Chapter 4 #3
He rubbed a hand over his chin again and started over.
With Griff’s occasional help, Finn explained how the seven channels included the three internal channels—mind, body, and soul—and the four elemental—earth, air, fire, and water.
Not everyone had access to every channel, or the same amount of access, and with different combinations of channels, people could perform different magic.
“For example,” Finn was saying, “Griff is a teleporter, which takes body and mind—”
Griff looked like he was going to say something, but Finn waved his hand. “I’m generalizing. It’s more complicated than that. I have my mind channel, and that’s what allows me to speak mind to mind and move things with my thoughts.”
He directed several sticks to pile themselves onto the fire, as if that was normal.
Although, I was quickly realizing, here, apparently it was.
As his attention was on feeding the fire, I shifted against the tree, my shoulder knocking against Griff’s.
A sense of comfort flowed through me, just one more thing I didn’t understand.
I looked up at him, this rugged stranger who, in the course of a day, had turned my orderly life upside down. This man who persisted in calling me a princess, and spoke of magic and kingdoms like one would speak of the weather.
I finally voiced a thought that had been spinning in my mind since I had seen him earlier that day. “Why do I feel I can trust you?”
He leaned his head back against the tree, entirely comfortable in this space. “Insight is one of the things your soul channel gives you.” He said it like he thought it explained everything.
“Oh sure, that clears that right up. My soul channel. How silly of me to not immediately realize that.”
I caught a smirk before he added, “What do you feel?”
“Like I’ve known you—both of you”—I glanced over at Finn, tending the fire with whatever magical abilities he’d yet to show me—“for my whole life.”
Griff’s eyes were unreadable.
My mind was whirling with all the information I had learned. I knew I had more questions, but I couldn’t quite get my thoughts to settle long enough to put them into words. I wasn’t made for sitting still, though, so I stood, Griff immediately standing alongside me.
I wandered over to the fire and settled next to it, the heat sinking into my bones and warming me despite the chilly air.
I’d always enjoyed watching flames dance with a life of their own.
The twins joined me, Finn sprawling out on one side of me, Griff sinking down easily on the other side, both content to stay here as long as I wanted.
“What is the Veil?” I asked, the next in my long list of questions.
“Think of it as a barrier,” Griff told me. “We exist underneath it. It shields us from those who would take more than their due.”
Sure, that was an answer.
Finn appeared to agree with me, because after shooting his brother a look, he explained, “We don’t quite know how it was created or why, or even really when.
Stories passed down over the centuries tell us that there was a foe so great that those in power forged a barrier to draw a Veil over his eyes and block us from his gaze.
It persisted until a little over fifty years ago, when it began to shred and the forces of darkness got through.
We don’t know who was the cause. Maybe the original foe.
Maybe a new one. But he blacked out the sun, and his army of hufen descended on us. They were defeated, but at great cost.”
“Hufen?”
“In the old language, it basically translated to demons, but in reality, they’re humans that he’s corrupted.
Infected. It takes only a touch. When his tentacles of darkness reach out and grab a heart, they corrupt it.
Who you are, your personality, your likes, dislikes, the people you love, slowly start to fade from your mind until all you are is an embodiment of darkness.
Our understanding is that over time, it basically suffocates the soul. Erasing it.”
Demons erasing the soul? What had I gotten myself into?
Griff took over. “But the protection of the Veil has been failing again. We are unable to fix it. All we’re able to do is try to deal with the damage while it heals itself, but eventually, even that won’t be enough.”
I looked at them in confusion. “Why is the Veil failing? What in Erde’s name am I supposed to do about it?”
The twins shared a look. Finn let out a heavy sigh while Griff’s face was unreadable behind that mask he seemed to favor.
“Spit it out. I have a feeling I’m going to need to know what you two don’t want to say.”
“There’s a prophecy that says there is one person who can stop the darkness,” Finn began gently. “I’m paraphrasing here, but that person is the lost princess with access to power wielded from all seven channels.”
“Oh.” There was that princess shit again.
We sat in silence as I digested that. I should have felt overwhelmed, but I’d passed overwhelmed several hours ago and was just in shocked numbness.
It was as if the words I was hearing were going in through my ears, bouncing around my brain like a swarm of angry hornets, and then just sitting in my chest like Cormac’s anvil.
“Let me get this straight. First, I’m a princess, then I’m a powerful wielder of magic, and now I’m the prophesied savior of my apparent homeland? Fantastic.”
My anger, simmering under the surface all day, flared to life again. Nana could have prepared me better for this. Even just a simple, Hey Lexa, you’re destined to save the world I ran away from, would have been helpful in the past twenty-two years.
Night had truly set when Finn looked at me, sympathetic. “We’re going to need to get you back. Do you think you’re up for it?”
Panic started to rise once more. The thought of returning to those thoughts and feelings running rampant over me caused my heart to race.
While these woods looked completely different than the woods at home, there was a peace here.
And my insight, as they’d called it, was speaking loudly to me, telling me I was safe and could trust these two.
It didn’t like thinking about what was awaiting me back at the castle.
“Lexa?” Finn asked, his voice concerned. “Are you alright?”
I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I really don’t like crowds.”
I caught the look that the twins shared out of the corner of my eye. It felt like I was missing something.
Griff stood with a muttered, “I’ll be right back.” Grabbing his swords and pinning them to his back again, he strode to where I knew the wards ended, and disappeared. I started.
“Easy there,” Finn cautioned. “He’ll be back. He’s going to tell the one person who can calm everything down over there that we’re coming back.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. “You must think I’m silly, not liking crowds.”
Finn sat next to me, one knee up, his arm loosely wrapped around it, looking just as comfortable here on the ground in the woods as I imagined he did at the castle.
“I really don’t. I think part of it may be that you don’t know how to shield.
Your mind channel is wide open, and if you don’t shield, everyone’s thoughts can come through. ”
“Is that why it was so loud? I had experienced that back home, but when I got here…”
“It was deafening?”
I nodded.
“None of us really know how our powers work beyond the Veil. It seems like they may be dampened. So it follows that when you showed up here, everything was heightened. It’s amazing that none of your other channels acted out.
Especially during excitement, like today, when everyone else forgets to shield.
Although I don’t blame them. It’s an exciting day when the lost princess returns. People had started to lose hope.”
“What do you mean?”
“Griff has been looking for you for years, but you were well hidden.”
“Years?” I echoed. “Didn’t he have anything better to do with his time?”
Finn chuckled as he turned to face me. “I should have thought about this before. I can teach you how to shield. We’ll go over the basics right now, and you can keep practicing until you get it down.” He reached out to touch my head again, pausing right before he made contact. “May I?”
I nodded, and he closed his eyes as his fingertips touched my temples.
My eyes drifted shut. Just like with the warding, he had me pull up the purple channel and cast a shield over just me this time.
Since it was just us here and I assumed he was shielding himself, I didn’t sense much difference.
But I guessed I’d find out when we returned.
Light shimmered from beyond my wards, and Griff strolled through.
“Success?” Finn asked.
“I told him to do his damn job and control Zachariah. He said he’d try.” Griff looked over at me. “Ready to go back, Princess?”
I ignored the nickname. This time.
“No.” But I got to my feet and I took his outstretched hand anyway, ignoring the fizzle of power when we touched.
Finn showed me how to unravel the wards, informing me that otherwise, they would stay in place until I died.
As before, Griff wrapped his arms around me and Finn held on to his shoulder.
Turning slightly, Griff spun us through the ether again and we landed in front of the castle gates for round two.