by Lucia Ashta
That small part of my brain that was still able to process what happened outside of me registered that I was about to implode—or maybe explode. Whatever was coming, it was going to be messy. Without any doubt, it would be the end of me and my invisible existence.
The brightness pushed outward against my boundaries, stretching them until my skin tore—it must have. And then, just as the ball of fire within me barreled forward, to burst through my edges and return me to the nothing and the everything that were simultaneously both life and death, some force as strong as the one that claimed me snapped the stream of power.
I landed hard against the rock. The power that had been singeing me returned to wherever it had come from, snapping like the string of a bow on its way back.
I tried to claim a breath but failed. Instead, total and absolute darkness consumed me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A heavy dampness overwhelmed my sense of smell long before I found the strength to open my eyes, but once I did, I panicked. Wherever I looked, there was nothing, only more of the same darkness I’d swam in for what seemed like hours or maybe even days.
But then I started to make out sounds, and a flicker of light drew near from very far away. My muscles tensed and I groaned, immediately regretting the need to feel my body.
I trained my gaze on the flickering light, so soft and small as to barely be there. I couldn’t decide whether to be afraid or not, but I soon realized I didn’t have the energy to move out of the way if the light were a danger, so I waited, chest tense with forced breaths.
“You’re awake.” A voice that could only be Shula’s reached into the darkness. I relaxed everywhere, and I felt as if I would melt into my surroundings—even if they were hard and cold.
Shula, looking as fierce as she always did, reached my side.
She laughed, something I’d suspected she never did. I was wrong. Her laughter was lovely, and it filled me with a sense of ease. “You’d think you just saw a ghost by the look on your face.”
“I’m not sure what I’m seeing.” My throat was dry and scratchy.
“Well what do you think you’re seeing?”
“It looks like you’re carrying a flame in the palm of your hand.”
“Then there’s nothing wrong with your vision.” She knelt beside me.
“How... how are you doing it?”
She arched her eyebrows. “You released more faithum than I’ve ever seen before, and you’re amazed at my little flame?”
“I didn’t know it was possible to do what you’re doing.”
“And we didn’t know it was possible to do what you did—though we’d hoped it would be.”
I felt movement against my thigh and startled, searching for its source. “Rosie.” I smiled and reached out to pet her. Even that slight movement hurt. “Why does every bit of me feel like I ran for a straight week, then became a dragon’s chew toy?”
“I imagine it’s because you unleashed a degree of faithum sufficient to break Pumpoo’s spell.”
“It worked?”
“Oh it worked all right.” She grinned, though her eyes still seemed guarded, wary.
“Tell me what happened. I don’t remember anything.”
“I’d better leave that to Dean. He’s better at telling stories than I am.”
It was true that I’d never heard the woman speak so many words, but I didn’t want her to stop. “You’re doing just fine. Tell me, please.”
“He’ll be here soon. He feels you awake.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel him.” Her smile became enigmatic. “How do you feel, other than sore?”
“Honestly I can’t tell because of how much I ache. How long have I been out?”
“Long enough for our tribespeople to return to their homes.”
“So it really worked?”
Her response was another smile.
“I wish you smiled all the time,” I said before remembering whom I was talking to. Shula wasn’t my friend, she was one of the fiercest dragon charmers who ever lived. She was both my elder and my superior.
She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “We’re a family, us dragon forcers. Your familiarity with me is appropriate.”
“You can read my thoughts?” My words were barely a whisper. I had a strong connection with my twin, and now apparently also with Dean, but neither read my thoughts—I hoped. I was plenty happy with my closeness with Rane, but even with him, I wanted my thoughts to remain my own. Sharing something like that with Shula was just too... intimate.
She was watching me. “No, I’m not reading your thoughts, but I am feeling your energy. That’s enough to tell what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“I understand, but you can trust me.”
I smiled, and even my face hurt from the movement. “I do trust you.”
“Good.” She stood. “He’s here.”
“Dean?”
She nodded and took a step to the side, a space that Dean fluidly filled half a minute later.
“Good, you’re awake.” Dean called ahead before he even reached us. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a dragon chewed me up, swallowed me, and spit me back out.”
“Sounds about right based on the amount of faithum you streamed through you.”
“Is it always like this?”
“I don’t know. No one has ever managed to move that much faithum as far as I know.” I filed away the implications of that statement to review later. “But if the experiences of the Alpha Team are anything to go by, it gets easier the more you familiarize yourself with the energy. The more you use faithum, the easier it is to do it.”
“Then why don’t you have a flame like Shula does? Or can you see in the dark?”
“No, but I can’t do what Shula does, not yet at least. We all have different strengths, just as we all have different weaknesses. The advantage of working as a team is that our strengths and weaknesses balance out. I’d like you to be a part of the Alpha Team.”
I just stared at Dean, then at Shula. Their green eyes were similar, as was their determination. “You’re serious.”
“Oh yes.”
“But the Alpha Team has so much experience! You’re the best of the best, the elite force even among the dragon charmers. I have no training to become a part of that.”
“You have what no other Alpha Team member does. You have a strength we’re only just starting to touch.”
“Faithum.”
“Aye, lots and lots of it.”
I realized they were waiting for an answer. “I don’t know. I mean, the offer is flattering—crazy, but flattering—but I need to think about it. I need to speak with Rane and Traya first. They are all right, aren’t they?” Even though I had to assume they were, my heart thumped irregularly at the thought of something happening to them.
“They’re well and, from the looks of it, excited.”
“About?”
“They’ve already agreed to join the Alpha Team.”
“What? Both of them?”
“Well, we couldn’t very well have you without your... brother. He was the one to pull you back before you went too far. None of the rest of us could reach you; he could.”
“That makes sense,” I said with care. I understood the implications of what Dean said, and once more I was certain he’d deduced that Rane and I were twins. Still, I didn’t dare ask. I didn’t dare think what this all could mean to Rane’s safety and my own.
“It does make sense, and it’s a connection I believe more than worth our while to explore. I’m pretty sure he saved your life.”
“He’s like that. He would have if it came to that.” And I realized, even with a big gap in my memory, that he had. “He’s always protected me.”
“He disconnected you from the faithum you were streaming before it became too much for your body and mind to handle. His interference knocked y
ou to the ground. Him too. He only woke up a few hours before you.”
“He’s all right though? You’re sure?”
Dean smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure. I checked him out myself. He’s just a little sore, that’s all.”
“Because he took on some of the faithum I had?”
“I think it’s more likely that he received a surge of the total amount of the faithum you were handling. If your faithum was fire, then imagine him jumping into it. That would be enough to knock him out too.”
“For sure. It felt like more than I could handle.”
“It was, but it was also the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of amazing things in my lifetime, but this was the best.”
“Why?”
“Because this alone suggests a bright future I didn’t otherwise see how we’d obtain. With your brother and sister on board, and you too I hope, we’ll find the power to set things right for us and all the Ooba people.”
“Why my sister? I understand Rane”—better than I was letting on—“but why Traya?”
“Because even if she isn’t as tightly connected to you as Rane is, she’s still your blood. I’m not willing to dismiss the possibility of that connection and what it might mean to have the three of you on the Alpha Team. Besides, she’s smart, and I like her.”
“There’s no better person than Traya, that’s for sure. And the villagers? Are they back to normal?”
Dean looked to Shula, and they both grinned. “Even better.”
“Better? What does that mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure yet. We haven’t had the chance to test my theory, but I suspect the faithum you accessed to disconnect them from Pumpoo was enough to awaken their latent ability to connect with it.”
“That’s amazing. So they’re fine, no harm from what Pumpoo did?”
“More or less. They’re beaten up and scared, most in a state of disbelief, but their eyes are now open to what was going on, and to what might be, and that’s a very exciting thing.”
I tried to sit up, but slumped back down. “The cave is dark and cold.”
“And you want to feel the heat and light of the sun.”
“I do. How’d you know?”
“Because you and I aren’t as unlike as you first thought, as I first thought, little dragon spirit.”
I blushed.
“It’s all right. I would’ve done the same thing if I’d had your secrets.”
I flicked a worried glance to Shula.
“If you trust her with your secrets and your life, you’ll never regret it. You look pretty pale, but if you think you’re ready to get outside, we’ll help you out. There’s no danger from the dragons right now. There are no signs of them.”
“Which is a good thing?”
“Definitely, because we have lots to settle before we return to our dealings with the dragons.”
“Like?”
“Like tracking down Pumpoo and making him pay for all he did to the Ooba people.”
I managed to sit up. “You know where he is?”
“We think so.”
“How? Why?”
“I was trying to give you time to recover before we got into all this, but I see you’re unwilling to wait.”
There seemed to be a sense of pride in his voice, as if he were invested in me. I didn’t know what that might mean, but I sensed I would like it.
“After you and Rane passed out, the villagers stopped what they were doing. Whatever Pumpoo did to direct them seemed to disappear entirely. They all stopped moving for a very long time.”
“So long that we thought something was wrong with them,” Shula said.
“Aye, there were a few terrifying moments when we considered that whatever damage Pumpoo did to them would be irreversible. But then, one by one, they started coming back and acting like their usual selves.”
“Even though they didn’t remember anything they’d done,” Shula added.
“Aye, and that’s a very good thing. It will take them long enough to recover from all they did when under that man’s control without having to also deal with the vivid memories of harming people they care about. This way is much better for everyone.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “There are plenty of images and sounds I wish I could forget.”
“Aye, me too, me too. But at least we have the strength to know that will never happen again.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“We’ll make sure of it. We were just waiting for you and Rane to recover to go after Pumpoo.”
“Where is he?”
“Well, Jore and Whitters—”
“Whitters?”
“The other emissary who had the dubious honor of carrying Pumpoo’s shade. When he and Jore came to—”
“Wait, came to? I thought you said the villagers came back to their usual selves in minutes.”
“Those who weren’t knocked out did. Those we had to hit on the head took much longer to come around. We’re good at what we do.”
“Right.” I wondered if Mother had been one of those who’d been spared the head injury. Last I saw her, she was trying to attack. I hurried to whisk the image from my mind. Every daughter could do without seeing her mother revealed a vicious beast. “So Jore and Whitters?” I tried to focus only on them.
“They didn’t know exactly where Pumpoo might have gone, but they had an idea. They truly didn’t know what he was going to do or what he was capable of. To think all that time he hid under that ridiculous shade it had something to do with his faithum. Something about that shade kept his faithum from becoming fully visible. We’re studying the shade.”
“I always thought that shade was strange too. I love the feel of the sunshine against my skin.”
“As do I. Let’s get you out of here. We wanted to be sure you were safe until we saw how things panned out.” Dean and Shula moved to help me up.
“Rosie,” Shula said, “you need to let me in to help Anira.” Rosie got up with obvious reluctance, but she moved to let Shula in. “She didn’t leave your side, not even once.”
I smiled at my baby dragon friend. “She’s special.”
Dean said, “I have no doubt that she is. She hasn’t come to you by accident, that’s for sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she’s connected to you in important ways that haven’t yet revealed themselves. Even for a dragon Rosie is special. She obviously feels she has some strong connection to you, and you just discovered an incredibly strong connection to faithum. And Pumpoo was looking to experiment with the dragons to discover their connection to faithum....”
“I see.” But the truth was that I didn’t, not really. It was all a lot to process. My faithum, Rane’s ability to interfere with it, my connection to Rosie.
“You might not see now, but you will soon.” Dean again gave me the niggling feeling he and Shula were too familiar with my thoughts. “Give it time. You only just woke up. You have time.”
“Though not too much of it,” Shula warned. “We’re getting ready to move on Pumpoo.”
“Who may be somewhere with the shadow people, according to the emissaries.”
Dean and Shula were in the process of helping me up. “The shadow people? As in, the shadow man, the shadow assassin who killed three of the Alpha Team?”
“Those people exactly.”
“No, there are no shadow people on Origins. None that I’ve ever heard of. It can’t be.” But my words were useless denials, and we all knew it.
“Just because we didn’t know of them doesn’t mean anything at this point. Now, up.”
I stood and leaned much of my weight on the charmers, who draped each of my arms over a shoulder. “How soon do we march on these shadow people? How far away are they?”
“First of all, we’re not going anywhere until your full strength is restored. We have lots of information gathering to do. We know next to nothing of these shadow peo
ple, other than that they exist. For all we know, the shadow man might have acted as no more than one of Pumpoo’s puppets. We can’t condemn a whole people for the actions of one man. We have to find them, figure out who they are, if they’re even human, what their intentions are. We have lots to learn.”
“We can trust the emissaries though? That they didn’t just deliver Pumpoo’s directives to us?”
“Smart girl. No, we absolutely don’t trust the messengers, but I think they were telling the truth. More than any of us, they seemed to feel betrayed by Pumpoo.”
“It could still all be an act.” Shula sounded as if they’d had this conversation several times already.
“Which is why we’ll be careful, and we won’t move until we’re certain we know all the facts.”
“But we won’t delay too long.”
“No, Shula, I’ve already promised we won’t. We won’t let Pumpoo get away.”
“We’d better not.” Shula sounded a bit murderous. Who could blame her?
We started moving toward the mouth of the cave, Rosie right behind us. “And what about—” I started to ask the question that was burning a hole in my mind, but I couldn’t get it out. If I did, I’d virtually confirm Dean’s suspicions. That was something I couldn’t do without conferring first with Rane.
But Dean guessed it. “What about the seers and their prophecies?”
“You know, don’t you?” I said it before I could stop myself, the words so soft they sounded like little more than an echo of my thoughts.
“I know only what you tell me.”
I admired this man more than ever before. He was giving me the chance to choose what I trusted him with. It was little more than a symbolic act, but it was still important to me, an invisible girl who’d felt out of control since the start.
There was no point in holding back now, at least not with my question. “And the seers and all their prophecies about twins delivering doom to the Ooba people? Are they real? Are the prophecies accurate?”
“We don’t know yet. But we do know one thing for certain, not a word out of that man’s mouth had the well-being of the Ooba people in mind. Every word was likely to have been a lie, or at the very least, a manipulation. I’ve never met a single seer, and so I don’t accept any of the prophecies as truth.”
