by Jessa Ford
✽✽✽
Nikol Delmarno slammed his hand down on the table in front of him. He was growing impatient. “How do two Time Benders disappear? I understand they may travel faster than the rest of us, and they can suspend their surroundings, but how can they outrun us for so long? They’re young and inexperienced! You were supposed to track them from the caves,” his knuckles glowed white, flames licking at the edge of his hands which were balled tightly into fists. “I’ve sent teams of hunters out as far as Arvendry and Hulsgard,” Argyn bowed his head, “they’re searching the desert wasteland as we speak. Only one team in Greensburg reported a young couple staying at an inn. The innkeeper said they were passing through, but they were going to visit family, and it turns out they were Hulsgardians.”
Nikol sneered. “And what became of this young couple?” “We’ve been following them at a distance just to be sure. They were reported again in Hulsgard, like they said. It’s a very large area to cover.” Nikol turned away, anger radiating off of him. “In that case, we have no more time to waste. Because of your inability to follow orders, we need to act now.” Argyn opened his mouth to protest, but Nikol continued. “We need to draw enough attention that those two will come graveling back, begging for me to show mercy.” “If I may suggest something,” a third man spoke up and Nikol allowed him to continue, “perhaps we show this Cora that her home isn’t safe as long as she hides. Maybe it’s time we return to Telgria and put on a show.” Nikol leered, “I’m listening. Tell me more of what you have in mind.”
✽✽✽
Cora woke to the sound of her mattress creaking as someone sat on the end of the bed. She slowed the room around her and jumped up, ready to fend off whomever was in the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she was met by two long limbs swooping her into a hug. “Xave,” she breathed into his neck as she wrapped her arms around him. “It seems you did just fine without me,” he smirked. Cora turned on the light and hugged him again. Xave filled Cora in on his trip to Arvendry and shared his news of her parents, which visibly calmed her. “Did you ever suspect Dari was Eldri Arafo?” She asked after recounting Dari’s story to Xave. “It makes sense, but no. She always spoke so little of her past. I thought if anything she might know Eldri by association.” “And to think she wouldn’t train me,” Cora shook her head. “I’m sure she had her reasons, but speaking of training.” Xave took Cora’s hands in his, “there’s something you need to know.”
For the second time, Xave hesitated sharing news with the spirited girl sitting in front of him. Once again, he would force her to go down a path that endangered her life. She would ultimately be safer once she knew. It was only a matter of time before Nikol found out, and they needed to prepare for that. Xave took a deep breath and continued, “When my mother tested your blood she found some interesting results.” Cora’s eyes shone. “She determined your blood contains at least trace amounts of all the magical gifts. It’s why you were deemed unreadable. Each magical gift was competing for control, which held them all at bay. And you didn’t show an aptitude for any non-magical gifts, because you aren’t meant to use them.”
All of the magical gifts. It meant she was a Time Bender, and possibly much more. Cora sat in silence for a long while after. Surprisingly, of all the life-changing information she’d received over the past year, this seemed the most plausible. “Cora, do you know what this means?” Xave quietly nudged her. Biting her lip, Cora continued to ruminate and ignored him. She thought back to the past few months, her mind running through each event in perfect detail.
When she kissed Xave after escaping the caves she was sure she felt fire in her fingertips. Was it heat from light wielding? She remembered how she slowed the dust storm in Hulsgard and moved the wind tunnels. She let her mind wander as far back as going to see Valley Blossoms with Willem, and how the wind seemed to force them all in her direction. “I think I can control the wind,” she whispered. She told him about Hulsgard and he stared at her in a mix of terror and awe. “Then it’s true,” Xave was almost speechless, “Time Benders can’t control weather. We can slow it down or speed it up, but we can’t extinguish anything. Amazing.” “I have a theory about some other gifts.” She moved closer to him. “Kiss me,” she demanded.
Xave felt every fiber of his person being drawn to her, but he forced himself to question her motives. “It’s research,” she shrugged, a sly grin appearing on her face. Now that they had admitted their feelings for one another, Cora found it was hard to come up with excuses not to kiss Xave. Not wasting a second more, he pulled her to him and obliged. After a short time, he felt the familiar warmth of her hands on him. Cora pulled back suddenly.
“Look,” she exclaimed and held her hands in front of him. Her fingertips glowed and she brought them close to his cheek. He could feel the heat radiating off of them. “Light wielding,” he breathed. The light from her fingertips shone in her eyes. “I think it’s triggered by emotions. Sometimes when you kiss me it happens. It’s like there’s a spark that starts the fire, but I don’t have any control over it. I just never thought to try using it.” “You’re on the right track,” Malen’s voice echoed from the doorway as the older woman entered the room. Cora, who was still settled on Xave’s lap, thrust herself to the chair across the room in an instant, her cheeks burning more than her fingertips.
Malen came to Cora at once and embraced her, “I’m so glad you’re safe.” Cora was still too flustered to answer. Malen stepped back and held Cora’s hands in her own and felt the heat slowly rescinding from the girl’s fingertips. Her gaze settled on the ring Cora still wore on her ring finger. Realizing how it must look, Cora took it off and offered it up to Malen, stammering, “I needed this for our cover story while we travelled.” Malen smiled with her eyes and shook her head. “Keep it.” She dropped Cora’s hands, refusing to take the ring, “I’m honored my son chose such a woman as its recipient.”
It was Cora’s turn to shake her head. “Oh, no, it isn’t that. It was just…” She was at a loss for words. Xave, for his part, watched the interaction between the two women with interest, but said nothing. “So, you’ve told her?” Malen turned to her son. “It’s as you suspected. She’s shown subtle signs of other gifts,” he nodded. Malen pursed her lips. “We need to share this with Eldri,” she said, “that is, if you are comfortable with her knowing?” She looked at Cora. Though Cora wanted to be angry with the woman she’d come to know as Dari, she knew it was foolish to keep her in the dark. They would need all the help they could get. Cora began to walk toward the door and sighed, “At least this time I’ll be the one surprising her…”
The trio found Dari in the kitchen. Both Cora and Xave began to speak, each calling the old woman by a different name. “This is so strange.” Cora frowned at the librarian she once considered a dear friend, “what should we even call you? I feel like I don’t know you at all.” “It’s been a long time since anyone has called me Eldri, and I’m not sure I’m worthy of that name any longer.” They waited for Dari to continue and she motioned for the to sit at the table. “It’s probably time I explained what happened twenty years ago.” She exhaled slowly and again her features looked tired. It was as if she’d been running from something and it finally caught up to her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Can I ask you something about that day?” Malen didn’t wait for Dari to begin her story. “Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?” Cora gasped at the question and Xave sat stone-faced. “A fair question, and truth be told, one I’ve been forced to revisit as of late,” Dari sighed, “I wish I had a better excuse for letting him go. Everything happening now, and everything that has happened as a result of his return is my fault.” Dari continued telling the events of that day with her small audience granting her an understanding silence.
“I left the School of Magic during my second year. There were some personal circumstances that caused me to leave, but ultimately, I didn’t agree with the restrictions they put on us. They w
ere always trying to contain our magic, and we were never allowed to experiment. I thought it was foolish. Certainly, if we wanted to know what we were capable of we’d need to see how far we could push our gifts.” “Is that how you discovered how to move someone through time?” Cora interjected. Dari had used her own Time Bending gift to scare Nikol into hiding, and the more Cora used her magic she was starting to think the rumors behind what Dari had done were true.
Dari smiled, “I had a feeling you would figure that part out eventually. Yes, after I left I did some of my own research. I was able to move myself, quite by accident, to the near future or past. I had never tried to move someone with me until Nikol, but I figured if I could move someone in the present, it could apply to the future and past, too.” Dari paused and Xave spoke up, “So, you eventually returned to Telgria to stop him. Why?” “I thought I was the only one who could. I was young and my ego was large. I knew he was after a Time Bender, and I thought I could trap him somewhere in time.”
“But you didn’t,” Cora mused over Dari’s confession. She understood completely. She would likely have done the same in Dari’s position. Her magic was a gift, but also a burden. The idea that she could use it to take a life was simply incomprehensible. She was certain if she had to use her magic in such a way she would never be able to use it again; and now that Cora had tasted magic, it was as if it were a part of her. She couldn’t imagine her future without it.
“As I suspected, he came for me as soon as I made my presence known. Luckily, Nikol and not one of his followers grabbed me. It was the opening I needed to see if I could take him with me. We arrived at the future and Nikol saw his ultimate destruction. It was grief, though I can’t tell you what specifically, because I didn’t see for myself. He was so shaken he asked to be taken back to before. For whatever reason, I obliged. I went too far and took him back to a time when Malen was young, probably school aged. I watched the scene he shared with me,” she turned to Malen, “it was the day your mother died. I saw a young Nikol overcome with agony and it reminded me of my own heartache after my mother’s passing. Losing a loved one after watching them fight a losing battle is one of the cruelest tortures one can endure. He was helpless to save her, so he became obsessed with finding a cure.”
Malen nodded, cutting in, “That’s true. I remember he retreated to his lab after her death. It was like losing both parents.” Dari looked empathetically at Malen and continued. “My mistake was feeling compassion for the monster. I understood what fueled his initial quest, so I hesitated. I told him it wasn’t possible to interact with the past, though at the time I wasn’t exactly sure what was or wasn’t possible. But the future he saw was enough to make him retreat. In the end, I only fueled his desire for stronger powers to reach his goal: a way to interact and change the events of the past. A quest for someone stronger than me.”
Dari closed her eyes and sighed as Malen put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “So, you see, when they called me a hero, I should have spoken up. I wasn’t a hero. I was a coward who got in over her head. I didn’t save Telgria, so much as give them a false sense of security. I had to leave. I couldn’t keep pretending like I’d done something great.” For once, Dari looked and sounded like the old woman she was.
Any anger Cora harbored instantly receded. She understood completely what it must have been like. She, too, had a great power she wasn’t sure she could control. “Do you think you could train me now?” Cora looked at Dari’s icy blue eyes with conviction. The old woman nodded, “I believe it’s time to share everything I know about Time Bending. We’ll start tomorrow.” “Good,” Cora smiled genuinely at Dari, “though there’s something else you should know.” Cora, Xave, and Malen explained Malen’s discovery. For the first time since she’d known her, Cora saw Dari truly shocked.
“But how can that be? Even children of two magical parents don’t exhibit more than one gift.” “My best guess is it’s a genetic mutation. Almost like an illness. Cora’s cells created a new pattern, a glitch in their make-up, and this is the result.” Malen offered a scientific explanation. Dari smiled again, “It seems you have more in common with your father than I thought.” Malen simply closed her eyes for a moment. She had become obsessed with learning everything about his research and magical gifts after what he did. She continued, “So, you see, it’s imperative we determine the extent of Cora’s magic. She’s everything Nikol has been searching for all these years.” Dari looked tired, but determined. “I couldn’t agree more.”
✽✽✽
For the next few weeks, everyone stayed in Dari’s hidden home. Dari left to go to the library, but Cora, Xave, and Malen remained hidden underground. Cora began her time bending training with Dari immediately. “Since Time Bending seems to be your dominant magic, we should begin there. The only thing we need to focus on that I can see is moving through time. Everything else becomes better with practice.” “But how do you move someone through time to the past or future? How do you move you through time?” Cora wiped the sweat off her forehead. She had been at it all morning, showing Dari exactly how much she’d learned with Xave.
“It’s visual,” Dari explained, “picture time on a continuous loop or a timeline. Any shape should work; a line, a circle, however you need to visualize events. Imagine you’re standing above it, above everything. You can see the past, the present, the future all at once. You have to imagine yourself moving to a certain point in the timeline It’s much easier to move through your own time and memories, but once you get comfortable moving amongst the loop you can see time through the memories of others as well, if their emotions are strong enough. The memories of someone else are more like flashes. They aren’t clear, which is why it’s a risk, though I imagine it will be easier for you.” Cora nodded, “Because of thought seeking, assuming I can even use it.” Dari smiled. “I find my magic works best when I need it most. It may be the same for you.”
Cora tried to do as Dari instructed, but continued to reach a point of frustration when she wasn’t able to visualize time the way Dari described it. “Maybe I just can’t do it,” Cora sat down on the floor and put her aching head in her hands, “plus, I think my headache is going to last for a week if I keep it up.” Dari understood. She moved to sit next to Cora, but kept a small distance between them. “You know, you keep thinking of time bending and magic as this physical, tangible object, but it isn’t.” Cora’s head perked up and Dari explained, “Time Bending, especially, is all mental. Of course, we have magic flowing through our veins, but it all comes down to how we access it. We don’t have to physically connect with or summon anything. We just have to use our minds to visualize what we see or what we know. Our minds are the true source of our gift. It’s why we’re so dangerous.”
Cora’s eyes shifted to the old woman. She had never thought of it like that before. She realized she had been thinking of all magical gifts as physical objects. In all her research, she never considered the possibility that Time Benders generated their own power, while others were limited to another object. Dari pressed on, “Light Wielders, Wind Wielders, and even Thought Seekers are all conduits. They can control and manipulate another substance. Eventually, the wind, the light, or the memories will run out. For us, our magic is infinite, so long as we can picture something in our mind.” Something clicked in Cora and she stood in a rush, “I think I know what I need to do. Thank you, Dari.” She ran off in the direction of her room.
Cora had every intention of practicing her new theory as soon as she rested. Her head was throbbing, and she hoped she could sleep for just a short amount of time. Much to her chagrin, Xave stepped out in the hallway just as she was passing his room. “Ready?” Cora groaned, “You haven’t spent all morning with Dari.” “True,” he mused, “I’m a little jealous, truth be told. I haven’t seen her in action yet.” Cora just sighed and stood aside so Xave could join her in her room, but he took her hand and dragged her back down the hallway. Xave and Malen planned to help Cora tap in
to her other gifts. They just had to determine how to trigger them on command.
“Let’s get back to thought seeking,” Xave sat down at the kitchen table. “Why not light wielding?” Cora looked around and when she was confident they were alone, she pulled on the collar of Xave’s shirt, “I think I have a good idea of how to work on that gift, and I could use a win right now.” “You make a very compelling offer, but…” Xave couldn’t think of a reason to say no and pulled Cora’s chair closer to his. At that moment Dari reappeared and tried to sneak past them unseen. Though she wasn’t a Thought Seeker herself, she had noticed what was between them before either Xave or Cora admitted it to themselves. She was pleased they had stopped being stubborn long enough to acknowledge it. “Okay, okay,” Cora leaned back in her seat and groaned, “let’s see what I can pull out of your head.”
Cora pressed her hand to Xave’s forehead, her fingertips brushing back his hair. His skin was warm against the palm of her hands. Her magic should work so long as she touched him. She started with his head, the source of his memories, but eventually any touch should work. Thought Seekers who were very talented needed to merely brush up against someone to get into their minds. Xave’s eyes were closed and Cora took a moment to stare at him. His pale skin would make anyone else appear sickly, but it gave Xave an almost ethereal appearance.
She thought back to when they’d first met. Before she knew him and his secrets, his attitude and unwillingness to interact with anyone made him seem so cold. Now she couldn’t imagine seeing him in the same light. Cora quieted her thoughts and pictured herself in Xave’s mind. Nothing changed. Again and again she came up with the same result, and her disheartened grunts caused Xave to open his eyes. Cora was glaring at her hand, as if it had caused her some great injustice. “Not going how you had hoped?” He tried to hide the amusement in his voice.