They all begrudgingly nodded back. Kisha got up out of her chair and walked over to Rykon first. His eyes went to Emerald, and she just shrugged, at a loss for what exactly to do about this development. He faced Kisha, and she cupped his face as she looked deep into his eyes. “He has traces of… dream casting.”
His eyes widened as he asked, “What does that mean?”
Kisha rolled her eyes at him, but she answered as best as she could. “Look, it’s not an exact science. You have dream casting blood. That could mean that you see premonitions in your dreams, your dreams could push you in the direction you need to go or you can enter other’s dreams and fuck things up. You won’t know until you try, but your aura says that you’ve used it a couple times already.”
She turned away from him, done with finding out what his fae blood meant but I could tell he had more questions. I think we all will after this.
She went to Zayden next. Same process of holding his face and looking into his eyes before she belted out, “Soothsinger.” Before Zayden could ask what that meant, she continued, “You can talk to people and either convince them of something, get them to tell you something, or influence people’s emotions around you. Again, your aura says you have used this magic.”
Then she moved on to me. As soon as she looked into my eyes, she squinted at me, like she was trying to search for something. “Yours is harder to see because you haven’t tapped into it yet. It’s something dark. I want to say something a shadow fae would use. It could have something to do with concealment. Once you tap into it, I will be able to see more.” I sat back stunned, not knowing what to think of this development… and a little jealous that Ry and Zay had already used theirs, even if they didn’t know it.
Then she did the long walk over to Emerald. Emerald’s eyes flicked to ours. Curiosity filled them as she looked at us with new eyes. Kisha grabbed Emerald’s face and turned her to look her in the eyes. “Awwww I knew yours was powerful. I haven’t seen someone with this much power since I last talked to a full-blooded fae.”
Emerald yanked herself out of her hands. Kisha put them up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sure you’re not a full fae. You don’t have the ears, but your ancestors were very powerful. Maybe a noble house? Anyway, your power is unlimited strength and agility.” She nodded like she knew this, but liked having it confirmed.
I thought back to a lot of instances that I felt she was pushing her limit and then out of nowhere; she was fine and could keep going. Did she know she had this power? Did she hide it from us on purpose? I know she couldn’t be caught using it in the city, but we were not in Onisea now. Did she trust us so little?
Thoughts kept circling in my head as Hemlock sighed. “I knew it. I knew you had to have some kind of magic to be able to beat me.”
Emerald responded in a dull tone, “It might be that, or it could be your ‘luck’ magic has a second of lag time while it assesses and talks to you. It gives your opponent a moment to get the upper hand on you as long as they are fast enough. With regular people, even seasoned fighters, your style should work on them but on highly trained assassins, no. We were made to think in seconds and plan our next moves in advance.” She took another spoon full of stew as everyone looked at her in shock.
Hemlock grinned as she pointed to Emerald and looked at her crew. “See! I told you she was valuable. She’s already helping me learn a weak spot in my fighting! You’re the best, green apple!”
Emerald rolled her eyes at Hemlock while she tilted her head towards her. “No outright glares about that name… Interesting. I will keep it in my back pocket. I still have more.”
“Anyway… back on track.” Talican grumbled.
“Right. Right. Rightyo. We will help you get to the lighthouse, but we can’t go in with you. The stuffy old cuckoo man that lives there has a large force field of magic circling him. No one has breached it. He kept yelling something about ‘only if you’re worthy’ or some crazy shit like that and then went about his day like none of us existed."
“So, you’ve been there?” Rykon asked.
Hemlock and her gang nodded. “Once. Everyone has risked the trip once to see the magic that is more powerful than all of us combined, and the man who chooses to live there by himself.”
“But no one was worthy enough to get in?” Emerald asked and she shook her head.
“Nope. He looked me up and down and mumbled something about needing to find my purpose. I told him, fuck you, and he laughed.” She finished exasperatedly. “That dude is crazy.”
I did a double take, cuz wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?
“But after we do that, we’re going to need your help scouting out the cannibal’s stronghold. We need to map it out as best as we can.” Talican followed up.
“With the least amount of casualties foryourpeople as we can.” Emerald finished for him, understanding the game.
Hemlock opened her mouth, but Talican barked out, “You have a problem with that, assassin?!”
My chair scraped on the floor as I stood, not liking the tone he used. Emerald looked at me and gave only a hint of a smile before she turned to Talican, Hemlock seething in anger right next to him, glaring at him but he ignored it. “No. I just like having all the cards out on the table.” She then turned to Hemlock. “Secrets kill friendships.”
Hemlock’s anger disappeared as fast as it came, and she nodded. “So true, mean green, so true.” Emerald’s eyes flicked to Talican, raising an eyebrow at him as Hemlock took another bite from her plate. It was like she was taunting him about saving his ass because it looked like Hemlock was going to explode on him just now.
Hemlock finished the last of her soup loudly and slammed her bowl down. “We have a long trip ahead of us. We should get some sleep and then start early in the morning. You know what they say, ‘The early bird gets the heart of their enemies’.”
Zayden opened his mouth to correct her again, but Rykon pinched him and he cried out instead. Hemlock looked at us, then looked at Emerald. “You’ve got your hands full with these ones.”
Emerald rolled her eyes at us and replied dryly, “You have no idea.”
“Seeeee!” She motioned back and forth with her hand between Emerald and herself. “Girl talk!”
Emerald’s eyes slowly got bigger as she realized that just that one interaction was a little bit like girl talk, and then she grimaced. Hemlock was grinning like a fool.
