Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
brEXLEY
“That’s it. Open yourself up to them,” Esmeralda spoke, but it was Tad I heard, his encouragement egging me on.
She was completely in a trance, letting Tad use her body.
Ghosts, I had learned, were not easy to communicate with through dialogue, like having a conversation with a living person.
They used their own means to express themselves—images and one-word whispers.
My powers allowed me to see Tad more clearly, and it was far easier for him to use Esmeralda to speak.
“You must learn how to block and receive their energy. To use it for your own.” She strolled around me, her demeanor patient and softer than the actual woman.
Sweat dampened my forehead, contradicting my frozen fingers and toes.
The late afternoon had done nothing to warm up the December temperatures, and it was already dropping again.
We had taken off the moment they tore down camp and made our way to the next town to set up for the carnival tonight in the town of Zhytomyr, still thriving only because it was a major transportation hub from the capital city Kyiv, which contributed to a higher number of Ukrainian soldiers in this area.
Jethro never confronted me about the event in Ternopil.
His stance on keeping me protected like family didn’t seem to need more explanation.
The Master had declared it, and everyone accepted it.
Well, not everyone. Zelda hated my guts even more.
After their vardo was ransacked, she sneered at me when I was near.
It didn’t help that Esmeralda had taken to me, spending extra time helping me with my magic and not her own granddaughter.
Jethro knew I was wanted, my identity exposed.
He kept me hidden in the back of a wagon under blankets as the caravan came through town, officers stopping them for paperwork.
Most of the places we’d been through in Ukraine were mainly human, and they looked at the circus as freaks.
Entertainment to distract them from their horrible lives for a night, but not welcome by society in general.
In most places, the troupe was not allowed in many establishments and shops.
“Brexley, concentrate,” Tad griped, pulling my attention back.
Bangs of metal and shouts could be heard once again in the background as they reassembled the tents for tonight.
The park we were in was set against the Teteriv River, with a neglected children’s playground, Ferris wheel, footbridge, and flat area at the bottom for the carnival to set up and welcome patrons.
Reverting my attention from the commotion below me, across the river, I could sense a graveyard not far away, the inhabitants seeking me out like a beacon.
Shutting my eyes, I drew them to me, my skin prickling with their energy.
The box with the nectar was tucked under my pelt on the bench, taunting me.
Every day was more and more of a struggle not to touch it, to pretend I didn’t hear it calling to me, tempting me.
It wanted me to use it, and I craved the high, the unadulterated power I had that night of my escape.
Each time I touched the nectar, it seemed to come out of me with more force.
“You are no match for it if you can’t even command your own magic.” Tad had scolded me earlier when he noticed my attention going back to it repeatedly. My head bowed at the insult, knowing it was true.
“We need to destroy it . . . it’s beyond dangerous. This tiny substance is the most powerful thing in the world. Think of the damage it can do.” Andris’s words tickled the back of my mind, the sound of his voice plunging through my heart.
I was working hard, but I was still far from where Tad wanted me to be. “Do not bend to its seduction, my girl. Power is a potent force. It corrupts those of strong wills with the weakest of minds.”
“But . . .” I swallowed. “How can it corrupt me? I mean, isn’t it part of me? My familiar?”
“That’s what makes it even more dangerous,” Tad replied. “What I couldn’t see when I was alive.”
“What?”
“That you are a part of it. Your essence is in it.” He pinched his lips together, his expression grave. “But girl, it only takes.”
“That’s not true; it gives me its power. I have felt it.” My stomach sank, recalling what I did to him with the power of the nectar—to all those people outside the prison.
“And what happens to you after?” Tad tilted his head, a white eyebrow curving up, giving me a moment to think before stating, “it leaves you depleted.”
Emotion closed my throat. “Because magic is a balance.”
“Exactly.” Tad dipped his head. “Your magic should be a balance with nature, not something that bleeds all the life from it. And through you, it takes from Warwick and Scorpion. I see the binds that tie you three, your link to the nectar. It’s becoming more and more unbalanced.
It will kill all three of you if you keep going down this road. ”
Tears prickled at the back of my eyes. I wanted to defend the nectar, to protect it . . . justify it. But I couldn’t; I had seen what it could do.
“You are enough, Brexley,” Tad said softly. “Just you.”
His sentiment had stuck with me all day, giving me the drive to push back my need for the nectar. When did the very thing I craved become the toxic part of me? Tipping me over the edge, sliding into the darkness.
“Pay attention.” Esmeralda tapped me on the head, bringing me back to the present. “Now tell them what you want.” She voiced Tad’s directive. “Give them an order.”
Exhaustion thumped a headache between my eyes, but I took a deep breath, my lids shut, my barrier slipping down, letting the ghosts seek me out.
The moment I did, hundreds of them swooped in, their shades brushing my skin, the buzzing of their energy and indistinguishable voices throbbed in my head, whipping at my nerves like a blender.
A cry broke from my lips. “Back off!” My words were garbled under the flood of them continuously coming at me.
The first time this happened in the church, I buckled under the intensity, but since the unrelenting training Tad was putting me through day after day, I had grown stronger.
Like working out a muscle, I could take more and more weight on, sharpening my responses, and giving me more stamina.
The weight of death across these lands, the helplessness and sorrow of each soul, was sometimes crippling. The suffering across this area seemed endless.
Digging deeper, I tried to calm the panic bubbling up. My knee-jerk reaction was to shut down and retreat from their overwhelming energy.
Wind swept off the river, snapping across my face. A crackle rumbled in the cloudy sky, a flicker of lightning, and energy hummed around my body, heating it from the inside out.
“Stop.” The demand came from deep in my gut, low and calm, but it cut like a knife. The ghosts shifted back, hovering close, but not one touched me. “You do not touch me until I say. Do you understand?”
There were no words spoken, but the buzz in the air and the flicker of the fire lamps below told me they did.
“Good,” Tad spoke through Esmeralda. “Now they must feel your intention. Ghosts can perceive things mortals cannot, but they are not conscious of it. You have to draw the line between losing yourself and giving enough to them that they understand what you desire.”
This was where I kept failing. The line between was so thin it only took one extra drop to tear through and fall over that edge.
It was a pinpoint to stand on. I either took too much from them, losing all ability to control myself, like what happened outside the prison, killing innocent people without understanding, or they took too much from me, sucking all energy and life from me, slowly killing me.
The ability to hold them was waning, upping the desire to reach for the nectar to give me more strength, like a shot of caffeine.
On top of it, I had to work diligently to block my link to Warwick and Scorpion, feeling them brush at the seams, wanting in. I couldn’t. Not yet. I had to get stronger so I wouldn’t siphon from them or use them as a backup battery.
I bit down on my lip, concentrating on letting my magic seep out to the ghosts, absorbing and directing them.
The power hummed in my soul. The thing I feared and craved at the same time.
It was forged and constructed from death—my mother’s, the queen’s, Warwick’s, Scorpion’s, and the wall between the Otherworld and Earth.
Death came from my bones. It was in my DNA, and the moment I was born, it gave me life. It made me who I was today.
The Grey.
My muscles shook as I struggled to walk the line between life and death, between light and dark. There were moments I felt that sweet spot, a place where I no longer had to work for it. It was automatic, before it again came crashing down.
Today, the spirits glided around me, and I felt my own shade reach out, separating from me. Joining them.
Oh. Holy. Shit.
A gasp hitched up my throat, the buzzing growing stronger as it clicked in. Something hadn’t even thought of now made perfect sense. It wasn’t so different from what I had with the boys. I could be physically in one place, but my shadow was with them.
A touch of apprehension tapped at my chest, but I ignored it, letting my shade join the ghosts, communicating and leading them in a way I could not before.
“You’re doing it!”
My shadow turned around, seeing Tad before me. His shade was as real to me as the man once was.
“Tad!” I cried out, tears burning the back of my lids. Even if he wasn’t actually alive, my heart didn’t see the difference, but the man was different.
Tad was no longer hunched over. No curse crippled his spine and ached his bones. He appeared at least twenty years younger, glowing with vibrant, warm light. His blue eyes danced with happiness, his energy like a cozy blanket, which only drove a knife through my gut.