Eden nodded.
“Hart was there the night she burned the school down. She…used that dark power Ayden read about, the one where you cantake over someone’s will. She forced Hart to…” Eden’s bottom lip shook, and her eyes filled with tears.
My heart fell into my stomach like a boulder. I didn’t know if I could take this anymore. I wanted to kill Marissa for all these things she had done. I don’t care what your childhood was like or how hard it was to carry dark magic, there is no excuse for the terror she rained down on these people. I’d rather die than do the things she did.
“Tell me.” My voice was barely a whisper, and Eden dipped her chin.
“She forced him to bar the doors so the students and teachers couldn’t get out. So that they would…burn.”
A whimper ripped from my throat, and I stumbled backward. “She’s so evil.”
‘Come find me,’a female voice whispered, and I spun around, my eyes darting to the trees, the bushes, the buildings.
“What’s wrong?” Eden asked, her brow furrowing.
Terror gripped my soul in that moment. I was hearing voices—one of the symptoms of going dark.
“Nothing. I’m… I’m just shocked at what Marissa made Hart do.” I lied. Maybe I didn’t really hear that; maybe in my shock, I imagined the voice.
Eden nodded. “It’s awful.”
We resumed our walking, and I swallowed hard, peering sideways at Yanric. He was still as a statue on my shoulder.
‘I heard it too.’He sounded scared, as scared as I felt.
So I hadn’t imagined it. I didn’t know if that was better or worse.
‘It will be okay,’I assured him. But would it?
The only measure of relief I felt in that moment was that my ability to go dark and lose my mind had not transferred to Ariyon as well.
I felt numbthe rest of the day at school. My mind was spinning with too many things. How many days Ariyon had been missing. What was he doing right now? How could I get him back? Then I thought about going dark, the female voice I’d had heard that morning. But mostly, what consumed my thoughts were poor Master Hart and the way his hands shook when he was near me. It killed me that he feared that, at any moment, I might take his very will from him. Yet I understood his fear of me. I was starting to fear me, what I was capable of, the great power my ancestors held—which meant that I held it too.
“Once you learn to read people’s energy signatures, your healing gift will accelerate naturally,” Mrs. Reebus said, pulling me from my thoughts. “Now, this is a bit advanced, but I would like to speak about curses next because it will be on your final exam at the end of the year.”
I chuffed. Curses—something I knew all too much about.
She began to write on the board, speaking as she did. “There are two types of curses, everlasting and transient. The everlasting curse is permanent and can never be healed.” Her gaze flicked briefly to me, and I wanted to shrink into a tiny ball and hide. “The transient curse is attached to the person or object via some type of energy signature. Once you unravel that, you can break down the curse, essentially starving it out,” she added.
I took notes on what she was saying, but I was hoping I wasn’t a healer long enough to take the final. I needed to get Ariyon back before then. In reality, though, I was starting to feel quite sure he could be dead by then, or have become a Nightling. And the thought caused panic to rise up inside me and dig its claws into my chest.
No.
I had to stay positive. For Ariyon. Straightening myself, I focused back on the lesson at hand.
“Now let’s practice sensing energy signatures like you’ve done with Master Hart. That will be a good segue into my next lesson. Partner up!” She clapped her hands, and I groaned. I hadn’t done that in Master Hart’s class. We were sensing energy of plants right now. Whoever was about to sensemyenergy signature was about to see my curse. That was going to be mortifying. I could almost see it play out in my head.
Mrs. Reebus, what’s that disgusting black blob sucking the life from Fallon?
She approached my desk, and I stiffened.
“Fallon, you can be my partner.” Mrs. Reebus gave me a small smile, and I was eternally grateful. She must have known. She probably saw it on me the first day.
I stood, following her to the front of the class, where she stepped across from me, staying at some distance away from me.
She spoke to the class. “Now, as you can see, I am about six to ten feet away from my partner. It’s best when doing this, for the first few times, to keep a distance so you don’t confuse your own energy signature with your patient.”
I took a deep breath, feeling my palms start to sweat inside my gloves. How did I get here? A few months ago, I hadn’t known I had magic at all. My entire life, I’d known I was cursed but hadn’t known why. Now, I knew it was due to my evil ancestors and the scary power I carried within, which I had been trying to learn to control through battle classes and learning how to wield the undying fire. Now, I was trying to heal and learn how to control Maven-level magic that wasn’t mine. It was such a stark contrast, and yet if I was being honest, I liked this better. As someone who had suffered so much pain in my life, this type of work appealed to me much more. But we couldn’t choose theway we were made, so there was no sense in complaining about it.
