Fire In The Darkness (Darkness Series #2)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “First training so you will not eat.” Alki motioned me to keep moving for the door.

  I wasn’t exactly hungry yet, but couldn’t stop myself from asking why.

  “Because, it will be wasted. You will only throw it up,” Alki responded.

  Oh crap. I knew I shouldn’t have asked. Training was going to be even worse than I imagined.

  Two hours later, I was pretty sure I had greatly underestimated that sentiment. Military training would have been like going to a spa compared to this. Alki was relentless and appeared to enjoy causing extreme pain a little too much. Maybe this was his “vice.” I wouldn’t have been surprised. He had me running up hills, stairs, through mud, doing sprints, and long distances till I threw up. Then he started me on weights until my arms and legs could barely move. And that was only the warm-up. Next we started on my first lesson in martial arts. Within the first hour alone, I had already contemplated quitting about twelve times.

  By the time Koke and Maya came in, I had thrown up four more times, all bile and a tiny bit of the power drink he allowed me to have.

  I spent my lunch break trying to find a way for the sandwich to make its way to my mouth—without moving my arms because they ached so much. Not an easy feat. After lunch, Maya worked on my earth powers, but Alki was in charge of my overall training so he remained, pushing me to my limit.

  “Concentrate,” he commanded.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Ember, you must not only be able to connect with the earth but be able to regulate what it gives you. It has no filter. You have to become the filter,” Maya spoke sharply. English was not her first language and she pronounced each word carefully.

  “I’m filtering. I’m filtering. I am filtering all over the place.” I rolled onto my back, rubbing at the headache pounding in my temples.

  “Sit up. We are to go again.” Maya sat on the ground across from me, her legs folded. She was in baggy, brown cotton leggings and a loose-fitting shirt. Today her short hair was wild and natural, sticking out over the leopard-print scarf wrapped around her head like a headband. Her skin was a rich caramel color. She was gorgeous, full of confidence and strength, and definitely commanded attention. Even though she was connected to the earth, I could sense her powers weren’t always used for good or for healing. She could probably take down countries with a tiny curse, destroy crops with a hex, and turn a cheating husband into a snake. I had to be careful around her.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we were in the forest or something?”

  “No. You won’t always be touching nature. You need to learn how to bring it to you without having to feel it.” Exhaling air, my head fell back and my lids closed. “Open yourself to it. It knows you; it recognizes you. It will listen if you command it.”

  Energy from the earth buzzed at the tips of my fingers. Earth and life were everywhere. There was a forest outside the door; I simply had to reach out to it. Feeling the force dance around, I called it to me. A spurt of energy struck me, almost electrical, but within me.

  “Let it stream through you, but bridle it.” Maya’s words entered my ears.

  Sweat beads gathered at my hairline. Squeezing my eyebrows together, I tried again, more forcefully. Too forcefully. A rush of energy slammed into my body, trying to get in all at once. My system couldn’t take it. With a roar, it burst out of me and into the room and everything in its path. The lights erupted with a surging explosion. Everyone dove for cover. Alki pulled Koke under a table, while Maya scrambled under another one.

  “Control it, Ember,” Maya yelled.

  It was too late. Loss of control spiked my adrenaline with fear. Sparks grabbed onto the electrical force filling the area. Flares of energy and fire popped and burned through the room.

  “You're letting your fear dictate,” Koke screamed at me from under the table.

  Shit, yeah I was. This kind of power was terrifying. But I had no idea how to fight my fear and regain command.

  Another ball of fire slammed across the room, hitting the wall heater.

  “Oh crap” was all I could utter. A loud boom ripped through my eardrums. Suddenly the room exploded. Walls were demolished, exposing the daylight. I went flying through the air. Chunks of wood, shards of glass, and fragments of plaster flew past me in a tornado of intensity. I heard bones crunching as my back hit the grass yards away from the burning building.

  Feeling woozy, it took me a couple of tries to sit up. When I did I almost fell back again. The wooden shed where we had been working was a burning mass of lumber although there actually wasn't much left to burn. It had been blown to bits. Quickly, I looked around for everyone. Alki, Maya, and Koke were sprawled in different areas across the lawn, covered with blood. Struggling to get up, I half crawled over to their bodies. Maya was the closest. Deep gashes covered her face and body, and her eyes were shut tight.

  “Maya? Are you okay?” I gently touched her.

  She grunted out some unintelligible words.

  “What?”

  Maya’s eyes slowly opened, shifting to mine. “I was not sure I liked you. Now I know. I definitely do not.” She was serious, but it still made me snort—probably more out of relief she was okay enough to be considering whether she liked me or not.

  “I second that.” Koke struggled to sit up. Blood covered almost every inch of her body as well.

  Alki stayed on his back, but his voice was nonchalant. “We will have to continue to work on your skills in this area. I do not feel you have gotten a handle on them yet.”

  There was a pause. Then crazed laughter came from the rest of us. I flopped back on the ground. Stunned and dazed, I heard alarmed voices coming from the main house, heading for us.

  “Aren’t you the little fire-starter?” Nic said from the doorway of my bedroom later that day.

  Too exhausted to move, I grunted in response.

  Nic chuckled. “Yeah, I heard you pretty much destroyed the training room and almost took out three Fae in the process. Good work.”

  Even though they would heal quickly, I felt awful for hurting Koke, Maya, and Alki. Okay, maybe not Alki; he had enjoyed torturing me too much.

  “Lars wants to talk with you. He’s waiting for you in the library. So, find the strength as he is not a patient man.”

  I just wanted to be left alone for five minutes to sleep. Possibly forever. Was it too much to ask? Willing my body to move, I groaned while trying to sit up. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. I could not decide what hurt more. Between the blast, the weights, and the running, my entire body hurt equally.

  “Let me help you.” Nic’s mischievous smile appeared. Too tired to fight him, I let him help me stand and walk me downstairs. I even ignored when his hands dropped lower on my back than necessary.

  “Ember, please join me,” Lars greeted me.

  “Thank you, Nic, but I think she is capable of handling it from here.” Nic nodded and gave my butt a squeeze, before walking out the door. It took too much effort to glare at him so I stepped into the room. A gasp came from my lips. In front of me was a beautiful, floor-to-ceiling library stocked full of books.

  I found my happy place.

  The room was located in the turret. Windows curved with the rounded room and covered an entire wall two stories high, letting in tons of natural light. A large window seat was built-in, a dream spot for a reading nook with every other inch covered in books. A catwalk above my head held even more book-lined shelves. A door told me there was access from upstairs. With nerdy ecstasy, I sighed.

  Lars sat at a table in the middle. This was the first time his presence didn’t command my attention. My gaze was focused on all the books, dying to devour them.

  Lars cleared his throat, “I have found your ignorance of the Otherworld appalling. So, besides your training with Alki, you will be schooled in matters of history, language, and geography of the Otherworld.” Lars clasped his hands on his lap. “Since you know next to nothing—and your understanding of th
is information is highly important—I will personally be handling your education.”

  My stomach clenched. Something told me I would soon be wishing for Alki’s trainings instead.

  Lars pushed a book towards me. “Sit.”

  Painstakingly, I lowered myself down into the chair; my arms trembled as I pulled the book towards me. “What is this?”

  “Our history,” Lars replied. “Our events are chronicled differently than human history books, and they are not exactly the most consistent, but at least we get it accurate. I'll want you to read this.” He tapped the cover. “But tonight I want to give you a brief rundown of Dae history. Little has been recorded.” He tapped his fingers on the table in thought. “I will assume you know nothing. Why she kept you so ignorant I will never know. She should not have hid you; she should have brought you to me.”

  “Do you mean my mom?” I sat up straighter. “Why would she bring me to you? And who are you to judge? She did the best she could.” I crossed my arms in a huff.

  “You really do have your mother’s stubbornness.” Lars shook his head and began his history lesson.

  For the next fifteen minutes he rattled off what little information was known about Daes. Most of it I had already learned. But there were a few things new to me. “Is every Dae different depending on their parents?” I asked.

  “Yes. The particular power and strength of a Dae depends on the parents’ abilities.” He leaned back in his chair. “Combining a noble-blooded Fay with a full Demon is not the only thing making Daes so powerful. Mixing Daes with Light and Dark creates powers so strong most can’t handle them. Daes tend to ‘short-out’.” He paused. “You, Ember, not only have all these powers in abundance, but you inherited the rare combination of mind, fire, and nature powers from your parentage. You are even unique in the Dae world. I am sure you have experienced the ability of what humans call psychokinesis and pyro-telekinesis?”

  I nodded. One of my first vivid memories was when I was three. Mom and I were out shopping, and there was a stuffed dog I really wanted. Mom had said no, took it from my hands and put it on a top shelf out of my reach. I was really upset. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have the stuffed animal. I recalled looking back up at it and wanting it so badly. All of a sudden it was in my hands. When mom turned around and saw it back in my arms, she screamed my name and tore it out of my hands. Now looking through clearer eyes, I realized she had been more scared someone saw what I did than anything. She had never cared before what people thought, but that time had been different.

  When I got upset electrical devices went on the fritz. But the huge fire, which almost burned down my first high school in Monterey, clued me in that there was more to it. I had tried to ignore it, but now I knew. It had always been me. I had blown out our Christmas lights when I was ten, I had caused a “strange” dining room fire at a restaurant when I was seven, and I had started the fire in the little old lady’s house where we lived when I was four.

  “You inherited not only powers but also your physical appearance from your parents. Daes became easy targets because of that. A Demon's eyes are a yellow color. Noble Fay have blue or purple tones. Eyes became the easy tell-tale sign of a Dae because they have one of each. Some, like you, also had the distinguishing feature of the two-tone hair.”

  Huh? My mom had orangish-brown colored eyes. If she was Fay, why didn’t she have the violet-blue color? Her hair also had been more auburn than the bright red of my streaks. She had been hiding from the Otherworld. Did she change her hair color and wear contacts? Or maybe she glamoured her hair and eyes so she would remain better concealed to keep Fae from finding her? What else did my mom change to keep us safe?

  “Can Fae glamour others besides themselves?”

  “No.” Lars shook his head. “No Fae can. Even the most powerful Fae only have the ability to glamour themselves and inanimate objects.”

  I took this in. My mom couldn’t change my looks, so she changed hers to hide us the best way she could. There was so much more I wanted to know about her. “Since my mother told me nothing, what do you know about my Fay side?”

  “Well, as you know, you have the ability to absorb and use the energies from nature and the earth, hence, the debacle today. You have an abundance of power and no aptitude to use it.”

  Ouch, that stings.

  “Even though your earth power comes from the Light side, it actually is much more dangerous. The earth contains unlimited energy, and tapping into it can destroy and kill you and others if you don’t know how to use it properly.”

  For example—an hour ago.

  And Seattle.

  Nature had always soothed me and made me feel strong, as if it wanted to give me everything it had. It knew me—was part of me. To know those abilities could destroy as easily as they could heal and create was frightening. Was this the power I felt taking over me and consuming me? There were times my power had hurt people, like today. Or when I had hurt people while on the run like those kids in Red Cross shelter who got hit with the bake cart when my fear got the better of me. How much worse it could have been if I had taken on more power. I had harmed a lot of people, but now I really understood they had gotten off easy. I could have killed them. A chill curled around me, causing me to shiver.

  Lars must have noticed the concern in my eyes. He replied, “We will help you manage it.”

  I looked away. “So, my mother was part of the noble court.” It was more statement than question. I knew she had been. She had to be Fay to have created me, but it still didn’t feel right. She had been so real and down to earth, wearing jeans and t-shirts, loving motorcycles and blues music. When I had met the Queen, she had not been at all how I pictured a noble Fay to be.

  “Yes,” Lars nodded. “She was one of the most beautiful women in court, maybe anywhere. Definitely the most loved. She had many admirers, which her husband hated. He was an enormously jealous man.”

  “My mother was married before?” Another secret she had kept from me. Another detail that felt wrong.

  “Fay nobility do not have the luxury of marrying for love.”

  I had heard something like that. Perhaps escaping to Earth was not only to save me, but her as well. Was she a victim of an arranged marriage also? Even if Torin was everything I might want in a husband, if I even wanted to get married, which I didn’t, no one should be forced to marry. It was strange to think of myself in that world—in the elite noble class. Me, noble? Yeah, right. It felt as false as thinking of my mother as one.

  “Obviously, her husband was not my father . . .”

  “No, he was not. Be grateful for that.”

  “Not a nice guy, huh?”

  Lars pressed his lips together, giving me enough of an answer.

  “Did you know my real father—the sperm donor?”

  Lars grimaced. “Your mother’s affairs did not interest me. We have other details to discuss now.”

  “He raped my mother, didn’t he?”

  Lars got up from his chair. “Ember, this is not the time.”

  “Did they love each other?”

  “Ember, I said enough.” His tone alerted me to stop talking.

  Grumbling, I slumped back in my chair, my arms crossed.

  “Sometimes you act so much like one of those human, teenage girls.” He rubbed his forehead.

  “Well, up until a few months ago I thought I was one.”

  “You are not. You need to start remembering that.” He jammed a book back onto the shelf. “You are a mortal of the Otherworld, powerful, strong, and feared by most, including the Queen.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I will not say you are immortal, as you could die. But Fae live thousands and thousands of years.”

  “Thousands of years? H-how is that possible? That can’t be . . .” I stopped talking, my brain trying to wrap around this new information.

  “This is the problem. Even now you do not think of yourself as one of us, but as a human
. You are not one of them.” He said “them” with obvious superiority. “You are nothing like them; you do not have their weaknesses. We do not die so easily, and we age very slowly.”

  “Just how slowly are we talking here?”

  “Just as time is not the same in the Otherworld, neither do we mature at the same rate. Years are not the same to us as they are to humans. It takes us centuries to age even a little. What is equivalent to a human decade is barely a few hours to us. If we stay in a certain area for a time, most Fae use glamour to age their looks, so humans do not get suspicious.” He headed for a bookshelf.

  “But we can die? How?” I demanded.

  “Our physical make-up is different from humans so we don’t die from anything like diseases, gunshots wounds, or old age. That's not to say it wouldn’t hurt like hell if you were shot or you wouldn't prefer to die if a semi-truck hit you, but we won’t actually die. We would eventually heal. But, we are not invincible. We can die on Earth by fire or decapitation, and also weapons made in the Otherworld can kill us here. In the Otherworld we can die much easier—from our own diseases, weapons, and eventually old age. But that is not something you will need to worry about for several thousands more years.” He continued to scan the bookshelf. “There's a secret no Fae would freely tell you because it is their ultimate weakness. As I do not suffer the same concerns, I will. Two times a year the realms collide, Earth and the Otherworld. Fae are extremely susceptible during those times, maybe even more than humans. They can die by the same means as a human but also by Otherworld means.”

  “When are those times?”

  Pulling out a book, he flipped it open to a page and set the book down in front of me. “The first time that our realms bleed together is Samhain. You’d probably know it as Halloween. It is when we celebrate the end of the ‘lighter half’ of the year and the beginning of the ‘darker half.’ Beltaine is the other, which is at the beginning of May. It is the beginning of the light half of the year, the exact opposite of Samhain. The barrier between Earth and the Otherworld comes down. When the veil is that thin, the magic is tremendous. Humans who are ‘sensitive’ can even feel it.”