“The same way you’d whisper to a lover—with intention and delicacy.”
“Wouldn’t know. My ex thought whispering was weird unless it was criticism about my life choices.”
The Sage tilted their head. “Interesting baggage. We’ll unpack that never. Now, start small. A single flower. Call it into being gently.”
They gestured to the cleared training ground—a circle of packed earth surrounded by ancient stones that hummed with residual magic from countless exercises before mine. The crew had drifted to the edges, settling in to watch. Bryx perched on Kevin’s back. Sarnyx leaned against a tree, already looking bored. Eltrien stood ready with his healing supplies, which was never a good sign. Even Kaelren had positioned himself within striking distance, arms crossed, face expressionless.
No pressure at all.
I moved to the center of the circle, feeling the weight of their attention. The ground here was different—softer, more receptive, like it had been waiting for someone to ask it to grow. I knelt, placing my palm on the earth. The marks at my collarbones warmed immediately, spreading heat down my arms. I could feel the Root beneath, vast and patient and eager. It wanted to explode upward, to transform everything into green chaos.
No,I thought.Just one. Just a small one.
The power pushed against my control like a dam about to burst.
“Breathe,” the Sage instructed. “The Root follows breath. In for control, out for release.”
I breathed. In, holding the power. Out, releasing just a thread of it.
A tiny shoot pushed through the soil. Then another. Then fifty.
“Too many,” the Sage said mildly.
“I noticed.” I tried to pull the power back, but the shoots kept growing, becoming stems, budding with flowers that shouldn’t exist—blue roses, pale luminous daisies, something that shimmered with its own inner radiance.
“Control it.” Kaelren’s voice, sharp as a blade. “Or I will.”
Right. Because if I lost control, ending me was his job. No pressure.
“I’ve got it,” I said through gritted teeth, though I definitely didn’t have it.
The flowers kept blooming, spreading in a circle around me. Some of them were starting to move, turning to track the sun like time-lapse footage on fast forward.
“You’re fighting it,” the Sage observed. “Stop fighting. Guide.”
“That’s not helpful!”
“Most truth isn’t.”
Instead of pulling or pushing, I tried to shape the power like water finding its course. The fifty flowers suddenly merged into one massive bloom the size of a dinner plate, petals shifting like oil on water.
“Better,” the Sage said. “Now make it small again.”
I focused on the flower, imagining it shrinking. The power resisted—it didn’t like reversing growth. The flower shrank slowly until it was normal sized, then tiny as my thumbnail.
“Good. Now make it sing.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Everything alive has a voice. Find it.”
I reached for the flower with my mind, feeling for something like resonance. The flower chimed once, a clear, ringing note.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
“Focus,” Kaelren said sharply, and I flinched before I could stop myself.
He’d moved closer without me noticing—close enough that I could feel the cold radiating from his corrupted marks, the way they seemed to pull at mine like opposing magnets. He was staring at the flower with an expression I couldn’t read. Disgust, maybe. Or calculation. With him, it was always calculation.
