Chapter 24 #2
We’re going in the opposite direction to the path that leads to the torture area and the bathing building.
But I keep my questions and thoughts safe behind my lips.
Our journey spans the early dawn and into the brightness of the new day.
The sun is hot, the beams attacking me as we clear any cover of trees into an open area, and the unseasonal heat takes advantage.
In Estereah, it would be growing cooler, the nights drawing in with the harvest done for the year. Here, it could be mistaken for mid-summer.
And still the Usher continues, marching his crooked body through the long grass around us.
Finally, we arrive at an open field as the sun peaks in the sky. The rush and rumble of waves is nearby, but I can’t see them, and the ever-present mountains still bracket us.
If I were here, on a walk, enjoying the day with Ten, it would be a beautiful spot. Idyllic. But that impression only serves as a warning of what else is to come. For I’ve learned there is nothing of beauty or kindness here without a cost.
The Usher stops, turns to the sky, and then looks at me.
“I had hoped that we’d have your brother here. But as you two can’t get along, we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“The hard wa—”
A string of words that sound like incantations cut me off. He tilts his head to the sky and continues to mumble. The only word I make out is Novandia, before I’m hit with a stream of light. Sunlight. So hot, I scrunch my eyes up and shy away, crouching, and covering my face with my arm.
But I can’t move.
There are words all around me, inside my head, in the air, fighting, arguing…
It’s burning, like the heat will vaporise me and leave me nothing but ash on the floor.
“Don’t fight it, Ever!” he calls.
“I’m not fighting. It hurts. It’s burning!”
“You are a Fifth and must embrace Novandia.”
“Aslendrix made me a Fifth. Not Novandia!” I yell back, grimacing.
My fingers dig into the soil as I bear down against the onslaught of heat, sure that my bones must be melting.
“You cannot beat me, Sister.” The words ring loudly inside my mind, and for a second, fear freezes all the heat I feel under the rays shining down on me. That can’t be Fenix. He’s not here. And he can’t project his thoughts. Only Ten can do that with me, and I’ve blocked that—shielded against him.
“He spoke to you.”
As I lift my head, the Usher is before me, an eerie smile cracking the skin at his cheeks and distorting his face further.
The light has gone. The heat has gone. But there’s a dark ring, charred and burnt, around where I still crouch on the ground.
I don’t answer him.
“Is this what you did to Fenix?”
“No. Fenix underwent his under a full lunar eclipse. She was not present, and so Novandia could bestow his gifts in abundance.”
“So, what was this?”
I can’t imagine what that might have been like if this weren’t in abundance.
“Just a boost. A partial eclipse. We cannot wait forever, but you will have received an extra charge, a fraction of the magic you may need, perhaps. You are strong, despite your own will to the contrary. You have a great gift from Aslendrix, if only you were to hone it.”
I unfurl my body and stand, unsure what I’m meant to feel.
When I underwent my Transference, the pain was excruciating, but it was over quickly. Having Aslendrix’s power was like a natural step—a continuation, a balance.
That is not how I feel now.
Even though it’s a new moon, and the pendant at my throat is cold, there’s a thrashing inside of me. Like a glimmer, a shard of light—sunlight—has found a crack in the stone well in my chest and is trapped inside.
And it doesn’t like it.
The light is fighting against me, as if it doesn’t want to be contained.
“How does it feel?” He grabs my arm, and I recoil from his touch, snatching my arm away. “Oh, child, relax. Now we see the result, and whether Novandia was able to pass on any influence. Come.”
Seems the experiment isn’t over.
The Usher leads me towards the sound of the ocean. I follow, keen to see the water, and maybe get a sense of what the rest of Nehandun looks like, while I ignore the fight continuing inside of me. We walk for some time, and I take solace in the sound of the waves growing ever closer.
Selina and my brother are waiting at a small cliff edge—nothing like the cliff he tossed me from in Kirrasia, I think, to my relief.
I study Selina and wonder what her experience with Novandia was like.
“I want you to find your power and use it,” the Usher commands.
“But,” I look around, “I’m Kirrian. We don’t have magic under the new moon.” The pendant is still cold, the hum I’d grown used to, cut off and dormant right now.
“It will be back in a matter of hours. Use your magic, now. Like Selina.”
As if needing to remind me of just how powerful she is, the rough sea below suddenly calms as she raises her arm, lulling it into submission. It’s no less impressive than when she did it to ease our journey leaving Kirrasia.
She smiles, not a kind smile, or one I can convince myself means well. This is a challenge, filled with the confidence of knowing her power is vast and strong.
Fenix holds no smiles for me, but I see he’s healed. It’s a shame.
Instead of provoking or antagonising, which has become our usual dance, he stands off to the side, his arms crossed, like he’s scrutinising me. That alone is enough for my anger to simmer, and with it, a spark of something within—that small line of light, trapped in the dark.
“Take Selina’s power, Ever.” Another command.
Fighting the Usher or my brother is one thing, but Selina? “No. I won’t.”
“Won’t or can’t?” Selina’s smile grows, and with it, a rush of waves crashes below, as if to punctuate her ability.
Okay, then. They’ve turned me into this—driven me to this point.
I know what is at stake, and I know what I’ve been able to do with my magic.
“You’d risk that I could take your power, drain it from you?
” I check, because if I do this, I want to be clear that it was their own choice.
Because I’m not just going to stand here and let her beat me.
“You might be a risk on any other day, but not today. Novandia saw to that.” The sea rushes in again, breaking over the rocks below, and the waves spray as high as our position on the cliff edge.
“You aren’t as powerful as my brother. Why is that?” I ask.
“I thought you’d welcome this, Ever. To see your power unrivalled. But perhaps you are not ready. That is disappointing.” The Usher’s voice turns insistent, the edge of frenzy lifting the high-pitched whine. “Perhaps our faith in you has been misguided.”
His words only agitate me, and I think back to all the pain over the last few days, and what it felt like to be forced to take power from others. Selina is taunting me, willing me to try. Fine. I’m done with this. There is no bargain here.
If I can’t beat Fenix, then it’s all for nothing.
For a moment, I imagine what Selina and I could do together, but I push that aside. This is a test. My opportunity, and I can’t fail. Stepping forward, my boot crunches in the dirt as silence drops all around, and my movement is the signal they were all waiting for.
Selina doesn’t offer her hand. Instead, I snatch at it.
So much of my power and magic is intuitive.
It happens without me knowing or even controlling it, like it takes my subconscious command.
Now is when I need that instinct to kick in, regardless of how far away from Kirrasia we are, that it is a new moon, or that the Usher has just done something that I fear has left me open to Novandia.
My grip on Selina tightens, and she smiles in response, as if she knows she’s won already and I am no threat.
I am a threat. “Aslendrix! Do you hear me! Help me!”
But it isn’t Aslendrix that answers, it’s something else. A burning heat, which seems to have set fire to the calm waters within my chest, and it wraps around my arms like molten strands, until they reach my hand where I’m gripping Selina.
They grow, wrapping her to me, binding her to me, and I feel the surge of energy. The force of her power as I start to absorb it.
Selina’s face switches in an instant, no longer cocky and confident, her eyes darting first to my brother, and then to the Usher.
And her power slowly pulls into me. This isn’t like when I first drained Calix without knowing. It’s as if her magic is liquid sunshine, travelling to me along the threads, which my power has wrapped around her. Not darkness this time.
I step away, afraid of what this is, but the threads just grow, sparkling and radiant in the sun.
The more I take, the more unsettled I become, the change, the shift of my power now responding to whatever is invading, like there’s a battle within me, similar to when I touch Fenix. But this is worse, like an intruder has stepped foot inside my own centre of solace.
Her power streams in, filling the well with the glittering energy—so much of it.
I yank my arm free, breaking our connection, but I’ve already done the damage. Selina slumps to the ground, but I don’t pay her any concern. She asked for this.
I turn to the water on the other side of the cliff and call on the power, focussing on the air, the water, and the space around me.
The vibrations in the air ring loudly, shimmering in gold and silver as they reach the sea.
And it answers my call, whispering from the tops of the waves and calling back to me.
The current swells, just like it did for Selina, but so does my power.
Growing, amassing the abundance of energy within me, and needing an outlet.
The ocean obliges. It thunders against the rocks below, breaking its force beneath us, spiralling up the cliff in thick black flows of water, as if gravity means nothing.
It runs over the edge, pooling around our feet, as if the sea wants to invade. More and more water comes in, blocking everything around us. Only it’s not water. It moves like water, but it’s pitch-black, cloud-like, and dense.
I’m thrown back in time to when the dark mist first appeared, but this is so much more. It is darkness that thunders around us now, concealing everything, overtaking everything.
“Ever!” The Usher calls, but I ignore him, eager to see how far I can push this before I feel my own magic dry up.
Until I can no longer see the sun in the sky.