The Lightning Conjurer

by Rachel Rener

  “No,” he interrupted sharply. “Not this time.”

  “Oh,” Aspen blinked.

  Seeing her expression, Ori’s features softened. “And anyway, it would appear she’s more interested in women these days,” he said, stroking his trimmed beard. A burgeoning grin was beginning to replace his somber expression. “I thought that would be a nice perk at first, but it hasn’t exactly been working in my favor… Which reminds me, my crow-haired beauty, will you be single anytime soon?”

  At that, I let out an audible sigh. “It’s been four years, man. Four. Years!”

  “Seriously, Ori,” Aspen frowned, pointing to the tanzanite engagement ring on her left hand. “You’d have better luck with Eileen.”

  Ori pushed his chair away from the table, clutching his chest dramatically. “Gah! Too mean!”

  “Uh-huh. So, back to all this new legislation you spoke of,” she cut in quickly. “What specific issues are stirring up debate in the Assembly? Does Kaylie have anything to do with them?”

  Ori’s back stiffened ever so slightly, but his shoulders quickly relaxed. “Later, chabibti. First let me digest, then we’ll talk over tea.”

  Aspen’s frown deepened, but she didn’t press any further.

  Ah yes, I thought to myself. It’s definitely going to be an interesting evening.

  ***

  After dinner, we all gathered in the sitting room, where Elizabeth poured the strawberry tea Ori had brought from his stopover in Tel Aviv. Despite being a motley collection of Ted’s old furniture, Evelyn’s generously donated furniture, and new hand-picked furniture, Elizabeth had somehow created a cohesive feeling of warmth and coziness when she put the room all together. An oil burner resting on one of the rustic end tables released the comforting smell of lavender and vanilla into the air. A plush white rug covered the maple floors and beautiful gold-embossed book spines filled the built-in shelves that framed the wood fireplace. Aspen and I had tucked ourselves beneath a plaid fleece blanket on the loveseat, and while the combination of a full stomach and a roaring fire threatened to lull me into a soporific state, the quiet misgivings in the back of my mind kept me on high alert. What news had Ori traveled all this way to impart? What was so serious that he had to wait until after dinner to tell us? Even Aspen, who appeared cool and serene on the outside, was clutching my hand beneath the blanket a little too tightly.

  After a few minutes of heavy silence, Aspen finally cleared her throat. “So, Ori, let’s get to it.”

  “Get to what?” he asked, stirring a sugar cube into his tea. He was sitting on the floor by the fire, ceding the couch to Elizabeth and Ted. Like me, they both had wary looks on their faces.

  “Get to the part where you ask me for the hundredth time to consider running for prime minister.”

  Ori looked surprised. “Why, would you say yes?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s good I’m not here to ask you that.”

  Aspen and I exchanged quick glances. “Then what are you here to discuss?” I asked, leaning forward on my cushion.

  “Well – I’m here to ask for our lovely Pentamancer’s official support.”

  “Support for what?”

  “My election campaign. I’m running for prime minister of the Asterian government and I want Aspen to join me on my world tour.”

  An outstretched moment of silence ensued following Ori’s shocking announcement. While my mind worked through the ramifications of those loaded words, something heavy settled in the pit of my stomach.

  “You want to be prime minister?” Aspen blinked, clearly doing her best to keep her composure. “But… why?”

  In the brief pause that followed, my brain all at once caught on to what my gut had already figured out. I felt a sudden wave of protectiveness, of anxiety, of fear – but most of all, I felt angry. Aspen’s life, albeit busy, had been so peaceful lately, so normal. For the first time since Barish had outed her as the Pentamancer – knowingly and intentionally making her a living legend to help him fulfill his ambitious agenda – the Asterian Order had finally settled into its new structure of transparency and democracy. Almost all of the Containment Centers had been closed. The new Parliament was running smoothly, with its twelve representatives working in the local Chapters rather than hiding beneath ancient stone walls. It had taken years, but Aspen was finally able to extricate herself from Asterian politics and the burden of her Pentamantic Christening, believing that the Order was finally able to function without her constant oversight.

  Ori knew the sacrifices she had made for the Asterians, the losses she had endured, the years of her life she had set aside. He understood that more than anything, Aspen wanted a simple and quiet existence. And yet here he was, asking her to return to the spotlight.

  For the second time that night, I wanted to slug him.

  Ori glanced at me apologetically. He knew what he was asking. He knew what I was thinking. And he knew exactly what this would mean for her.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled to Aspen as his eyes darted back to me, “but I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t extremely urgent.”

  I did everything I could not to openly glower at him, but as the slow-burning log fire beside us briefly ignited into seething blue flames, our eyes locked and I knew he understood.

  I was furious.

  Throughout all of this, Elizabeth had paled slightly. But instead of offering her usual logical and placating comments, she was watching Aspen with an intense look. She may have been speaking to her daughter in their silent Electromantic language. If only she would advise Aspen to chuck Ori out of the house and into the snowstorm. As the fireplace let out another loud crack, Ted gave me a sympathetic, albeit pointed, look. “Ori, why don’t you go ahead and explain what’s going on before Aiden toasts you like a marshmallow?”

  I scoffed but made no effort to contradict his statement.

  “Look, I know running for minister sounds crazy,” Ori said, rising to his feet. From beside me, Aspen had pulled her attention away from her mother and was regarding him with apprehension. “And I know you’re content to stay away from the Assembly. But you have no idea how much is at stake right now. You’ve been away for a long time, Aspen.”

  The accusation in his tone made me bristle. Aspen, who had stiffened beside me, apparently heard it as well.

  “I’ve made it clear from the beginning, Ori,” she said, keeping her voice level. “I don’t want to be involved in politics, and I refuse to be used as a chess piece. Barish did it once, and I won’t let anyone do it again.”

  “Yes, but—”

  She held up a hand. “If you want to run for minister, then run for minister. You know I’d support you. I think you’d be great. But I’m not hopping on the campaign trail with you to sway voters. I don’t have time, I don’t want to be in the spotlight, and you and I both know it’s a manipulative tactic. I’m surprised you even brought it up after our last conversation about politics.”

  I was about to give an extremely relieved sigh and change the subject, but Ori’s next words made my mouth snap shut.

  “The Asterian way of life that Barish died for is failing, Aspen,” he replied, the tone of his voice uncharacteristically serious. The orange glow of the fireplace illuminated fine lines around the corners of his eyes and small hollows beneath his cheekbones. “There are whispers… maybe more than whispers. Your vision, the vision you trusted us to defend, is in danger.”

  For the first time in a very long time, the lights flickered. His words had struck a nerve.

  Indeed, Aspen’s knuckles were white as she wrung the blanket resting in her lap. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “In danger from whom? The Inner Circle is gone. Keres, Jahi, all of them…”

  Ori leaned on the mantle, where pictures of our friends and family stared back at him. All traces of his usual playfulness and humor were gone. Seconds went by, but he said nothing.

  Aspen rose from our spot on the couch, making her way over to the fir
eplace. “Ori, you’ve been so quiet these last few months,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. His other hand automatically reached forward to enfold hers. “I thought you were just busy. I thought everything was okay. But if you need my help, I’m here. I’m listening.”

  “I need you to trust me,” he said, turning to look her in the eye. “Can you do that?”

  Aspen nodded. As Ori let go of her hand to tuck a strand of raven black hair behind her ear, my jaw clenched.

  “Then believe me when I say, we have to go.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Perhaps she was struggling with some sort of internal battle; perhaps, as an empath, she sensed something I couldn’t. Whatever was going through her mind, I fervently prayed that her next words would be some combination of “no,” “absolutely not,” and “go stuff a moldy sock in it.”

  Instead, she heaved a deep sigh and uttered the worst four-letter word imaginable:

  “When?”

  I bit back a curse as Ori gazed into her eyes, steeling myself for his response. I could see the sorrow reflected in his expression, and the fatigue. But there was something else – something familiar. Something that made my breath hitch. In a fleeting moment of clarity, I suddenly understood the quiet, nagging feeling that I had been trying to repress for a long time, mostly because we had all become so close over the years. Ori, in particular, was like a brother to me, and I to him. No matter how much we taunted one another, how many barbs we traded, there was love there. This was the familial love I presumed he had for Aspen, along with what we all knew was a lighthearted crush. He’d never tried to hide that fact.

  But as he stared at my fiancée with that pained expression, my mind recognized what my heart had long been avoiding: this wasn’t brotherly love or a simple crush. Ori loved her. More than a friend, more than a sister, Ori loved my Aspen. He always had.

  For the briefest moment, Elizabeth’s eyes met mine, and in their midnight depths, always so full of compassion, I saw something I had never seen from her before.

  Pity.

  I gritted my teeth and turned away. Is that why he wanted Aspen to come with him so badly? Why he couldn’t go to anyone else but her? A strange, heavy feeling constricted inside my chest, one that took me a moment to name.

  “Ori?” Aspen asked again. “When would we have to leave?”

  Eyes flitting to me, Ori gently pulled his hand away from Aspen’s face, grimacing as though he were fighting something internally. “As soon as possible.”

  Without thinking, I leapt to my feet. Ori watched me over the top of Aspen’s head, waiting for the words he knew I was going to unleash.

  “Get out,” I growled, and as I did, the fire glowed brighter.

  Aspen whirled around, her eyes wide. “Aiden!”

  “You heard me.” I vaguely registered that I was clenching my fists. For what purpose, I wasn’t exactly sure. My body was once more moving a step ahead of my brain. “Get out. Now.”

  “Aiden, please—” Elizabeth started, rising to her feet. Ted had already stood up and was carefully positioning himself in front of her. Between us. The subtle posturing somehow made me angrier. How was I the bad guy in this situation?

  “So, everyone else is just okay with this?” I demanded, meeting each set of wary eyes. I’d never raised my voice in front of any of them before. But in that moment, polite decorum was the last thing on my mind. “Does no one else think that it’s complete bullshit that Aspen has to swoop in and save the day again? After everything that’s been asked of her? After everything she’s been through? She nearly died the last time the Order tried to destroy itself from the inside out. If that’s where they’re headed yet again, I say let them cannibalize themselves! Because I won’t – I can’t—” I swallowed, feeling something thick and painful welling up in my throat. My eyes swept back to Aspen. To her slender frame, her porcelain skin, her rolled up sweater sleeves that displayed the faint spidery scars running up and down her arms…

  Closing my eyes, I did everything I could to push away the unwelcome images. But they came anyway, just as they had come countless nights during the last four years – violent nightmares that jolted me awake, leaving my entire body covered in a cold sweat. Like last night, when I once more I held her crumpled body in my arms, a primal roar escaping from my lips. She was dead, her heart immobilized by Electromantic shock as Keres’s savage laugh cackled triumphantly in the background. Only, in my nightmare, Ori hadn’t dragged himself across that burning chamber in time to resuscitate her as he had done four years prior, for he too was dead. Alongside my father’s fallen form, the broken bodies of my friends littered the ground around us. No one was left to save her. And so, I carried her cold, gray body in my arms, crying out until I bolted upright in bed with a gasp, pawing at the sheets until I found her warm sleeping body curled up against mine.

  I tried to push those images away, but it was too late.

  Next to the fireplace, its white flames cracking in agitation, Aspen’s tanzanite eyes showed white all around. These were the thoughts and images I had tried so hard to keep from her, the residual nightmares that I routinely shoved aside while I cheerfully cooked us breakfast every morning. But the image in my mind at that moment was as loud and clear as a church bell, and I knew she had seen it. The realization and pain that dawned across her face filled me with shame.

  Raking my hands through my hair, I slumped back to the couch, forehead pressed to my palms. If only Evelyn had been there. She was so much better at this than I could ever hope to be. Another pang gripped my stomach as I remembered the words I’d uttered to Aspen’s grandmother years ago, when I thought we’d finally secured our hard-fought happy ending: Don’t worry, Evie – I promise to take care of her, always. How the hell could I take care of her when she was constantly being dragged into the volatile, relentless world of the Asterian Order?

  A long moment of silence stretched across the room. Finally, Ori cleared his throat.

  “This is… bigger… than the Asterians,” he started, choosing his words very carefully. “And if we don’t fix it, it’s not just the Order that’s in jeopardy of collapse. It’s… everyone else, too.”

  I vaguely registered Aspen’s request to hear more, that she needed to understand the full scope of what had transpired. Because of course she did.

  As Ori opened his mouth to answer her, I felt my legs mechanically lift my body from the couch, felt my feet make their way to the front door, where I yanked my jacket off the coat rack and threw on my boots. Without saying another word, I stepped outside and slammed the door behind me.

  At that moment, the last place I needed to be was anywhere near Ori and an open flame.

  Chapter 3

  ’d only intended to take a short walk to clear my head after my outburst. But before I knew it, I was clomping up the steps of our cabin three miles away, every inch of me covered in ice and snow from the mounting snowstorm. I shook out my hair before opening the door and stepped into the darkness of the empty house, tossing my frozen jacket and soaking wet sweater on the floor as I did. Then, without bothering to flick on a light, I made my way to the couch and sank into the cushions. A cold shiver ran across my numb body. The fireplace in front of me held faintly glowing embers from that afternoon, but I had no intention of relighting it. My three-mile trudge through the blizzard may have left me wet and freezing, but my anger still simmered low and blistering, like the hot coals that stared back at me. Wrapping a blanket around my bare torso, I let out a heavy sigh.

  I used to be a calm man. I used to pride myself on my ability to stay level-headed and stoic, even under pressure. I used to be harder. Tougher. Impassive. But Aspen’s unanticipated appearance in my life had brought raw, unfamiliar emotions that I hadn’t felt since childhood. Emotions I had been forced to lock away when I protected my younger sister from my father’s temper, or became a substitute shoulder for my mother to cry on in his absence. Emotions that got in the way of my training, that thr
eatened my staunch adherence to the very rules that allowed me to rise through the ranks of the Asterian Order.

  Yes, her presence in my life also made me a better man, one that was capable of feeling, of caring, of being vulnerable. But vulnerability meant pain. And while I wanted nothing more than to repress it, in that moment there was nothing I could do but surrender to it. I pulled my trusted silver lighter from my pocket and turned it over and over in my hands, resisting the urge to light it.

  For the better part of an hour, I sat in our dark, cold living room, watching flurries of snow tumbling outside the window. It was comforting, in a way. The entire forest was blanketed in white. There were no streetlights outside the cabin, but the light of the full moon cast an ethereal glow across the winter landscape, making the snow stark and bright against the midnight sky. While I concentrated on the peaceful scene, I thought about my role in Aspen’s life: “protector” of a woman who didn’t need protecting. Undeserving partner of the most incredible human being I’d ever known. Confidante to an empath who never wanted to emotionally burden me or anyone else with her problems. I thought about Ori, despising both him and myself for the feelings he clearly had – the feelings I’d deluded myself into ignoring. Briefly, I allowed myself to imagine my life without Aspen in it, feeling sick at the thought. Was this how Ori felt? Did he suffer, knowing his love would forever be unrequited?

  The embers in the fireplace glowed. Would it forever be unrequited?

  I pushed away the discomforting thought as I rose from the couch, letting the blanket fall to the floor. I’d never once doubted Aspen’s love for me, or her fidelity. I wasn’t going to let myself start now… Well, at the very least, I’d banish it to the farthest dusty depths of my mind as I had perhaps done once or twice before.