by Rebecca Main
I understand the reasoning behind the task, but that doesn’t mean I like it. On the upside, the cataloging proves to be a great aid to my studying. I’m sure I passed my oral exam with Felicia the other day. Too bad there’s no one to share in my hypothetical accomplishments. The triplets have been gone a little over a week so far, and between carrying out miscellaneous tasks to secure the Banks Facility, cataloging relics, and taking my oral exam, I’m feeling extremely restless.
Harpe Sword…
Ophelia’s Kestros…
Onyx Bident…
Bone Sword of Shadows…
Tigre Claws…
Caster’s Diadem…
Phoenix Fire Elixir…
The Council finally departed yesterday. They left behind more guards and Stellar Warriors. They’d also left behind instructions for newer, stricter protocols. Not that I’m privy to the changes. They are “above my grade,” as my father put it.
“Are you almost finished?” I look down from the ladder I’m perched on. It’s Felicia Metzart.
“Yes.” Thank God.
“Thank God,” I hear her mumble under her breath as she flips through some pages on her clipboard. Her glasses already rest low on the bridge of her nose and slide forward even more as she scribbles something down. “We’re behind schedule thanks to that little attack while I was away, which means your written exam is going to be moved forward.” She shakes her head with an exaggerated huff. “So”—she gives her pen a decided click and peers up at me—“since your oral exams went well, I'll need your assistance in some of my tasks before you take your written portion."
"Of course," I respond.
"Perfect. Finish up here, and then meet me at the observatory. Now that the Council is finished setting up shop in there, I can do my work. I'm assuming you read yesterday's memo about the solar flare?" I nod my head. "Good. The upgraded solar panels collected enough of the flare to finish the backlog of relics needing Borealis Matter impartation. And because the backlog is two weeks overdue now, the imparting process will be unstable. Hence, more hands are needed for the process. Your hands, to be specific.”
“Seriously?”
“Since this will be your first time participating in the imparting process, I’ll walk you through it with a non-relic. That way you can get a real feel for how it’s done.”
“Seriously?”
She sends me a glare, not at all amused by my genuine bewilderment. “I don’t like repeating myself, Sawyer. We’ll impart the Borealis on that butterfly knife you keep on you. Meet me in the observatory in ten.” She walks away, flipping through her papers as she goes. The sharp click-clack of her heels sounds loudly in the tiled hallway.
It takes a long moment for the significance of the offer to sink in, and then I’m scrambling down the ladder, hesitating a beat later when I reach the last step. If I’m being offered the opportunity to work with Felicia, then that means I’m on track to become her protégé, which means being one step closer to becoming a master in the field and eligible for a spot on the Council.
“Damn,” I whisper, gently knocking my head against one of the rungs of the ladder.
Partaking in the imparting process is a coveted role among the Wardens. Only a select few are allowed to handle the Borealis Matter and the instruments used to impart it into the relics. It’s a job that requires meticulous precision and steady hands, since imparting too much could change the relic's natural disposition to dark matter. Too little, and its power can’t be harnessed.
There’s also the issue of residual Borealis Matter escaping into the contained environment and sinking into those who are imparting. In the wrong hands, the Borealis Matter can be used to make anyone superhuman in strength and speed, and who knows what else. This is the real reason why the process was entrusted to so few people. And I just made the list.
There’s not much time allowed for me to dawdle heading to the observatory, but I find my feet dragging under me regardless. Did Felicia really mean to take me on as her protégé? What about seniority?
“Finally,” Felicia remarks, tucking a strand of mahogany hair behind her ear as I enter the room. "Let's get going. We don't have all day."
The observatory houses a large aperture telescope that takes up nearly half the room. The other half is a combination of mirrors, filters, and crystal-like pieces of machinery that collect and store the Borealis Matter. It’s hard to believe just a day ago the Council had taken up the space.
“Watch me,” she instructs. “Metals, earthen, and precious stones all have different procedures. Set your blade on the table here.”
I slip the knife from the back of my pants and place it on the table gently. Felicia clears her throat, eyeing me pointedly as she begins to press a combination of buttons from left to right. It follows a simple enough pattern, diverting only once to flip a switch near the bottom right of the machinery.
“Roll up your sleeves and dip your hands into the resin over there. Make sure it's up to your wrists. It will help with the handling of the knife once the imparting is complete. Since it’s not a relic, we won’t be imparting much, somewhere around 220BM.” I can feel my eyes widen and my face pale, though I feel a stir of excitement. That kind of power is almost equivalent to that of an electric fence.
“Yes, ma’am,” I breathe, stepping eagerly over to the barrel of resin she speaks of. “Felicia?” I ask tentatively, dipping my hands into the cold liquid carefully.
“Hmm?”
“Why exactly am I here? Why I am helping you?”
Felicia gives me a look of confusion, pocketing her pen and setting down her clipboard. “Your father came to me, along with a few other members of the Council”—Mrs. Baker most likely—“and they expressed to me their interest in you taking on more responsibility.”
I plant a false smile on my face, heart sinking as my suspicion is confirmed. There went the last of my hopes for planning my future myself. “I understand.”
“Do you?” she asks, voice wary as she watches me pull my hands from the thick liquid. I nod. Felicia frowns at me, though it feels heavily of pity. “Listen, I know all about your history, but this is a great opportunity for you. You might not find the work here as action-intense as your old role, but it is stimulating. With that being said, the private fellowship under me is yours. Don’t let me down.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good,” she says, approaching me and the basin. “Miles, stay on at the directory. I’ll be helping Calliope on deck today.” The older gentleman sets himself up behind a large U-shaped desk full of knobs, switches, and screens. Felicia pushes up her sleeves and dips her hands into the resin, eyeing my knife with unveiled interest.
“It was a gift,” I tell her, “from my grandmother.”
“I know all about your grandmother,” she responds with a kind smile, the one that people usually wear when the subject is broached. Grandma Lynn was a fierce woman and a legendary Stellar Warrior. She died fending off a cluster of sirens from her team. The butterfly knife had been hers. “Maybe the knife should be considered a relic.”
Felicia lifts her hands from the resin and strides toward the table. She has an eager look on her face as she peers down at the knife.
“What do we do?”
She sends me a brilliant smile. “First, we activate our bracers.” I nod, and my bracers illuminate a second behind Felicia's. “The lasers will create a small-scale celestial sphere around the knife. It’s our job is to maintain the sphere as the Borealis lashes out in small bursts and streaks. We use our hands to block these outbursts and guide them back onto the sphere’s surface. Miles, adjust the lasers to a fifty-degree angle and dial the increments in ten.”
“Will it hurt?”
Felicia shakes her head, sparing me a grin.
“Does it hurt Miles?”
“Nope!” he calls cheerfully from his seat, sparing me the same grin as Felicia. A nervous flutter of anticipation starts in my stomach.
&
nbsp; “Don’t worry,” she says with a soft laugh, “you’ll be fine. More than fine. Just follow my lead. Toward the end, the streaks will come more rapidly, which is one of the reasons why the bracers must be engaged. The whole process should take about ten or fifteen minutes.”
I let out my nerves in a stream of air and mirror Felicia’s stance: hands raised to my chest, palms facing outward, legs shoulder-width apart. A look of rapt focus comes over Felicia’s features in the next instant; then she sends a decisive nod to Miles. The whirl of the electronics and machinery hum to life and a strange static fills the air. It lifts the hair on my arms and back of my neck. Another second passes by, and a concentrated stream of light erupts from the lasers, hitting the knife at each end. It lifts into the air, the lasers slowly ticking upward as a growing sphere of transparent golden light grows around the blade. It stops at chest level, the sphere no bigger than a foot in diameter.
“Ready for phase two: Borealis Matter Impartation.” The whirl of machinery whines louder, with the delicate hum of electricity skirting the edges of my hearing. The sphere changes color, a delicate turquoise tinted more green than blue. The same color that floods through the etchings on our bracers. A wisp of blue light curls upward from the top of the sphere, and Felicia reaches out a hand to gently smooth it back over the curve.
“Will they all be that small?”
She shakes her head. “They grow a bit bigger and produce faster as the process continues and the voltage increases. You’ll take the ruptures on your side and the top of the sphere. I’ll take my side and the bottom. Understand?”
I lick my lips in anticipation and nod, waiting with bated breath for the next wisp to appear. It rises near the right side of the sphere, and my hand darts out eagerly to meet it. I suck in a harsh breath as a trill of energy skates across my nerves. My fingers gently flatten the wisp back along the sphere, though they have a distinct trembling quality to them as they pull back. The energy cuts abruptly from my fingertips and sinks past my muscles into my bones. Another harsh breath careens past my lips as the afterglow leaves me feeling flushed.
“That’s….” I lick my lips once more, eyes darting nervously to Felicia as a blush rises to my cheeks.
“Intense?”
A somewhat strangled laugh surfaces from me as I nod my head. A wisp lashes out tantalizingly near the top of the sphere, and I smooth it down, noting this particular strand takes slightly more persuasion. It levels me with the same current of energy as the last. It pulses through my body in short bursts. Like miniature supernovas, I think.
“Yes,” I finally say, noting that the wisps and tendrils snaking out are increasing in frequency. They snap at my fingers, licking up my palms and delivering their pointed shocks. The resin that coats my hands begins to darken. Spider-like veins spread and spill across the protective coating with each lash of the Borealis. Soon a light sweat builds at the back of my neck. My breath comes in short, soft pants as my hands are set to work in tandem to corral the excess matter. A buzzer sounds from somewhere behind, and the workings of machinery slows down to a calm hum. The sphere recedes. The knife returns to the table's surface, and the lasers turn off.
My body is strung with power. It courses through my veins and brings about a heady sensation. Every movement I make sends a small thrill up my spine. I can feel it all. My muscles stretching. The shift of the air against my skin. How ridiculously ablaze I am.
“No wonder not everyone is allowed to do this,” I say. “People would be lining up out the door to get their shot.” Felicia and Miles laugh. I cave instantly and join in. Holy shit. “That’s better than sex,” I insist, walking with Felicia to a sink on the far side of the room to peel off our used resin.
“Sweetie, if you think that’s better than sex, you’ve been having sex wrong,” she tells me matter-of-factly. “Don’t get me wrong, it is a rush. And it will give you a major high, but there’s no payout. No… release, if you get what I mean. It’ll just leave you feeling on edge until you can figure out a way to take the edge off.”
I find myself coloring, eyes skirting to the observatory doors where I know Wyatt and Tucker stand on guard outside. My mind wanders back to a time when Wyatt and I were still together. The sex we had, had been great, but it lacked something. Intimacy. Meaning. Two something’s, apparently. Toward the end of our relationship, the dynamic between us had changed. After I applied to train as a Stellar Warrior, Wyatt had gone to great lengths to express his displeasure. It showed in the way he treated me in the bedroom. The dominance of his actions left me feeling small and used, like he was trying to put me in my place.
“Ready to go again?” Felicia asks, walking over to the barrel of resin.
“Of course,” I tell her tightly. She flashes me a knowing smile, though she interprets my mood incorrectly. Miles fetches the butterfly knife from the table and places it in a glass cylinder filled with a red liquid.
“Then let’s get started on the rest of the relics.”
+++
It takes close to six hours for us to make our way through the relics. All that remains is an ancient Viking Thunder round shield. Felicia insists on a break before we work on the last item, and I sigh in relief. My T-shirt has long since been stripped off, but the camisole I wear underneath is soaked. Even Felicia has stripped down to a workout tank and shorts, both of which were hidden beneath her lab coat.
“You look a bit wound up, Callie,” Wyatt whispers jovially from behind me. The smug undertone of his voice reverberates across my bare shoulder and elicits a shiver down my arms. “I suppose the rumors are true about the imparting process.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I tell him a mite breathlessly while tossing away my empty water bottle. He steps into my line of vision, a satisfied smirk on his face.
“If you’d like, I can help you let off some steam. I don’t mind being your… punching bag, so to speak.”
“That’s unnecessary,” I tell him sweetly. “I can work it out by myself. You’re not much company wise.”
Wyatt’s smirk drops, and the color rises on his cheeks. “I wouldn’t let this fellowship position go to your head. The only reason you have it is because my mother insisted.”
“And my father,” I add. “I’m aware.”
“As long as you know who put you there,” he says, rolling back his shoulders and taking on an unaffected air. The words bring an uncomfortable pang, but knowing he’s only saying these things to upset me makes them somehow easier to handle.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like somewhere far, far away from me?”
He reaches out a hand, but I sidestep the touch. The movement is abnormally fast, and the shock of it wears on his face. His hand falls lamely to his side. “You can’t avoid me, Calliope. Not here, at least. There’s nowhere for you to run that I can’t follow.”
There is a constriction of my lungs. An un-ignorable seizure of my muscles as a ripple of anger floods me. I grit my teeth against the heightened emotion, knowing full well that the Borealis Matter spurs it to such heights. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicia and Miles and become aware of how quiet the room is.
“You should go,” I finally tell him. Wyatt presses forward, an earnest expression coming into his eyes. His hand reaches out to me once more, but it halts when the alarm lights go off overhead. Three red flashes, pause, repeat. Wolves. Again. Wyatt turns and sprints toward the observatory door. I follow not a beat behind, beating him easily.
Wyatt’s body slams into my own, my wrist crumpling between myself and the door with a small but audible crack. Grabbing me by the shoulders, he hauls me away from the door, shooting me an incredulous look.
“You’re not a warrior anymore, Calliope,” he grunts, yanking the door open. “Let me and the boys handle this.” The door closes behind him with a snap, and a series of clicks resound throughout the room. My eyes widen in panic.