Chapter 14 Seren #2
Pressure squeezed at my elbow, but when I looked down, there was nothing there.
My thoughts grew foggy. I couldn’t remember how I had gotten here, to this reality defying place. I shook my heavy head, trying to clear the blurring in my vision. Trying to see the moon one last time.
“Don’t leave me,” I begged, but the wave beneath me tripped and fell, sending me sprawling through the unforgiving expanse of the twilit sky.
My eyes closed and reopened on a gasp. I reeled backwards.
Harkin was there to catch me as I came back to myself, holding me steady on Quin’s back.
I sagged against him for a moment before remembering myself.
I sat up straight once more, breathing unevenly.
The sprite still floated before me, a grin twisting her pale lips.
“What did you do to her?” Harkin demanded. Displeasure sang in his voice.
The sprite giggled, pressing her little fingertips to her mouth in glee. With a wave and a twirl, she zipped away, skating along the surface of the water just as I had done in the vision. She flashed a final smile and sank into the current.
“Are you alright? Did she hurt you?” I almost thought I heard genuine concern in his tone but promptly dismissed the thought.
“I’m fine.” I pushed venom into my voice, but my brow furrowed as I contemplated the image the sprite had shown me. Was it a vision of what was to come? An omen? Or merely a trick to be played on the unsuspecting?
I struggled to marry the two versions of myself which warred in my mind. The child in me remembered the stories and wanted to revel in the mágik I had been granted, but the hardened adult in me—the one who had loved and lost far too much—wanted to burn it away.
Opening my heart will only lead me to more pain, I reminded myself. I pushed down the lingering hum of mágik that blanketed me. I shoved away the vision that claimed me. I let the memories of my brother flood in, instead.
Hurt. Broken. Dying.
I let the ice steal back over my heart.
“Will we make it to our destination any time soon, or will I be a prisoner chained to your side forever?” My cold gaze met Harkin’s, and if he noticed my change in demeanor he did not show it.
He nodded thoughtfully. “We will arrive by nightfall. I could tell you more about our journey and plans as we travel, if you like.”
“I can think of nothing that I would enjoy less than hearing you talk. I am not interested in your plans.” I waited for him to react, but he didn’t.
I seethed, wishing he would hate me as I hated him.
“You severed my connection with the Guardians. You made me an enemy of my own people. You forced me to flee from the life I had built, and if you hadn’t had a horse, I would not be here.
You are a means to an end that I plan to be rid of very soon. ”
I turned in the saddle, facing forward once more as Quin cleared the stream and pushed further into the overgrowth. The forest grew denser and darker the deeper we traveled.
“I am employed by Prince Claudian of the royal family of Acsilla.” He continued, unbothered.
“He hired me to find you and to help you train your mágik. When the prince discovered you had been lost as a baby and raised in Ordelés, he vowed to right the wrong that had been committed against you. Claudian wants you to be welcomed back into your true family and to harness the abilities you were born to wield.”
“Stop fucking talking,” I demanded. My jaw clenched and my knuckles turned white with the pressure of my balled fists. My heart sped its pounding pace.
Harkin pretended not to hear me and pressed on. “You have a gift. Perhaps you’ve had an inkling throughout the years, or maybe the truth has been hidden deep within you. Regardless, it is time for you to claim what is rightfully yours. I would like to help you, if you’ll let me.”
I thought of the water which had clung to my fingers in the wash basin, alive and willing.
I remembered the feeling of the rainstorm jumping to my call.
My throat swelled tight, thighs squeezing involuntarily as my muscles clenched, and earning me a disgruntled snort from Quin.
I patted the horse’s neck in apology. “I have no desire to make a heathen of myself.”
“Unfortunately, you are stuck with me for the foreseeable future, and we will be training your abilities, but come the winter solstice, you will be rid of me. The prince will facilitate the details of your new life in Acsilla.” Harkin’s tone was gentle and kind, vastly different from the teasing barbs he had stung me with in the training grounds.
My head spun with wonder and irritation in equal measure. The man at my back was a mystery I desperately hoped I would not solve.
“I do not want a new life in your kingdom. I despise the Rázuri, I despise you, and if you force me to the palace gates, I will burn it to the ground. Do with that what you will and consider this conversation finished.” My voice held a note of furious finality.
The words echoed through the darkening forest around us.