CHAPTER 19
“You’re not paying attention.” Kilian scowled at me across the sparring mat.
I tore my gaze from Lana beside us. She had, quite literally, been engulfed in golden light just a moment before. Septimus had rushed to absorb some of the overflow magic, helping her to the ground to rest for a moment. Even now, her skin still had a luminescent sheen to it.
The other candidates were in various stages of practice with their instructors as well. The sparring room was set in a simulation of the Rite. Every so often, a current branched out and we were supposed to draw on our respective links to diffuse it.
I glared right back at Kilian. “I am checking on my friend. Can you relax?”
“Septimus is supervising his candidate. He has it under control,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re too focused on everyone else’s progress instead of your own. Do you want your friends to live while you die, Lirahna? Because that’s what will happen if you do not pay attention.”
I raised a brow, amused by his use of my full name. “Overreact much?”
“Over–? I have half a mind to let you flounder your way through the Rite and see for yourself whether I’m ‘overreacting.’”
“Why don’t you then?” I jibed back.
“Because then you’d be dead. And for some reason I still can’t comprehend, I’d be sad about it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You know, you should really host a seminar on how to provoke people. You’re certainly overqualified to teach others,” he muttered. “Now, will you stop driving me insane and please concentrate?”
I glanced at Lana, who was sipping on a blend of electrolytes and water, the glow slowly fading from her skin. Septimus hovered over her protectively.
“I’m fine, Lirah,” she called, noting my concerned stare.
“If you need to rest–”
“I’m alright,” she insisted.
I turned back to Kilian. “Fine. But I wasn’t listening to you the first time you explained it. Can you tell me again?”
He sighed heavily, like I’d just told him we were under enemy attack instead. “When did I lose you?”
“Er… At the beginning?”
He consulted the ceiling like it held the answers to life’s great mysteries.
With patience he dredged up from the gods knew where, he said, “The magic manifests through the link in different ways for everyone. I’m able to manipulate it into various forms through years of practice, but my favored form is lightning.
You’re able to use it to summon darkness as well.
There may be more you can do with it, depending on how well you hone the skill. Still following?”
“Yes. I used it in the cave network during the first Trial to help me see. What else can I use it for?”
“Anything, really, within the parameters of the power since it’s only a grain, and you wouldn’t be able to handle much more as a mortal.
It can be used in combat as a strengthening tool or, in terms of the Rite, to diffuse power.
It’s just a matter of intention, instruction and focus.
Each interaction you’ve had with it so far has been through your instruction.
Whether consciously or subconsciously, you’ve been manipulating it to do what you want. ”
“So, if I intended to use it to knock you to the ground, I could do that?”
“If you happened to catch me off guard, which wouldn’t happen, then sure.”
“Hm. Interesting. Show me how.”
He ran me through a few breathing exercises, meditative methods to declutter my mind and focus internally. I brushed against the link, pulling on it until something unspooled inside of me.
Show yourself, I commanded.
A deep, velvety voice that belonged neither to Kilian nor I whispered in the back of my mind.
It was the same one I had heard when training on a wintry mountain with Septimus.
A voice I had mistaken as Kilian’s in the tunnel network during the first Trial.
I was now certain it was an entity of its own.
With pleasure. What shall we destroy first, wicked?
I tore my eyes open to find the manifestation of power, a sphere of darkness floating between us. Whatever this shadowy orb was, it was definitely talking to me. Or maybe the Trials had broken my mind, and I had gone crazy a long time ago.
I stared at it, hardly daring to breathe as it undulated lazily, its edges hazy.
I grow weary of your indecision, it drawled. There are enemies in the north. We must act swiftly. Let me loose, set me free, allow me to feast.
My eyes widened.
“You’re doing great, Lirah,” Kilian said, clearly oblivious to the demonic voice that only I could hear.
“What do I do?” I hissed.
“Direct it. Guide it. It will listen to instruction.”
I could feel the power pulsing from it, convinced it would obey no one, much less me. It terrified me. Half of my fear stemmed from the actual power that just casually lurked inside me, the remainder from being branded psychotic if anyone knew it conversed with me.
“You can do it,” Kilian encouraged. “I’m right here. It’ll be okay.”
Hesitantly, I willed the sphere to move, my gaze flicking across the space. To my surprise, it did. It occupied the area on the right of Kilian, swirling in an amorphous wave before I sent it to the center once more.
Shall you have me perform party tricks for the rest of the day? it mused. How insulting.
“Let’s try it with the current,” Kilian said. “I’m going to send a shock through you. You’ll need to instruct the magic to smother it.”
The darkness made a noise which sounded an awful lot like a yawn. Was it bored?
Yes, it answered. I desire a far more substantial meal than electricity. Blood and bones will suffice.
A tingle buzzed along my fingertips, running down the length of my palm and the darkness vanished in a wink. It was barely a thought, more an acknowledgement of the current zipping through me. But then it was gone – disappearing with the shadows.
“Did I do it?” I breathed, relieved the disembodied voice had quietened.
My mind was relaxed, the calm of a still sea.
Kilian gave me an impressed look. “Yeah. You did it.”
I scraped my nails along my palms, staring down at them in wonder. “Let’s try it again.”
Three nights later, Kilian found Lana, Moric and I alternating between training and practicing magic in the sparring room.
Lana had grown comfortable with summoning a beacon of light without having it swallow her completely. But Moric was still struggling somewhat with his grasp on Ayden’s magic.
Earth magic was temperamental, he told us. Whenever he tried diverting the current in each simulation run, he ended up sprouting roots across the ground.
We still had time, Lana and I assured him. But it was more to soothe his anxiety. The truth was we were swiftly running out of it. The third Trial was in one day. The Rite would follow shortly after.
Optimism felt like an elusive dream these days, and I was cautious of where I placed my hope, but we had more of a chance than we’d had last week, and for that I was grateful.
I still hadn’t told anyone about the dark voice inside my head; the one that always longed for battle and bloodshed. It had begun emerging more frequently but, truthfully, it was growing on me. I didn’t know what that said about my frame of mind.
My gaze met Kilian’s as he strode across the room, dressed for war.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him all day. He’d been absent from our training session earlier as well.
“Greyhaven, resolving a strike.”
“A strike?”
He waved a hand. “It happens every so often. This time it was over fair wages down at the quay. I had to diffuse it.”
It sounded so… normal. We were fighting to see the next day but on the rest of the isles, life continued. But from what Kilian had told me about the real purpose of the Trials, it seemed that way of life was also at stake.
“Anyway,” Kilian continued. “I’ve been meaning to find you to talk.”
“In private?” I asked, glancing at Moric and Lana, who weren’t even pretending not to eavesdrop.
“No. It’s fine. I’m sure it’ll come out anyway, so I might as well tell you all. It concerns the third Trial.”
Lana dropped her practice dagger and crossed her arms, waiting.
“You’re aware that the fae that once ruled Lortan?” Kilian asked.
“Yes. Azrael destroyed them.” I couldn’t help but play Augustine’s words back in my head: That is the version of history we have been taught.
Kilian shook his head, regretfully. “The fae weren’t destroyed. Not all of them, at least. A few remain in a sealed-off portion on Lortan. On what is still Cosanus. Only elven with special clearance for the Mortal Trials know this.”
My eyes grew wide, my jaw dropping open. Moric took a step back, as if trying to put distance between himself and whatever was about to come next.
I had thought Augustine’s theories were fanciful at best, mad at worst. For the fae to still exist, to be sequestered on this very isle, their entire history warped, and no one outside of the Mortal Trials knowing about it…
“How? Why? How?” I repeated.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is the third Trial takes place on Cosanus. And your objective will be to find the cave in there that houses the remaining fae. We think there’s a weapon hidden with them. You’ll need to bring it back,” Kilian said.
“You think?” Lana scowled. “Gods above. If you hadn’t already sent us into a monster’s lair in the first Trial, I’d think you were joking.”
But Kilian was not the joking type. At least not about something like this.
“What does the weapon do?” I asked.
He stared levelly at me. “I hope it’ll save the world.”
Moric glanced between the two of us. “One of you needs to explain exactly what the fuck is going on.”
I still needed to tell them everything Kilian had shared about the Trials that day in the park. “Later. I’ll brief you both later.”
Kilian carried on, “The fae were left in Cosanus before it was sealed off from the remainder of Lortan, and no elven can cross to retrieve the weapon.” He gave me a pained look. “It has to be you.”