by Lisa Daniels
“Glad to hear it,” Perran said, giving Kelsey a light brush on her back with his palm. “You’ve come a long way. I can’t help but be a little proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Kelsey replied shyly, not quite able to control the flush creeping over her cheeks. “I wouldn’t be here without your help, though.” She closed her eyes, concentrating on his hand as it now clasped her shoulder. “I didn’t want to admit I needed help, you know.”
When she opened her eyes again, she saw Lissa staring at the two of them with a sharp, beady glint in her eyes.
“You know, Perran,” Lissa said, focusing on the dragon lord. “I’m starting to think you’re not just being nice to Kelsey because she was in need of help.”
“How do you figure that?” Perran said, his grip tightening on Kelsey’s slender shoulder.
“Well, have you two kissed yet?”
Kelsey’s mind completely froze. She was also sure Perran, just behind her, had forgotten how to breathe. “I, uh, erm, we—no, we...”
“We’ve not,” Perran said, withdrawing contact from her. “And I’d like it if you didn’t ask something personal like that again. Kelsey’s got enough to deal with without worrying that I might do something inappropriate.”
“Oh, of course. She’d never have to worry about what you’ll do.” Lissa’s lips spread in a sly smile. “But perhaps you better worry about what she’ll do.”
What Kelsey did in that instant was to burn so red with embarrassment that she wanted to shrink into the floor and vanish forever. She avoided eye contact with Perran, even as something lurched in her stomach that had nothing to do with nerves or shame.
Perran admonished her again, but the damage was done. Kelsey couldn’t get the suggestion out of her head. And when Perran left a few hours later, citing more chasing after their elusive fugitive, Kelsey was distracted for the rest of her training day.
No matter how much she mulled it over, turned the thoughts in her mind, she kept returning to one conclusion.
He hadn’t denied interest in her. He was concerned with putting her in an awkward situation—but the fact that he was concerned in the first place… didn’t that mean he harbored some sort of attraction? And that he just refused to act upon it, because he knew she wasn’t ready?
She didn’t know how to handle the knowledge that he might like her. Enough to kiss her, like Lissa implied. She ran through their interactions in her mind. Always asking after her. Making sure she had all the tools possible to break away from Feylen. Helping her establish a friend network. All those stares she’d caught him in the middle of doing. And when he was drunk upon the ship, how strangely sweet he’d been, how unwilling to let her see him so vulnerable, because he didn’t want her to think the worst of him.
His determination to help her. The close contact. When Feylen had touched Kelsey, it was always heavy and promising pain. When Perran touched her, it was soft, and promised kindness. Affection.
It would be so inappropriate, she told herself. The last thing he’d want is for me to develop affection beyond what we have now. Right?
She couldn’t answer her own question. She also didn’t want to ask Lissa, not trusting herself to like the storm witch’s answers.
The training continued over the next week. She was finally able to progress from manipulation to conjuring her own source of magic. It involved sinking into an almost meditative state to access it safely. Which meant Kelsey might struggle to summon it under pressure.
“Even if everything around you is chaos,” Lissa said, “you should be able to access your magic, whatever happens. All you need to do is picture the calm in yourself long enough for it to happen. So our practice now is to make sure you can learn to access that calm rapidly. So when I say ‘now’, you’ll get your lightning stoking.”
Even with Lissa’s relentless pushing, Kelsey didn’t perform well under pressure. At all. She simply fell to pieces when confronted with stress. And it made her feel worse to know the storm witch was disappointed in her reaction.
“It’s a bad habit, Kel,” she said. “It’ll get you killed.”
Kelsey knew it. But every time she got stressed, her mind decided to roll through every terrible thing she’d suffered under Feylen’s roof. Every bruise, every hurtful word, every attempt to make her feel worthless, stupid, incompetent. Combined with her reflections of Perran Rus, it reduced her to a hot mess.
Two days before the official training ended, Kelsey lay on the couch in total darkness. Lissa snored softly from the corner, ensuring that Kelsey couldn’t sleep at all. The older woman had an almost grunting snort which startled her at random intervals. She also hated how dark it became, because Lissa preferred there to be no lights at all for her to sleep, since dawn’s light tended to wake her from her otherwise dead faint. Kelsey quivered under four layers of blankets, her ears picking out all kinds of sounds, and she longed to be back in a bed, and not out here in the middle of nowhere, on a lonely island barely inhabited by fifty people. The storm witch traded her lightning for food and other wares, and she was getting a hefty haul from Perran for training Kelsey. But for all their living together, they still felt like complete strangers to one another at times.
Even Luan showed more friendliness than Lissa, and that was saying something.
A low, keening moan sent jolts of anxiety down Kelsey’s spine. Just the wind. Just the wind, making horrible, blood-chilling noises that made her hunch up into herself under the sheets. Sure, she might be capable of summoning lightning, but that didn’t stop her feeling any more vulnerable than before. The wind continued its low, unsettling moans, trapped in the narrow spaces of trees and leaves.
She almost leaped out of the sofa when the window behind her creaked. Her attention danced to it, but she couldn’t really see anything. When another creak came, Kelsey, paranoia getting the best of her, slid off the sofa, taking some blankets with her, and fumbled her way to the side of the room as quietly as possible. In the kitchen area, she crouched behind the table, just as another sound joined the creaking.
Thump.
Someone was in the room with them. Someone who had crawled in through the back window. Her eyes strained in the darkness. She knew she should say something, announce something, but no words came out. She made no move to warn Lissa, too frozen inside and out by fear.
Closing her eyes, she attempted to calm herself, to reach into that place where her magic resided. To try and ignore the fact that her heart was pounding in her neck, ears, cheeks.
Finally, Kelsey summoned lightning, letting it course through her veins, lighting up the pipes around them in sudden yellow. Revealed out of the darkness was Lissa, still asleep—and an inky, misshapen figure reaching claws towards her, as black as night.
“Lissa! LISSA!” Kelsey’s hand shook, but she tried to focus again, to aim at that horrific creature, on all fours like a dog. Lissa’s eyes snapped open, and she registered the thing in front of her.
“Skies!” Lissa flung out a hand, blue electricity streaming from it, and the creature shuddered and jerked, before dissipating into a pile of ashes.
Kelsey dashed to the open window, slamming it shut, and Lissa stumbled out of bed, her eyes wide.
“W-what was that?” Kelsey said, cautiously approaching the black pile of ash on the ground. She’d never seen anything like it.
“A kill order,” Lissa said between clenched teeth. “It’s a coal-demon.”
“Demon?” Kelsey whispered, trying to register the word. “You mean, like from the underland?”
“More like a contract put out on me by someone who clearly wants me dead,” Lissa said, now grabbing a bottle of alcohol from her cupboard. She didn’t bother pouring it into a glass, and glugged straight from the top. “Clearly they didn’t know you were here, though. Otherwise that attack would have succeeded.” The bottle she held shook violently.
“Who would want to kill you out here?” Kelsey asked, confused, nervously glancing towards the window, in
case another one of those monsters appeared.
“Oh, I know who,” Lissa said with a snarl, looking truly terrifying with the way her face contorted to do so. “The Conclave of Zamorka. Picking off the witches who won’t join them.” She took another long swig from the black bottle. “Might’ve refused an offer less than a month before accepting you here.”
Kelsey started at the name. She knew Perran was chasing a current fugitive belonging to this exact group.
“And… you didn’t think to mention this?” Kelsey stared at the woman, incredulous. She didn’t really know a whole lot about the law side of things, but she suspected that Perran Rus would have highly appreciated being told about this.
Though he hadn’t actually mentioned to the storm witch who he was chasing. Just “a fugitive”.
“I’m not sure if it’s my place to say, Lissa, but I think if you know anything about the person who tried to kill you—you should tell Perran. He’s on the lookout for exactly a Conclave fugitive.”
Lissa gaped at her, before her expression dropped into a scowl. “Of course he is. Would it have killed him to mention something like this before?” Now, apparently remembering her manners, she grabbed a glass, a new bottle of alcohol, and poured some out for Kelsey. When Kelsey attempted to refuse the drink, Lissa gave her such a terrifying glare that she felt no choice but to comply.
The alcohol burned her throat and made her cough, but she swallowed it with nothing more than a slight whimper. “I really don’t like this stuff.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Lissa said. “It’ll steady your nerves, anyway. Steadies mine every time. And it does get lonely out here for a storm witch...” She trailed off into a long silence, broken only by the sound of liquid swishing and shuffling feet.
“Will you be attacked again?” Kelsey asked, dreading to know the answer. `
“Most likely. But there is some good news in all this,” Lissa replied with a grim smile.
“And what news is that?”
The raven-haired woman sneered. “At least we know that Perran’s fugitive is on this island. Because you need to be close by to summon something like that.”
Chapter Six – Perran
He’d visited every single cursing island so far. The only trouble was, people could move. For all he knew, he’d move to one island, and his target just hopped onto the one behind him.
Even with all his contacts, his resources, with Luan and his crew helping, all they found was that the fugitive was in the area. But clearly lying low. It didn’t help he had a deadline to report by.
Well, at least something good was happening out of it. Kelsey was getting her training sorted, even though he was failing his case. Even flying by dragon form everywhere didn’t help him to keep ahead.
Now he sailed back to Lissa’s island, hoping the ridiculous sum of money he’d forwarded to her would be worth it. Thinking about greeting Kelsey cheered him up, anyway. Would be nice to see her face after this long, tiring mess. He’d considered bringing her back a gift from the other islands, but refrained at the last moment, because he didn’t want to put any additional pressure on Kelsey. She became so stiff when Lissa had casually mentioned the kissing part. He’d had some time to process those words himself now, and he realized he wouldn’t exactly be opposed to some kissing.
But only if she consented. There was something about watching her develop from a shy, timid little thing to someone capable of putting her own opinion forward, capable of smiling, and discovering more and more about herself. Skies, she’d even dared to disagree with him, and he understood just how much of a big deal that was. People in Kelsey’s situation rarely had anything good to say about themselves. They always thought they were at fault.
That was always the thing that grated most.
Still, he probably had a long way to go regarding Kelsey. He just needed to keep teasing her out of that shell, to make sure she grew and grew… until she left him, or… something else.
The island peeped into sight. He watched Vash and Rukia deep in conversation, and Evelyn sitting calmly beside them, obviously the one pushing forward the vessel at the moment. Such a talented pair of air witches. They always needed to take a lot of anchor breaks with Luan, but both of them were almost tireless in energy.
Of course… Luan had a rather different skill set in her air magic.
Sighing, he walked into the belly of the Elegant, stalking into one of the holding cabins, where Luan was currently in the process of suffocating someone. The man lay on the floor, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, as Luan placed him in a temporary vacuum. Before the vacuum caused permanent damage, she always returned the air. Her expression was dark, full of hatred. She crouched in front of their victim, who clawed at his throat, taking huge gulps of air, his eyes bulging as he stared at her.
“I can do this all day. All night. And maybe I’ll keep it up a second longer, so you feel your tongue boiling and the last of the oxygen being used in your blood…”
“No, no, curse you, whore!” the man spat, though his teeth chattered in terror. “I already told you, I don’t know anything! You’re torturing me for no reason!”
“Lies,” Luan said, with a voice as cold as ice. “We know exactly what you’ve done, Chalkley. We know you’re the kind of person who has a finger in everyone’s pie…”
“Still going to be a while?” Perran asked sympathetically. Luan nodded, and Perran exaggerated a sigh. “I’ll get something from the galley kitchen for you. And then I’ll be off to pick up Kelsey.”
“Are we really going to give up the mission, boss?” Luan asked, before dumping Chalkley in another air vacuum. “You’ll want to expel the air in you, or your lungs will explode,” Luan advised him, and a panicked, hissing breath was her response.
“I’ll give it another few days. The precinct didn’t provide funds for a longer trip, so I’ll tap into my own funds.”
“Alright,” Luan said, still fixed on Chalkley, who was now going purple in the face. Perran didn’t feel any pity for him—the man had been responsible for a lot of women’s deaths, in far more horrific fashion than what Luan did to him. Both thought it rather fitting for a woman to exact punishment from him. Perran went and grabbed some food for Luan, then left her to it. One way or another, they’d extract the information from Chalkley’s wasted body, so he’d give away all his underworld contacts. And with any luck, maybe some Conclave members would show up on his long list of contacts.
It was something. Perran stepped off the ship after informing his crew of his intentions, and morphed into dragon form, his gray body winding sinuously through the air, huge wings catching a gentle breeze, allowing a sedate glide when he locked them. It felt good to drift as a dragon—he’d been doing that often on the ship, sometimes even just curling up on the deck, since his skin itched when he went for too long without shifting.
Maybe he could turn up at Lissa’s doorstep in this form, see how his friend-turned-acquaintance would react. She never liked dragons. Always found them scary. Even as a child. Understandable. He’d probably be uneasy facing the mouth end of a dragon as well. His orb-like eyes took in the blue canvas of dawn above, the few wafts of clouds in the atmosphere, and the spindly, jagged shape of the little, nameless island, where people lived in crudely constructed buildings, using the dark lumber wood that covered most of the space there. The air tasted of faint traces of smoke, usually from wood-burning stoves and fires, and he did a few lazy loops over the tops of the trees before alighting a few minutes later in front of Lissa’s hovel. He reluctantly morphed back into human form, deciding that scaring Kelsey wasn’t quite on the list of things he wanted to do to her, and rapped smartly upon the door. Maybe he’d be waking them up, but he didn’t want to keep Kelsey there any longer than the stated contract. In case Lissa sought to extort it further.
No answer from his knocks. He waited for ten seconds, rapped again, louder, more insistent, rocking on the heels of his boots. He examined the cufflinks in
his black jacket, checked his tie was still in place, wondered if he was perhaps overdressed for the occasion… but silence reigned from inside.
“Hello?” he called, now trying to peer through the windows. His heart dropped somewhere to his stomach when he squinted through the bottom part of the front window and saw an empty home.
Maybe they’re just out for an early morning walk. No signs of disturbance. He calmed himself down, rationalizing what he saw. Hoping that there really was nothing suspicious about this. Plus, they were storm witches. True, one was a budding storm witch, but they should be able to handle themselves.
Should he wait? He considered, then went off, determined to search for tracks on the pathway, in the dirt that he missed before.
Chapter Seven – Kelsey
“How do you know where to go?” Kelsey whispered. She followed after Lissa as best as able, but kept getting her feet snagged in roots, in unexpected soft, muddy areas, as Lissa trudged through the dark foliage.
“There’s only one spot it could have originated from,” came Lissa’s reply. “Since something like that requires a ritual, and we don’t really have a whole lot of consecrated areas on this island. Just a small shrine some people left to what they believe is the spirit of the island, asking for its favor to chop wood, that sort of thing.”
The deeper they got into the island’s territory, the more and more anxious Kelsey became. She kept seeking to calm herself, but the way the trees almost seemed to hug her, branches clawing across her clothes, leaves brushing her face… she hated it. She much preferred the city, where you didn’t need to worry about nature and the dangers it contained. She heard birdsong, and harsh caws, and the rustling of small animals. She didn’t think there would be any large predators on a small island like this, but then again, she didn’t exactly know island ecology in the first place, or the types of animals that existed, given that all she’d seen in her life were some birds, cats, dogs, and rodents. Not including insects.
