Candace nodded. “But Kat has no spark. She’s a wizard when she uses spells.”
“A wizard with a terrible memory for script,” Pranish replied.
“I’m right here, you know,” I interjected. “And you haven’t knocked me out before commencing the dissection.”
“Sorry,” Candace said, smiling apologetically. Pranish gave no such apologies. Instead, he sighed.
“You’re an enigma, Kat. A wizard who can incant advanced spells without any training but fails to memorise the simplest incantation.”
“Because she isn’t memorising her spells,” Treth said, manifesting next to me. Candace craned her neck to look at my spectral companion.
“Is the ghost talking?” Pranish asked, seeming a bit left out. “Ah, I wish I could see him.”
“You’re definitely missing out,” Treth said to Pranish, winking at Candace, who giggled. He then got back to business. “Gorgo has told me that Kat’s skills aren’t based on normal wizardry. And that’s why she doesn’t need a weyline. Her skills are linked directly to the In Between and her connection to me and the spirits of the Vessel.”
“Pranish has mentioned all this. But Kat still uses spells. Which means she has some talent for magic. There must be a way for her to increase the potency of her connection?”
Pranish glanced between Candace and the spot where Treth stood, looking confused.
Treth shrugged. “Gorgo doesn’t know how it happens either. This is new magic. At least to Avathor and Earth. No precedent. What we do know is that the spells Kat has used are spells Gorgo knew in life.”
“Really?” Candace squinted, thoughtfully, chewing her pen some more.
“What did he say?” Pranish asked, anxious for answers.
“Only stuff you already know. I don’t know why it needed repeating,” I answered. “I’m not a wizard. Or a sorcerer. I’m some sort of weird spirit conduit.”
“That’s it!” Candace exclaimed, surprising even Treth.
“What’s it?” Pranish asked, thoroughly lost and not liking it.
Candace excitedly pulled some chalk out of her bag and began scribbling on the floor. Pranish stood and watched over her shoulder, muttering to himself.
Neither of them gave me any explanation. Wizards!
“Do you think it’ll work?” Pranish asked.
“Can’t hurt to try. What do you think? This script here is the failsafe.”
“It’s good. I’ve used it before. Even without it, I don’t see this going wrong. Worst case, it just doesn’t work…”
“Excuse me…” I interrupted, hands on my hips, dubiously.
“Yes?” they asked in unison, incredulous. Again, wizards!
“What is this ritual circle for? What risk?”
“Very little to no risk,” Pranish assured me.
“That’s great. But what’s it for?”
Candace broke into a smile. “It’s just an idea, but I think we could use this ritual to strengthen your connection to Treth and the In Between.”
“You remember that incantation I gave you to exorcise that ghost horseman?” Pranish added.
I nodded. That seemed like an age ago.
“It has a similar working premise.” He pointed to a tract of what seemed to me to just be some scribbled lines and dots. “The purpose of the incantation is to make the object in question gain a foothold in the In Between, thus allowing it to interact with beings of the In Between.”
“You’re sending me to the In Between?” I took an involuntary step back. I’d been to the In Between once before and didn’t like it then.
Pranish snorted. “Don’t be daft. No one can willingly go to the In Between. Well, anyone I know. That salt you used in the exorcism was fine afterwards, right? It didn’t disappear anywhere.”
He had a point. I calmed.
“Basically,” Candace continued. “We’re going to see if we can give your already strong spiritual connection a slight nudge. The spell is almost harmless.”
“Almost being the keyword.”
Pranish dismissed my concern with a hand wave. “Whenever I incant a fireball, there’s a strong chance that my head will explode. I’m still here. The probability of this going wrong is close to zero.”
“Don’t use statistics against me! It’s a demonic language.”
Treth examined the ritual circle, pacing around it. Like me, I knew he had no idea what the runes and script said. But he looked at me with a glint in his eye and an excited smile.
“I say, go for it! If it means we can get more access to your powers, then it’s worth the risk.”
I sighed, defeated. I was thoroughly outvoted.
“So, should I lie here?”
“Yes,” Candace said. “But just a little more to the right…more to the left. A bit further down. Yep, that’s fine.”
Candace lifted her hands off my arms after arranging my body like a ragdoll on the cold hard metal floor.
“Do you want to do the honours?” Candace asked, turning to Pranish. He shook his head.
“It’s your ritual. Go ahead!”
Pranish walked over to the far corner and leant up against the wall.
“Putting distance between yourself and a subsequent explosion, I see, Mr Ahuja?” I jabbed.
“Silence, please,” Candace insisted.
I shut my mouth and then tried to make myself as comfortable as I could while not disrupting Candace’s posing.
Candace took a last look at her notebook before putting it aside and then sat on her knees by my side. She placed her left index and middle finger over my forehead and her right on my heart. I grew a bit apprehensive under the scrutiny and Candace must have felt it as she smiled reassuringly.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispered.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself, just as Candace began incanting. Her words sounded Sintari. A smooth, flowing tongue. But, as she channelled the weyline, the words took on an unmistakable sensation of power. They resonated in the air and each syllable pounded something into me. Not necessarily something bad. It was like listening to the percussion of a drum. It spoke to the soul.
As Candace incanted, her words becoming lyrical. Melodic. The image of her chalked runes rose up into a blue, spectral circle around us, lighting up the room with an arcane blue hue.
At first, I didn’t feel at all different. I was used to hearing magic and feeling its primordial effects on my mind and body. But, as the blue runes around us moved, I felt something. And a pang from Treth indicated that he felt it too.
A presence. Familiar. Those of the spirits I’d helped and saved. Those who had pledged to help me. It was as if they were there now. Watching me. Standing guard.
I reached out towards them, beckoning them. I knew they deserved their rest, but I also knew that I needed their help. That, for the coming conflict, I’d need more power.
Candace’s incantation moved into a different language as she uttered the next part of the ritual, when a figure tackled her to the ground.
The presence of the spirits dissipated, and my hearing returned to the sound of yelling and growling.
Trudie held Candace down, holding her hand over my sister’s mouth and the other on her pinned left arm. Candace flailed wildly, but Trudie didn’t seem phased at all by the light slaps.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Pranish yelled, shoving Trudie, who didn’t budge.
“Saving Kat!” Trudie yelled back, her eyes glowing gold. “I won’t let her take Kat again. Not with her dark magic!”
“She wasn’t hurting me!” I insisted, tugging on Trudie to release the weeping Candace on the floor. I heard footsteps behind me as Senegal entered. His eyes were also gold. Great!
“We were doing a spell to help her!” Pranish explained, trying to calm himself but his voice was just edging past the edge of rage.
Trudie hesitated, releasing Candace’s left arm, but maintaining her grip on her mouth. Candace stopped flailing, letting tears fal
l from her eyes.
With Senegal at my back and Trudie’s eyes glowing, I decided to go for diplomacy.
“Candace is…”
“I know what you think!” Trudie spat. “And I don’t agree. She’s a dark mage! I don’t understand how you can defend her after all that she’s done.”
“She’s a different person now,” I insisted, growing angry as I saw the hurt in Candace’s eyes.
“Dark magic does weird things to people,” Pranish explained, his voice becoming academic. “It controlled her. She shouldn’t be held responsible for everything she did. For the same reason that the things you did were not your fault…”
A deep rumble echoed in Trudie’s throat as she released Candace and stood up straight, advancing on Pranish and staring him directly in the eyes. Unblinking.
I think even I would have flinched at the sight of those golden fires, but Pranish didn’t move. He maintained eye contact, staring deep into the wolf’s fury. He didn’t blink.
“She is not the same necromancer who took Kat from us,” Pranish whispered. “And you aren’t that same wolf…”
Trudie didn’t move. I glanced at Candace, still lying on the floor. Pale. Tearful.
A shallow growl resonated from Senegal’s throat. I tried to hold back my fear. Werewolves could smell that. But I did slowly reach for my dagger…
“Heel,” Trudie said, calmly, as she spun and stormed out the room, a cowed Senegal in tow.
Pranish just shook his head. I crouched down to Candace, helping her up.
“Are you okay?”
“I…I am. I just wish I could convince her that I’m not bad anymore…”
“Trudie’s battle is her own,” Pranish said. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s up to her.”
With that ominous proclamation, I insisted that we end the ritual and training. I walked Candace to her room where she bunked with Gidget. I stayed a while in silence with her, but there was nothing I could really do.
Trudie was, sadly, correct. Candace had sinned before. Too many times for a girl her age. And she knew it. And she lived with that guilt and pain every second of her life.
***
The impact of fists on synthetic leather echoed throughout the metal halls of the Honour of the Unforgotten. It was a jarring, but subsequently pleasant sound in these cold, quiet halls. There was a sense of palpable unease on the ship. Candace refused to eat in the mess hall, and no one but Senegal spoke to Trudie at dinner. And, even then, I sensed that Senegal spoke out of a sense of obligation. From what I knew about werewolf politics, an alpha basically had a form of mind control over other wolves. Senegal would be obedient, but he didn’t have to like it. And I could see that he also disagreed with how Trudie had treated Candace.
We hadn’t reattempted the ritual since then, and I had no books to read, games to play or films to watch. Leaving me idle. Idle in a quiet ship, with only the sound of fists hitting a bag to keep me company.
I followed the sound and was soon greeted by a shirtless Brett, coated in a layer of sweat, as he pulverised a bag. Weights were secured on the walls, lest they roll during a storm. I had used the gym a few times. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was good to keep fit.
Brett smiled by way of greeting and returned to his flurry of jabs. I considered making a jest that he was going to give Kyong a run for his money or ask if he was going to pay for a replacement bag when we pulled into port. But, as I opened my mouth, I couldn’t conjure up the enthusiasm to speak.
Wordlessly, I hung my coat on a hook and took a spot next to Brett as he boxed. He stopped, and moved aside, taking off his gloves. I didn’t wait for him to finish as I delivered a brutal punch to the centre mass of the bag. The synthetic leather scraped up against my bare knuckle, but I’d felt worse. Way worse. In comparison to all that, this was nothing.
I punched again, with my other hand. And again, swapping fists. I held my form, as if in a proper boxing match. I ducked side to side, dodging the rebound of the bag, and holding my fists in front of my face as if shielding myself. I infused every blow with the motion of my entire body. I felt Brett and Treth’s eyes on me, watching. I sped up. There was no sacrificing strength for speed as every hit, rapidly falling on the bag, was filled with every ounce of my power.
Again, again. The bag flew this way and that. I pictured faces on it. Vague. Blurry. Faces of enemies, friends, myself – didn’t matter. My fists flew. Again, and again, and again.
I needed to stop for breath, but I didn’t. I kept going, feeling my arms and hands ache. Blood rubbed off on the synthetic leather, but I kept going.
One more punch. Another. Another! Until the force of my blows shook the bag off its ceiling hook, and it fell with a thud onto the ground, rolling into the corner.
I froze, considering my skinned knuckles and searing arms. Then I realised my face was wet. Not sweat. I touched my cheeks, disbelieving, and looked around the room. At Brett. At Treth. Both looked at me with…something. Something that made me fall to my knees. Something that let the trickle of tears turn to a torrent.
I covered my face with my hands and wept. I didn’t know for what, exactly. For the people I’ve lost. For what was happening. Or for what I was missing. But I wept all the same.
I felt Brett’s warmth and Treth’s presence on either side of me, as they both put their arms around my shoulders. Instead of strengthening my resolve, the comfort they offered me only made the hot, briny sobs continue.
What was I doing? Risking my life. And the life of my friends. Just on some fool’s errand. When I should be back home, where I belonged. Where people needed me.
My aunt was probably dead. But, yet, I had to try.
The sobs slowed and I eventually looked up. Treth and Brett were still with me. Always. I let Brett help me to a chair, where I slumped down in it.
He didn’t question me. Didn’t ask why I cried. He didn’t press. Even though I knew he deserved to know. To know why. To know the pressure I was feeling, the hurt, the trepidation…
“I’m numb,” I finally said, distantly. “Didn’t do it on purpose. And at times like these, it’s hard to see. I get angry, I cry. But it’s like it’s only on the surface. That the emotions my coldness hides boil over sometimes. But then I’m back to business. Back to being strong. I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but I know that I’ve been broken so many times that I’m basically a big callus. And I only notice that when I break again.”
I stifled a hiccup by biting my knuckle, tasting blood. My fists were a mess. But I didn’t feel any pain.
Brett stared at me. Considering. His eyes were sad. But, more than all that, held something else. A warmth. A warmth that threatened to restart the weeping.
“You are so much more than a callus,” he whispered. “And I know I’m biased, but you have to believe me when I tell you not to confuse your strength for numbness. I know you, Kat. Maybe not for as long as your ghost friend or some of the others, but I think I’ve seen parts of you that nobody else has. And I know that you have seen those parts of me. You aren’t numb. I can see you feeling. All the time. You feel so much that it overwhelms you. But you don’t let it pull you under. You keep going. And you keep doing what’s right. And I know you’ll never stop caring, and feeling, and doing whatever you can. Because you’re you. Last Light, Flamewalker, monster hunter…it doesn’t matter. You’re Kat Drummond. And that means something.”
I suspected that his words would either bring me to tears or reflect off my cold façade. But, as my eyes widened, I realised they had done neither.
I sighed, slowly, and felt something lift. Not all of it. There was still pressure. Still a feeling that I needed to repress some things. But I started feeling again. The pain in my knuckles, the agony in my arms. And it felt good.
I let out a swift laugh. Almost a snort and shook my head.
“That’s a lot of pressure, Brett Callahan.”
He smiled, before kissing me on the forehead.
I considered his words as I rubbed my knuckles, and then nodded with finality.
“I’ll try. Thank you.”
Chapter 16.
Resentment
“Ye need to keep ye crew under control, lass,” Ironfoot said, calmly, as he levelled a chicken drumstick at me from across his captain’s desk. I was sitting on a fine, leather chair, opposite the dwarven captain, in his quarters. Change the metal to wood and it would look like any whimsical image of a captain’s cabin during the golden age of piracy. Mementos in the form of stuffed exotic fish, colourful charms, rugs and statuettes from Indonesia and India, and various dwarven weapons adorned the walls. A large window gave a splendid view of the roiling deep blue sea.
“I thought that while we were onboard, they were your crew,” I remarked, with just a hint of snark.
“Aye, they are. But ye are their commanding officer. Under me. Which makes them yer responsibility, lass. I don’ rightly know what has got all them in a fuss. But I know it’s been bad for morale. There be almost an unspoken roster of when ye ilk can move around, lest they bump into each other. Now, this hasn’t really hurt ye obligations. That Tiger Fist of yours can pull the weight of a hundred dwarves. But, if things get any worse, I don’ know what I’ll have to do.”
His tone held a hint of finality and I stood.
“Aye, Cap’n. I will put a stop to this.”
He nodded. “Make sure ye do. Dismissed.”
Great. Made it through that lecture. Now, I just had to figure out how to fix this mess.
I exited Ironfoot’s cabin and was greeted by Brett, waiting for me.
“He chew your ear off?” he asked.
“I thought it was quite reasonable,” Treth said.
“I agree,” I replied, then recalled that Brett couldn’t hear Treth. “Everything he said was reasonable. He doesn’t blame me. And he rightly wants us to sort out the drama.”
The Silver Star (Kat Drummond Book 11) Page 13