Chapter 34 #2
He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
Which every parent knew was code for “I want to change the subject.” “You’ll figure it out. You have to, really.”
Owu peeked up. “Why?”
“To achieve what you want.”
He narrowed his gaze. “You don’t know what I want.”
I could imagine he wanted to be reunited with his mother.
Safely. He might want Adeuto to be safe too.
“I don’t need to know what you want, Owu.
Everything you could want relies on your control.
Unless what you want is to always be at risk of hurting those around you.
Like Adeuto or your mother. Your mother is a yellow.
Adeuto won’t come into demon power for another thirteen years. ”
Owu swallowed. “Oh.”
Oh indeed. “I used to complain through every second of centering with my grandmother. I get it. And when my power came in, and I had no idea how to control it or use it to protect myself, then I was grateful she’d persisted with me.
You aren’t half as scared as I was at sixteen, but you need to know that your power can hurt the people you love.
Because if you can’t control it, then it controls you, and your power doesn’t care about who you love and hate. It cares about pain.”
The boy had paled. I was sorry to worry him when he’d been through so much. And if he lost control and hurt someone he loved, then I’d be sorrier still.
“I’ll try again tomorrow,” he whispered.
I smiled at him. “I know you will. The Magus in that room today? They know that everything happens for a reason. I know that, too, so does Adeuto. You were meant to come into your powers early, young demon. You are meant to carry this now, and to learn what you must learn. Trust in the journey already laid out before you. All you need to do is take each step.”
Owu released a breath, and I could see my words had reassured him.
His hand found its way into mine, and we walked into the dining hall together. Only stragglers remained, their meals long since finished.
Tempest and Wild still sat at the long table on the stage, and a few councilors had remained to speak with them.
Adeuto was in Tempest’s arms, fast asleep.
“I got caught up in centering,” I said to her.
She blinked at the air around me, then dragged her focus back to my face. “I see.”
What did she see? Likely more than I intended to show. But if there was one person I’d tell about the wrath curse, it was Tempest.
But I’d decided it was irrelevant. “I’ll put him to bed.”
“Eat first,” she said. “I’m fine holding him a while longer. I have years to make up for.”
I smiled at her, then followed Owu to the food. Not much was left. But living in the desert had given me a lifelong appreciation for any food I didn’t have to hunt.
We grabbed some food and sat at a table near the stage to eat.
Tempest joined us with Adeuto soon after.
“Delta was thankful for your help today,” she said, watching me.
I chewed and swallowed. “It was a good training. We can learn a lot from each other.”
“Feels like we have more ideas than we have time to practice,” she answered.
“Don’t speak to me about time.”
She cracked a grin. “Maybe one day we won’t feel hounded by it. If the mother allows.”
“I’d like that.”
Owu returned to the table for more food.
Tempest hesitated. “Seeing you again has meant more to me than I knew to hope for, Syera. Part of me is still in disbelief. That Adeuto is here too. I don’t want to share you with others, and I begrudge everything that called me away from you today.
We have five years to catch up on, and those years feel…
defining for us. Important. In that time you became a demon, and I became a Magus.
I never want those five years to come between us. Not ever.”
I understood what she meant. I knew Tempest better than anybody, and yet in some ways, she was a stranger to me now. The last five years had formed her, as they’d formed me, but we’d been formed in different ways. Forged under a different hammer. Not in every way, but some of them.
I was a demon.
She was a Magus.
Yet we had a connection that couldn’t be broken. “I feel the same, and so nothing will come between us. I spent much of the day feeling the same. Perhaps we could find time tomorrow just for us? And Adeuto and Owu. Nothing happens without at least one child present.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said. “I was going to ask the same thing. Tomorrow I’m all yours until dinner.”
Warmth spread through my chest. I’d craved time with her more than I’d admitted to myself. “Ty also said that I should discuss the past with you. He said that I need the help of all my ancestors, including Mother and Grandmother.”
Tempest winced. “That guy has a way of uncovering my every insecurity and fear. In a respectful way, too, so I can’t be angry at him.”
We laughed, and I said after, “I’m guessing that you’ve already done some work on the past?”
She nodded. “A divination journey to the night of their murder. And yours, or so I thought for five years. I thought everything from that night was blocking my divination affinity. Every time I tried to go back there, I ended up portaling to the north mountains. I’d wake up covered in mud with no memory of the time there, or anything from where I’d blacked out. I thought it was chaos, but—”
“—you were trying to reach your demon in the realm,” I said softly.
She sighed. “So we learned. Thank you for freeing her. Freeing us. I didn’t know why I felt so…
incomplete. Well, of course, I’d lost my entire family.
And you. There was a void, but instead of getting better over the years, it became harder to keep my head above water.
If not for Wild, and the rest of the quad, I wouldn’t be here. Rooke either.”
My focus shifted to Wild, who was assessing Tempest and deciding whether she needed him. He returned his attention to the talking councilor. “We have a lot to speak about. I have questions.”
“About Wild, the quad, or Rooke?”
“All of the above.”
“The quad is hard to explain. But you’ll love Rooke. She would’ve already come to see you, but she’s obsessed with poisons, and when she’s on the verge of discovering something, I can’t get her away from the greenhouse of fun.”
My brows crept up. “I’m a fan already.”
Tempest took my hand in hers, glancing at Owu, who was returning with a heaped plate.
She said, “And I want to hear about Carmine, and the realm, and Adeuto. Everything. When I imagine what he put you through, I want to go Grandmother on his ass.”
“Grandmother or Mother?”
“A bit of both. Mental torture and maiming.”
We laughed harder, and I wiped my eyes after.
Still chuckling, I couldn’t help but say, “Sometimes I think if they were still here, the world would already be saved.”
“Nothing got in their way,” she said.
Owu sat, and didn’t give us a second glance before shoveling bread and cheese into his mouth.
Nothing got in their way.
Just my father, who’d fallen in love with my mother. Despite the “wrath curse.” Yet another reason why I shouldn’t believe in it. I highly doubted that Tyran’s magical essence would have approved of that union.
Nothing got in their way.
Just Carmine, who’d killed them for no other reason than they were with Tempest and me at the time, and we were threats to his throne.
Death had gotten in their way in the end. Just as it would for Carmine.
Or me.
Or both of us.
And there was no changing that.