I stared at her, and she stared back, deepening her gaze into a glare that almost broke me as my eyes began to water.
“I have to go,” I choked out. “I’m training with Kohen, and I don’t want to be late.” I left the room abruptly, leaving her stumped where she stood.
I sprinted down the hall so that she couldn’t follow me, only stopping when I reached the arena, thoroughly out of breath. Kohen sat on the mat, stretching his back before our session.
“You're early,” I said, meeting him in the middle of the mat.
“I was sparring with Seb before this. He needed to get back into the swing of things.” He jumped up to his feet, stretching his arms over his head.
My teeth sunk into my lip. It was like Sebastian followed me everywhere I went; there was no escape. There was a reminder of him in every person I knew. In everything I did.
Taking his position across from me, Kohen confided, “Not going to lie, Maeve, I’m a little worried that you're going to turn me to stardust.”
I huffed a laugh. A fake one, but a laugh all the same. “Turns out we're worried about the same thing.”
Kohen’s facial expression did a poor job at masking his fear.
We jumped right into our session. I ran through a few simple mind compulsions, keeping my strength in the process. If one good thing came from Blythe granting me the markings, it was my ability to wield without passing out.
I held down my anxiety as I prepared to give Kohen a taste of my new magic. He had yet to be on this end of it, and his hesitancy was obvious.
“I’m only going to try this once,” I said to reassure him and myself as I recalled the spark of starlight I had felt last night. “If it gets out of control, that's it. I’m done for the day.”
With his approval, I backed away from him, clearing some space in case this went horribly wrong. Which, with my record, was a likely outcome.
Outstretching my arms, I flattened my palms, calling upon the sunlight and drawing the star into my blood. My arms began to glow, and I felt the familiar ache in my gemstones before the power burst free.
Unlike the other times I’d harnessed the cosmos, this time I actually aimed. I held a tight rein on the power, maneuvering my fingertips back and forth to narrow and thicken the stream of glittering, white light. I aimed it straight at the mannequin's face, and once its head turned to ash, I pulled my magic back.
“Holy shit. I did it. I actually did it!”
An actual pure smile tugged at my lips, though when I turned to Kohen, it faded with the sight of his completely slack jaw.
My cheeks sunk, my smile faltering. “What is it?”
He couldn’t find the words, so he tugged at his hair, then pointed to me.
I grabbed the ends of my hair, pulling it in front of my eyes. As if my markings didn’t out me enough, the fading glow of my skin and hair made me a damn clear outlier.
“I don’t understand,”Sebastian voiced, ogling at my now very normal colored hair. “It just started to glow?”
“Yeah. While she was using the cosmos, her whole body damn near glowed,” Kohen answered, using exaggerated hand gestures. “It was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. Her eyes turned silver, and her hair turned white. It was like she was drenched in pure starlight.”
“She looks normal to me,” Kade debated, his monotonous tone making his boredom blatantly clear.
“It faded shortly after she retracted the starlight,” Kohen continued.
“Which, I should point out, I had full control over,” I added cockily, pointing my eyes directly at Kade.
“About time,” he muttered in response.
The four of us, along with Pia and Delani, sat in the common room, waiting for Sawyer to show up with the journal. Sebastian decided he wanted us all to look at it at the same time.
“So what changed from last time you harnessed it?” Pia spoke up. “Last time you tried, you took down half a forest and you didn’t glow. Did you?”
“I don’t know, maybe. No one was looking at me when I did it to notice.” I glanced at Delani. “Did you notice it when we were in the arena?”
She shook her head. “No, but I was too busy looking at the giant hole you blasted through the wall.”
