He looks contemplative for a moment, eyes skimming around me. “Your aura looks strong. But physical magic like ours can be finicky. It’s why training is so important.”
“I think my magic is broken,” I confess on a thick tongue. “I think when I somehow called the gold to me that night, when I snapped and my fae nature came out, I did something with my magic that I’m not supposed to be able to do. I corrupted it in some way, and now it doesn’t work right. At least, not without me going full-fae, and I can’t keep letting myself snap like that. Because what I did...”
My voice plugs up. Tongue parched from the memories that torment me.
I see the flashes playing in my head in fragments. The rush of power I called. The things I destroyed.
The people I killed.
I can hear the screams, too.
Because of what I did. Because I lost control.
Look at what you did.
That sudden voice pops in my head like a shrill whistle flung from a combative hand, calloused fingers shoved between teeth, the blown blare tossed against my ears like a slap.
Look at what you did.
I jerk away from it, as though the person saying that is in front of me rather than in my head.
“Auren?” My eyes spring to Slade, to the concerned line between his brows. “What just happened? Where’d you go?”
“Nothing. Nowhere.”
His eyes narrow. Watch. Observe me like he’s not just looking at my eyes but looking right through them. Looking into my head where these memories swirl.
“I see.”
My shoulders tense. “You see what?”
Rip leans forward. “You know what I think?” he says instead of answering me. “I think you already explained why your gold isn’t working.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said that both youandyour gold can’t be trusted.”
“It’s true.”
He raises a finger and points at me. “And that right there explains it. Because our emotions are tied to our power, Auren. That includes fear of our own magic.”
My pulse spikes. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear his gaze drops down to the vein in my neck as if he’s observing methatclosely.
“You’re afraid of what you did in Ranhold,” he says, and my heart bangs against my ribs, my eyes forgetting to blink.
“Of course I am.”
He leans closer to me, and I want to lean away, want to hold up a hand in front of my face so he can’t read me so thoroughly.
Defensiveness rises up in me like a sudden tide. “I shouldn’t have been able to control the gold like that, but I did, and because of that, I killed people. I lost control.”
“You aren’t just afraid of what you did that night. You’re afraid of your gold, aren’t you?”
The question hits me full in the chest. He doesn’t even need me to answer.
“You can’t be afraid of your power, Auren. I know you’ve had to try and hide away and suppress it your whole life, but—”
“I barely had any control before, and now I have to worry about going fae beast? I don’t even have the reprieve of nighttime?” I let out a scoffing sigh. “Ihaveto be afraid of it, Rip. Because when I lose control like I did at Ranhold and like I did at—”
