“How do you feel?” Trebor wonders, dropping his hand to his chest.
I let my own hand stay above me, watch as I write secrets in the air with the glow of my fingers. “I feel okay,” I’m surprised to find out. “I feel…full. I feel a deer about fifty yards from us.”
Trebor makes a soft and thoughtful noise. “Interesting. I guess I was going about it all wrong then. Instead of focusing inward, you need to turn the focus out.”
“I guess.” I sit up, flick bits of light from my fingertips, watch them spiral up and disappear. “What else does magic do? Besides act as a weapon.”
“Well,” Trebor sits up as well. “You can use it to manipulate the physical world, or your outward projection to the world. You know spells for protection and divination that this kind of access to magic would amplify.” He plucks a piece of grass out of my hair and smiles at me. “You can use it to grow things, too.”
“Like limbs?”
He laughs. “Like plants. But you can make them grow…special.”
“Oh don’t tell me you’re growing dope in a hidden loka somewhere,” I laugh. “Seriously. Is that what you do when you’re not off on secret quests? Grow plants?”
He nods. “Instead of cutting down trees and turning them into lumber, we grow them into living buildings. Homes, mostly. But I’ve grown entire cities in the boughs of trees like the Crimson Oak.”
I think of the skyscraping treetop of that mighty tree. “That must be a lot of stairs to climb. Unless you grow elevators, too.”
He chuckles. “That’s, ah, not really a problem. But you should understand, magic was never intended to be used as a tool—not like a weapon, anyway. Magic is just something that is, like electricity. We’ve learned to use it to make our lives better. Its uses are limited only to our ability to harness and understand it.” He looks around us, into the night. “The problem is, even when we think we’ve harnessed it, it can harm us when we least expect it. Weapons are easy—that’s magic 101. Protection is harder. Healing is rare. And it’s the slow magic, the magic with a will of its own, that’s the most powerful—and the most dangerous.”
I look at my hand, dull now that the magic has faded in my veins in favor of fatigue. “Healing,” I wonder, thinking briefly of my mother. “But even humans have healing magic—Chinese medicine is full of different practices: reiki; qi gong; healing touch; laying on of hands. I mean, most people think those ‘healers’ are quacks, but their traditions persist so there must be some benefit. Right?”
Trebor nods. “They do work in their way, and it is a kind of magic. But humans make the mistake of using their thoughts to access their power, instead of their feelings, and that makes it more science, more intellectual. Magical healing is rare—when a wound closes before your eyes, or poison is forced from the body, squeezed from the cells. Bruises vanish, pain disappears. It’s fast, and certain, and clean.”
“Why is it so rare?”
“The same reason you can’t use magic to actually change your body.” Trebor shifts. “Each cell is conscious, drawing on its own energy to keep itself alive and to function properly. You are the master of the collection of cells, and you can work together to exert force and magic, but to heal yourself or another requires the most complex and intimate understanding of the symphony of your cells.”
“I see...” I flick a spark of light at him, but it floats upward instead. “But, you say it’s rare—not impossible. Have people been able to do it?”
Trebor nods again, and his eyes do their cat-flash thing when he summons a ball of white light in his hand without a hint of effort. The ball flies up, follows the spark I flicked at him. “The way around directly using magic for the task is to exchange vitality from one healthy person to another, but it’s virtually impossible to construct the pathway necessary to do it, at least with any kind of efficiency. Angels can do it, but they usually can’t be bothered. But, the havati bashrat, the myth I told you about a while back: supposedly their bond is so complete that they can heal one another. Only after they’ve bonded, of course.”
“How do they know they’ve bonded with their other half?” I wonder, watching as Trebor’s ball of light swallows the spark it was chasing, and turns red.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s always just been a myth to me—an old Irin folktale. I don’t even know if I believe the havati exist at all. What would their purpose be, evolutionarily?”
“To inspire others,” I muse. “To fight for the same kind of connection, and trust. In a way, don’t you think, if you could connect that deeply with a person without a fated soul-bond, wouldn’t that be even more powerful?”
Trebor looks up at the red ball of light hovering over us. “That’s more evidence for the myth, I think. Myths exist to make us feel better about how things really are. It’s okay to be imperfectly in love because it’s harder to love when it isn’t so obvious that you’re meant to be together.” He smiles and closes his fist, and the light hanging overhead bursts, falling over us in a slow shower of sparks.
I smile at the show as bits of magic rain down on us, disappearing on our skin and clothes, but I’m still considering his words. I shift my weight. “I didn’t realize the havati were lovers.”
Trebor stiffens. “Yes. In theory.”
I look at my hands again, watch the little red points of light fall into the lines and creases of my palm, dissolving. “It’s strange,” I say at last. “That all this time, this explosive feeling inside of me was just magic, waiting to be released. I’ve been so afraid of it, and fought it down, and tried to burn it out of myself…but it was magic, all along.”
“Now you just have to learn to control it, and use it for good.”
I sigh. “I hope I can do this without you holding my hand, some day.”
“I don’t mind having to hold your hand,” Trebor half smiles.
I play a wan smile back. “But you’re going to leave some day, and I’ll have to be able to defend myself.”
He looks strangely at me, takes a deep breath, exhales slowly. He doesn’t say anything to deny or agree with what I’ve said.
“So.” I hold up my hand and flick more sparks in his direction. “Can I use this?”
“Let’s find out. Give it a try.”
I look at my hand. Despite it’s unlikely halo of magic, it seems very flesh-bound in this moment. “And do what?”
He raises his hand to mine again. “Try to make the energy connect.”
I look at his fingers, and mine, a few inches apart. The glow from Trebor is different from mine—it’s finer, more dense, like each cell has its own shining aura, as opposed to me—I only get one to share among the collective trillions. But the aurora around his fingers intensifies as I watch and focus, and the light from mine grows brighter. My awareness of the world around me lessens, shrinks, until it’s just me and Trebor and our hands, and then it’s just me and our hands, and then it’s just me and all of the energy I had finally managed to soothe, once again roiling in my veins.
My hand is glowing like a light bulb, and I feel like it might pop.
“Oh shit!” I slap my hand down into the grass at my side, holding it against the ground as an explosion of magic ruptures from my palm, sending tremors up my arm. The next thing I know I’m pulling at my hair, shaking.
“I can’t, I can’t,” I gasp, wanting to scream. The well-chewed tips of my fingers scratch at my throat, my chest, my stomach. I feel like every thing has slammed back inside of me, like my veins are filling with ice cold water, like I’ll die if I can’t rip myself in half and let it out. I gasp, half-whining, crawling away, anything to be away, where I can safely explode, where Trebor won’t see me like this.
But Trebor hurries after me in the grass, grabs my shoulders, whispers something I don’t understand as he pulls me upright and holds me, my back to his chest. “Remember the deer, Ana? Can you feel the deer?”
I reach for it, for the trees, for anything, but my mind won’t go beyond
the earth-shattering rumble of his voice, hooking and gutting me in one fell swoop. All I feel beyond the violent storm inside of me is his skin near mine, his heart beating through mine, erasing who I am to replace it with some strange merging of what we both could be, and it terrifies me. I pant, like I’ve been poisoned, like I’ll be sick, and when I can’t take another moment of holding back I fling myself to the ground and scream into the grass.
Trebor hauls me up again, turns me towards him, grabs my face.
“Ahuvati sheli, salah—salah—” His lips touch my forehead, over my third eye, a tender kiss to my furrowed brow. A bright light explodes behind my eyes and, for a moment, everything is soft. Serene. And he’s still there, still holding my face, touching my forehead with his own.
I can hear his breath shaking. Or is it mine?
I put my hands up, against him, feel that he’s solid, he’s real, he’s not just magic and mystery and a voice that can build me up or destroy me. I touch his heart, and feel it hammering to the identical rhythm in my chest.
“Trebor,” I look at him, and take his hand, and put it over my heart. His palm is cool against my skin—grounding, despite all odds.
He opens his eyes and leans back to stare at me, through me, sifting through my soul for some part of himself that he’s misplaced. I see it, when he realizes, like a darker shade of night settling over us.
“What does it mean?” I whisper, and feel tears falling from my eyes again.
He takes his other hand and brushes the tears from my cheeks, sweeps the hair from my face, and lingers there.
I feel something—a flash—a hint—like the tip of an iceberg, just enough to let me know there’s so much more. But whatever it is—pain, guilt, desire—it doesn’t belong to me.
Trebor blinks away a tear and falls back on his heels, taking my hand from his heart and holding it between both of his. He looks at me a moment longer, then away.
“I don’t know.”
I want to press him, to ask a million more questions, but something shivers through me and my hands grow warm. I look down at them, and gasp.
“Look,” I say with some wonder.
Trebor turns his head, and his eyes flash again, lighting up with the glow emanating from my hand. A thin stream of amethyst light drifts up from my fingertips, swirling, dancing into form.
“Ahuvati sheli, sheli…” he mutters.
I don’t know what his words mean, but they’ve calmed my heart and soul, and lowered my defenses enough so that I can channel the power without imploding. The light bends and weaves, forming the only magical weapon I’ve seen him use so far.
“A net,” he says, laughing. “Is that the weapon of choice among demon fighters, then?”
I laugh too. “I don’t know, what other kind of weapon should I make?”
He chuckles. “I don’t know. Can you use it?”
I make a gesture and throw the net into the trees, where it lands against a trunk and glares brightly for a moment, before sinking into the bark.
“Excellent!” Trebor exclaims.
I smile and, abruptly, every inch of me grows heavy with fatigue. “Whoa,” I grab his shoulder, and he catches me before I collapse. “Suddenly…exhausted…”
“That’s to be expected,” Trebor assures me, steadying me. I lean against him, fighting the weary weight of my eyelids. “But it’s excellent progress.” He brushes my hair out of my eyes and puts his arm around my shoulders, sighing. “Pretty soon you won’t be my damsel in distress anymore.”
I want to say something sharp and witty back, but I’m so tired, and all I can think in my post-magic stupor is that he called me his. And while I don’t like the idea of belonging to someone, there is a very nice feeling around the idea of belonging with someone.
— 35 —
I’m late to school Monday morning, even though I don’t have class first period. I try to make it into my second period study hall to hang out with Kyla most days, but these last few weeks it’s been hard. I’ve been so tired most mornings, I just sleep in.
It doesn’t really surprise me that she’s already ensconced by her senior class friends by the time I get there. I take a breath and try to seem totally comfortable and natural taking a seat at the same table. I smile and wave to Kyla; she smiles a tight-lipped smile back, and I know something is wrong.
The period passes in a wash of other people’s conversations. Kyla doesn’t say a word to me. No one does. I pretend to do homework, feeling even more uncomfortable than usual. When the period ends, I have to stop Kyla before she leaves with everyone else.
“Hey, Kyla. What’s going on?” My brow furrows. “Are you okay?”
She looks at me strangely. “Yeah. Are you?”
I swallow, and everything in me goes rigid, like the air around her has turned to barbed wire. She’s lying to me. My best friend in the whole world is lying to me.
I nod.
She nods, too, and gives me another close-lipped smile, before she hurries out the door to catch up with her friends.
I feel a thickness come over me, like I’m drowning. In eighth grade, when my mother was dying, I used to have this feeling in waves—powerlessness, abandonment, absolute crisis and a supreme need for isolation. I would hide in the locker room and cry, sometimes for an entire class period. It was easier to miss the whole class than come in half way with no hall pass.
I’m considering taking up the habit again, when Kyla—transformed—comes storming around the corner into the empty cafeteria.
“Fuck this shit,” she snaps, glaring at me. “Where the hell have you been this past month, Anastasia Flynn?”
I stare at her, mouth agape.
“I feel like I haven’t even talked to you since you almost drowned. Which, to be honest, I was kind of hoping would have the opposite effect.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “All of a sudden you’re so goddamn busy with homework all the time, which is a joke because you’re failing most of your classes and we both know it. Shit, you spend more time with Andy Pavlovic than with me these days. What the hell is going on, Ana?”
I shake my head, words, lies, and truths escaping me. There is so much I haven’t told her. How can I start now?
“Kyla, I’m so sorry,” is all I can say. “Honestly, time has kind of gotten away from me. I’ve been in a weird place for a while now, and…I’m sorry.” More lies? Not really, but not exactly the truth, either.
Kyla looks at me like I’m made up of hieroglyphs. “And what else?”
“Andy told me some things. About my mother’s clan. I had to digest it, I guess.”
“Without me.”
“Kyla…”
“Or, should I say, with Trebor?” She stares at me.
I don’t know what to say.
The bell rings. We’re late for class.
Kyla shakes her head. “I’m your best friend, Ana. Your soul sister. Remember?”
But would you be, if you knew how far everything had gone? How far it could still go?
I nod, heart hammering, the familiar suffocation of anxiety fogging my mind.
She scoffs in frustration. “God, Ana. Give me something. Anything. I know you’re holding back. Just…at least tell me why you’re holding back.” She looks like she’s going to cry.
I sniff, stifling my own tears with little success. “It’s all messed up, Ky. I’m so sorry. I just don’t want to drive you away.”
She thinks about it, considers me and my tears, and nods after a moment. “Yeah. Well, you’re doing that anyway.”
Her words hit me hard—hard enough that I almost stop, almost let myself pull back again. But she’s right, of course. “I don’t mean to. Honestly. You know me—I’m…I close up, when I’m stressed…when I’m…”
“Scared.” It’s not a question.
I swallow, and nod.
Her eyebrows pinch together for a moment before she looks at the ground. “Are you still going to the dance this weekend?” Kyla asks quietly. Bu
t she’s changing the topic on purpose, I can tell.
“I…yeah.” I don’t know if there’s room in my schedule, but I’ll make it happen. One night off of training won’t kill me. “Yes. If you still want me to go with you and Vanessa.”
Kyla rolls her eyes and looks at me. “Of course I do, A. I miss the shit out of you.” She frowns. “I know I pushed you to let people in. Maybe I pushed too hard, maybe I pushed you away. But when are you going to let me in again?”
“Ky,” I say and stride over to her, stopping just short of embracing her.
She hugs me first instead, and I hug back.
“I miss my best friend,” she says.
“Me too.” I whisper. “Me too. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t keep doing this. We won’t last like this.”
“I know. I know I need to talk to you about all of it. And I will.”
“When?’
“Soon. I promise.”
She pulls back and looks at me, eyebrows beetled together and forehead creased. What is she thinking inside that dreadlock-draped skull? Is she wondering why she bothers? Is she doubting my word? It she tired of waiting for me to embrace her first when she’s been standing here with her arms wide open the whole time?
“Do you at least have a date for the dance yet?” she asks quietly, allowing a small smile.
I respond with a weak laugh, an indefinable sadness humming in my chest. “I’m working on it.”
— 36 —
That night, Trebor and I sit beneath a gnarled apple tree in the middle of the orchard, and the magic still does not come easily. I focus, unfocus, refocus, and continue to battle the explosions simmering under my skin.
“What’s different?” I wonder, breathing slow and deep, trying to calm the magic inside of me. “I did exactly this last night, and then…what?”
Trebor is peering at me strangely, narrowing his eyes. “I think I might know.” He touches my forehead with his fingertips, over my third eye. “Ahuvati, sheli.”
The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) Page 15