Chapter 9
Alanna
There’s a shocked stillness in the air, which moments ago shimmered with impossible colors that came from me.
Although the surge is over, an electric hum still thrums just beneath my skin, evidence of the wild power that I wielded.
Cabinets gape open around us, their contents spilled out onto the previously spotless floor, and all of the papers that were on the rough-hewn table are strewn across the warehouse.
Everything is in disarray—except the book.
It has to be important.
I gravitate toward it, pulling Kade along behind me. But before I can touch it, a palpable chill sweeps through the warehouse, so cold it burns my skin, so heavy it hurts my lungs. The few electric work-lights in the workshop area die, and even the sunlight seems to sour.
Kade doesn’t hesitate. While I’m still processing what’s going on, his arm snakes around my waist, yanking me against him. Then he shoves me behind him, placing himself between me and the front door.
“Stay back.”
I crouch behind the table, my heart beating in my ears. And then I hear it. A sound from outside. It’s a low hiss that sets my teeth on edge.
Then, a concussive THUD slams against the main warehouse door, making the reinforced steel groan.
“It’s here,” I whisper, unable to keep my hands from trembling. “Oh god, I drew it here, didn’t I?”
There’s a horrible screech of metal, and then—nothing.
“Stay. Down.” His voice is tight. He’s staring at the door, upon which are numerous silvery runes I hadn’t noticed, carved into the doorframe, that are suddenly glowing with a frantic, pulsing light. They’re straining.
The scraping sound moves, fast, to the high windows, which are immediately shrouded in a roiling darkness. Like the door, something magical flares to life at the windows, but it sounds wrong. It’s crackling like ice breaking as a shadowy weight presses down from outside.
“The wards,” Kade grits out. He glances at me, his eyes running over me as if checking for injuries. Then he’s running toward the back wall, toward the windows, toward the monster.
He slams his palms against the concrete, and a shockwave of power erupts from him.
It’s invisible, but I can feel it, a resonance that makes the electric hum inside me sing, as though echoing a song it already knows by heart.
It rushes from him and through the walls, feeding into the “wards” until their silvery light intensifies, reinforcing the failing defense.
They pulse brighter and sunlight pours through the windows again.
But I haven’t even caught my breath when another thump hits the front door, and a spiderwebbing crack of purple energy fractures the air around the handle.
Kade roars—a sound that isn’t human—and pushes more power into the wards. For a long, agonizing moment, neither side gives way. Then, with a final, frustrated screech that makes me instinctively flinch, the presence is gone.
And with it goes the bone-chilling cold, leaving behind only a damp chill. The wards dim from their frantic silvery glow, becoming faint, barely perceptible etchings once more.
Kade slumps against the wall, a sheen of sweat along his brow. “Well. No question now. It’s drawn to your magic.” His face is pale from exertion. “You’ll have to learn control.”
His words hit me harder than the beast’s attack. He’s right. My terror solidifies, and all my previous academic curiosity folds around me like a house of cards. This isn’t an intellectual puzzle.
It’s survival.
My gaze snaps to the table, to the book that the magic opened.
“Then we better see what’s in this book,” I say, fighting to banish the shakiness from my voice. I pause a moment, searching for the calm I’ll need to read it. When I move toward the table, Kade is at my shoulder in an instant.
I peer down at the book, afraid to touch.
The paper is old and brittle, the edges yellowing, yet the ink is startlingly vibrant.
On the left page is a peculiar diagram: a spiraling pattern, intertwining with flowing lines and indecipherable symbols, perhaps some kind of ancient script.
Opposite it, on the right, is bold text written in English.
Cognitive Resonance and the Aura of Clarity, it begins. Rattled as I am by the attack, with every word I read, I become more and more riveted. And more certain.
A rare attunement, connecting mind to the Weave’s underlying order. Possible only with perfect symbiosis, the right spirit aligning with the right raw energies.
Born not of power, but insight: the will to parse truth from discord, to distill clarity from chaos. Such a mind discerns the patterns unseen, hears the true history of the forgotten, and cuts through falsehood to reveal fundamental reality.
When mastered, its clarity may bind, stabilize, illuminate, and organize. It is the only . . . capable of restoring harmony . . . disrupted . . . systems . . . The method for such is . . . . . . lost to the . . .
Thus, a path may be charted where none appear, and truth revealed where others find only madness.
And a scrawled note in the margin: Has not been observed for eons. Centuries? Millennia?
This is describing me. It’s about my abilities. They have a name, a category. Not some untamed, unfathomable force, but a known phenomenon with specific properties.
“Has not been observed for eons . . .” I murmur, the words echoing in my skull.
Eons. That means ancient. Unique. This isn’t something that could have happened to just anyone.
It happened to me because I am, well, me.
And with that knowledge comes a sudden sense of burden, of loneliness.
The weight of history and a singular fate.
Kade stands directly behind me at the table, his arms on either side, boxing me in as he reads over my shoulder.
His presence is a tangible warmth against my back, and I find myself holding my breath, keenly aware of his chestnut hair almost brushing my temple.
But I flick the awareness away; I won’t let it distract me from the discoveries at hand.
I reach to flip the page but a jolt of caution stops me dead. The last time I touched something magical without thinking, it embedded itself in my arm and summoned a monster. But this—this is a book. It holds answers, and my need for knowledge is, as always, stronger than my fear.
I flip the page, exhaling when nothing bad happens.
I was hoping for more information about this “Cognitive Resonance,” but there is only a new diagram, a new definition (“Affective Alchemy?”).
I know immediately that these pages are not relevant for me, not right now.
Still, it is fascinating. A whole book, full of magic and potential.
Later, when I’m not feeling so scared, I’ll read the whole thing.
But for now, I carefully close the tome, mindful of its fragile pages, and read the calligraphy on the front cover, “An Examination of Latent Aether: Proximal Effects on the Veil and Attuned Manifestations.”
“This is it. This is what’s happening to me,” I say, hardly above a whisper. It’s not a realization that dawns on me; it simply is. An irrevocable truth of the universe.
I turn my head from the elegant calligraphy on the cover to Kade, still a solid, imposing presence behind me.
The position reminds me of my dream, and I have to repress the inappropriate thrill that shoots through me.
With frustration, I wonder how he is affecting me like this—in the past, boyfriends have complained that I get so invested in my endeavors that I forget all about them.
But Kade? He’s impossible to ignore even when my world has turned upside down.
I need a bit of space, so I can think clearly.
Attempting to escape the enclosure of his arms, I nudge his hand lightly.
But when I do, his muscles lock under my touch, a sharp hiss of breath pulling in through his teeth.
For a strained second, he doesn’t move, and a tremor runs through his arm.
Then, with what seems like immense effort, he slowly withdraws his arm and the chill of the warehouse comes rushing back in.
He takes a single step back, giving me the space I asked for, but his gaze remains locked on me, heavy and unwavering, as if he were fighting a powerful, unseen current.
I swallow, feeling flustered. Such a strange difference from just minutes ago, when he was afraid to come near me at all. What is going on with him? This is not a mystery I have time for at the moment.
Getting back on track, fueled by a need for information as potent as my newly awakened magic, I say, “This book. It seems fairly scientific, are there more like this? If this book explains this—” I raise my forearm, where the mark swirls merrily in spite of my trepidation, “—then there must be more. Of course, I will review this book in its entirety. But it would be smart to do an inventory of what’s available.
Oh, and are there histories? We need to research.
There’s so much I don’t understand, so much I need to know.
Do you have other texts that explain the ‘Weave’?
What about the ‘Veil’ and ‘Aether’?” My hands are still grasping the book like a lifeline.
Kade’s expression is unreadable, as usual, but his eyes, dark and intense, hold mine. He is silent for a long moment, watching me, and I can almost feel him sifting through my rapid-fire questions, weighing them. I bite my tongue to stop myself from firing off more questions while he’s thinking.
“Yes. I have more, here. A small amount,” he gestures to a lone bookshelf in what appears to be the “living room zone” in the open-concept warehouse.
The shelf is tall, made of dark, unpolished wood, and crammed haphazardly with a motley collection of leather-bound volumes and thick scrolls that look as ancient as the one in my hands.
“Mostly things that might help me with my job. Practical topics.”
“Great! And are there more, somewhere else?”