by Cora May
But Brin told herself that she would enjoy her small party. She liked the mix of friends she had found. Ashby, one of four Jasper Warriors she knew; Milena and Maleko, the only Pyrite Burners she liked; Ciara, the Healer; and Fenneck, the Emerald Keeper. She didn’t care to know any of the Amber or Amethyst earth stone students, and there was a very specific reason for that. It was something that she knew was about to come up in their conversation as her friends extended their friendship to Chanta.
“So, Chanta,” Ciara said in her thick accent that even Brin had never been able to place. Egyptian, maybe? Ciara never seemed willing to talk about her past. With her bronze skin, high cheekbones, straight black hair, and dark eyes, Brin was convinced that Ciara had come from somewhere in the middle-eastern world. “Has the headmistress given you your stone yet?” she asked, motioning to the one she wore around her own neck. A pure Gold crystal, one of the most coveted stones.
“Yeah,” Chanta said a bit shyly. Brin thought that so far, she had looked more uncomfortable at this party than she had during anything else in the time she had spent at the school so far. “But to be honest, it doesn’t feel right.”
“I think Prisanni is still a bit unclear on that subject herself,” Brin put in. She wondered why she had interjected that—Chanta was now a fellow Celestite Communicator. She should be more accepting of that fact. “Chanta’ll probably know more on Monday when her schedule begins.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Ciara allowed. “But in the meantime, I’m sure we could help fill you in on the confusion just a bit. It can all be a bit much at first, can’t it?”
Chanta nodded.
“Brin told me you’re a Healer. Like a doctor?”
“Yes,” Ciara laughed, “like a doctor. But it’s more than that, too. I’m only eighteen, you see. I haven’t gone to medical school or anything like that. I don’t know the things that doctors know—perhaps Fenneck might, but I’ll let him tell you about that. I can work with the energy of your body. I don’t heal you like a doctor would, per se. It isn’t medicine. It’s more like… I convince your body, move your body, to heal itself.”
“So what do you need the stone for?”
“The stone does several things,” Ciara explained. “First of all, it gives me something to channel my Blessing through. That’s common among all earth stones. You see, before Prisanni finds us, we are all a bit… out of control. We have all of this extra energy from our Blessings, and it’s constantly shooting off from our minds and bodies in every direction. It is without focus. Many students, when first given their stone, feel like it’s done nothing but dull their Blessings. For some, that in and of itself is a relief. But the stone hasn’t dulled the Blessing at all, it’s merely pulled the energy into itself. From there, your professors teach you how to expand your Blessing in effective ways, so that you can use all facets of it. The stone is used as a vessel that allows you control of your Blessing.
“My Blessing is called ‘Healer,’ but the term is quite controversial amongst those who have been Blessed with other stones. You see, my kind is just as capable of hurting as we are of healing. We are able to manipulate the energy of your body to do many things. Most people are only concerned with the healing. If you have a disease or a wound, you seek out someone from my house because we can fix it. But, too, can we inflict disease and wounds. We can convince your energy to do other things, too, in the physical Realm. Things like running—faster than the Jasper Warriors, even. We could make you stronger than them, too, if we like, because it’s not about what you’re physically capable of doing, it’s about what we can manipulate your body to do. It’s about our strength, not yours.”
“So you’re the most powerful then, aren’t you?” Chanta asked. “If you can manipulate my body in a fight with Addelai or Ashby’s to defeat them, then what’s the point of the Jasper Warriors?”
Ashby snorted a laugh at that.
“Oh no,” Ciara said softly. “It is all about strength in your talent specifically. Unfortunately for me and many others, I have always been better at hurting than healing or manipulation. But even if I was a great manipulator, if I were to manipulate your body in a fight with Ashby, even if my strength were to surpass his, his training and endurance would surely outlast me. It would just be a waiting game for him, and once I fell, you would be left for the Reaper.”
“That sums up the Healers pretty nicely,” Brin said, “at least in a short amount of time. Addy already told you about the Jasper Warriors—basically, their Blessing is strength. And, of course, she told you of my stone as well. If you don’t have any questions, maybe someone else can tell you about their stones?”
Chanta certainly looked like she had questions, but she nodded, turning her attention to the tanned, muscular pretty boy that was Fenneck. Brin saw the eagerness with which Chanta turned to him, and she could hardly blame her for already falling for the twinkle in his blue eyes.
“I don’t understand your stone at all,” Chanta confessed. “Even the twins’ I can piece together myself, but yours…?”
Fenneck smiled a breathtaking half-smile at the girl. Brin didn’t miss the flush in Chanta’s cheeks.
“Emerald is my earth stone,” he told her. His voice was soft and deep—a song to anyone’s ears. “I’m afraid it isn’t a terribly exciting stone. I’m a Keeper of knowledge and power. I think the knowledge is fairly self-explanatory—I can promise you all of the Emerald students have straight A’s. We don’t forget things. Not even the smallest detail.”
“He knows six languages,” Milena interrupted. “At least, last time I asked.”
“Seven,” Fenneck corrected her. “But that is neither here nor there at the moment. I am also a Keeper of power. All that means is that I am able to take and store a bit of power from other Blessed students. But I could never use it like you could, nor does it last nearly as long. Some people think it’s like borrowing your power, but I like to think of it more as remembering. I never take anything from you, I simply am able to mimic it for a moment.”
“Oh, how interesting.”
Brin couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face. The girl was clearly floundering in Fenneck’s presence.
Ciara continued leading the conversation. “The earth stone Amber is like a drug, in a way. It allows you control over the emotions of those around you. Some people call the Amber students Soothers.”
“And what do you call them?” Chanta asked.
“Trouble, mostly,” Ciara laughed. “I know it seems like a harmless enough Blessing. If you’re sad, they can cheer you up. If you’re mad, they can calm you down. That’s soothing, isn’t it? But as a human being, every decision you make is based on the emotions you’re feeling in that moment, right? They could coax you into killing, if they wanted to. You can never trust your own emotions when you’re around them; thus you can never trust your actions to truly be your own.”
“Most of us have done our best to avoid the Soothers,” Brin told her. “They’re manipulative and scheming. The Amber stone is my least favorite, personally.”
“And then there’s the Amethyst stone,” Ciara said. “Brin doesn’t like them, either, but I’ve grown close enough to them to understand their stone a bit more. You see, they have the Blessing of psychic reading. Some of them are able to peer into the future, and others are able to peer into your mind. But it’s never certain or exact. It’s not like they can actually read your mind like a book, which is what Brin is afraid of.”
Brin rolled her eyes.
“I’m not afraid of them,” she argued. “I just don’t want someone poking around in my brain.”
“A misunderstanding of their power,” Ciara said as she turned back to Chanta. “Their power allows them a certain understanding of your thoughts based on the energy you give off at all times. But it isn’t like the Soothers, who can feel and manipulate your exact emotion. It’s more like Fenneck, here, who remembers your power for a moment. It’s a touch that they can feel, and, t
hough they know you better than most people just by being around you, they still must interpret what they read.”
Chanta nodded as she contemplated everything she had been told.
“So,” Brin said, “based on all of this, do you think it’s true that you’re a Communicator?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. I know I’m not a Warrior or whatever the twins are…”
“We’re called Burners,” Milena told her.
“And I don’t think I’d fit in with the Keepers, either,” Chanta grimaced. “I don’t suppose I’m a Soother or a psychic, either.”
“They call themselves Gypsies,” Milena offered.
Brin’s heart began to beat fast. She was feeling less and less unique as time went by. Chanta certainly was no Healer, either, which only left the Celestite Communicators. Given the very little that she knew about Chanta’s Blessing already, it seemed the most fitting, though still vastly different than any other Communicator in the school.
“To be honest, I truly can’t say I know,” Chanta said slowly. “Maybe the professors will know better. But I am completely lost in all this.”
Sympathetic heads nodded all around the room. Brin did like Chanta. She seemed to be a sweet enough girl. Still, she felt threatened.
“Come Monday afternoon,” Fenneck said, “you will understand why you’ve been placed where you have. Headmistress Prisanni knows so much more than we do. Just wait. Don’t get discouraged. Everyone’s Blessing is different.”
“Does a Blessing ever feel like a curse?” Chanta said with a dry laugh.
It was meant as a rhetorical question, Brin knew. But still, the words pierced straight through her chest and sat uncomfortably in her stomach. A Blessing certainly could be construed as a curse.
She shook her head. She was letting her jealousy jump to conclusions for her. She would most likely have to accept this girl into her class schedule as a Communicator. She would have to accept that truth and move on. But Chanta was no more than an average student, and surely seemed more mentally balanced than Douglass had ever been.
The party went on to a much lighter tone after that. They stopped all talk of the stones, though Chanta was burning with more questions—a fact that was obvious to everyone. She wasn’t asking any of them, though, and Brin wondered just how comfortable the girl felt. She couldn’t help but feel bad for her again. Still, she felt comforted in the fact that she had organized a party for her, and that she had found such great friends to help Chanta integrate.
And of those good friends, it was clear where Chanta’s feelings were. Brin noticed that she stayed away from the twins—quiet Maleko tended to stay away from everyone anyone, but Milena seemed to intimidate Chanta as well. Perhaps it was simply the power of their Blessing that scared her. She talked to Ciara and Brin herself quite a bit, but her favorite seemed to be Fenneck.
Fenneck was one of Brin’s closest friends. She didn’t know Chanta well enough to know if she liked the pair yet, but it was safe to say that the two were enjoying each other’s company. She twirled her hair whenever he spoke to her, and he flashed his flirty little grin at her more than he had ever flashed it at Brin. She hoped that Chanta was a truly nice person if Fenneck was going to take an interest in her.
Later that evening, after her friends had gone back to their own rooms, Brin sat on Jace Harrizon’s bed. She was biting down on her fingernails nervously. Jace was standing in the open doorway, talking to another student from across the hallway. It was at times like this when she wished her Blessing was more grounded in the physical world than in the Province of the Dead. She wished that Amethyst had been her earth stone so that she could hear what they were saying. It was a low spoken conversation, which was always the first warning sign that something was wrong. The second was that he was having a civilized conversation with Bruno, and neither of the boys was getting heated. That was the thing about boys—they had such terrible testosterone that it seemed like they had to have that one bitter rival in the dorm—at least to Brin that’s how it seemed. And the fact that they were both Jasper Warriors only seemed to make the rivalry worse.
But neither had raised their voice. In fact, once Bruno flickered a glance in her direction, he dropped his voice even lower and leaned in closer to Jace. That’s when the nail-biting started. Sometimes, she wished they didn’t treat her like such a damsel. She could hold her own, and maybe even prove helpful to their cause—whatever that was—if only they would let her in. But she knew that wouldn’t happen. She knew exactly what Jace would say to her, now that he was closing the door on the retreating Bruno and turning toward her.
He walked slowly toward the bed, his head of curly golden hair looking down at the floor. He was slow enough that the smell of his pine cologne reached Brin before he did. But his freckled face finally looked up so that his green eyes could meet hers.
“What was that about?” Brin asked.
Her voice was too bubbly for the situation. The sound of it immediately calmed down Jace’s nerves, and he smiled at her. He sat on the bed next to her and put his arms around her waist.
“Sorry about all that, love,” he said with a deep, soft voice. “It’s nothing really. A few things Professor Nessi was talking about is all.”
He leaned in and tried to kiss her.
Brin pulled back. She was sick of being the weak girlfriend.
“I heard you talking about the Anam.”
Now Jace pulled back to get a better look at her.
“What did you hear?” he asked her.
“They’re being killed. Aren’t they?”
Jace didn’t answer her. He sat staring into her eyes for a great while. Brin tried to keep a stern face on. She wanted him to believe that she was strong enough to know the truth, and perhaps that was the reason he was studying her. She tried to manipulate her features, too, to give the effect that there was a side to her that was not so happy-go-lucky.
Jace sighed and looked away.
Much to Brin’s disappointment, though, he didn’t say anything. Her first reaction was anger. It wasn’t fair to be left in the dark. Not when something serious was about to happen. But then she decided that his reaction was actually a resignation. He was going to tell her, and indeed, he already had confirmed it through the resignation.
She gasped.
“How?”
“Nobody is sure,” he told Brin. “It really shouldn’t be possible. But somehow, it’s being done.”
“What was Bruno telling you? What are you supposed to do about it? It’s not your problem, right? We’re only students. I don’t like the danger this puts you in.”
“But Brin,” Jace began, “there’s so much more to consider than my own safety. Think about the Anam. My mother is up there somewhere. And so is your grandmother. And one day, you and I will both be up there, too.”
Brin looked at her feet, shame suddenly coloring her face. She knew that he was right, but she still felt right, too.
Jace reached out a tender hand to raise her chin to his face. He kissed her softly before leaning back to look in her eyes.
“Professor Nessi is training us well,” he assured her. “I wish I could tell you more, but… It’s a delicate matter. You understand, right?”
Brin looked back at him with sad eyes as her mouth tried to smile.
“I will always come back to you,” he promised her.
“That sounds like you’re leaving me.”
Jace grinned sheepishly.
“I’m really sorry, love,” he told her. “Professor Nessi is calling a meeting. I shouldn’t be gone too long… You can stay here if you’d like, and I’ll come get you afterward.”
“No,” she sighed. “Go. I should probably get to bed anyway.”
Jace leaned in to kiss her on the forehead.
“I promise you, everything will be okay. We’ve trained for moments like this. We were chosen by the Anam for moments like this. Have a little faith in me.” He nudged her playfully.
“It’s not you I don’t have faith in. You better not keep Nessi waiting.”
“You’re right.”
Jace gave her one last kiss before he left her sitting there alone on his bed. Brin watched him leave. As the door shut, she sighed and looked across the room at Jace’s sleeping roommate. She felt like Marcin never had anything to worry about. He was always sleeping or blowing bubbles with his stupid gum. She never quite liked him. His greasy, curly brown hair and slight double chin matched his untucked uniform and near-constant odor of chicken and cheese, which matched his careless attitude, too. She didn’t know what his stone was—she had never cared to ask—but she was just glad she only had to see him when she spent time at Jace’s dorm.
Which, she suddenly remembered, she had no reason to be in anymore.
But Brin wasn’t quite ready to talk to Chanta about the basics just yet. Actually, she was hoping that someone else entirely would let her in on the whole Anam phenomena. That most likely meant that she would have to avoid the girl until after Monday classes when surely a professor would be instructed to fill her in. Thus, in the meantime, as she was walking down the hall, Brin pulled out her phone and began to send messages out to the other students, in search of someone to keep her busy for the time being.
She took her time walking down the halls, so when she heard voices around the corner, she was able to stop and listen before they noticed her.
“… Blessings that aren’t Blessings,” one voice said, finishing up whatever it was he had been explaining.
“What are you saying, man?” a second voice said. Brin didn’t recognize either of them. “You expect me to believe that suddenly the Anam Dorcha are somehow giving their own form of Blessings? That’s not how it works. There are rules in death. The Reaper would never stand to even hear this nonsense.”
“Look, man, I don’t know what to tell you. Something is going on. Something big. Maybe this could explain the sudden increase in the student body.”