30. Esther #2
His intensity evokes mixed emotions. Instinctually, I know I should hide from someone such as Regent, because I’m not the only one keeping secrets about my identity.
But there’s another part of me that wants to lean in and challenge him.
That liquid warmth immediately flooding to my core, pulsing with the heated desire of need and want.
Yet there’s a smaller part that’s more me than my magic or identity, that’s relieved the truth is finally in the open. This past month has made me realize that, although terrified of what it means and what is at stake, I have only just begun to learn what I’m capable of.
Falling over that cliff edge reminded me of how much I want to live, the water coming alive within me and unlocking in a seamless way I’ve never known. Now moving forward, I won’t let anything get in my way. Not my magic, not myself, not him.
Revenge, my magic whispers.
Yes, revenge.
Had it not been for Dahlia, none of this would’ve come to pass, and it is also because of her that my family—not of blood but the one that took me in—was shattered.
If my magic is to devour me whole, I promise I’ll kill her first.
“Yes,” I admit out loud, for the first time rolling my shoulders back instead of sagging forward. Whether it is considered a curse for being Felia blessed, there is no more hiding the fact. “So, what will you do now, resell me? Use me? Put me on a stake and burn me?”
The last comes out with venom lacing my tone, pre-existing from a time when I watched my kind be killed and burned alive, so their bodies couldn’t be used for artifacts or randor blades, their ashes scattered.
“If I were to do any of those things, don’t you think I would’ve done that while you were cursed to sleep seventy years?”
“Seventy years?”
“You killed seven sirens when you fell over that cliff edge. Whatever your magic became, it was set on autopilot to protect you, lashing out at everything surrounding it. Unfortunately for you, it acts as a double-edged blade, calling on dark beasts. Sirens are notoriously known to curse those who kill them, which is why few attempt to ever turn them into randor blades or contract with them. Dark beasts are drawn to you. But I’m assuming it also enabled you to connect with the sirens’ water element.
Sirens were born from a demigod, and although it shouldn’t be possible to utilize their magic in such a way, you are omni. Loopholes tend to be your kind’s perk.”
My brows dip as he stands and picks up a small handheld mirror. My hand goes to my waist, in search of my blade that’s no longer there. He stalks toward me and offers me the handheld mirror.
“Whatever you did, it changed you.”
I take the mirror as he steps back, leaning across a wooden post with arms crossed over his chest. I turn it, immediately wanting to look away because of the hollow of my cheeks, and my once vibrant red hair, which is incredibly matted and seemingly dull.
Only a reminder of how shaken I was from my encounters with the repers, but then blue catches my eye.
I bring the mirror closer, pulling at the dark circle beneath my left eye. My eye is no longer green. But a blue similar to that of my masters, leaving me with mismatched eyes. “I—” I can’t even speak. “What does this mean?”
Regent kicks off the wooden post, unimpressed as he paces the room.
“What do you know of your kind?”
I’m no longer interested in my apple, handing it to Grimace, who is now far more awake.
“Very little. I was five when my people were slaughtered. Men took me with the intent to sell me, and my master crossed paths with them, said the Fates whispered for him to do so. He had been keeping me hidden ever since.”
“Of course, the Fates are involved,” Regent growls, and my instincts prickle with unease by the way his mood shifts at the mention of them. “Fifteen years ago, on the blood moon, wasn’t it?”
My forehead crinkles as I bring forth the memory I recently recalled. “I do vaguely remember the night having a red moon. But how do you know that?”
Regent shakes his head, his hand smoothing through his hair and ripping at the back of his nape. “Of all the fucking tricks they play.”
“Why does that matter?” I ask quickly, trying to get up but thinking better of it as pain shoots up my side.
“It doesn’t. You’re unbound right?”
My eyebrows dip. How does he know that?
As if my expression is answer enough, he says, “Right now, all you need to know is that whoever taught you water magic should be proud. When you fell over the cliff edge, it pushed you. Can’t you feel it?”
I look at my hands and ask myself the question that I hadn’t been daring to ask since I’d woken. The drowning. The shift. Every element demanded something different, the how an omni becomes safely unbound and in control of their power, only discovered by the individual.
My magic glides along the floor, and without linking my invisible chains to a water greer, I look to the remains of the water satchel beside me and call it forth. With ease, it pushes the cork and slithers out.
I drop it immediately, the water splattering on the floor as my heart races. I pick up the mirror again, looking at the blue of my left eye. “I’ve mastered my first element?”
I don’t have to link with a water greer to use this element.
The immediate sense of liberation and confusion tumble into one.
“Yes.”
My heart beats erratically as I’m overwhelmed by all the training and years I wanted so desperately to catch up to Master Kain. How I wanted to beat him and see him proud. Tears well and spill over my eyes when the gravity of it hits me that he’s not here to share it with.
I wipe at my cheeks, trying my hardest to conceal my vulnerability.
This whole time, I’ve felt so useless, defenseless, and alone. Now I carry everything he taught me and can use it freely. I wipe again, furious that he’s not here to see it. So mad that he pushed me away on that day and didn’t let me help.
I’m grieving that no matter how hard I try, I can’t go back in time and tell him all the things I should’ve said when I never understood.
I’m sorry for putting you in danger.
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for having me as a daughter.
Regent’s hand flexes open and closed, as if he’s unsure what to do. Grimace scales up my shoulder, scratching into the bandages, to sniff and rub his forehead against my tears.
“How close to mastering the other elements are you?”
My fingers tighten on the mirror. “Why?” I’m used to Regent falling quiet. He is often a man of few words, but I’ve come to understand the subtlety in his nature, especially when he’s working something to his favor. “Why do you need to know?”
He licks his lips. “Your power might be able to help me with something.”
I scoff, the grief and the pain twisting into something far more hideous. “You kept me alive so you could use me?”
“No.”
“No?” I give him a pointed look. “Then why?” His jaw ticks, and his gaze darkens.
Why can’t I ever read what he is thinking?
Every time my heart picks up a beat, with the hope that I might be able to trust him, it crumbles into pieces.
“You fucking sold me,” I bite with venom, clinging to the one truth I know.
“I always intended on getting you back,” he snaps.
My eyebrows reach for my hairline. “What is this, some kind of weird foreplay you’re into? Make me indebted to you, to trust you, to want you? So you can use me again? What do they call that again? Oh, a complete narcissistic asshole.”
“You don’t understand anything.”