by Lucia Ashta
“Aye, let’s go.” This time I was the one to pull Rane away. More than anything I wanted to spare Traya the continued view of our mother. I wanted to spare myself. The sounds were bad enough. I feared I’d never be able to forget the wretched groans and cries of pure agony, which suggested that there might be some part of the villagers that understood what they were doing—even if they couldn’t stop themselves from doing it.
We couldn’t escape the sounds but we could escape the sights. I tugged on Rane. “Come on. I can’t stand to look any longer.”
“But we have to stop it.”
“We can’t stop it.” Traya pulled on Rane also. “We need to go.”
“No,” he said, strong enough to stop the two of us from leading him anywhere. “We can stop this. If the charmers can do faithum, we need to try.”
“It’s too late,” Traya said. “A third of the villagers are already down. There’re less and less of them. They’ll work their way through them. We need to leave them to it.”
“And what if they’re the same when they wake up, huh? Have you thought of that?”
I definitely hadn’t thought of that. My eyes widened and bile washed up the back of my throat. “It can’t happen that way.”
“Just because we don’t want it to happen doesn’t mean it won’t. None of us here wants this to happen and it’s going down anyway. If there’s any chance of undoing what Pumpoo did, we have to try.”
“Dean would have thought of it if it would help.”
“Maybe he would have—under ordinary circumstances. But he looks like he’s just as freaked out as the rest of us. I’m barely thinking straight right now.”
I turned to my twin. “You seem to be thinking better than the rest of us.”
“Then listen to me. I might not know what Pumpoo did to disappear into thin air, but if he’s capable of faithum, then I’ve got to think that’s what he used. I mean, what else would it be?”
“Yeah, I guess it had to be.”
“If he cursed—or whatever it is he did—the villagers with faithum, then faithum can undo it.” He sounded sure of himself.
“All right.” I’d always believed in Rane. I could sense the strength running through him. If Rane wanted us to try this, then I would. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse, could they? “Tell me what to do.”
He smiled a shaky smile. “You’ve never said that to me before.”
“Aye, well, we’ve never been in this particular situation before either.”
“Let’s hope we never will be again,” Traya said.
“Aye,” Rane and I said, our heavy hearts sounding together in that one word.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“I don’t know, you’re the one with faithum.”
“If I have faithum, you do too. We’re twins. If I can do it, by the oasis, so can you. We’re as connected as two people get.”
He nodded, convincing himself. “All right. I can do this. We can do this. And if we have faithum, I’m willing to bet Traya does too.”
Our gentle sister just smiled, but the warmth of it didn’t reach her brown eyes, the ones I’d never seen so stormy.
“What do we do?” Now that we had a plan—well, not really, but we had something—I wanted to put it into motion, like, yesterday.
Rane cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted, “Dean! Faithum!” He yelled loudly, but the sounds of people possessed by who-knew-what were louder. The myriad sounds of bodies hitting, hurting, and agonizing were all consuming.
“Dean! Shula!” Rane yelled again, but his voice carried only to those closest to us, who immediately turned and started moving in our direction. “Crap,” he bit out, preparing to face off with people of our own tribe. “It isn’t going to work.”
Traya moved alongside Rane and me, forming a wall of defense. Four villagers moved our way.
“No, it is going to work.” I closed my eyes against the onslaught. I pushed away the impressions of violence that wanted to continue. I pushed away the sounds, and when I didn’t manage it, I forced myself to ignore them, to pretend they weren’t the sounds of pain and suffering, that they were instead the sounds of opportunity. That this would somehow lead to our growth as a people. It seemed like a baseless wish, but I held it just the same. I focused on Rosie’s warmth against my legs and the support of my sister and brother, who protected me even when I hadn’t informed them what I was doing.
There wasn’t time. I breathed in and out deeply until I was able to pretend that my breath was all there was, my breath and the air of the mountains, tinged by the lingering smell of smoke, of a way of life burned to the ground.
I breathed and ignored the movements of my siblings that jerked and rattled against me. And then I did what I would have thought impossible just days ago—before life and its circumstances had forced me to believe there was no such thing as the impossible.
Dean! I yelled through my mind. Faithum! I couldn’t tell if he was hearing me. He might need stillness to do it and there was no way he had any of that right then. If his thoughts were anything as panicked and jumbled as mine had been moments before, it was a lost cause.
But I remembered I didn’t believe in lost causes anymore.
I formed the thoughts in my mind then launched them across space with a force I didn’t realize I possessed. Dean! Faithum! Can we alter the faithum Pumpoo used with our own? I felt the words pulsing outward and I released my hold on them.
I waited, listening for a reply, but all I registered were the sounds of violence around me. They infiltrated the tenuous stillness I’d managed to gather to transmit my message. If Dean hadn’t gotten it, then there was no option but to wait until the charmers and tamers took down every single villager there and all those who continued down the mountain path to join the fallen.
It was all I had in me. I couldn’t do it again; my heart was too heavy, too burdened by developments too terrible to comprehend.
I strained to listen for Dean, but I’d lost the connection, if I’d ever managed to tether to him at all. I failed. I sighed my lament, and with a bitter shudder, I opened my eyes.
Rane and Traya were entangled with our attackers. The villagers’ eyes lacked that spark of life, certainly of any kind of life worth living.
I stepped forward to engage, but something niggled at me. The sensation that someone was staring at me had me scanning the crowd for its source.
Across the sea of slithering movement, my eyes met Dean’s. He was staring straight at me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dean’s look was so intense that I realized with a start he must be speaking to me and I just wasn’t hearing him. I took several hurried steps back from the thrashing of bodies that surrounded us and stared at him so hard my gaze started to blur. Only when I barely registered him, and when I no longer noticed the flailing limbs of possessed villagers, did I hear what he was saying.
We don’t have enough control over our faithum. We could hurt them, he said through the waves of my thoughts. Are you hearing me?
I can hear you. But we’re already hurting them, even if it’s short of killing them. Watch out! I sensed more than saw the miller’s daughter who’d managed to slip beneath Shula’s outstretched arms. The fierce dragon charmer was already battling three men all at once, but she still tried to protect Dean when she noticed the teenager heading toward him.
The girl lunged for his throat and managed to wrap both hands around it before Dean swept her legs out from under her, flipped her onto her stomach, straddled her, and hit her on the base of the skull with the hilt of his knife. Her body went limp, her legs sprawled wide.
Dean jumped up, sharp eyes scanning the rest of the crowd. He took a few steps backward, toward the edge of the cliff.
I think we should try, I said. There are more coming and we can’t clobber every single one of them on the head. We’re causing too much damage. What’s the harm in trying?
That’s what I’m worried about, I d
on’t know. We’ve been practicing our faithum to control the dragons. People are very different than dragons. Dragons are a thousand times more resilient than any of us.
Now that I’d managed the connection with Dean, I risked to look again, to allow my eyes to focus. I waited as I watched a villager slink past the engaged charmers who surrounded Dean and reach for him. This man resisted Dean’s efforts more than the miller’s daughter, and while I waited for Dean to take control of the enchanted man, I sought out Rane and Traya.
Several feet ahead of me, my siblings continued to fight. Several villagers engaged them, and more advanced on them. But it wasn’t enough that they couldn’t overcome, and I had to trust that they’d call out to me if they needed help. I thought Rane had something with this faithum idea; I had to see it through.
I heard Dean’s strong voice again, breathless from exertion. It’s a big risk.
But you agree that it might be worth it? I sensed him take in the mass of villagers continuing to leach out onto the clearing. They didn’t look like it then, but these were the gentle Ooba people.
If it works, it’ll definitely be worth it. I’m worried about what happens if it doesn’t.
Do you think what Pumpoo did was faithum? That whatever control he has over these people is based in faithum?
Undoubtedly. He swung at a man, whom I recognized as one of our closest neighbors, and clobbered him on the head. The man went down like a bag of rocks. As the charmers and tamers grew fatigued, how much of their control would slip?
People will die here today unless we do this. Wherever the thought came from, I was certain it was true. Just because we didn’t want to cause serious harm didn’t mean we wouldn’t, not when the villagers were this unrelenting. Besides, what if when they wake up Pumpoo’s control over them hasn’t left? What if he still has a grip on their minds or whatever when they wake? What then?
Across the distance, I felt that Dean hadn’t considered that possibility. Like the rest of us, he’d been focused on the immediacy of the threat. But what if the Ooba tribespeople woke the same way they were now? Then we’d almost certainly need to try faithum with them. We’d have to do something to rid them of this curse. Even death would be better than a life like this, and I doubted a single one of the Ooba would disagree with me.
All right. Let’s do it. And by the oasis, let’s hope it turns out well.
Because if not, none of us would be able to live with the guilt of what we’d done, even if we were doing the best we could in the circumstances.
I swallowed hard. More than anything, I hoped we were right in taking this step. But the screams and the growls, so foreign to our people, confirmed it was the only possible path we could take.
What do we do? I asked. How do we do this? Because even though I had less experience with faithum than the Alpha Team, they’d need my strength to overcome what Pumpoo had done. It wasn’t the time for meekness or self-doubt. It was something I felt through my bones, and I wouldn’t deny it then. They needed me. My people needed me. I’d lived most of my life yearning for a sacred purpose. Now it had found me, and even though I might not understand its extent yet, I was certain it stretched far past protection of the dragon race.
Hold on. “Alpha Team!” Dean’s voice carried all the way across the clearing to us. “I need you with me now.”
It seemed impossible that any of the dragon charmers in this elite squad could disengage from the turmoil that thrashed and lunged at them from every direction. But it didn’t take long before I saw the first of them reach Dean’s side. Within a few minutes—an eternity in the given circumstances—all of them surrounded him. Crush, Scar, and Brute formed a semicircle around Dean, Boom, Peachy, and Shula, and continued to ward off the villagers while Dean spoke.
From all the way over where I was, on the edge of the fighting, with nearly the entirety of the massive rock clearing between us, there wasn’t a chance I could hear what he was saying. I waited while my nerves pulsed. I fought the urge to join my brother and sister and engage the onslaught that straggled toward us. I watched the Alpha Team and waited. Dean wouldn’t do anything without me. Like me, he would realize I had to be a part of whatever we did. I contributed the untapped, raw power we needed—that the entire Ooba tribe needed.
The moments ticked by marked by sounds I was trying to forget even as I heard them. It took longer than I wanted, but finally I heard Dean’s focused voice again. We’re ready.
What’s the plan?
We’re going to tap into all the faithum we possibly can, hold the intention that it sever Pumpoo’s hold and return the personal power of every one of the Ooba tribespeople. And Anira, even from there, make sure you link your faithum to ours.
How do I do that?
You’ll know what to do when it’s time.
That’s all I get? I’ll know what to do?
That’s all I’ve got. Even through mind speak, I could feel the toll this was taking on Dean. Battling the people one swore to protect exacted a heavy price.
Suddenly, I wanted to make Pumpoo pay for what he’d done, for what he was forcing good people to do. I didn’t take the time to decide I was ready, or to wonder what I would or wouldn’t do. I wanted to deliver an end to the agony, and I wanted to channel that agony to Pumpoo tenfold, something no human being could ever survive.
Be careful. This can’t be about revenge, but about balance. Dean was reading my energy as I was reading his.
But just then, I cared little. If the Alpha Team was ready, well then so was I.
I closed my eyes to the reality I wished to obliterate and willed my faithum to spark to life.
In a heartbeat, it was there, burning, pulsing, aching to break free. It had been there all along just waiting on me.
Well, it wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Faithum sprang to life within me with such eagerness, such power, that I was wholly unprepared to deal with it. If the faithum I’d accessed when I joined the dragon charmers in subduing those four dragons had been enough to make me pass out, then the faithum that vibrated through me now was enough to kill me.
And I was unprepared to do anything about it.
Dean had worried about what might happen to the Ooba people as we directed our faithum at them, but he hadn’t worried about what might happen to me, to the invisible girl who’d never before done much of importance in her life. The irony of it was that now there was a likelihood I wouldn’t survive it, and I hadn’t even told Rane and Traya I loved them before I dove into this well of power.
That was the last real coherent thought I had before the faithum was too much for focused thought. I struggled to shape my intention into something that wouldn’t cause the Ooba people harm. I forced my mind to hold a vision of the Ooba people restored to their usual selves, that they alone might access the extent of their power. I envisioned them well and physically unharmed.
Then the faithum surged through me as violently as if I’d been struck by lightning, and my body fought to contain the power of something greater than a single human being. I only half registered that the sun had finally breached the horizon in its entirety, and that its bright rays colored the edges of my body. I felt feverish, as if I were taking in the power of the entire fireball that was the Suxle Sun.
I won’t survive this. But there was no room to care, no access to the usual reserve of emotion or self-preservation. I was beyond my humanity; it was outside my reach.
Rosie. Mentally, I tried to push her away, to tell her to get the hell away from me before I brought her demise along with my own. I didn’t manage it, and even as a part of me realized I was failing to protect her, there was nothing I could do. Her plump body pressed against my legs as firmly as ever, yet she was beyond my reach.
I felt as if the fire of the sun consumed every one of the particles that made up my body. It overwhelmed every one of my senses. My muscles grew taut as I fought the sensation until I couldn’t figh
t it any longer. Then I relaxed so much that something outside of me must have been holding me up.
My heart beat rapidly to match the intensity of the light. My breathing was panicked and fast, until I stopped breathing entirely, until every part of my body was beyond my control.
More light streamed through me. More power. More faithum—or whatever it truly was.
The view behind my closed eyes was one of bright, swirling, luminescent colors.
I vibrated, tingled, and hummed. I was a vessel of an energy intended for more than one person. Invisible or not, I was only human, and the energy my body now held would fry it.
At least if it saves the others... But when I tried to remember who the others were, I couldn’t.
Then I couldn’t remember who I was either.
I was losing myself.
A few wild heartbeats more—thumping through my head, my throat, and my fingers—and I forgot even who I was. I ceased to be a girl, who was becoming a woman. Girl, woman, human... terms that no longer fit me.
Then I moved beyond even the few words I managed to catch as they passed in flurries through my brain. My awareness dissolved into pulses.
Power surged from me—from every speck of flesh that might have still been mine. I had too much of it; I needed to rid myself of some of it. But it continued to pour into me, until I was certain I contained all the power of the entire Suxle Sun, the brighter of the two suns of Planet Origins.
As I pushed my rapid breaths outward, I pushed the power too. With every breath I released, I pushed power out. It pulsed outward, setting every inch of me on fire. Even my eyeballs stung. My tongue was thick and unwieldy. My scalp burned as if my hair were singeing from the inside out. My flesh tingled, the sensation running along every bit of my skin like a wildfire out of control.
I burned like the forest had. I burned as if all of Planet Origins were aflame and there was no escaping it.
I started shaking. It was too much.
