by Megg Jensen
“Chase brought me here. I didn’t come of my own will.”
“Didn’t you come into the forest with a baby, in an attempt to find its mother?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, but—”
“And Chase helped you accomplish that goal, correct?”
If she wasn’t an old woman, I might have slapped her. “Yes,” I said, my teeth gritted.
Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. “You are a hothead, aren’t you? It’s a good thing Chase blocked your magic or we’d all be in trouble.”
“I’d never use my magic to hurt anyone,” I insisted, folding my arms across my chest.
“Ah, but you have accidentally, haven’t you? Isn’t that how your sister died? Your anger boiled over, the flame grew so intense, and you accidentally released a blast of wind at her.”
“How do you know that? Are all of you spying on my every move?”
Johna shook her head. “Of course not, a young girl like you, with a handsome suitor like Bryden deserves her privacy. I have spies who tell me the things I cannot see for myself.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Chase said, “but can we talk about what just happened. Who’s down there? So few people ever come this way and I’m concerned. It’s not like there’s a road, or even a path, down there. Someone’s snooping around.”
Johna’s smile disappeared, replaced by a very serious set of pursed lips. “I don’t know. I saw only one man. He had a sword on his hip, but he was moving slowly, carefully observing the ground. I think he was looking for tracks. There may be dozens of them out in the forest looking for Lianne.”
“We erased any clue that Lianne had been through this place,” Chase said. His firm stance showed that he had complete confidence in himself. “They won’t find anything.”
“And yet, he searched directly below us for nearly an hour.”
I raised an eyebrow. I’d sat encased in Chase’s arms for that long?
“He finally moved on,” Johna said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned. He knows something or he wouldn’t have spent so much time in one spot.”
“I didn’t miss a thing,” Chase insisted. “There’s no way he can know we’re here. Only one person has left the community since Lianne got here and she’s not in a place where she can tell anyone.”
“Did he tell you your friend is gone, Lianne?” Johna asked.
“Mags? She left?” My surprise must have shown across my face, my eyes wide, my mouth in a circle. “Where did she go?”
“We couldn’t allow a baby here for long,” Johna said. “We offered to put an enchantment on the child so it wouldn’t cry, but she refused so we had to ask her to leave.”
“You asked her to leave?” I wanted to scream, but I knew I couldn’t to protect the community. “Did you just dump them in the forest? Then that’s why that man found something to see down there. I can’t believe you would just drop her there without even letting me say goodbye!”
My hands formed fists and my arms shook. I plastered them to my sides, trying to control the rage flowing through me.
Johna raised an eyebrow. “It appears she has quite a temper, even without the magic stoking it.”
“Don’t analyze me.”
“Quite right, I’m sorry, child. No, we did not just dump Mags in the midst of the forest. She’s moved on to another place. It’s very safe. We drove away the Malborn when Chase was just a twinkle in his mother’s eye.”
“She’s in your homeland? But how could she find it on her own? I don’t understand.”
“We have ways of transporting people across long distances in seconds. It’s part of the way our magic works,” Chase said.
“Really? That’s incredible. Can I learn it too?” For a moment I felt some hope in learning more about magic. I’d seen it as a curse that had only brought pain and suffering to those I loved. I saw it as an evil tool my people used to control others. It hadn’t really occurred to me I could do something benign with it.
“Perhaps. We’d like to teach you, but Chase tells me you’re anxious to leave us,” Johna said. I opened my mouth to respond, but she held up her hand and continued. “Lianne, you are the bearer of great potential. It pains me to know your people bound up your gift when you were born, unleashing it only when it was useful to them. That’s not fair to you and it’s a gross misuse of your gift.”
I nodded, in full agreement with what she’d just said. “But Chase tells me there’s a bigger problem than my people invading Fithia. Will you tell me?”
Johna sighed and sat down on her chair. She was so vital, but her body was obviously very old. I wanted to know her exact age. I didn’t dare ask. “My people have had access to our gifts, what you call magic, for as long as we can remember. Many, many, many years ago we were invaded by people who called themselves the Malborn. They sought to exploit our gifts, and even found ways to breed their own gifted army. In our land, people with the gift have a spark in their eye - a magical twinkle only another gifted person can see. It’s what helped us identify each other, but still kept us hidden from our enemies.
“The Malborn found a way to breed children with the gift, who did not have the spark. It nearly destroyed our people. Chase’s mother saved us all from destruction.”
I glanced over at Chase. Instead of seeing a prideful smile, I only saw sadness on his face. For a moment I wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him somehow, but I kept my arms at my sides.
“Your mother must be a hero,” I said. “I’m sure she’s very brave.”
“I don’t want to talk about my mother right now.”
“Yes,” Johna agreed, “that’s a conversation for another day. The problem is that while we expelled the Malborn from Serenia, we know they are after anyone who has the gift and can grace their people with it.”
“So they’re chasing after my people to try to breed with them? Creepy.”
“Not just any of your people,” Chase said. He took a step toward me. His hand twitched, as if he were about to reach out for me, but he held himself in check. “They want you.”
Chapter Nine
“Me? Why me? From what I learned from my sister, Sebrina, plenty of my people have magic. What makes me special?”
“It’s the nature of your gift. There are many basic things we can all do with our gifts, if taught properly. But each of us has something special that sets our gift apart from everyone else’s. Yours is based in fire.”
“Fire? But I’ve never done anything with fire. The few times I have used my magic, it manifested in a breeze of some kind. Or I once made a rock move.”
“Impressive,” Chase said. His sardonic grin told me it wasn’t. I resisted the urge to hit him and focused on Johna.
“That’s only because you’re using very basic elements of the gift. Once you’re able to unleash it properly, you’ll find that fire dominates as your greatest power.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. I hadn’t told any of them about the fire I’d felt in my gut from the moment I awoke on my sixteenth birthday. My anger stoked it, and only Bryden’s presence, his love, had been able to cool it down. Now that Chase had drained it, or blocked it, or whatever it was he was doing to me, I didn’t feel a thing. I was grateful, too, because the sensation of fire ripping through my body was unpleasant on a good day.
“I guessed based off one of Chase’s pictures.” Her eyes flickered over to his. “Has he shown you?”
“No, I didn’t show her that picture,” Chase said. “She only saw a couple of them on the top.”
“What’s in that picture?” I whirled around, facing Chase head-on. “I want to see it.”
“It’s down in my room, somewhere in the crate.”
“So, let’s go. I want to know what you saw.”
Johna’s bony fingers wrapped around my arm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “The future is a very strange thing. Chase’s mother also had the gift. Her visions weren’t always accurate. There’s no sense
in showing you something that may never happen. It’s the message behind it that matters. You have the gift of fire. You may not understand, but you aren’t denying it.”
I turned back to Johna. I peeled her hand off my arm, and held it between both of my hands. Kneeling down on the floor next to her, I confessed everything. “When I woke up on the morning of my sixteenth birthday, I was filled with this inexplicable rage. As the day went on, it felt like fire was ripping my insides apart.” I choked on the tears that threatened to spill.
Johna stroked my hair with her free hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us any more if you don’t want to.”
“Every time I got angry, I felt the fires stir. Sometimes it was worse than others. Once it was so blinding, I passed out.”
“You were just trying to protect everyone around you.” Chase placed a hand on my back. “Who knows what would have happened if you had let go. If your fire had gotten loose, who knows what, or who, you could have burned.”
I lifted my head, wiping the tears from my eyes with my sleeve. “Thank you, Chase.”
Chase pointed at himself. “Me? What did I do?”
“You drained my magic. I was bound to be angry once I got up here and realized you wouldn’t let me leave. You probably saved everyone by blocking me. What if I’d set this place on fire? It would burn down so quickly. I can’t bear to kill anyone else.”
That’s when the tears turned into a torrent of showers. I let go of Johna’s hand, stood up, pushed past Chase, and ran out of the cottage.
Before I could get past the first landing, Chase grabbed my arm. “Stop, please, Lianne. Don’t run away. Johna and I can help you learn to control it.”
“Bryden told me that too, but it didn’t work.” I jerked my arm from his grasp. “It took me years to learn to control myself while fighting. If it takes another ten years for me to learn to control this magic, then what good will it do me? I’ll be twenty-six! That’s practically middle aged!” I raged quietly, knowing that anything louder than a conversational voice would get me in trouble. The volume was low, but the venom was thick.
“You’d better not let Johna hear you say twenty-six is middle aged. The woman is close to eighty. Stop behaving like a child, or you’ll be treated like one.” Chase’s warning hit me harder than a fist to the gut.
“You’re already treating me like a child,” I spat back. “I’m getting sick of it really fast.”
“Really?” Chase folded his arms across his chest. “If you started acting more like an adult, then maybe I’d do a better job of treating you like an equal.”
The rage built up inside me until I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I took two solid steps toward Chase, pivoted on my left foot, and kicked him squarely in the stomach. He doubled-over, clutching his hands to his stomach. In spite of myself, I smiled. Not one guy had ever recovered quickly from my roundhouse. If I had kicked a few inches lower, he’d be on the floor in desperate pain. This was just a warning.
Chase stood up, his eyebrows furrowed, and grabbed both of my wrists in his hands. “Calm down.”
I rolled my wrists to the side, breaking his grip. Then I grabbed his right arm, twisted it backward, and pushed up his wrist, angling his fingers toward his face. Chase bent at the waist, unable to break the hold I had on him.
“I give,” he pleaded in a strangled voice. I let go of him. Chase slid to the platform, sitting cross-legged while he regained his breath. I stood next to him, relaxed. Before I knew what was happening, Chase grabbed my calf and knocked me down. To avoid hitting the back of my head on the wood platform, my arms instinctively flew out to the side, breaking my fall.
“Ass,” I said. “You’re not fighting fairly.”
“Neither will the Malborn. When they come for you, and they will, you can’t expect them to do any less.”
“So what am I supposed to do? I can’t control the magic. I’ve never even seen this fire you and Johna claim I have. I’ve only felt it inside. So not only do I have to figure out how to get it out, but I have to learn how to control it? Impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, Lianne. We can teach you.”
I laughed. “When Bryden tried to teach me how to use my magic, it usually involved making out.”
Chase’s smile melted off his face. “That’s not the right way to teach someone to use their magic. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I scooted away from him, just an inch or two, but enough to prove to myself that I needed the distance. I couldn’t let Chase get any closer or let him think I wanted to kiss him. I didn’t. My heart belonged completely to Bryden.
“How would you teach me?”
“Give me your hand.” Chase’s outstretched arm beckoned to me. I hesitated for moment, then slipped my hand in his. He flipped mine upside-down so my palm faced toward the sky. “Okay, now close your eyes.”
I obliged.
“Do you feel anything?” he asked.
I shook my head. Then a rush swept through my body. Fire, pure as the first flame from a newly lit byre, engulfed my insides. I gasped. It was back.
“Keep your eyes closed, Lianne, and just breathe. In through your nose and out through your mouth.”
I was no stranger to regulating my breathing patterns. It was one of the most basic techniques of the meditation Aric taught me so many years ago. My body instantly fell into a relaxed state. My gut expanded with each inhalation and contracted with each expulsion of air. The fire calmed to a slow burning ember.
“Okay,” Chase said softly, “open your eyes.”
My eyelids fluttered open. The dark, green-canopied sky misted around me, but I only felt it seeping slowly through my clothes. A tiny orange and red flame danced on my palm.
“How?” I didn’t have any other words for the wonder I saw. The flames coursed inside me, but I’d never seen one spring from my body. The flame pirouetted across my palm, undulating colors so brilliant I squinted my eyes.
“That’s just a small part of what’s inside you,” Chase said. “By controlling your breathing, you were able to focus and produce that little thing.”
“Little thing?” I closed my eyes and concentrated harder. I opened them again. The flame had doubled in size. My cheeks hurt when a smile ripped my face in two.
“Very nice, but can you shrink it back?” Chase asked.
“Yes.” I had no idea whether or not I could, but bravado had seen me through many difficult times in my life. Why not now?
I gazed into the flame, willing it to shrink. Instead of doing as I wished, it grew, covering my entire palm. I looked up at Chase, my eyebrows arching. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Relax and breathe. It’s inside; you just need to figure it out.”
I redirected my breath, which had become erratic since I’d opened my eyes and seen the flame. Instead of focusing on the fire sprouting from my palm, I turned inward. The searing magic inside had slowed to a trickle. I willed it to increase inside me, hoping that would decrease the flame on the outside.
Opening one eye just a tad, I saw the flame wink and then disappear.
“I did it! Chase, I did it! Did you see that?”
I grabbed his hands, stood up, and pulled him up with me. I punched him on the shoulder playfully. “I want to practice some more.” I bounced back and forth on my toes, waving my hands in the air. I closed my eyes and flicked my fingers in the air. When I opened them, tiny flames jumped from fingertip to fingertip.
Chase laughed. “That’s fine. Of course we can practice more, but you have to understand that your gift could burn down this entire community. You can only have access to it when I’m here. Okay?”
I breathed in and the flames receded. I really wanted to argue with him, prove that I was ready to handle my magic, but I glanced around at the community. The homes, stairs, platforms - everything was made of flammable material. “Okay.”
My fist flew out to punch him in the shoulder again, but he grabbed it in his palm,
stopping me just inches away from his chest. “And don’t do that again. I’m a fighter as much as you are. If you catch me off guard, I might not react in such a friendly way.”
I pulled my arm back, letting it hang at my side. “Sorry. I’m used to sparring most days of the week. It’s hard for me to contain myself when I get excited.”
“We can spar too. The last thing I want is for you to be out of practice.” The smile dropped from his face. “There’s too much at stake. You need to be able to keep yourself safe.”
Chapter Ten
Over the next few weeks, Chase and I spent most of our time sparring and he taught me to harness the power of my magic. At first I had trouble calling the fire, but I reminded myself how to quiet my mind and let my body take over. The same principles I’d used learning to spar and meditate drove my quick mastery of magic. Well, it seemed like mastery to me. Chase tried not to laugh when I got excited over the tiniest trick. To him, all of this was child’s play, but to me it was the pinnacle of everything I’d been dying to learn. Knowing there was so much more, still beyond my grasp for now, drove me harder every day. I crashed in Chase’s bed at night, thinking about Bryden and missing his arms around me.
Deep in the night, I woke up to the sounds of a hushed argument. A beam of light streamed under the door. I threw the covers off and crept to the door. I pressed my ear against it and listened as closely as I could.
“I have to meet with her tonight. I need you to stand guard on Lianne. Don’t let her out of your sight.” It was Chase.
“This isn’t my problem,” the mystery man said. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“It’s everybody’s problem. You know that. If you don’t help me, pretty soon we’ll all be under the Malborn’s thumb. You saw what it did to our people – to my mother!”
“I know, I know. But how can you be sure they’re after Lianne? Maybe it’s someone else?”
“I’m sure, trust me. But you can’t tell anyone back home that I have her. They’ll think I’m ignoring my duty.”
“You are.” The other man sounded smug. “You’re letting this bizarre obsession with this girl cloud your judgment.”