you guys ready?” I looked at each of my protectors, on either side of me.
Each clung to a sword, ready for any threat. They matched my pace as I took two steps until I was outside the ward.
As soon as I stepped through the invisible barrier, the air changed, like it was sweeter out here. Using my hand, I shielded my eyes from the bright sunshine, sunlight bathing my skin. No rain in sight.
I turned.
Inside the ward—the deluge still poured. Rain pelted inside the invisible barrier, translucent orbs running down the side like condensation on glass.
I hadn’t been able to produce a single sphere of water, not a single droplet. Instead, I cracked open the skies and made it spill from above until it coated all within the ward’s protective realm. I hadn’t drawn the rain. I summoned the storm. Created it with nothing but the power inside me.
My power wasn’t a flicker.
It wasn’t a whisper of flame.
It was a beast–feral and all-consuming–bending the world to its will in ways no mortal could begin to fathom.
A living, breathing entity that answered to no one but me, and devoured everything it touched.
And now there was no denying it.
I was a magik wielder.
An unstoppable weapon.