Ava pales. “We’re running out of time.”
The force of the wingless faerie’s dread stipples the skin around my mouth. “I can’t use that much power by myself. I’m not ready.”
“I know you’re frightened,” she says. “I am, too. But you can do this. You don’t need Drake. You have everything you need inside yourself at this very moment to do what you need to. Do you trust me, Emily?”
“With my whole heart.” It’s true.
“Will you try?”
Ava’s faith surges into me. “Yes.” I stand, ready to summon the weapons when Ava instructs. Quince stands, too.
“Your Blaze flows freely. Can you See it?”
“Yes,” I whisper, looking with my Inner Eye.
“Now, embrace your gift of Keen.” Ava instructs.
I breathe in the glowing ember from the medallion at my throat, joining it with my conscious mind, enfolding myself in light.
Myriad sensations course through me from every direction. I hold both my Mind’s Eye and my Inner Eye open but separate, positioning one above the other as if I’m looking through bifocals. I can either focus through my Inner Eye on top or my Mind’s Eye on the bottom.
“Well done, Sister,” Ava says from the hollow of my cupped hands. “Now, concentrate on the brand of your maiden name around your arm and summon the gauntlet.”
I watch the brand flare; morphing into the gauntlet the instant I Intend it to. It settles around my forearm like it did when I was in the diner with Drake, studs gleaming in a thousand faultless facets.
Ava grins up at me. “You’re shiny. This is so cool.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re too shiny to look at.”
Like I did in the yoga pose, I create a protected calm at my center. I’m still aware of all the sensory input I’m receiving, but I can process it without reacting emotionally. My anxiety can’t influence me here.
“Are you ready, Sister?” Ava asks.
“I’m ready. Maybe you’ll be safer in your box, though? I don’t want to accidentally hurt you again.”
Ava grins. “Yes, the box. But please Quince, will you hold me near?”
When she’s safely positioned in her crystal enclosure Ava nods at me. “Remember, go slowly: one weapon at a time. You can do this.”
As soon as I Intend the shield it appears, strapped securely to my left arm. The dagger materializes next, sheathed low and loose around my hips.
I don’t understand how anyone would ever have reason or desire to reach for more power than already surges through me from my wings, the gauntlet, and the medallion. It threatens to eclipse my senses and swallow me whole. But Ava says it’s important. For her I’ll try.
I concentrate on my left forearm. The spikes on the shield bristle in the shape of the rune Algiz: Protection. Each razor-sharp tooth is a conduit waiting to channel elemental power. With a gentle tug at the base of a single spike, I activate them all. Energy rushes through the shield abrading my skin.
From deep within the calm I feel my muscles spasm.
“Sister, breathe. You can control the flow of power from the shield, do you See?”
With my Mind’s Eye I See countless microscopic openings leading from the shield in through my pores. Weaving together miniscule strands of Blaze, I insulate the channels, narrowing them slightly. The energy slows from a rush to a steady stream. I’m in control. Barely.
“Excellent,” Ava praises. “Stay open. Let the power flow free through your channels. When you’re ready, activate the dagger.”
“I don’t like being this open. Maybe this is enough for now?”
“Believe me, I understand,” Ava’s empathy softens the edges of this impossible task. She’s feeling everything I do. “When you’re open you have access to vast amounts of power, but you’re also exposed. Being closed offers safety and protection, true, but you can’t access your power when you’re closed. It’s a choice.”
“I don’t even want power!”
“That is, perhaps, why you’re blessed with so much.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Nothing for now. We’ll practice activating the weapons, modulating your flow, and releasing the power until you‘re comfortable. We can work on setting boundaries and situating filters. You’re a natural, Emily. You’ll master this process quickly. You don’t need Drake.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to let him guide me? He creeps me out, but at least he knows what he’s doing. I do not.”
“I’ll explain soon. I need you to trust me. Listen to the sound of my voice. With your right hand, draw the dagger from its sheath,” Ava instructs.
My fingers wrap around the smooth hilt at my hip. Effortlessly I pull it from its sheath. The blade sparks with iridescent light.
This time I’m prepared, holding woven strands of Blaze ready when power begins to flood from the hilt into my palm. I narrow the opening, modulating the influx to an almost tolerable level.
I’m vibrating.
The streaming power sings in me. Ethereal music dances through my frame. Blaze is high-pitched—wild boysenberries at the roof of my mouth mingled with gardenia. Keen’s scale is the umber of fresh turned soil, an oboe’s sinuous ebony. The music moves in perfect counterpoint, melodies intertwining, phrases shifting and eliding, textures blending, evaporating, being reborn. The harmony is mellow honey on my tongue-tip. With new ease I draw power from all three weapons.
A midsummer’s evening from my childhood materializes, wavering all around me in the air. I’m a girl of ten, nestled up with my kitten, Butterscotch, on our creaky old porch swing in Utah. Over the tall fence in a neighboring yard a lawnmower’s tired engine sputters out, revealing the chirp of a cricket’s chorus celebrating the gathering dusk.
The afternoon was too warm for my liking but now a breeze carries the fragrance of fresh cut grass across the baby-fine hairs on my shoulders. It’s heaven lying here with Butterscotch purring in the crook of my arm.
Melting ice tinkles as it shifts in a glass of lemonade I placed on the cement ages ago. My fingers play absently with the kitten’s pointed ears, burying themselves in the deep fur of her neck. Butterscotch is the softest thing in the world.
I want to stay just like this forever, but the last smudges of light dissolve behind the horizon. Soon Mom will call me in to bed, tsking over the new freckles on my sun-pink cheeks. It isn’t fair I have to go to sleep by eight-thirty in the summer. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m very quiet she’ll think I’m already tucked up in bed. Maybe I can stay out all night with the stars.
The sky is an enormous watercolor canvas, stained dark at the top and edges, bleeding the indigos, violets, crimsons, and cadmium oranges of a finger-paint handprint where the earth and heavens touch.
Mom’s reassuring presence radiates just beyond the walls of the house. She’s healthy and happy and Dad is nowhere. This is where I want to stay. But a sharp pang knifes through my ten-year-old chest. Sunset’s vibrancy is already washing away.
“Wait, please don’t go!” Pierced by loss and longing, my consciousness sepa-rates from my young self, moving back to my seventeen year-old body. “Not yet! Please!”
But the image grows dim, distant, receding.
No. This is my memory. I’m in control. I’m not ready to leave yet.
More power. I need to stop from returning to the present. With a little more power I can go back and savor the memory longer.
I yank out the strands of Blaze I’d used to decrease the flow of power through the dagger and shield.
A tsunami of energy crashes over me. I jump as if shocked by an electric cattle prod. Weaving the extra power into strands of Intention, I use them to propel myself back to the midsummer sunset.
It’s working. I race toward that reality. My ten year-old self still lays on the porch swing sheltered by a darke
ning sky. Cut diamond stars punch through the sapphire night.
I’m going too fast. I try to slow down, but speed up instead.
“Emily, stop!” Ava’s scream is a world away.
“I don’t know how to stop!” Fear pricks my calm as I shoot past the midsummer night. I draw more power, seeking to shelter under layers of Magic. I’m careening out of control.
PLAY DEAD.
I go limp, dropping my grip on all three weapons. The shield and dagger vanish. The gauntlet transforms back into the brands on my arm. My calm shatters in a million frantic bits.
I halt.
Doubled over I grab my knees, sucking huge gulps of air. Slowly the dark spots behind my eyes fade.
The shimmering silver backless gown is back.
“Sister, you’re not safe! He’ll find you. Return at once!” Ava’s words are thin and tinny, like I’m listening through broken ear-buds.
Who will find me? Where is this place?
I cast about for clues and discover I know exactly where I am.
On the sidewalk only feet from where I stand, Peter the Toad and his sign guard the massive Monterey cypress. Behind the dying tree a decrepit parking garage decomposes into rubble. A polluted gray sky suffocates the landscape, exactly as in Aidan’s dream.
Thirty-Three
“You have to roll it up, Claire, otherwise it won’t fit.”
“Aidan? Claire?” I whip around, awash with relief at the sound of their voices. But there’s no one here. I’m completely alone except for Toad.
But I can still hear Aidan bossing Claire. I can hear her nonchalant reply.
I cast around for the source of their voices. They’re swelling from a crack in the sidewalk.
Dropping down on all fours in the stupid gown, I peer through the crack. I’m above them, watching from the corner of the guest room ceiling I share with Claire at the Vineyard.
“Yes it will,” Claire rams her raincoat into her pink flower suitcase with both feet.
Aidan sits on the edge of the bed, worrying at a loose thread on his polo until his shirtfront puckers.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Claire asks.
“Half our family is missing, Claire.”
“It’s not like they’re lost, though, Silly. They just aren’t here. Gabe took Jacob to help him with the vans, and Emily is still at her training thingy. They’re coming back, you know.”
“I don’t like it. Everyone else came back from the council ages ago, and Gabe was acting weird. A bunch of elves and maidens are getting ready to go scout out the Doorway and set up a defense against a crimbal ambush. The rest are cleaning guns and restringing bows. I asked if I could help, but they won’t let me anywhere near any kind of weapon after Emily’s freak-out yesterday. I finished packing in two seconds, so now I’m stuck babysitting you. Maybe that’s why I’m grumpy, Claire.”
“Oh please, you love babysitting me. Here, pack Emma’s stuff for her, that’ll make you feel better. Be sure to roll up her underwear so it will fit!” Claire chortles at her own joke.
Aidan flops back on the bed. Hands behind his head he stares up at the ceiling.
“Aidan!” I yell through the crack. He’s practically looking right at me.
Nothing. They can’t hear or see me.
“Do you think Jacob would really leave us to go with the Fae?” Claire asks.
“No.” Aidan’s answer is automatic. Then he hesitates. “I mean…I don’t know. I think he was just being stubborn. I don’t think he’d really go. I hope he wouldn’t.”
“Hannah says the First Realm is SO amazing,” Claire sighs. “I’d go, but only if we all went as a family. What’s going to happen to us after the Fae leave, anyway?”
“I dunno. I guess we’ll go home with Dad.”
“What about Mom?”
“I assume she’ll go with us when she’s out of the hospital.”
“It’s going to be so weird.”
“What is?”
“Well, I’ve never met him. I don’t know much about him. I ask questions, but no one ever wants to talk about him, like it’s breaking a rule or something. Now he’s coming home to be our dad and Mom’s going to be our mom like she was before she got sick. I’ve never lived with two parents before.”
“You’re lucky.” Aidan speaks under his breath. I have to lean into the crack to hear him.
“What? Why?”
“He got mad. A lot.”
“That can’t be the only thing you remember.” Claire prods.
“I was barely five when he left.”
“Yeah, but everyone remembers stuff from when they’re five.”
“Spiders.”
“You remember spiders?”
“Whenever I think about him it’s like I’m covered in spiders.”
“Oh, you mean like tingly and tickly because you’re nervous and excited to see him.”
Aidan rolls onto his side away from Claire. I can see his face but she can’t. “Sure. Because I’m nervous and excited.”
That’s not what he means.
I dig my fingers into the dirt on the sidewalk. I need to know what Aidan means.
“I like his voice,” Claire chats on. “It’s so happy and loud. He calls me his girlfriend when we talk on the phone. He says everything is going to be just like it was before he left.”
Aidan sits up. “Let’s go see if Emily’s back yet.”
The yard is a hive of maiden activity. Aidan and Claire head toward Lady Kaye under the big oak tree by the rope swing. Before they’re halfway there the sidewalk beneath me heaves violently. Aidan stumbles and I dig my fingers deeper into the crack to steady myself. Claire continues light-footed.
“Claire, did you feel that?” Aidan asks.
“Feel what?”
I survey the whole yard. No one else seems to have noticed it, either. How is it possible only he and I felt it? It was a huge quake.
“Nothing,” Aidan replies.
“Aidan!” I yell, “Aidan! It’s not nothing.” We couldn’t have both imagined such a big jolt. Something is wrong. Something is wrong is both our worlds.
“Are you okay, Aidan?” Claire asks.
He stares at the ground, turning a queasy gray.
My stomach churns acid at the dread mounting on his face. All at once he grabs Claire’s hand and sprints for the forest.
Claire drags her heels. Aidan only gets a few steps before she wriggles free from his grip. “Aidan, what the heck?”
Aidan sinks to his knees, burying his head in his hands, tortured sobs wrack his body. I ache to gather him in my arms and fix whatever it is that’s hurting him.
Over the canopy of needled redwood branches a thin pillar of black lightning splinters the cloudless sky. It lasts only an instant, vanishing with a thunderous crack.
Before the after image fades three-dozen elves storm into the yard, weapons drawn.
“Aidan!” I don’t mean to scream out loud, but now I can’t stop. “Aidan! Claire! What happened? What’s going on? Aidan!”
“They can’t hear you. You’ll only wear out your voice.”
I jump to my feet, startled. Toad’s hideous slimy mouth hangs open. Inside stands a beautiful woman with her back to me. She’s combing her long raven-black hair in slow even strokes. Her brush is inlaid with mother of pearl.
“Princess Nissa?”
“Hello Emily.” She pivots to face me. “The light from your wings awoke me. I used to have wings like those, you know.”
The sallow gray sky casts dark shadows under her eyes and brackish fog clings to her, dulling her complexion and hair, making her seem old and tired.
“Where are we?”
“The Third Realm is a shadow realm,” she answers cryptically, scanning the skyscape nervously from inside Toad. �
�It’s a copy of the First or Second, I forget which. There are countless copies, of course, each more perilous than the last. The air poisons my lungs. Quick, Emily, come inside. Come and see what I’ve made.”
Inside Toad? Am I dreaming?
Descending into the belly of a giant Toad is a lot like descending into an underground cellar—colder and more echoey than I would have imagined.
My bare feet pad noiselessly down the concrete stairs. Naked fluorescent tubes flicker behind metal cages in the ceiling, interspersed between exposed copper pipes. A plunk of water drips on repeat in some unlit corner. Dank antiseptic and iodine almost mask the stale scent of windowless air.
“You’re the first visitor I’ve had in ages,” Nissa says. “I’m so happy you’re here!”
Everything shifts at the exuberance in her voice. The concrete steps disappear and my toes sink into deep-piled plush carpeting. A burnished handrail appears, reflecting the soft glow of candlelight from sconces set in the walls.
The gloom clinging to the princess dissipates, revealing lustrous skin and glossy hair. Rich tapestries hang from an archway at the landing. Nervousness squeezes my insides, I have no idea what to expect as Nissa parts the lavish drapery. Bracing myself, I follow her through to the other side…
…into an enchanted nursery.
There must be walls and a ceiling, but they’re completely hidden behind curling vines and flowering foliage. Blossoms and succulents cover every surface. The twitter of birdsong floats from various hanging perches and brightly winged butterflies decorate the sky as a babbling brook crisscrosses the clover-covered ground leading to a mossy terrace.
The sweetest carved-wooden cradle sits at the center of the raised platform. Nissa bends over to caress the sleeping baby’s rose-petal cheek.
A quake shakes the chamber. Fine dust falls from the now visible cinderblock walls. The birds and butterflies disappear. Superficial fluorescence replaces the natural light, illuminating the laminate floor and a metal-rimmed bedrail in harsh shadow.
Nissa coos a lullaby at her daughter, oblivious to the room’s mercurial transformation. What’s going on? Distressed, I spin around searching for a way out…
Riven: Young Adult Fantasy Novel (My Myth Trilogy Book 1) Page 21