CHAPTER TWO THE AWAKENING #2
I looked at my family. The twins were frozen in place, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.
Father was still holding me, his arms tight around my shoulders, and his face had gone pale beneath his tan.
And Mother—Loss was crying. Not the way she cried at sad stories or sentimental songs, but silently, terribly, with tears streaming down her cheeks and her hand pressed over her mouth as though she was trying to hold something in.
I had never seen her look like that before, so broken, so afraid, and it scared me more than the power had, more than the impossible apples, more than anything.
"Mama?" I whispered. "What's wrong? I didn't mean to, I don't know what happened, I—"
"It's all right," Father said, but his voice was shaking. "Everything's going to be all right."
"She's Manaborn," Mother said, the words muffled by her hand. "Thomas. She's Manaborn."
Manaborn.
I knew what that word meant, of course. Everyone in Hartwick knew, everyone in the Empire knew.
Once a generation, give or take, a child of the Empire awakened to magic on their eighteenth birthday.
They could be anyone: noble or common, rich or poor, city-dweller or farmer's daughter.
The power didn't discriminate. It simply chose, seemingly at random, and whoever it chose was claimed by the Empire and sent to Lucent Academy to learn to control their gift.
They spent three years there, studying and training and, at some point during their education, summoning a mate from the Pacted Realms. The mate was bonded to them for life, a partner and protector and, if the stories were to be believed, something like a spouse.
After graduation, the Manaborn and their mate were sent to the front lines of the Voidwar for nine years of mandatory service, using their combined powers to fight the creatures that had been trying to destroy our world for longer than anyone could remember.
Nine years.
And after those nine years, if they survived, they went to live in whatever realm their mate came from. They didn't come home. They couldn't. The bond between Manaborn and mate was absolute, unbreakable, and the mate's realm had first claim on them both.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
"No," I said. "No, there must be some mistake. I can't be Manaborn. I'm just—I'm nobody, I'm a gardener's daughter, I'm—"
"The power doesn't care about that." Mother had lowered her hand, and her face was composed now, though the tears still tracked down her cheeks.
"It takes who it takes. I had hoped... you were so close to eighteen, and nothing had happened, and I thought maybe we were safe, maybe you would stay with us, but—" Her voice broke. "I'm sorry, Leah. I'm so sorry."
"Why are you sorry? You didn't do this."
"I prayed for a daughter," she said quietly. "Every day for three years before you were born, I prayed. Maybe if I hadn't..."
"Mary." Father's voice was firm. "This isn't your fault. This isn't anyone's fault. It just... is."
"She's going to war, Thomas. Our little girl is going to war."
"Not yet. Not for three years. And she'll have a mate to protect her, someone powerful, someone—"
"Someone we'll never meet. Someone who's going to take her away from us forever."
They were talking about me like I wasn't there, like I had already left, and something about that snapped me out of my shock. I pulled away from Father's arms and stood on my own, though my legs felt weak and strange, and I looked at my mother until she met my eyes.
"I'll come back," I said. "They get summer vacations, don't they? One month every year, I read about it in the town newsletter. And you can visit me at the Academy, and after the war, maybe I can convince my mate to let me—"
"The Academy is three hundred miles away." Mother's voice was flat. "We don't have the money to visit. And after the war, you'll belong to someone else. You won't be ours anymore."
"I'll always be yours. No matter what realm I live in or who I'm bonded to, I'll always be your daughter."
"Will you?" She laughed, but it was a broken sound. "You don't know what the bond does to people, Leah. It changes them. By the time you're done with the Academy, you won't even remember what it feels like to be human."
"That's not true." Father stepped between us, his hands raised like he was trying to calm a spooked horse. "Mary, you're scaring her. You're scaring all of them."
He was right. I looked at the twins, who had crept closer together and were holding hands, and at Lily, who had started to cry without making any sound, and I felt something harden inside me.
I didn't know what was happening to me or what it meant for my future, but I knew one thing for certain: I was still the eldest, and I still had a job to do.
I walked over to my siblings and knelt down, gathering all three of them into my arms.
"It's going to be okay," I said, with a confidence I didn't feel.
"I'm not going anywhere yet. And even when I do, I'll write you letters every week, and I'll send you presents from the Academy, and every summer I'll come home and you can tell me all about the adventures you've had while I was gone. Okay?"
"Promise?" Samuel whispered.
"Promise."
"Cross your heart?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
It was a child's oath, silly and meaningless, but it seemed to comfort them. The twins relaxed slightly, and Lily's silent tears slowed, and I held them all for a long moment before standing up and turning to face my parents.
"We should go inside," I said. "It's starting to get cold."
It wasn't getting cold. The sun was still shining and the breeze was still warm, and the garden looked exactly as it had an hour ago except for the massive apple tree with its impossible fruit.
But nobody argued with me, and we gathered up the remains of my birthday party and went inside, and nobody mentioned the word Manaborn for the rest of the day.
That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, I crept back out to the garden.
The apple tree stood silver in the moonlight, its new branches casting shadows across the grass, and I walked up to it and pressed my palm against the bark.
I could still feel it, that strange connection, the green pulse of life flowing through the wood and into the earth and out through the roots to touch every other growing thing in the garden.
It was beautiful and terrifying and completely, utterly overwhelming.
"I don't want this," I whispered to the tree, or to myself, or to whatever force had decided to turn my ordinary life upside down on my eighteenth birthday. "I just wanted to stay here. I just wanted to get married and have children and grow old in this garden. That's all I ever wanted."
The tree didn't answer. Of course it didn't.
I stayed there until the moon set and the stars began to fade, and then I went back inside and lay down in my bed and stared at the ceiling until dawn.