Chapter 26
Everything about my magic is different. What used to feel like a warm tingle is now a scorching river that roils in my veins. It burns with every pulse of my heart and every breath of my lungs.
I down the last of the water in the canteen that was supposed to last me until the end of the day, splashing the remaining droplets across my neck.
Cal watches me, his gray eyes scrutinizing my every move as his magically summoned breeze attempts to offer a single moment of relief that never truly comes.
I need to release this burning power, to bleed off some of the magic that’s running rampant through me, or I might spontaneously combust. I send little spurts of it out as we ride, planting seeds underneath the snow-covered ground to bloom in the springtime, but it’s not enough to satiate it.
“Can we stop for a bit?” I finally ask.
It’s only noon, but Cal doesn’t deny my request. With a soft, knowing smile, he turns his horse off the road in wordless understanding.
The sunlight catches his onyx hair in a glowing halo, the image so godlike it belongs on a temple painting rather than a forest in the Ruby Region.
He leads us through the dense trees, winding around downed logs until we find a clearing ringed in snow drifts at least two feet deep.
With a little magic, this place will be the perfect concealment.
“We’ll make camp here. I’ll go ahead and set up the tent if you want to meditate,” Cal says with a wink before dismounting and pulling the large canvas out of his pack.
“Can you make it go away?”
Cal stops abruptly, turning to face me as the full implications of my words dawn on me.
“Not my magic!” I correct quickly. “The snow under the tent. It will be cold through the canvas and … I just want to see you do it.”
“I can do that.”
With a single swipe of his hand in the air, the snow under the tent evaporates, leaving nothing but dry, bare dirt behind.
His mouth tugs up in a smile again as he stalks towards me, a hint of wicked delight sparkling in his gray eyes at the way my mouth hangs agape.
Two tan fingers lift my chin and tilt it up until my mouth is inches from his.
“I can do a lot of things with my magic, princess. Would you like to see those, too?”
I absolutely would.
This close to Cal, the unrelenting power coursing through me is drowning out all logical thoughts. And if I don’t use it soon, I fear I won’t be able to control which side of it I use when I snap. Flowers, vines, or plants could be amusing, but if the decay came out instead …
“Does it get easier?” I ask. “The sharp edges and the need to use it?”
“You get used to it.”
The magnitude of this power doesn’t feel like something anyone could ever get used to. Then again, I never thought I’d get used to the magic that possessed me at eight years old either. What felt gargantuan then pales in comparison to what flows in me now.
“You need to wield. Grow something, anything. Just focus on life.” There’s a slight tremble in his voice when he speaks, an echo of the residual pain somewhere deep inside.
On a steady exhale, for the first time in front of a living soul, I purposefully set my magic loose.
I start small, covering the brown patch of dead ground that Cal cleared in lush, verdant grass before moving to the snow drifts.
Slowly, an assortment of flowers, the same ones I decorated the beds in the manor courtyard with, erupts.
Purples, reds, yellows, and greens pop against the pristine backdrop, petals turned towards the sun directly overhead.
But the blade-like edge that cuts at my skin doesn’t subside. Grass and flowers are not enough. Every side of this new magic demands more, even the side I want to contain.
“Spar with me,” I command on a shaky breath. “I need to know that I can use my magic to fight. I’m tired of hiding it.”
“Instinct will tell you to reach for your blades. Remove them so they’re not a crutch.”
Cal doesn’t question my judgement or my motives, he just obliges me. I deposit the ivory-handled blade that I stole from Kieran into my saddle bag along with my cloak and the four other daggers I sheathed on my body before we left the governor’s manor.
Please don’t let me kill him.
I send out a silent prayer to Death—the only god I know for certain exists besides the one who has done a shit job at protecting me.
Power floods through me as I mirror Cal’s stance, locking and holding his gaze while earth magic gathers in my fingertips.
I never break eye contact as two vines snake upward from the snow and encircle his ankles.
Squeezing my fists, the vines tighten around him, a second set springing to life in cuffs around his wrists.
Cal’s eyes cut to the plants that wind around his extremities and back to me. His pupils dilate as the vines surrounding his wrists and ankles burst into flames. Green leaves turn to ash but the white-hot flames don’t burn his skin.
“Marks will incinerate your vines before they’ve fully grown. You want to take him down? You’re going to need more than party tricks.”
“Party tricks?” I scoff. “Until two weeks ago, I thought I was the only person in Corinth with magic. I haven’t exactly been to parties where people are growing vines from their fingertips.”
“Do you even know what you’re truly capable of?
” Cal runs a hand through his black hair, tugging at the ends in frustration.
“Ivy, you can cause the cliffs to crumble, the ground to tremble, and rivers to change their course! All you have to do is think it and the earth will obey, yet you doubt yourself.”
I shake my head in conditioned disbelief even as my power rises in agreement.
No one has ever taught me how to summon or wield.
When my magic manifested, I was a scared child.
So afraid that I would be used, exiled, or killed if anyone found out that I snuck into the woods alone at night to practice growing flowers until my fingers bled.
It took years to master what control I have … or had until yesterday.
“I felt your full power in that dining room, but I understand if you’re not convinced you can cause an earthquake yet,” Cal says, resigned but not defeated. “Let’s start small. Try something you’ve never done before. Why don’t you shake the snow off those branches without moving them?”
The pine tree he’s referring to across the clearing is massive.
There’s no way I can move that, so this should be easy.
Cal hovers, waiting for me to call to my power as I steady my breathing and try to focus on the individual pine needles.
Like a burst of wind, the branches begin to shake, snow and pine falling to the ground in a quick blast.
“Stop.” Cal’s voice is commanding but kind. “You’re moving the branches. Shake the ground under the tree.”
Preparing to be embarrassed, I send my magic out quickly, half-heartedly shifting my focus to the base of the tree. My mouth falls open again as the large pine shakes at its roots. Cal plants his large hands on my shoulders, his breath tickling my ear as he speaks in a low, husky voice.
“The ground, princess.”
My primed power explodes at his touch. I don’t think about the snow or the tree or the ground. All I can think about is the heat that’s overtaking me. I barely catch my breath before every tree in the clearing begins to shake.
“Easy, princess. Control it.” Cal moves his hands down my arms in slow strokes, leaning down to punctuate each word with a light kiss. “Focus.” He moves to the other side of my neck repeating the motions. “Feel.”
Emotion and logic have been locked in a nearly two-decades long struggle for control over my magic.
Feel isn’t a command I would ever give myself.
Power rakes its beast-like claws against the underside of my skin and I’ll do anything to stop the agonizing pain, including following instructions that make no sense to me.
Resigned, I close my eyes and breathe in his heady leather scent. On the exhale, I focus on the threads of life that run through the earth and feel the ground tremble in reply. My eyes fly open to find the branches of every tree in the clearing now devoid of snow.
But I can’t stop there.
The rush of magic intoxicates me, begging me to use more and more until I’m consumed, burnt and remade in its image. Power seers into my skin, obliterating every ounce of self-control I have left.
Magic swirls around me in visible shimmering viridescent bands as I drop to my knees.
Fingers splayed wide against the cold snow, I pour every emotion that I have yet to shove into the iron-clad box that guards my heart into the ground: the sorrow for my region, the grief for my father, the fear for my friends.
The flat land around me transforms into small, rolling hills covered in lush spring grass and dotted with clusters of godsbane.
Unsatisfied, my power searches the clearing for more, finding a sparkling cerulean mass behind me. Cal’s magic—effervescent and brimming with potential, wholly invisible to me before.
The irresistible allure implores me to sample it. A single green band tugs gently at the blue, combining into a breathtaking shade of viridian.
The sky opens up, clouds releasing their watery contents in a sudden downpour.
My magic flares out again, carving a serpentine trench between the newly-formed hills, a channel designed to hold his unrelenting rains.
The riverbed cuts deeply into the new landscape, a reflection of what his power threatens to do to me if I give it the chance.
Each aquatic plant I seed within its silty bottom is a symbol of possibility—beauty only able to grow if attended to with care.