“I guess I didn’t think you’d touch a random plant.”
Riven snorts and makes a comment about how that was a naïve assumption on my part and he saw it coming a mile away.
We all roll our eyes and ignore him as Thayla focuses back on the pot.
“Okay, so I need to basically get rid of all the thorns sticking out around the flower in the center. Right?”
“Right.”
“Is there any way to do that without turning it to ash?”
“No. When physically obliterating something, the remnants will always be ash. That’s okay.”
She sucks her teeth and nods. “Okay then.”
The meadows fall completely silent as she lifts the pot and observes it from every angle. When she sets it back down, her chest expands with her inhale.
We—including V—hold our breaths as she hovers her hands over the pot.
The energy in the air shifts. The power that skirts across my skin makes my jaw tense for a millisecond before I force it to relax. After all my lecturing, I refuse to even acknowledge the similarities I sense.
“No, no, no,” she whispers repeatedly, more frantically with each murmur of the word.
A cloud of ash plummets a few inches in the air and her shaking hands slowly sink into her lap. Her chin trembles as she stares down at the pot.
“Thayla.”
She jerks her head at me.
“I killed it. Obliterated the whole flower.”
The disappointment in her tone slices across my soul. I want to tell her that it doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try every time. It shouldn’t be. That wouldn’t help her right now, though.
Her determination here lately is coming from a place of fear.
Every failure—what she views as failure—makes her more fearful.
“You can’t see beneath the soil. Therefore, for all you know, the thorns had already wrapped itself around the flower’s roots. So it needed to be cleansed so you could create something better.”
She grunts in disagreement.
“I can’t create—”
“You most certainly can create something.”His words are surprisingly stern.“As Creed said, Obliteration was always meant to provide breathing room for creation.”
He hoots and hops up until he’s perched on her shoulder. His wings nuzzle against her cheek, either trying to get her frown to fade or just giving her some comfort.
“The Goddess of Creation can manifest anything from nothing. No raw materials. No constraints. Pure conceptual-to-physical translation. It hasn’t been for the best. That unchecked ability creates the desire for more, when one already has enough. You won’t be able to do that, but you can refine, rebuild, or reshape something that already exists.”
He climbs his way down her arm and pecks at her wrist. She hisses, snatching it to her chest and sneers at him.
“You don’t have to stab me. Just tell me what to do.”
“The doubtful thoughts running through your mind tell me otherwise. You obviously need a little push for this lesson.”
“Valories, you can be so bossy and testy sometimes.”
“As can you. Now, no more of the senseless arguing with yourself. Stick your hand into the pot and get a feel for the soil and for your power.”
