CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
I agreed, “Yes, you did. Until you didn’t. You had a good grasp on my hand, but you purposely let it slide out of your grip.” I felt my nostrils flare. “You thought that fall would kill me. Bet you’re somewhat disappointed that it didn’t.”
Gaping, he rapidly blinked. “You can’t honestly think that I tried to kill you.”
I felt my lips peel back in disgust. “Don’t act as if my life means anything to you.”
“It doesn’t—I’ll admit that. But I don’t consider you worth dying for. That’s what would have happened to me if I’d tried to kill you. Does it really make sense to you that I’d risk that?”
“No, but you’re you,” I said, my tone scathing. “Someone who does dumb, inadvisable shit all the time.”
An amused snort rang out.
Something sour briefly flashed in Atticus’ eyes as his face turned red and mottled. “I didn’t drop you on purpose. I tried hard to save you.” He sent his cousin a beseeching look. “Right?”
Clearing his throat, Bevan rubbed at his nape. “He did do his best to help, though I’m sure we all know that it wasn’t for your sake but because he’d have otherwise been reprimanded.”
Atticus gifted me a smug glance. “See?”
Talon looked at Seneca and flicked up a questioning brow.
“My brother did not let her fall on purpose,” she maintained.
Other nearby candidates gave various answers …
It did look as though Atticus was trying hard to save her.
I couldn’t see anything from where I stood, so I don’t know.
I wouldn’t trust Atticus to want to help Anara, but he’d do it to save his own skin—letting her fall in front of witnesses would be risky.
Once the questioning was over, I took in the expressions of those around me—all ranged from blank to uncertain to awkward. Nobody appeared one-hundred percent convinced of my claims, not even Quillen.
Not even Talon. His face was carefully blank.
That some of these people would believe Atticus over me … it was a stinging slap. I dragged in a hurt breath and held it, enraged tears I’d never shed burning the backs of my eyes.
I was dumb to have expected anything else, though, right? I was mortal. They were godkin. Of course they’d stick together.
Atticus gave me a sympathetic smile. “I think you must have just hit your head real hard and are now a little confused.”
I felt the skin of my face stretch into a snarl as a renewed sense of fury stormed my system like a stampede of beasts. Intense. Blinding. Feverish.
It bashed at my control. And now I could hear a thrashing in my ears. Could feel my heart slamming against my ribs. Could feel my fingers contracting like claws.
Seneca slipped in front of him protectively and then came toward me. “I get that you had a scare and might like to direct your anger on someone, but your fall was an accident. Atticus didn’t—”
“Get the fuck away from me,” I gritted out, my voice unnaturally deep, cold, and nothing like my own.
Her bravado shrunk right there in front of me as her eyes went wide. She staggered backwards, almost bumping into Atticus.
Air sawed in and out of my lungs as I stood there drowning in dark emotions so thick I could suffocate on them. Pain, anger, bitterness—it all blended. Blended and clashed with the ichor that had taken residence within me.
Something crawled through my veins—hot, crackly, other.
Several pairs of eyes dropped to my hands, and then people were backing away. I peered down to see moonlight-colored sparks skipping along my palms … and embers of ash swirling around my hands.
A pinch of wonder settled in my chest, but it had no way to take hold of my mood—rage clouded my vision, my thoughts, my logic.
Gods, I wanted to make him hurt. I craved the release that the attack would give me; needed to expel every bit of fury from my system before it erupted out of me in a feral scream.
I zeroed in on him with lethal focus as the steaming hot ashes gathering into orbs. I narrowed my eyes, ready and raring to hurl them right at his face.
A thread of reason broke through the haze, and then I saw it. Saw it all play out in my mind’s eye … I’d hurl the orbs. Talon would subdue me in a flash. Ajax would shove Atticus out of harm’s way. The orbs would miss their target.
And then I’d be executed like Klemens for attempting to kill a fellow candidate.
The bastard’s not worth that.
No. No, he wasn’t. And he’d just love if I tried to attack him. He would love for me to suffer the consequences.
Fuck. That.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I dropped my head. I fought to get a hold on my emotions, fought to grapple them into submission. But they were just so hot, so fierce.
Unable to kill the tremors racking my body, I stubbornly continued to wage war against the storm inside me. My head pounded with the effort, and my chest heaved with every ragged breath.
Eventually, I felt my palms cool. Felt the tickles of sparks disappear. Felt the orbs disintegrate. But I wasn’t yet in a good inner place.
“Let’s make our way back,” said Ajax.
I couldn’t. Not yet. He might feel that the danger had passed, but I wasn’t so sure of my control.
“Catch up when you’re ready,” he added.
I didn’t look up. Not even when I sensed people leaving. I just stared at my muddy boots, trying to stop my mind from again reliving that moment when Atticus—
No, don’t go there.
I heard someone take slow, purposeful strides toward me. I snapped my head up. Talon didn’t falter in his pace, he just kept coming my way, his posture relaxed and non-threatening. Raising his hands slightly in reassurance, he slowed to a stop only when inside my personal space.
“I wasn’t lying,” I said as I lowered my head again, not wanting to see doubt flickering in his eyes. “And I wasn’t mistaken. That dick let me drop.”
A hand palmed the back of my head, gently settling in the nest of curls there. I didn’t know what he was trying to convey, or if he was even trying to communicate anything at all.
His fingers remained buried in my hair as we stood there for long minutes, while my breathing steadied and my heart ceased beating frantically.
Finally, my emotions stabilized and I could officially think.
At which point it properly hit me that my system had fully bonded with the ichor, bringing to the surface the power that had been lying dormant until now.
Power the color of moonlight that manifested in scorching hot ashes.
The earlier pinch of wonder returned, brighter now.
But it still had no way to take hold of my emotional state.
I was too much a mess inside. Too in pain, my back still smarting.
Too furious at Atticus. Too frustrated at having no one believe that he purposely dropped me.
The most I could feel was relieved that I’d survived the surfacing of my power.
It hit me then that it had been gradually doing so for weeks. So many times I’d woken with grains of dirt on my hands and not thought much of it. But it hadn’t been dirt at all. The gritty granules were actually particles of ash.
“None of you ordered me to stand down just now,” I noted. “None of you interfered or even insisted I take a deep breath. You were waiting to see if the power would take me over; if the surfacing of it would kill or drive me insane, weren’t you?”
He let out a low grunt of affirmation, his hand drifting down to curve around my nape. A move that felt protective, soothing, and even a little proprietary.
He was diabolically bold at times.
“You’re not supposed to be touching me,” I mumbled.
Apparently not giving a whisper of a shit about that, he didn’t move other than to idly breeze his thumb over my skin.
Pulling in a centering breath, I righted my head as I stepped back, making his hand slide away. “I’m good now,” I said, rolling my shoulders. Well, maybe not good. But I was no longer on the verge of losing my shit.
He gave a chin-tip and then turned toward the earlier path we’d taken.
I moved a little stiffly as I followed, my back still sore.
I expected him to walk fast so that we’d catch up with the others, but he kept his pace easy—maybe thinking that it would be best to keep me away from Atticus right now.
By the time we’d exited the swamp, the ache in my back had dialed down to a dull throb, thank the gods. “This isn’t the same route we usually take,” I remarked as he took a particular turn.
He glanced at me over his shoulder, looking … dare I say impressed?
“Is it a short-cut? Please tell me it’s a short-cut.”
Facing front again, he nodded.
Relief unfurled in my belly. A relief that blossomed an hour later, when the throb at the base of my spine faded completely. It would seem that I was healing even faster than before.
I lifted my palm and tried connecting with the power inside me. That part was as easy as making my legs move—little ribbons of moonlight arced prettily from my fingertips as a blistering heat radiated from my palm. But conjuring ashes? Not so easy.
The effort … it was like when you were squeezing a tube with one hand but needed both—only drabs of the contents surfaced. Roasting-hot embers of ashes would burst out of my palm, but only a few at a time. They would quickly ‘wink’ out of existence.
Talon peered at me over his shoulder at one point and noted what I was doing, but he didn’t hesitate to face forward again.
I doubted it was a sign of trust that he wasn’t uneasy about having me at his back while I was calling on my power.
More like he didn’t believe I had enough control over it to launch an attack.
He’d be right.
I noticed that though the twitchiness had left my system, the strange ‘call’ still lay deep within, no more or less intense than before.
Just … there. A steady presence. Which made no sense, given there was no reason it should linger—my power had now surfaced.
Hmm, maybe the feeling would fade after a day or so.