Chapter 8 #3
I could tell Silas was trying very hard to not let anything seep into his expression as he asked tightly, “The voices?”
I closed my eyes again. This time, they were louder. Faded whispers, like leaves scratching against one another in a wintry breeze. The rasps of skeletal branches raking against a roof. Thick, hoarse mutterings.
“The voices,” I repeated. “The whispers. I can hear them, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”
“What do the voices sound like?”
When I glanced at Silas’s stony face, I could see he was hiding something. Fear? Uncertainty? I was beginning to understand that Silas couldn’t hear these voices; this wasn’t a normal part of hunting. Silas had wanted me to become comfortable with the noises of The Forest. Not bodiless voices.
“I, uh… you don’t hear them,” I said. “I thought you wanted me to listen to the voices.”
“No,” Silas said softly. “But I believe that you hear them. Are they friendly?”
“I can’t tell.” I closed my eyes again and Silas went perfectly still.
The voices faded some, ebbing and flowing like a river.
“I can’t even tell if I’m supposed to be able to decipher what they’re saying.
I don’t know if it’s English or a different language entirely.
But they’re definitely voices, and they’re definitely trying to tell me something. ”
Silas cursed under his breath. “We should get out of here.”
“They’re not a threat. Not yet. They’re not… here.”
Silas looked at me like he had no clue what I was saying, which was fair. I didn’t really know what I was saying either.
“Trust me,” I urged. “I don’t understand it myself. I’m confident they’re not harmful.”
“Yet.”
“Yet. If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know. If it becomes dangerous, I’ll also let you know.”
“Please do,” Silas drawled. “That would be lovely.”
“I understand it’s weird that I can hear voices. I’m sorry, but I can’t control it.”
Silas gave me a little grin. “I have a feeling life with you is never going to get stale.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“As long as life is with you, I don’t care one way or another.” Silas gave me the briefest of kisses on the cheek before settling back into his position. “Are you ready to continue?”
“Yes. What are we hunting?”
“We’ll be hunting a beast that’s been rumored to be in this part of The Forest,” Silas said, his voice notching into professional territory. “I spoke at length with Ranger X earlier today about it. They need it exterminated.”
“So the Rangers know we’re doing this?”
“Yes, of course. We’re doing them a favor. I told him I’d be with you, and that I’d take care of it if necessary.”
“Did you specifically look to hunt something nefarious so I wouldn’t feel guilty about killing an innocent creature?”
“Maybe. Is it helping?”
I gave the softest of snorts. “I feel like it should be helping, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep you posted on that too. What does it look like?”
“It’s most similar to a jaguar. Pitch black, golden eyes. Soft spot is over the heart. You must strike it pretty close to the target, or else you just anger it.”
“Got it. Nothing like jumping off the deep end. We couldn’t have started with rabbits or something?”
“Would you have shot an innocent rabbit?”
“No.”
“Well, this beast needs to be contained,” Silas said flatly. “If we don’t do it, someone else will. It is a safety concern.”
“Okay.” I expelled a breath. “So now we just wait?”
“We wait.”
We waited for what felt like ages. When my bones started to feel creaky, Silas nudged me.
“There,” he whispered, barely audible. “The glimmer?”
“Got it.”
“Stand.” Silas’s voice was but a breath on my shoulder as he got me situated, his hands landing on my waist. “Open stance. Let your feet root into the ground, let your center of gravity sink through your hips; don’t hold it in your shoulders.”
I did as he said, relaxing, picturing the balls of my feet sinking into the soft mud beneath my sneakers. We were hunting with a bow and arrow this evening. Silas claimed it would be most effective at helping me access my magic.
“Nock the arrow.”
I did as he said, but apparently I didn’t do it quite right. He reached over and folded my fingers into a better grip.
“Cradle it, don’t strangle it. No torque. That’s it.” Silas expelled a breath. “Now draw.”
As I drew, I felt it. The adrenaline fizzing through my veins.
Silas was right. This was a way to access my magic that didn’t exactly require a life-or-death situation, at least hopefully not for me.
Then again if I missed, I was pretty sure the midnight-black creature prowling through the trees might think differently.
“Whenever you’re ready, you’re going to inhale, then let half the breath go,” Silas murmured. “Then release.”
I held steady for a long time. I understood that we needed to rid The Forest of this mystery beast, but I also was cognizant that there were other reasons I had agreed to hunt.
Both to learn about a Hunter’s style of magic, much like I’d learned about the gnomes and Millie, and also to see if it could activate my magic on command.
I was tired already, my muscles weary and my brain exhausted, for obvious reasons.
This time, however, as I felt the trickle of magic ramping up, I could feel the difference, in that I was the attacker.
I kept my eyes focused on the distance where a shadowy figure darted in and out between the trees.
“No clear shot,” I said. “Not yet.”
“Patience. In the meantime, you know what to do. Feel your magic, lean into it, close your eyes.”
“Do you feel your magic when you hunt?” My muscles were starting to ache holding steady, but I reveled in the zip of power through my very core.
“I do,” Silas said. “It’s part of who I am.”
“That could be addictive.”
“That’s often the problem,” he said, barely audible.
I focused on feeling the strings of magic winding through my body.
It felt like my body held ley lines inside instead of actual veins, the way I could feel the power radiating from my shoulders down to my elbows, down to my fingers holding the bow and arrow steady—all the way to my toes, digging into the earth through my shoes.
As I focused on the way the magic ran through me, I was able to extrapolate it beyond my body.
I could see it—visibly see it—streaking through The Forest floor.
I felt my body connecting in tune with the earth—the ley lines of The Isle, and the veins in my body—working together as one unit.
Tiny fissures of blue-white light that didn’t stop and start where my feet touched the earth, but carried on seamlessly.
I could feel myself, a small speck on this island, alight with power and magic, at one with the very island itself.
The more I sunk into the feeling of being one with the land around me, the more I was able to sense the world around me.
I was but a drop of water in an ocean of magic on The Isle.
That was when I located the beast—not with my eyes, but with my senses.
“I’ve got him,” I whispered. “I can feel him.”
Inside, I trembled like a leaf. Outside, I was a stone.
I didn’t want to shoot; I never wanted to hurt, to kill, no matter the cause.
But I could feel it now, the magic guiding me.
If my magic—the very Fae magic that protected this island—was guiding me to shoot, then surely it must be for the good of the island? My powers wouldn’t lead me astray.
Without another pause, I let out half a breath, locked in my focus on the creature. I caught a glint of gold as I let my fingers melt off the bow. The arrow zinged through the night. The creature fell silently.
“Bull’s-eye,” Silas said, a hint of pride in his voice. “Right to the heart.”
I relaxed my arms, feeling conflicted. There was pride and excitement and adrenaline. I’d done it—something I didn’t want to do, had no skills to do. But I followed Silas’s teaching and my magic, and I’d succeeded.
The only problem was that I’d succeeded at taking a life.
As I watched, however, the body didn’t fall to the ground as it should have. It quivered for a second, for long enough that I wondered if Silas was wrong, and I’d missed the target completely.
A beat later, the entire beast snapped into a cloud of smoke. Vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but a plume of black ash.
“What in the world?” I started to run forward to inspect the area where the beast had been shot. “Silas, what was that?”
“Alessia, wait. Stop—I need to explain.”
I slowed at the apology present again in his voice. “Explain what?”
“The beast wasn’t technically real. I mean, it was real, but it wasn’t a threat.”
“What are you saying?”
“The Rangers use these types of dummies for training practices. They’re called Smoke Stacks: creatures that feel real, act real, have a real footprint on the world—both magical and otherwise, but they’re really made solely of smoke.”
“I could feel it,” I argued. “There was a darkness to it.”
“I know. The Rangers know that too. That’s why they’ve created these illusions. They’re more than illusions. Everything about them is real until they’re not.”
“But… why?”
“You needed to believe that you were actually hunting,” Silas said. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten your adrenaline running, you wouldn’t have accessed your magic.”
“Why not actually hunt something real?”
“You were very vocal about not wanting to kill something. I would never force you to do something like that, Alessia. I understand you want to learn your magic, but I knew of another way—a safer way—that I hoped could achieve the same result. I had to lie to you to a certain degree, but I hope you understand why.”
“Of course. I guess, thank you?” I paused. “So there’s nothing ominous in The Forest tonight? The beast you were talking about, that was nothing more than a Smoke Stack?”
“There’s no beast, no.” Silas paused, then shook his head. “But I don’t have anything to do with the voices, I swear. Do you still hear them?”
“To be clear, that was not a Ranger training trick?”
“No.”
“I don’t hear them anymore,” I said. “They faded away like the ley lines.”