by Jeff Wheeler
It wasn’t a question, he wasn’t giving her a choice, but she took a step back, nearly losing her footing on the slippery rock. “No, I can’t control it, Corentin. I’ll hurt you.”
He shook his head. “No, you won’t.”
“He trusted me too,” she insisted, “and look where it got him.”
“That’s the point, Itziar. I don’t trust you. If you had asked for my whole story, you’d know, I don’t trust anyone.” Lightning lit the area, and Itziar watched the muscle jump in his jaw before he explained, “I’m lending you a specific portion of my magic, that’s all. And I will fight you for the rest.” He held out his hand, telling her, “You’re the only one who can do this, and you have to do it now, or he dies.”
Itziar met his determined gray eyes and slowly unwrapped the bandage from her right hand. She clasped Corentin’s outstretched hand with her left. She didn’t want to kill him, but his face was angry, not accepting like the others. Maybe he could fight her, maybe he had a chance.
She rested the fingertips of her burned hand lightly on Nalu’s forearm, and carefully drew the power from Corentin. It felt different than it had when she’d retrieved it from the storm. The hair-raising feeling that was his magic still wove throughout, but it felt solid, almost like a rough woven blanket with tattered edges. Itziar tried not to change it as she transferred it to Nalu. She didn’t want to mess up whatever Corentin had done, but she hoped he knew what he was doing.
He didn’t have the sheer amount of power that Nalu possessed, but it still called to her. With just a little extra, she could anchor Nalu in this world, correct her mistakes, and be the person everyone wanted her to be. She reached for it, only dimly aware that Corentin had pulled back, but she tightened her grip on his hand. He possessed more magical defenses than the child-snatchers, but he was at a disadvantage—he had already let her in to give her some of his power.
His eyes widened, then narrowed into small slits of steel. He moved, not away, but toward her. Her hand spasmed in pain and released his. As she looked down, confused, at the small wound in the back of her hand, he smiled tightly and held up a needle, repeating, “I don’t trust anyone.”
Itziar put the wound to her mouth and took a few steps away from them both for good measure. “Thanks,” she told him without meeting his eyes.
After a moment of awkward silence, Corentin suggested, “Let’s get him back to the house, and we can all get dried off.”
It wasn’t until then that Itziar realized it had stopped raining. The power she had pulled from the storm must have been what was holding it near the island.
She looked down from watching the clouds recede in the distance to find Corentin studying her expectantly. “You’ll have to carry him,” he finally prompted, explaining, “I can’t.” He levered himself to his feet and took a limping step forward as if to remind her why.
Itziar simply stared at him in horror. Even from several paces away, she could feel the power radiating off of Nalu once again. She took a stumbling step backward, trying to put distance between herself and them. “Don’t you see? It’s— I’m—” The words refused to express the devastation she felt, so she turned and jumped off the rocks onto the sand. Her wounded leg protested, but didn’t give way. As quickly as she could, she ran.
Her plan hadn’t worked. If someone else’s faith in her wasn’t enough to control her leeching magic, what could she do? She had almost killed Nalu, then she had tried to leech Corentin. She was supposed to be a Guardian. She wasn’t supposed to destroy everyone she touched.
Not knowing where to go, but knowing she couldn’t go back to the mender’s, Itziar started on the path toward the village. She met Kirsi going in the opposite direction. “Oh, Kirsi,” she gasped realizing what might have happened when she abandoned the plan and fled the house filled with child-snatchers in order to get help for Nalu. “Please tell me they didn’t destroy the village or take all the children?”
Kirsi shook her head, a dumbfounded expression on her face, and assured her, “No, no one was at the house. We thought they’d taken you.” She seemed to finish processing that Itziar was standing in front of her, asking, “What happened? Did the plan work? Why are you coming from the beach?”
Itziar shook her head. “No, Kirsi, I messed it all up. I almost killed Nalu and Cor— the mender.”
Kirsi put her arm around Itziar’s shoulders and steered her back up the path. “It’s okay. Let’s get you dry, and you can tell me about it.” Itziar was relishing in the novelty of touching someone without power, someone that she didn’t feel compelled to drain, when she realized where Kirsi was taking her and spun away, protesting, “No! I can’t go back!”
Ever-agreeable Kirsi simply nodded and said, “Fine, to my place then,” before starting in the opposite direction.
Itziar hesitated a moment. She considered revising her original plan and choosing another direction to run, but Kirsi was so reasonable, and more than anything, Itziar needed someone else’s perspective. She couldn’t trust herself. After catching up to Kirsi, Itziar told her what had happened while they walked. As she talked, she marveled at the fact that Kirsi didn’t run screaming when she found out what Itziar was and heard about the events of tonight. By the time she finished her story, they were sitting next to Kirsi’s pleasantly crackling fire wrapped in blankets eating warm soup and bread. “I can’t go back,” Itziar resolved. “In fact, I should probably just leave the island like I originally intended.”
“How do your people usually deal with this desire for power?” Kirsi asked. “I mean, no one would have magic if leeches drained everyone they met, right?”
Itziar snorted a laugh. “They’re not the best role models. They enslaved the most powerful magic users they could find and used them as a source of power.” Too bad I befriended mine. Too bad for her that I couldn’t control myself. But Kirsi didn’t need to know the details.
“You’re right, that’s probably not the best option here,” Kirsi commented dryly, taking another bite of soup-soaked bread.
Itziar picked at the hem of her blanket. “I thought becoming a Guardian would give me my own source of power, but it just gave me more incentive to take someone else’s in order to be able to shift to my new dragon form.”
“But maybe we’re looking at it wrong,” Kirsi insisted. Then she launched into an argument about how Itziar wasn’t a bad person, given her impulse to become a Guardian. Itziar pretty much stopped paying attention after that, nodding occasionally so that Kirsi wouldn’t suspect that she wasn’t listening. It didn’t matter if she was good or bad; her actions always resulted in destruction.
Faces rose up to drown out Kirsi’s words. Nalu’s look of utter trust and confidence as he offered to help. Corentin’s eye-widening surprise when Itziar tried to take more than he offered. And always that pale too-still face from her dreams. They all told the same story. No matter how much others put their faith in Itziar, no matter how much she wanted to believe they were right, she couldn’t be the person they wanted her to be.
Maybe it was time to stop trying.
While Kirsi talked, Itziar formulated a plan. She couldn’t figure out how to turn herself into a proper Guardian, but she seemed to be pretty good at being a leech. By the time Kirsi wound down and said, “But we can tackle all of that in the morning.” Itziar knew what she was going to do.
“Yes, I’m pretty tired,” Itziar agreed, pulling her feet up farther on the chair. “I’ll just sleep here if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” Kirsi told her as she stood and picked up the soup bowls. “I can make up a bed if you’d be more comfortable,” she offered.
“No, thanks, I’m fine.” Itziar closed her eyes and listened to Kirsi take care of the dishes and get ready for bed. It took longer than she expected for the house to quiet entirely.
Finding Corentin in the storm had reminded Itziar that being able to feel other magic could be powerful by itself. Normally, it only worked in cl
ose proximity, from a few paces away, but during the storm, she had been able to feel Corentin from the air. Maybe that was because his power was connected to the storm, and maybe the ocean would work the same way.
Itziar slipped out of Kirsi’s house and headed for the shore. It was full dark by the time she could hear the waves crashing against the sand. The barest crescent of a moon hung low in the sky. Itziar put her hand over her arm where the mark of the islands was covered by her shirtsleeve. Guardian or not, she wouldn’t let them down this time, but she would do it her way.
Removing her shoes, Itziar stepped into the cold water, and the little wavelets lapped at her ankles. She didn’t feel anything other than wet feet, so she kept moving forward until she had to brace herself against the impact of the waist-high waves that sent a stream of spray dancing over her head. Her fingertips trailed through the calmer water between each foamy attack, but she didn’t feel any power. Her clothes, which had mostly dried by the fire, were soaked and heavily dragging against her as the waves retreated back out to sea.
It felt relentless, insatiable, like it wanted to finish what it had started when she washed up on shore. With a heavy sigh, she decided she needed to get to the calmer swells out past where the waves were breaking, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to submerge herself in the water. Maybe if she was surrounded by it, it would give up its secrets.
Taking a deep breath, Itziar dived under the next wave. She felt a confusing buzz of crackling power that felt familiar but didn’t feel like the child-snatchers. Hands dragged her back, pulling against the current toward shore.
Caught off guard, Itziar inhaled burning salt water and struggled wildly to free herself in order to reach the surface. One of her hands broke through to the open air, but before she could follow, a wave crashed down on her head, sending her tumbling end over end into shallower water, where she ran into something solid before scraping along the sand and shells of the shore. Rising to her knees, Itziar coughed, trying to get the salt water out of her lungs. Without looking, she heard hoarse coughs echo her own. Stumbling toward dry land, she muttered, “Corentin, you’re a fool.” Because she had finally figured out whose magic she felt.
“What were you doing?” he demanded, following her at his slower pace. He explained without waiting for an answer, “I was just out walking, trying to sort out what happened today, when I saw you—were you trying to get yourself killed?”
Itziar didn’t deny it, although that hadn’t been the first step of the plan. Instead, she said, “I was trying to find the children.”
But he caught her omission and took a step back. “But did you plan to return with them?”
She could have dodged by saying she hadn’t planned that far ahead. Instead, she answered truthfully, “Isn’t it best for everyone if I fulfill my duties and eliminate the cause of so much potential destruction?” She threw back her wet hair and glared at him defiantly.
“No!” he shouted back. “You don’t get to take the easy way out. You don’t get to sacrifice yourself heroically and avoid the consequences of your actions.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “I could have killed Nalu. I could have killed you.”
“Do you think he cares? Nalu adores you. He’s alive, you know. And asking for you. But then, I suppose you already knew that he could speak.”
She nodded, though it wasn’t really a question. “I tried,” she insisted, “I tried to be what he believed I was, but I can’t, so I may as well embrace my destructive side and do some good before it consumes me too.”
Suddenly the anger left him, his shoulders drooped, and he just looked tired. “That’s not fair, Itziar. I did that once, tried to let someone else be my conscience. You asked how I changed, but you never asked how I got caught by the authorities. I fell in love with a beautiful woman.”
“The one who convinced you to change your ways?” Itziar asked, curious in spite of herself.
He nodded. “The same. She convinced me to let her guide my actions, and I did. I thought I could be happy being good for her. She told me I needed to make reparations and give the gold back to those I’d wronged.”
Itziar followed to the logical conclusion. “She turned you in.”
He nodded, the bitterness in his expression matched his voice, but Itziar wasn’t sure whether it was directed at the woman or himself. “She robbed me, ratted me out, and testified against me at the trial.” He looked down at his hands as he added, “She nearly destroyed me too. If some of these kind fisherfolk hadn’t found me and brought me home, I’d have died on those rocks. It was Kirsi who pestered me into rejoining humanity, exchanging mending for necessities. For a long time, I was angry at the woman who betrayed me, but then I realized it was my fault for letting her be my moral compass. If I had been making my own decisions, perhaps I would have noticed earlier that she didn’t love me in return.”
“But if I trusted my own decision-making, I’d have murdered two people earlier,” Itziar said, pointing out the lack of parallel in their situations.
Corentin shook his head. “I don’t think so, I think I—and probably Nalu—talked you into trying what you did earlier. You knew it was too dangerous to try on your own, but we convinced you otherwise.”
“So I just shouldn’t use my powers?” she asked, a hopeless note creeping into her voice. Never cast another spell? Never fly again?
“Maybe take up sewing,” he suggested. “It’s what I did.”
Itziar was distracted from responding. She felt the child-snatchers before she saw them, more than she’d ever felt in one place previously. They came in with the tide, rising up to form themselves from the waves. The woman in the lead finished solidifying before nodding to Corentin and saying, “Storm-summoner, it has been many tides since you graced our waters.” She turned to Itziar and informed her, “False-dragon, we have no quarrel with you.”
She started to turn away, but Itziar stepped forward, reclaiming her attention.
“That may be true, but I am a Guardian, and these islands are my domain. The people here are under my protection. You are taking their children. If you do not return them now, then I have a quarrel with you.”
“Don’t do this, Itziar,” Corentin hissed at her.
The woman inclined her head. “We only seek what is ours and what we are owed.”
“Then you should have asked instead of taking what didn’t belong to you.” Itziar rushed forward as quickly as she was able, splashing into the surf, and clamped her undamaged hand onto the nearest child-snatcher’s wrist. Behind her, she heard humming and felt Corentin’s power grow.
The woman struggled to remove her wrist, but Itziar held on, searching for an opening in her defenses to get through to her power. Behind Itziar, Corentin’s voice broke, interrupting his melody. His power dissipated, but he started up again, this time with more determination.
Two of the child-snatchers moved to circle Itziar, and she spun her captive, trapping the woman’s arm so she could keep her hold and move if necessary. Itziar forgot about their ability to shift form until hands rose up out of the waves and pulled her feet from beneath her.
She tumbled backward, dragging her captive along. Instead of simply disappearing into the water, the woman twisted, using her free hand to stab Itziar in the shoulder with a knife that appeared to be made from rock. The ripple of pain nearly overwhelmed her, while a wave took the opportunity to roll her toward shore. Each time her shoulder slammed into the sand, she was hit with a fresh spasm of pain, leaving her disoriented for a few seconds after she came to a stop at Corentin’s feet.
He moved awkwardly in an ungracefully jerky pattern, like his body remembered the moves of a dance that it could no longer perform. Itziar stood and backed up to give him some space. The knife had come free from her shoulder and disappeared before she reached shore, but the wound throbbed painfully. Surely, Corentin wasn’t summoning a storm—storms gave the child-snatchers power too.
A few of them advanced cautiousl
y, but they seemed to be watching Corentin too. Finally, he slowed before executing a final flourish faster than Itziar had thought possible. He turned and flung both hands at her. Itziar felt like a boulder had slammed into her as she was hit with a solid wall of air. It drove her backward until further movement was prevented by a tree. She struggled to escape to the side, but she couldn’t get around the pressure—it was just enough to hold her there without hurting her.
Turning a confused glare on Corentin, she shouted, “How dare you!” as he moved to face the people in the waves. The sinking feeling in her stomach told her that she knew he was going to do exactly what he’d scolded her for earlier. When it was clear he wasn’t going to pay attention to her, Itziar focused on leeching the power from the spell that kept her in place.
As it turned out, he was listening, it just took him a few more steps in his pattern before he responded, shouting hoarsely, “It’s different!” His dance had become more complex as he evaded his opponents, but he continued speaking with several halting pauses, “I haven’t disappeared in the night, leaving my loved ones to wonder what became of me.” His voice grew rougher as he shouted the last few words, “The woman I fancy knows full well what I’m doing.” As Itziar watched, helplessly pinned, Corentin’s leg collapsed beneath him, sending him sideways into the arms of the leader of the child-snatchers.
Itziar attacked the spelled air with redoubled effort as the woman told him, “Perhaps you can be of use after all.”
She turned as one with her people and dived into the next wave, dragging Corentin below the surface with her.
As Itziar watched him disappear, she felt as though she’d had the wind knocked out of her. She didn’t know Corentin well enough to love him, but she knew her life would be less if he wasn’t in it. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to value their conversations and their friendship. And now she might have lost him forever.
