Zara settled herself, her practice at projecting calm allowing her to find a mental balance whenever she needed it. Letting her thoughts spiral out of control would do no good.
She made the connection as Drake had instructed, letting the Light flow into the skin around the wound. Unsure if she needed to give it any specific direction she pictured the wound stitching itself together, and it began to close in front of her eyes.
Like she remembered from when she’d healed Alex, the blood stopped flowing, then the gaping wound pulled itself together from the deepest parts of the tissue first, closing up and then sealing. An ugly red line persisted for a few moments but then faded to a white scar, and then his arm was as smooth and perfect as it was five minutes ago.
He lifted it to his eyes and prodded the arm before he nodded. “Very good. Healing appears to be a natural talent of yours.”
She flushed with the praise and sense of accomplishment. He’d said that about every single ability he’d shown her. It still felt strange to be genuinely good at something.
“Just as healing is perhaps the most wondrous Light ability, the Dark side of it is perhaps the most devastating. Alexandriel told me you’ve already experienced it.”
Zara struggled to think back. “Have I?”
“The first time the Dark mages assaulted you, one of the men had the draining ability. He’s the one who grabbed you. Did you notice a loss of energy, a reduced ability to resist, a sudden weakness?”
She frowned. She did recall feeling that way. “I may have…”
“They’re nicknamed vampires, although they aren’t undead like in the stories you read. Instead of healing, they do the opposite, stealing their victim’s energy and using it to boost their own strength and speed. Just like healing, the closer to the head and heart they touch, the faster they can work.”
“What happens if they draw all the energy from someone?”
She didn’t need an answer beyond the look he gave. Zara shuddered.
They moved onto an ability Zara had been eager to learn.
“Animancy is the art of imbuing inanimate objects with Light and purpose,” Drake said. “It can be one of the lowest cost methods for a Beacon to achieve an objective, although object selection is very important. Animancy can force objects to bend in unnatural ways, but it can’t do much more than that. Importantly, if any part of an object bends in a way it’s not supposed to, the object will permanently break at those joints once the Light leaves.”
He made her get a chair to walk across the courtyard and back. It looked odd, seeing a regular object move with such a sense of purpose and an unnatural gait. Its legs bent in the middle to function like knees. Once it had made a few rounds of the flagstones, the Light ran out and the legs broke at the “knees,” leaving the chair with four stumpier legs.
“What’s the opposite of Animancy?” she asked.
His face darkened. “Necromancy. I will not make you practice that one regularly unless an opportunity falls into our lap. It is an abomination.”
It was the first time she’d seen Drake disturbed by the Darkness—she’d thought it wasn’t within his capabilities.
“There’s only one pair of abilities left,” he said.
“Prophecy and seeing into the past,” Zara said, eager. “I’ve already experimented with looking into the past. It was incredible. I saw before the city was built.”
“You went back that far? That is quite the feat. I wonder… no matter.” He shook himself. “As I’m sure you suspect, the Light version of the ability is very similar to the Dark, but opposite. The Darkness can show you the past—it brings back what was, as the Darkness eventually swallows all light. The Light can show you the future.”
“Can I go hundreds of years into the future like I did into the past?” Zara asked. The possibilities excited her, but they also scared her. She’d been tempted to experiment after her experience looking into the past, but a small part of her warned that prophecy was not a power to be toyed with.
Drake tapped his finger on the table, looking more pensive than she was used to seeing. “You could. Theoretically. It would be meaningless, though.”
She frowned. “Why would it be meaningless to see that far into the future?”
“Going further than a few minutes will be worthless in most places. The possibilities diverge too much.”
“Possibilities?”
He nodded. “With prophecy, you don’t see the one, true future. You see all possible futures.”
When she hesitated, unsure of what he meant, he stood and backed up a few steps.
“It’ll be easier to understand if you see for yourself, and then I’ll explain after. You remember how you accessed the past? Pull the Light into a dial and twist it forward.”
She concentrated, the Light bending easily to her will. She nudged the dial forward a few degrees. Just as with looking into the Past, the present remained visible. Unlike looking into the past, there was more than one phantom shape that came from Drake.
There were dozens that moved in almost all possible directions, of varying levels of transparency. A few even jumped up or to the side. Most were mere shadows, difficult to even see, but there were several that moved in very different directions. She played with the dial, although it was difficult to tell what was going on even a few seconds into the future. As she watched, present Drake moved unpredictably.
No, not unpredictably. She turned the dial back until it was only a second in front. Drake moved in odd patterns, darting from side to side and jumping occasionally, but he always followed one of the more solid shapes.
Just to see, she pushed the dial forward even more, pushing minutes and hours into the future.
The courtyard was covered in hundreds of ghost figures. She could pick out dozens of copies of herself, Grace, Sophie, Drake, Alex, Ethan… every person in the enclave. A bare whisper of broken glass fell from a window on the second floor, and a ghost no more substantial fell through and hit the ground.
She let go of the Light and sat back in the chair.
“Okay, I’m done,” she said, and Drake came back to the table.
“How far forward did you go?” he asked.
She winced. “At first just a few seconds until I understood what it was showing me, but then I pushed forward a couple of hours. It got… messy.”
He nodded. “The power and the flaw of prophecy. It will show you every possible future. The likelihood of it happening is directly connected with how solid it appears. The further out you go, the more numerous and divergent the possibilities are, until there are none especially likely at that point in time.”
“So what would happen if I push out hundreds of years? Would I see every possible future? Ones where aliens land or nuclear war happens, or New York disappears under a huge earthquake?”
“Not exactly. You would likely see nothing at all.”
He didn’t explain further, encouraging her to think his answer through. He did that often, rather than spoon-feed her everything.
She wouldn’t see anything at all? But there were so many things that could happen. Exciting things.
“That far into the future,” she said slowly, thinking it through as she spoke. “There are so many possibilities that none of them are likely. I guess there might be so many that none of them are even solid enough to see.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Good job.”
She frowned. Prophecy sounded like more work than she’d expected.
She still had unanswered questions about the abilities.
“Drake?”
“Yes?”
“There are seven Light abilities, and the Beacons can use them because they are passed down from the angels, right? So what about the things that angels can do that Beacons can’t? You walked through this table a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve never heard of a mage using the Light in that way.”
The archangel tapped the table, his expression pensive. “It’s true that Beacons can use
the Light abilities because they are part angel. And there are things I can do that Beacons cannot, like see and walk through walls. Beacons probably cannot do these things because they are intrinsic to angels and involve manipulating our position on the planes of existence. Beacons have too much mortal blood tying them to this plane.”
The explanation made a certain kind of sense, and Zara filed the information away in case it became important.
Drake kept her practicing every day, going through each of the abilities until she felt like she could call the Light in her sleep. A few times, she woke up convinced that she had.
Alex paced in his room. He felt useless.
It hit him in waves. As the only person in Lighthaven without magical powers, the heft of his punishment grated on him every day.
Zara will be down for her evening lesson with Draconel. Maybe I can go bug Sophie and Grace. I haven’t spent enough time with Zara’s friends, and they’ve become so important to her life.
Decision made, he opened the door to find Zara outside. He froze.
She was in the middle of what looked like an argument with herself, hands raised as if making an emphatic point. When she heard the door open, she froze, too.
“Oh, hi Alex. I… didn’t know you would be in your room.”
He leaned against the door frame. “Shouldn’t you be down in the courtyard?”
“Drake called it off tonight so I could recover from the constant use of my powers. Although I feel great—I think it was just an excuse for him to get away for a bit. I think he’s happy with the progress I’ve made so far.”
He had every reason to be. The level of skill with which she wielded her powers would have been impressive even if she’d been practicing since she was a little girl.
He took too long to say something. Zara took a step forward. “Do you mind if I come in?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, pushing past him into his room. He was stunned, but he shouldn’t have been. The shy, timid girl he’d rescued from the Dark mages was long gone.
He shut the door, watching as she paced to his window and looked out over the city. It failed to hold her attention, and she wandered to the bookshelf, tracing her finger across the titles.
That didn’t last long, either, and she whirled to face him, pointing her finger at him. “You’ve been holding back. I know you have. I can feel it. You want more.”
He started to deny it, practiced excuses dying in his mouth as he looked at her. Her blonde hair had grown longer over the past few weeks, pulled to one side of her head in a fetching braid. Her crystal blue eyes were intense, and he could have sworn he could feel the power radiating from them.
“It’s complicated.”
“Is it because I’m part Angel Killer?” she asked, hands going to her hips. “You know I can’t change that.”
It was odd seeing her lips form the words. She looked the furthest thing from an Angel Killer, even if that’s what she was. Partially, at least.
She had taken charge of the conversation and the encounter, not giving him enough time to find the words he’d practiced dozens of times.
“We talk every night, so why should you be afraid of me?”
He had to chuckle a little at that, and her eyes flared.
“You scare me, but it’s not because I’m afraid you’ll hurt me.”
As if he had deflated her, she withdrew into herself but stepped closer to him, wide eyes looking up at his. “Why, then? What’s going on between us?”
Alex braced himself. The time for subtlety was over. They had to confront this head-on at some point.
“I’m scared of how hard I’ve fallen for you, Zara. I want to be with you constantly and can’t stand when you aren’t by my side.”
Zara’s jaw dropped. Whatever she had going through her mind, his answer wasn’t what she’d thought he’d say. “You want to be with me?”
He laughed at her incredulity. “You are an enchanting, gorgeous, and exceedingly complex woman. I got thrown out of Heaven for you. I told an entire enclave of Light mages that I was an angel for you. Of course I want you, Zara.”
She stamped a foot, making the curves of her petite frame bounce. “Why haven’t you kissed me?”
“I couldn’t push you into it,” he said. “It had to be what you wanted. I have millions of years of baggage.”
Zara’s indignation had faded, and she bit her lip. “We’re both bad at this dating thing, aren’t we?”
She’d gotten closer at some point. When had that happened?
Those incredible eyes threatened to drown him, sapphire pools that stretched into eternity.
Zara was gorgeous. He’d never thought that about a mortal before, but she took his breath away. He had tried to persuade himself that it was just because he was trapped in a mortal body, but that was disingenuous. She’d done it to him when he was an angel, too. He just hadn’t admitted it to himself.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked. She was so close now that he couldn’t manage more than a whisper.
She put her hands on his chest. “Just shut up and kiss me.”
He bent his head and met her lips as she rose on her toes. It was sweet and fierce at the same time. She tasted of the Light, but also the Darkness, the combination a heady, alluring, dangerous mixture.
Alex had been trying to save her from himself, but as he lost himself in her, he knew the danger was the other way around.
A loud scream rent the passionate silence of his room, followed by a heavy crash that shook the foundations of the house.
Chapter 11
Zara flinched back, staring up at Alex with wide eyes.
Her mind was in overdrive, first from the sensory overload of the kiss and then reacting to the shaking and sounds they’d heard.
“Dark mages,” he said. “It has to be.”
She nodded. Unlike the past two times she’d been under attack, she kept her cool. She was a different person, more capable. She could protect herself.
The alarm signal bleeped through the halls. It was the call to evacuate. The mages of Lighthaven had a series of plans in place in case of an attack from the Darkness. They practiced them with diligence. Anytime someone complained, all it took was a reminder of the ambush that had killed the Beacons to make them fall back in line.
Zara couldn’t remember the plans well—her brain power had been taken up learning how to use her powers properly, and she hadn’t wanted to entertain the notion of needing to abandon her new home so soon after finding it.
“We need to run,” Alex said. “They’ll be coming for you.”
She bit her lip. It was true, but she couldn’t afford to just look after herself anymore. She had friends to worry about.
“Okay, but we need to make sure Grace and Sophie get out. I won’t leave them behind.”
He tightened his mouth into a line but nodded.
The weeks of practice had given her tight control of the Light. She slipped into Farsight immediately. Grace was in her room down the hall. Zara swapped to check on Sophie and found her running through the first-floor hallway, a Dark mage in pursuit.
One thing Drake had drilled into her repeatedly was the limits of each ability. Charming and cursing could only be used in eyeshot of the mage. She ignored that part of her lessons, tapping into her Dark reservoir and sending it through her Farsight vision at the Dark mage’s feet.
It was strange mixing the Light and the Dark like that. It should have felt unnatural, but the two sides of her meshed together eagerly, like two puppies falling over themselves to obey her commands.
The mage tripped and stumbled to the side. Taken by surprise and unable to catch himself in time, his head fell into the corner of a table holding a lamp and a floral arrangement. The impact came with a sickening crunch that Zara could feel in her bones. The lamp flew off the table and smashed on the floor, scattering glass everywhere.
Sophie looked back and paused. She looked around.
“Zara?”
Zara couldn’t say anything through the Farsight, and Sophie shook herself and continued running.
She dropped out of Farsight. The entire thing had taken no more than a few seconds.
“Let’s go. Grace is in her room and Sophie is on the first floor.”
Charging down the hall, Zara ignored the faces that poked out from behind doors. She barely knew them, and they had shunned her for daring to stay among them and use the Dark magic she’d been born with. They could find their own way out and she would help them if she could, but her priority was her friends.
“Grace!” Zara pounded on her door. “We’ve got to get out of here, open up!”
The girl opened the door and darted into the hall. “I’m ready. Let’s get Sophie.”
Zara ran through the schematic of the house she carried in her head. They were on the third floor on the south side of the house, and Sophie had been on the first floor of the east wing, near the front door. That was the most likely place for the intruders to enter, so she could be in more danger.
She led them down the hall, aiming for the stairs. As they neared, a trio of Dark mages rounded the corner.
Aside from the unfamiliar faces, the intruders looked the part. Dressed in all black, and wearing far too much jewelry, one of them sported a stylized tattoo on the side of his face.
Both sides froze, then fell into crouches. Zara had never dueled with another mage before, but Drake had given her some of the theory and practiced with her. The most important part was figuring out exactly what kind of mages you faced and being aware of the most likely attacks they would use against you.
The big man with the tattoo on his face edged forward, looking like he wanted to dash toward them.
He’s probably a vampire. Can’t let him get close enough to touch any of us.
The draining was bad enough, but the superhuman strength and speed he would gain from it would cause even more problems.
She could see the Darkness that sputtered around another mage’s fingertips, waiting to be called into full force.
Fallen: An Angel Romance Page 16
