Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Airborne, it was hard to breathe. Thin air and the force of wind shrank my lungs. Fog and dust mauled at me and an unsettling sensation gripped my mind as I rose higher off the ground.
Terrified, losing control, I desperately tried to move my hands, my arms, to shield from being mercilessly pelted by tree limbs and stones. But its energy locked me in a full-body paralysis.
Think. I had to think. What the hell did I do now?
The cyclone whipped me higher, screeching like a wild beast when I shoved a cluster of magic directly into the center of the funnel.
Stealing its power now would have me plummeting without a parachute, and who knew what kind of state I’d be in once I unwound the power of the storm.
I would have drowned at Lake Wone if it weren’t for Eri. Something told me the Fevar weren’t going to be as willing to step in and help a girl out.
I can overpower this.
Even though I couldn’t physically move, my brain still worked. My will still worked. I had to keep pulling. Had to drag its ravenous energy into my body before it hurt someone else.
People were starving. They’d been separated from their families the same ways the forest mourned the loss of so much habitat. I couldn’t let it happen. Something had to give.
I pulled at the cyclone and kept a desperate hold on its slippery power as it struggled to stay free and wild. It made its demands clear. So did I.
Physical magics were taught in school, but nothing like this. My body was no match for it. What approach could I try?
Ignoring the deafening explosions from more uprooted forest, I relaxed and opened myself to the cyclone’s power.
I let it invade me. Let it relish the victory of having beaten me—and then I’d use every last drop of my power to close the lid once it was inside me, sealing it, knowing I’d have a hell of a time draining this later.
It poured into me and joyously filled the empty cavern in my torso. Slowly, slowly, the power struggle tipped in my direction, my magic rising up to wrangle the air. It revolted, furious at being manipulated this way.
But I prevailed.
The wind began to lose force, and I dropped a good twenty feet before I caught myself with another manipulation of gravity, my heart in my throat, and eased myself to the ground.
I clawed my hands into the dirt and drew the rest of the storm. Another hard yank and—
The funnel cloud collapsed. The wind vanished.
My cheek fell hard against upturned furrows of earth.
The point of impact spread agony outward through my teeth to the back of my skull. Roaring wind faded into something much more worrisome, a harsh thud ringing out from inside of me, thundering in my ears.
Time stretched and folded over itself before capable hands gripped my elbows and hauled me to a seated position.
“There you go, girl. You did well.” Poppy’s gruff, textured voice scraped against my senses in a familiar way. “Let’s get you up on your feet. You’re okay.”
Was I?
She supported me past the steep crevices torn into the earth and I groaned, pitching into Poppy, only coming back to myself when the joyful shouts of the reunited Fevar were too loud to ignore.
Poppy maintained her grip while a handful of Fevar approached.
“We were waiting on the other side of the air! We weren’t sure we’d ever get free—” Magic radiated from the Fevar male and threatened to burn me to the core.
I winced, wishing I hadn’t used up so much power to get rid of the funnel cloud. Then the heat of their bodies pressed into mine and helped erase the chill of the funnel cloud that was wrecking my insides, a hint of homeostasis.
Wagons and carts circled a central area, though without a fire to maintain heat or to cook, it looked more ceremonial. The Fevar had no kitchens, no individual hearths lit against the chill of the night.
They carried the fire within them.
Their leader, a young man who embraced the golden-haired woman fiercely, turned to me with a sigh that crackled like the first spark. His gratitude was effusive and seemed to go on and on.
Some sense of diplomacy kept me from dropping into unconsciousness or begging Poppy to portal us back to camp.
I hadn’t forgotten that the Fevar fed on the energy of others. Were Poppy and I in danger here? Even though I’d just helped them?
The leader made it clear, much to my relief, that their gratitude was sincere. And in thanks for my help, they now owed a debt. They offered me anything I wanted.
Fevar were nomad warriors—warriors.
So I asked for aid. I asked for soldiers to fight with us in our rebellion.
They heartily agreed, immediately packing up their caravans and promising to meet us within the week.
I doubted, at once and with horrid certainty, that this was as random as it seemed. I wish I hadn't drawn a line between the possible and the impossible. I doubted I’d be able to erase it easily.
It was an unpleasant thought and stuck with me through the next several hours. Fevar didn’t need to eat, so we kept our conversation short while the foraging party shared the energy they’d been unable to deliver.
By the time Poppy brought us back to our camp, I was ready to collapse and she didn’t look much better.
“Whoa, sweet girl, you’re okay now.” Livvy took up her place on my opposite side, helping me closer to the central balefire. “Let’s get you settled. What was it this time?”
Her scent, the stridency of rosemary on a fresh spring breeze wrapped me in a maternal blanket. I leaned hard, my eyes closing on their own until only the smallest sliver of vision helped me navigate the rough forest floor.
“Cyclone,” Poppy said. “Huge damn thing, took out nearly half a mountain. Had a camp of Fevar isolated from the rest of their hunting party.”
Livvy tempered a gasp and gave Poppy a look that suggested she was going to pay for letting me do this alone. “She has a cyclone inside of her now?”
Poppy nodded. “Gonna take a little more than some grounding to help dispel it. I’ll get the brandy. You keep her talking and awake.”
I wanted to tell Poppy alcohol wasn’t going to make a shit of difference—her words from another life—but Livvy settled us near the fire and the heat reminded me of the people we’d left.
“Have you heard of the Fevar before?” I asked, my words slurring.
She kept her hand on my thigh. “Sure. They’ve gotten a bad reputation for the way they feed, but they’re simply trying to survive. An odd offshoot of the Unseelie court, unfairly persecuted."
This kind of acceptance, Livvy’s open heart, made it easier for me to open up to her.
We had our warriors now, earth and water and fire mages. We had soldiers, but would it be enough?
Would any of this be enough?
I expressed this to Livvy who did her best to not let her feelings show. Only a small dimple near the side of her mouth caved in with her half smile, a sure sign she was worried.
“You’re doing all you can,” she assured me. “No one expects you to do any more.”
“But there’s always so much to do. Even sitting here with you is taking time away from—”
“Stop.” Her tone hardened.
“Mom—”
The word changed the contours of her face but not her tone. That remained rigid when she said, “You can’t be everything to everyone, Tavi. What you can do is exactly what you’re doing, as long as you find the balance and rest.”
Offering to rest when I was dead felt in poor taste, so I bit my tongue.
Livvy broke eye contact when the whispers around us grew to an impossible to ignore status. When I looked up, a circle of people ringed us and the fire.
The prophet is here.
She’s returned.
Prophet…
Warrior goddess—
My brows knitted together, and Livvy, noticing my expression, shooed them away. “Ignore them, honey. It’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” I managed.
“Rumors,” Livvy clarified. “Spreading through the realm as Fae tend to spread things they find interesting. People have started to speak of you as some sort of goddess incarnate, a prophet handing out justice from a higher power.”
“Prophet.” The word tasted as dry as wood ash from the fire.
Her smile spread and her eyes went dark, absorbing shadows around us. “Don’t worry about it. Rumors have a way of petering out on their own. Shoo.
She flicked her hands again to get rid of the stragglers but the damage had been done. For me, at least.
After walking through another grounding ritual with her, then swallowing an unhealthy amount of brandy when Poppy returned, I stumbled off to my tent on numb feet. Livvy made an effort to escort me until I waved her off, my thoughts snagged on the mildly infuriating turn of events.
She might not put stock into gossip, but I couldn’t afford not to.
Noren and Mike met me before I pushed into the tent, both of them stilling when they caught sight of me.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked. “Is it the cyclone?”
The grounding ritual had cleared the fog and mist from my head, but the torrents of magic, the battering pulses of air to my torso and abdomen, those effects remained. Brandy cemented the assurance they’d peter out with time. And sleep.
But it wasn’t the cyclone causing a phantom of worry to stalk me.
“Have you heard? What’s spreading through the camp?” I asked.
He shrugged and moved behind me to help work my shirt over my head when my limbs grew heavy. “I hear a lot of things. I’m here to be your ears, aren’t I?”
“I thought you were only around to help with the cooking and the cleaning,” I replied, deadpan.
“There’s that wicked tongue of yours. What am I supposed to hear?”
“Some rumors about me being a savior. A prophet. Some goddess-appointed sword to mete out justice, or whatever shit.”
Mike stilled, his fingers caught at my waist before he cleared his throat. “Ah. Yeah.”
Discomfort twitched my heart off beat. “Is there more?”
“Only a movement of followers popping up everywhere. It seems word of your heroic deeds has spread, as those things do, and people are rising to the call you’ve put out.”
My stomach curdled. “But that’s absurd. Me? A prophet?”
“Apparently, yes.”
I didn’t ask where he’d heard the rumors. If they were prolific enough to send a handful of our people to the fire to watch me in awe, then they were too widespread.
It was true that I wanted people to rise to action. Things had been stagnant for way too long, and the more people fought against the injustices of this world, the better for everyone.
But not with me as a figurehead.
Mike helped me change out of my dirty clothes and into softer pajamas conjured from sweet dreams themselves.
I sat on the floor and Noren settled half in my lap, spreading out and kicking his back legs with a great heaving sigh.
“I don’t like it,” I admitted. “People do strange things when they think they’re doing it for a higher power.”
“No one likes it. You think I wanted to have a fucking awful oil painting of me hung in the Fae Academy for Halflings? Have my classmates gawk and laugh like I was a joke?”
Mike, out of anyone here, understood my position. He knew it intimately well, had lived it for longer than I had, and if anyone would commiserate—
“I’m not the great savior they’re making me out to be,” I insisted. “I’m definitely not a prophet. I don’t want this responsibility.”
He scooted closer until the tips of our knees brushed. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if you want it or not. Circumstances, fate, whatever you want to call it, put you where you are.”
“But I’m not a savior.”
“You are to them. To a lot of people.”
I scrubbed behind Noren’s ears. “I don’t know anything. I’m just doing the right thing because it’s my mess. I’m the one who caused all these disasters in the first place. I definitely can’t see the future.”
I wouldn’t want to, either. My opposite hand rose to brush against the scar at my neck and the reminder of all the points in life where I’d been forced through something I didn’t want.
“You’re going to be fine,” Mike said with a grimace. He battled his own frustrations, his own problems with control. “You’re strong enough to handle it.”
“What if I don’t want to handle it?” I whispered.
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we want. You’re the leader these people deserve, and if they want to call you a prophet, then keep doing your best. We’re going to win this.”
Mike stared at me in a way he hadn’t before, as though he saw me for the first time and I wasn’t something real or made of flesh. I was something to be revered and put up high on a pedestal where no one could touch me.
I thought he’d hated me after what happened with Kendrick.
I’d thought he was disgusted by the fact that I’d had a mate bond forced on me and my body had changed, the scar where my throat was slit open a physical reminder of my belonging to someone else.
This was worse. His new admiration was a thousand times worse because it took me away from Mike instead of bringing us closer.
“Please…I don’t want you to look at me like that.”
He took hold of my hand and stared at the riot of lines, reading my palm. “Like what?”
“Like I’m unapproachable. You know how it goes. You know how it feels. You’re the only person here who does.” I was desperate for something to cling to when everything felt insubstantial and slippery.
I pushed off the floor with an absent pat on Noren’s head. “I need a walk.”
Mike rose after me, a sinuous unfolding of his frame. “Tavi—”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. “I need some time alone. I’m allowed to take a walk alone, aren’t I?”
When I lived with Uncle Will, I’d gone out for runs in the community park. I’d sprint to Elfwaite, where she hid in the greenery she’d called home, and complain about the cage of my life.
Here I stood in another cage, different but the same. I didn’t know the rules yet and the bars strengthened with each new wave of whispers.