Seeing my expression, she straightened, “I’m not saying it’s good or even by any means okay, nosiree, I’m just saying I see why they did it to you. You said your power came from faith. Well the Luxis made sure you believed in ‘the Light.’” She made finger quotations with her fingers, which gave me the impression she was somehow mocking it.
I was surprised that she responded to my silent thoughts about my powers. Though I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. I just never knew if it was because of our unique connection, or if she somehow intuited what I was thinking. She seemed to see through everyone.
She continued, “You believed so wholly and unquestionably that you got power from that. I always kind of thought that kind of pure belief could create magic. I mean not the crazy evil zealot kind of belief, but the kind where you believe in yourself so much that it changes the world around you.”
Again, I was surprised by her level of insight into how my power worked. I was still digesting the information. I was not used to interpreting, only acting. She seemed to be proficient at both.
“If I had my powers back, I could just open a portal and take us far away to our H.E.A., but…” I held up my hands and willed energy to flow through them. Nothing.
“Well obviously, that’s not going to work,” she said, frowning at my hands. “You can’t believe in the Luxis and what they stand for anymore. Not after they lied to you and used you. Maybe you need to believe in yourself now?”
I continued to stare at my hands, silently saying that I believed in myself. Trying to access it as a truth. They continued to be nothing more than dirt covered, calloused hands of uselessness.
“They said I broke the faith,” I said, finally voicing what had been bothering me. “After the soul eater, I broke my faith, but I don’t know how.” I turned to look at her, laying my burden at her feet. “Perhaps it was because I loved you the moment I saw you. Perhaps that was enough to make me turn on my duties as a Chevalier.”
Emma snorted in laughter. “There is no way. You have been nothing but a good little soldier, okay? You always obeyed the rules of their game.” Her face cleared, lines on her forehead smoothing as if hit by a realization. Emma seemed to be gazing into a place past the cavern wall. “That’s it. You were given a set of rules. You knew the rules until that soul eater became a physical creature.” Her eyes snapped up to mine. “That defied the rules of everything you had been told. My bet is you weren’t taught how to adapt when the rules were broken.”
I chewed on the thought, though it made my head hurt. When I stalked the perimeter of the motel before dawn, before the soul eater appeared again, I had regained my powers.
“Yes,” I said slowly then got more excited. “Yes, I didn’t know what to do with that. That morning before we were attacked at the motel, my powers returned to me because I consciously decided to stop interpreting and solely act on fighting evil in whatever form it appeared in.”
Emma nodded. “You redefined the parameters of your belief and once you were in alignment, you were a freakin’ powerhouse.” She gave a low whistle. “Just think, if you could direct your own beliefs, you could completely control your power.” She turned to me with a question in her eyes. “I saw Regina. She had green light in her hands. Why didn’t she just use her powers to stop us from the beginning?”
I shook my head. “If their belief is strong, they have power. But they rely on artifacts infused with power, and what they can do are parlor tricks compared to the power of the Chevalier. She hoped to stun me, and she might have done so but for a very brief time and ineffectively. Thank goodness, she was unaware I was powerless then, otherwise she would have tried sooner and been successful.”
“That makes sense. If they had your kind of powers, I think they would have been whipping that out long ago, smacking us with it until we said uncle.” Emma laid her head on my shoulder. The excitement of our realization left me tired as well.
“Uncle?” I asked.
“Never mind,” she said, sounding tired, but her hand smoothed down my arm repeatedly in a soothing gesture that compelled me to close my eyes.
“Stop it,” Emma said, chastising me through a small smile.
“Stop what?”
“I can feel you getting aroused, and I’m trying to figure out how to save the world over here.”
I smiled. “I can’t help it. When you touch me, it moves me.” I wrapped my hands around her delicate ones. Her hands were covered in mud and small scrapes. I brought them to my lips to kiss her fingers, more aware than ever I was at her mercy. “You can’t imagine what it feels like to never be touched your whole life, then know the touch of an angel.” Feelings overwhelmed me so suddenly, I had to close my eyes tight against them and press my lips against her hands for salvation.
Emma’s lips fell on my head before she leaned back against the cave wall and sighed. I loosened my grip on her hands but didn’t stop touching her. Her eyes moved up, seeming to search the glowing slugs for something. “Calan. You still didn’t answer me. What if the orders are right and darkness is coming?”
“They are all liars.”
“Technically, that was only your Order, and supposedly it was for the greater good. The Veritas are the ones who don’t lie, but granted, they are major douche pickles,” she was rambling.
I brought my hands to cup her face, pulling her attention away from the dilemma. I wanted all her attention on me. “You could go mad trying to solve all of this. I don’t want any part in this anymore, Emma. I just want to be with you. I just want to keep you safe. I want… I want to….” the name for my fantasy was on the tip of my tongue again. What was it called? The blanket, the food, the kissing under the stars.
Emma’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears as her hands came up to cover mine. “I don’t know if we have a choice.”
My hands fell away from her and I pushed off the ground and stood, running my agitated hands through my hair, thick with dirt and sweat. I had to crouch, as the cave wasn’t tall enough to let me stand to my full height. “Of course we do. We can do whatever we want now. Don’t you see? I have a soul, Emma.”
A smirk pulled at her lips but her eyes remained glassy. “I always knew that, dum dum.”
I walked back to her, falling to my knees. “It means I’m not a soulless creature, unworthy of you.”
The way her face tightened looked as though I had wounded her. She brushed her hand through my hair. “Of course not. You were never unworthy of anything. You’re the best man I know.” She leaned forward, her lips a hair’s breadth away from mine. I could taste her sweet breath. “You’re a true hero, and crazier yet, I’ve gotten you as my own personal savior.”
I grabbed her hand and brought it to my chest. “You savedme, Emma. You are the only one who has ever cared for me.” I closed my eyes at the rush of pain that thought brought. It made me want to abandon everything I had ever known. The Orders claimed to work for the greater good, but I knew now they were only capable of causing pain. I didn’t want that for Emma. I wanted her far away from their games, squabbles, and deceits.
