“I am Solas.” He smiled down at Riven with warmth, dwarfing him with his height. “If I stab you, it won’t be because you are Mortal. I love Mortals. It will be ifyoustep out of line.”
Riven chuckled, eyes lighting up with challenge. “That makesmewantto step out of line just to see youtry.”
Solas laughed, ushering him over to a wooden bench at the edge of the cliff face.
Riven shot me a wink as he sat down, and I couldn’t help but smile. I had missed him.
Caelum cleared his throat and I turned back to my stern teacher, closing my eyes.
“Focus on where your power comes from. It will feel like a well inside you. Find it.” I focused inwards, feeling the pull in my chest. Power swirled there, a steady wave of energy.
“Pull at that power,” Caelum said, voice steady as steel. “Tug on it. Gently. Take just a thread. Imagine it’s something you can see. Something you canfeel.”
I drew in a slow breath, the training yard suddenly too quiet, too watchful. I reached inward, tugging. It seemed to be stuck. It looked like a pool of shimmering blue light inmy mind, with darker threads that glittered almost mesmerizingly. I tugged at it. The cage around it groaned.
My eyes snapped open. My spine jolted straight. “I can’t,” I gasped, breath catching like barbed wire in my throat.Let it free,a voice carried to me on the breeze.Hervoice. Maraveth. It slithered across the ground, skimming my skin like a thousand cold fingers.You are complete now. Save him.
I clutched my head, nails digging into my scalp as if that could claw the voice from my head. Something felt different, inside me. Something had changed and it wasn’t just the bond tethered to my soul.
“No!” I cried.
“Refocus yourself,” Caelum’s voice wove through the chaos, low, grounding.Real.
“Let your power surface, or it will consume you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The world pulsed around me. I reached towards that shimmering light within me again. Deeper. The cage groaned again, and I sucked in a sharp breath. I could feel its anticipation. That dark part of me I had suppressed begged to be free. It had grown stronger with each Soul Relic, and for some reason, after bonding the Commander it felt,complete.
My heart pounded, but I pulled harder. My veins blistered with magic, splitting me open from the inside as if it was poison. It felt like my very soul was tearing, reforming. Her whispered voice grew louder in a crescendo, mingling with the haunting melody that had plagued me for most of my life. My throat was raw; I wasn’t sure if I was screaming or if she was screamingforme.
Agony tore through me like lightning in a storm. I dropped to my knees, the earth biting into my skin.
The cage shattered. The shimmering well of turquoiseburst from the cage like a dam wall breaking, flooding my system. Energy pulsed through me like it was a living thing, and every nerve ending in my body burned in response as though I had been set aflame. “Good, let it run through you.” Caelum’s voice grounded me again, reminding me that I wasn’t being torn apart, I was in a clearing in the forest. The burning ebbed to a dull warmth with every frantic beat of my heart. “Now pull a piece of your magic.”
I grasped at the raging waves of power surging through my body, pulling a thread of turquoise that rippled with that shimmering darkness.
“I have it,” I yelled. My hands were tingling with a strange warmth, and I cupped them together as if I were holding something real.
“Yes, you do. Open your eyes.”
My lashes parted to searing light. I gasped. The shimmering glow I’d imagined wasreal,pulsing between my palms like the tide.
“Hold it above the sword and push it into the blade. But slowly.”
With trembling hands, I held the power above the sword and tried to push it down with my mind, willing it into the sword. It poured out of my hands into the metal, the sword glowing with an unnatural blue glow. It began to hum in harmony, and I mimicked the sound, weaving it into a melody. The light was so blinding, it almost burnt my eyes. But I was enthralled. Unable to look away. A loud crack echoed through the clearing. I flew backwards. The metal exploded. I shielded my face from the sharp debris raining over me. My ears throbbed from the noise, a high-pitched ringing ebbing through the pain.
“That,” Caelum said, voice hushed, “was not what I expected.” His eyes lingered, longer than before, studyingme with his lips pursed. He turned without another word, selecting a new blade, and placing it on the stone. “Again. But begentle.You have more power than you should for only absorbing two Soul Relics.”
Six more swords exploded. One after another. I failed. Riven and Solas started betting, many of the Fae warriors joining in. It only fed my frustration. My hair clung to my sweaty skin. At some stage between attempts, Solas had given me the leather from his hair so I could braid it, but small strands escaped, just to pester me.
“Your anger is workingagainstyou. You need to let the tide of frustration wash around you.”
I glared at the mage, pure venom oozing from my voice. “I could take it out on you, if you’d like?”
He said nothing, calmly placing yet another sword on the stone table for me to destroy. “Again. But ground yourself. Breathe. Begentle.”
I huffed in frustration and reluctantly did what he said. The magicdidcome easier this time. When I reached into the swirling pool within me, glowing turquoise threaded with glittering black, it responded like it was waiting for my command. I stood over the new blade, laying the glittering thread gently across the cold metal.
A song rose in my throat. I wasn’t sure why I was singing, but itfeltright. As the notes slipped free, the thread of light sank into the steel, spreading from the hilt to the sharpened tip of the blade. The sword began to hum. Pale blue light shimmered over its surface, flecked with specks of inky darkness that shimmered in the sunlight.
