Nothing happened. I asked again, the only reply the soft trickle of the running stream.
“I don’t understand! Why isn’t it working?”
“You are being too hasty. Your emotions do not match what you want. You are conflicted. With what, I am not privy to, but that is for you to sort out.” A book was now nestled comfortably in her hands, its binding old and cracked, while a swarm of woodland creatures lounged around her, creating her own Snow White scene.
“Haste is kind of the name of the game. I need to get back. I need to be in my own time, with my own friends and family.” I choked on the last word. I wanted so badly to be back with them, the threat of death too poignant in this time.
“Is it need or is it want?”
I was done with her bullshit riddles.
If only I had the strength… Power shot through me at the thought, then quickly dissipated, but it was enough to point me in the right direction. Maybe all I need is power.
I thought back to the many lessons Master Lewis had instructed me on, one in particular: “Great mages are able to use the magic from within to control what they want.”
I sat back down, resolved to find a way. Hours must have passed as I concentrated, meditated into relaxation until it felt as if I would be blown away by the smallest gust of wind. The ground beneath me melded with my own body as I sensed every movement around me: The growing of the grass, the hoofs of a deer running across the meadow, the books on the shelves audibly whispering to each other and now me, and finally, I heard the faint thrum of a heartbeat. At first it was soft, the pulsing of blood through each valve rhythmic until all I could here was its pounding, blocking out all other stimulus. My mind’s eye wandered to find its origin and when it did I was blinded with its brilliant luminescence.
It was the silver tree. Its golden leaves were effused with such blinding light that when I opened my eyes, black spots danced around my vision. I hadn’t realized how physically my stress had weighed upon me, but now its invisible walls had been penetrated and I took my first true breath since coming to the fourteenth century.
My balance faltered and my back smacked hard against the ground, the magic of the Earth seeping out of my every pour.
“You cannot contain it. Let it out.” The ghost lady had come beside me and held the top half of my body in her lap.
I did as she said and let go.
The room exploded into a rainbow hue of colors, the most definitive being green and red, but it wasn’t just the room that was alight. I looked down once more to find my hands aflame. This time, instead of both being green, my left hand was engulfed in dark red. I couldn’t see my face, but if I had to guess, I would say my eyes mirrored the magic.
“There.” She brushed the hair away from my forehead and lightly kissed it.
“What does it mean?” I asked, rising from her hold. Even though it all felt natural there was a part of me that was rightly freaking out.
“It means you are the only one able to balance out the Magics of the world.” She closed her hand around my right wrist and her other around my left. “Golau a Tywyll. Light and Dark.”
We sat there for a moment, connected to each other and the world around us.
“Now you may go forth and bring to the world a power like none other.”
And with that, she disappeared.
XXVII.
Bowen
Bowen stood there stuck to the steps, his blood boiling.
“Jade! Jade, get back here!” She had run off, leaving him to figure his way out of this one. He knew some defensive magic, but nothing that could work against anything like this. “Jade!”
His shouts did nothing but bring the librarian around. “Is there a reason as to why you are shouting in my library?” he asked tersely.
“I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I am stuck to the stairs!” Bowen snarled sarcastically. “Can you please release me from this?”
The librarian assessed his damage. “It should not be a problem, though the spell was very well cast and will take time to be reversed.”
“Just do it!” He was in a rush. He had no way of knowing where Jade had run off to or what had happened to her. He could almost hear Master Lewis’s future reprimand resound loudly in his head.
The librarian got to work but it wasn’t for another half an hour until Bowen was free, his legs stiff and uncooperative as he ran up the remaining stairs. Still a little wobbly he made it into the Main Building.
“Bethany!” Bowen found the red-haired librarian, her eyes still squinting as they tried to decipher who it was shouting at her. “Have you seen Jade?”
“Ah, Bowen, I did not recognize you. I saw Lady Jade run down that corridor less than an hour ago, though I am not sure if she came out or not.” Before she could continue he ran towards the hallway she pointed at. He did not care if Jade had come out or not, he would still check it nonetheless.
Heading straight, he hoped that she hadn’t made any ridiculous turns while in her state of frenzy, checking every open door and nook, in case she was there. He saw a flash of bright light up ahead and pushed himself harder to reach it before it went out. Was that magic? What if she’s hurt?
He got to the door that had produced the aura but when he opened it, there was no one in there. All it held were some books and a cupboard containing bric-a-brac. Bowen stood there in defeat and backed out of the room. Closing the door behind him, he leaned on it for support, his legs slowly gaining life back. He had clearly seen magic coming from under the door, so why wasn’t she there?
Has she gone? Did she find a way home. To leave us so suddenly? To leave me…
Words filled Bowen’s head, words he thought long forgotten when Catherine died, but the yearning he felt for Jade encompassed his whole body and mind. He flexed his fingers, trying to remember the last time he had touched her and came up empty.
Will she come back?
It was a silly notion, Bowen understanding well that Jade had no idea how she had time travelled before, so how would she again? But there was hope in his heart, hope that this was all a trick, his mind overwhelmed by the idea.
He readied to stand, his body heavy as he was about to move himself from the door, but before he could push off, it swung open and he teetered into the room to find Jade’s sea-green eyes staring down at him.
He couldn’t help himself as he stood and wrapped his arms tightly around her, wanting to have her body imprinted into his. She seemed to rest into him, accepting the intimate gesture he had never before dared to enact. The smell of her hair was caught up with the herbs of sage and lavender, its length grown longer than he remembered. The touch of her cheek was soft against his bristle of a beard and if he listened closely, he could just hear her heart beat hard against his.
“Jade, you cannot run off like that!” He pulled her away so that he could talk to her face to face. Only then did he realize that her hands were on fire again. He quickly backed up to get a better look at her. “What happened?” The concern in his voice was too thick to hide. He hadn’t meant to step away, but nothing had prepared him for this. One of her hands was green, which was normal in a sense, but the other hand was now scarlet. He looked at her face; there was nothing wrong with her eyes, except that the left one now held the same red pigment as her hand.
So she is an Exalted Witch! He had never come across one in his lifetime, and with her training going slow with the master, he didn’t think she really was one.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I believe I found myself.” She finally exited the room with a last glance behind her, looking at something far beyond the walls, and closed the door. Bowen took it as a good sign that she was not freaking out.
“Are you okay?”
As she pulled the door shut, it locked itself and at the same time Jade’s hands ceased to glow, her eyes returning to their no
rmal state as she answered.
“Yes.” She gave no indication that she was going to talk any further about it. But he needed to know.
“Where were you?”
She took a deep breath, her shoulders de-stressing. He had never seen her this calm. “In the Forgotten Room… The First Room…”
Bowen grasped what she was telling him. That he had been wrong. She had found it, the room of answers, and it seemed she had gotten hers. Jade moved quickly down the hallway and into the foyer of the Main Branch.
“We need to speak with Master Lewis and the High Elders,” she commented as they made their way up to the surface. Bowen straggled behind, trying to catch up both physically and mentally. On the one hand, the High Elders really had no reason to threaten her with death, but on the other… This meant Jade really would be leaving sooner rather than later.
I couldn’t explain what happened. Bowen kept looking at me like I was a glass doll about to break from the many stones life was throwing me. I wanted to tell him not to worry, that I was confident in what I had to do and say to the High Elders to convince them that I was their savior and they were to send me home. This time they would meet with me.
We found Master Lewis and Tristan teaching a course on defensive magic in the outer courtyard of the castle. Since both men hadn’t much to do in the past month, they had been asked by many of the priests and travelers to hold classes. Today they were learning how to incapacitate an opponent using the Edgewing maneuver. It consisted of the Minor attack and Confusion charm, while chanting the Greek (not Latin) translation of the Imperium Singulare spell. (I had tried my own hand at tackling the spell and perfected it weeks ago.)
Tristan demonstrated on an unenthusiastic-looking burlap dummy and added a roundhouse kick that sent the poor thing to the other side of the pit. Had it been an actual human being, their ribs would have shattered from the force.
I waited until they were done before I interrupted.
“Master Lewis, Tristan,” I called from the back of the stands, “we need to talk.”
Both men looked at me with interest, then to Bowen’s sour face and saw that whatever was happening needed their attention immediately.
“Thank you all for coming,” Tristan directed to the class. “Hopefully next week we will show you how to transfigure a branch or its likeness into a usable weapon. Class dismissed.”
Quickly, Master Lewis and Tristan were by my side.
“What has happened?” Master Lewis asked.
“We must speak to the High Elders immediately,” I instructed while we moved out of earshot of any of the students.
“Lady Jade, as I have instructed you before, on many occasions I might add, the High Elders will not see you until they have called.” He was getting testy, but this time he was wrong.
Bowen was kind enough to back me up.
“Master you do not grasp or understand the situation.” Master Lewis looked like he wanted to slap both of us upside the head, but let Bowen continue. “She found the First Room.”
Master Lewis was colorful, to say the least, in his protest. “Impossible! That room has been lost for centuries, millennia, even! And you just happen to stumble across it in the span of an afternoon?”
I spoke the words that were told to me when I hadn’t believed it myself.
“It only shows itself to those who are not looking for it. That’s what the ghost lady said.”
Every face around me looked as pale as if they had just seen a ghost.
“What did you say?” Master Lewis asked, aghast.
“The room only shows itself if you’re not looking for it. I wasn’t. Kinda. I just ran and ended up there.”
“Not that part,” he reprimanded harshly, “the part about the ghost woman!” He now spoke in a severe hushed tone, as if just speaking about the supernatural creature would cause it to rise again.
“What about that part?”
“It is ridiculous! There is no such thing as ghosts!”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. As serious as I was trying to keep the conversation, I really couldn’t help it. “You’re telling me that magic is real and time travel is a thing, but ghosts can’t exist?” I couldn’t contain myself as humorous tears escaped my eyes. The whole notion was by far the weirdest predicament I had participated in, but now the Gruffydd’s use of Devil Shoestring above their doorway made sense.
I peered at the other boys, hoping they also had a say in this matter, but all I saw was Bowen make the sign of the cross and Tristan stare blankly ahead, as if he were trying not to hear the conversation in front of him. That just sent me into a bigger fit of laughter.
Some students that had remained behind, hoping to chat with either Master Lewis or Tristan, stared at me as if I were possessed by the Devil himself.
“Young lady, stop this behavior. We do not make light of the dead.”
It took me a while to calm down, wiping my eyes of the joyfully liquid. “I’m sorry… Where were we?” A few last chuckles escaped. “Oh yeah, meeting with the High Elders.”
“It will not be possible,” Master Lewis adamantly argued. “Their next meeting is not until the end of next week. They will not convene until then,” he said, wringing his hands at the predicament.
“That’s fine. I can wait. I need to figure out this power anyway.”
“Power?” Tristan asked. “What power?”
“She’s a full Exalted Witch now,” Bowen interrupted.
Now that really shut them up.
“Yeah… I achieved… that.”
Master Lewis almost slapped Bowen for not telling him sooner, his face pink with both anger and excitement. “When did this happen?”
“Minutes ago, in the First Room. I did not see it happen, but when Jade came out of the room, her hands were once again engulfed in flame, but this time her left hand and eye were red.”
“What does this mean?” I asked in all honesty.
“It is the highest status that a mage can carry. Recall when I told you there were great mages that could summon magic without needing spells or the like? That is what it means. There have only been one or two cases in the last millennia. The person who possesses the title is able to wield limitless amounts of power, free from the constraints other witches and wizards must use to produce magic. The last person known to be one was Gwenllian, the Last Princess of Wales, but she has been dead for years.”
I looked at my hands. They didn’t look like they could produce terrorizing power.
“You must be careful, Lady Jade. Keep to yourself what skills you hold, for in the past, such people have been coveted for their vast amounts of power.”
“Do you think that’s the reason the Brotherhood wants me?” The realization of the situation was now coming full circle.
“Perhaps. They have not learnt of your powers yet, and let us hope they never will.” Master Lewis pushed us entirely out of the lecture theater and along the grass covered pathway. The weather wasn’t as warm and sunny as it had been in the First Room, but it was getting there. “Either way, the High Elders will not see you, even if you have escalated to an Exalted Witch, you have no training. They will think we are lying and delay our meeting even further.”
I was starting to get angry again. Why did everything have to be so difficult? “Oh, they’ll see me, just you wait.”
XXVIII.
Tristan notched another arrow, aimed, and shot at me. I held up my flaming red hand and blew it to smithereens.
“You are getting better at calling the magic,” he shouted from fifty yards away, his smile ever brilliant in the sun.
For the past five days I had been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how to actually produce my magic. It wasn’t until I was taking my aggression out cleaning some armor when a pile of it came crashing down on me. In an instant, my hands rais
ed to defend myself and the falling metal froze in mid-air. That’s when I knew I was thinking too hard and needed to rely more on my instincts.
“Again!” I shouted.
He shot two more at me, each at different angles.
My body moved automatically. First I took out the lowest one just off the ground aimed at my feet. With enough magical strength to kick an elephant across a football field, my foot came smashing down upon it, breaking it into a million pieces. The second one was just as easy. I hovered up right next to it and encased it in a ball of wind, twisting it into a reverse spin until its momentum stopped and it fell to the ground.
“Impressive,” Tristan whistled.
“Master Lewis said I had to use different ways of stopping each of them, otherwise I wouldn’t learn anything.” I took my place back on Earth, giving myself and Tristan a much needed break. I sat down on the arrow-strewn grass to catch my breath. The day was clear, blue sky and puffy white clouds circled around the town. Sunshine hit my skin, its warmth radiating deep within my body. Tristan joined me.
“He was right. You look more comfortable with yourself.”
“I feel more comfortable.”
We were situated at the back of the castle in the training arena. Bowen and I had used it every day since coming here, building up my fighting strength. Now that I had leveled up to an Exalted Witch, the boys took turns training me.
“Do you really think the High Elders will see us?” I asked nibbling on the edge of my sandwich. Haf had packed it especially for me, the warm turkey was laden with gooey cheese and butter.
“If not, we will bust in and make them.” Tristan took a chunk out of his own lunch accompanying it with a guzzle of wine. I brought my head between my knees, getting a whiff of the early grass and earth below me, the sun hitting off the darkness of my hair.
“I’m scared.”
To Those Who Never Knew (A Monksblood Bible Novel Book 1) Page 20
