by Ciara Graves
A metallic click had come from the right.
One of the cage doors swung outward all on its own.
“Uh… hello?” I tried again, not even sure why I was walking toward the cage door.
But there was some force drawing me to it, and when I reached it, I studied the wall behind it. There were several staves forming a line on the wall. They were magnificent, each one unique, but it was the one on the far left that drew my gaze like a magnet. It was ebony, made of metal, not wood. But it was the topper that made me speechless.
The metal curved and twisted like the branches of a tree, each piece detailed like bark. At the very center was a sapphire, very light in color, and shaped like the knot at the center of a tree trunk.
I’d never seen a gemstone shaped like that. I took the staff in my hands. It was cool to the touch, heavy, but not uncomfortable to hold. I shifted it from one hand to the other, feeling the iciness of my power flooding my veins again.
The sapphire winked at me, just once. When I stared at it intensely, it didn’t happen again.
I gripped the staff, and a strange sense of rightness struck me hard in the chest.
When I let out a breath, it was frost-tinged. More frost formed at my fingertips, climbing up my hands and arms in crystallized patterns. They had a darker tinge to them, almost like a shadow moved under each one, around it, through it. My left hand tingled along the backside, and I watched it, not sure what to expect—
“What are you doing?”
I spun around, clutching the staff in my hands.
A silver-haired woman stared me down. “I-I, uh, I’m sorry, the cage door just opened, and I shouldn’t have touched it. I’ll put it back. Sorry,” I mumbled.
The woman I assumed was Sister Agnes, nodded once, firmly. Her gaze dipped to the staff I held, and her expression softened. Her lips parted, and her brow furrowed.
I wasn’t sure what she was going to say
She cleared her throat and said, “That staff is for a necromancer anyway. It would not do well for you.”
“Necromancer?” I spun the staff slowly between my hands. “I thought they were all gone.”
“They are, for now, at least.” She nodded to the wall. “Put it back carefully, if you please, and then we will get to work finding you your own staff.”
I returned the ebony staff to the wall, sad to see it locked away, and stepped out of the cage.
She locked it quickly, then guided me over to a table close by.
“Now then, let’s start. Let me look at you.” She held my chin in her fingers, and her eyes flared yellow as she studied what felt like more than just my face.
I fidgeted, not sure I liked this much attention from her.
She made noises and talked to herself, saying words that I couldn’t understand. “Right then, hold this.” She held out a cherrywood staff.
I took it, but it felt off. “Hmm, don’t think this one.”
She nodded as if to say she expected it that, then moved down the line of other woods. Each time, the staves felt off, and I longed to have a staff like the metallic one back in my grip. As if sensing the same, Agnes handed me a dark metal staff next, no topper. She waited. The moment it was in my hands. I sucked in a breath and tested the balance, the feel of it.
“Go on, give it a few swings, make a few moves,” she urged.
“Not sure I know any.”
“Then do what comes naturally.”
I wasn’t sure what that was either. I stepped away from the table and closed my eyes. Just like this morning when Blade got me to tap into my frost abilities, an unfamiliar yet welcome sensation came over me. My hands moved on their own. My feet shifted. Soon I was moving and spinning the staff as if I’d been doing it all along.
“Alright, that’s enough, before you cover the entire shop in ice,” Agnes muttered, annoyed.
I opened my eyes, not sure what she meant. Ice surrounded me, covering the floor and creeping up the table legs and crates. “Sorry, didn’t even realize that was happening.” I handed her the staff and nervously tugged on one braid. It was covered in a fine layer of ice. The tips were turning white. “My hair. Is it supposed to do that?” I held up the white ends.
Agnes barely glanced at it as she moved to another table and waved me to follow. “For some it does. Depends on the path you follow. I wouldn’t worry about it. That’s why they make hair dye.”
It faded back to my dark brown. “Huh, weird.”
“You’re not finished yet, one more step.”
I joined her at the other table.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hand over the stones.”
I took no time to see what the stones were, closed my eyes, and did as she said, moving my arm from one side to the other. Nothing happened. I peeked an eye open.
She frowned at me. “Move slower.”
I shut my eyes again. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“It will, patience.” She whispered something that sounded like, “Impatient, just like he was.”
My hand stilled at the words, but I made myself keep going. Like who was? Who had she been talking about? Did it have anything to do with the staff I’d picked up? Maybe another frost mage who passed through here. But she said that staff was for a necromancer. As far as I knew, there’d been no necromancer in hundreds of years. My mind was still rambling when my hand jerked to a stop, and a coolness struck my palm.
“Interesting indeed,” Agnes mused. “Open your eyes.”
I did and found my hand hovering over a particular gemstone that appeared to be a cross between onyx and a sapphire. They were twisted around each other haphazardly and at their very center was a vibrant white. “Is that a pearl?”
Agnes picked up the stone, hefting it in her hands. “It is, indeed.”
“Is that bad?” I asked, unable to read her expression.
“No choice is ever bad. Now then, I’ll have this ready for you within a week. Until then, continue your training. Good evening.” She took up the staff and stone and headed to another end of the workshop.
I took that as a dismissal and started for the door when I realized I’d never given her my name.
“Don’t you need to know who I am?” I asked as I turned back around.
Agnes looked at me over her shoulder, those glowing yellow eyes piercing me. “Oh, I know exactly who you are, Aurora Griffith. Come back in a week.”
No one ever called me Aurora. I’d been Rori since the beginning.
I walked toward the door, an unsettling feeling hanging on my shoulders.
I hit something solid, I fumbled for the handle and nearly fell out of the supply depot.
I wasn’t sure what or how I knew, but something was wrong with me. Or about me. About who I was.
They all knew it, Moran, Agnes, Blade… why would no one just tell me?
I wanted to call Mom and demand she tell me, but a voice in the back of my mind said she didn’t know either.
The only explanation was that this had something to do with the man who’d been missing from my life since I was four. A man I knew absolutely nothing about.
Except now, I felt like maybe everyone here did know him, and Mom’s marriage to Trevor Griffith had all been a built on a lie.
Chapter 9
Brogan
A month later...
I leaned back, embracing the storm as it moved in overhead. I reached up, calling to the force of nature driving the clouds, the lightning that cracked and the resounding thunder that followed. I grew lost in the moment, not wanting it to end.
“And that ends training for today,” Command Millie, the shaman trainer, announced.
My eyes opened as I came out of my meditation and looked around, lost for a few seconds while I reoriented myself with my surroundings. I wasn’t sure how well I’d actually done today, until I glanced at my hands. I smiled. Lightning shot from the ends of my fingertips. It had taken nearly the whole first month here, but with Millie’s help, I ma
naged to get myself attuned to nature again. I even had a focus now and had been striving toward building that focus and connection for the past week.
“You are coming along quite well,” Millie said.
I climbed to my feet. “Thank you, took a while but I’m feeling pretty good now.”
“Good. Victor says he’s quite impressed and that you no longer seem so bogged down by the legacy behind you.”
“True. I’m not. Not at all.” I had been, and it stopped me every time from achieving what I had done already.
Rori had tried to talk me through my concerns, but the fear of failure had been too much. Victor finally just let me have it one day and told me that no matter who came before me in my line, the only power that mattered at the moment was my own. That and how I was able to connect with the world around me. Victor was another shaman, a third-year, and I trusted him.
I shoved aside the expectations of my family and the moment I let myself relax and return to those three years I spent alone, where there’d been no pressure. I’d found myself again, nature waiting for me.
“Until tomorrow then,” Millie said to all of us, then she walked off.
“Brogan!” Rori approached.
“I was just going to come and find you. Ready for lunch?”
“Starving.” She slipped her arm through mine. “Blade is trying to kill us.”
“Nah, just building up your strength.”
“Some days I wish all I had to do was meditate,” she sighed and winked at me.
“It’s more than that, takes an intense amount of focus. And patience. Something we both know you do not have.”
“I try.”
“And fail,” I said with a laugh.
She nodded in agreement. “Whatever. Let’s just go get some food before I fall over. Have to go back at it this afternoon.”
“More training?”
“Blade seems to think something’s holding my frost magic back. Not mentally, but… I don’t know. He seems worried about it.” She tugged on the end of the long braid draped over her shoulder.
In the last month, we’d grown closer, but it was hard to say we were a couple—or anything—when we only ever got to see each other at meals, and every now and then on the weekends if we weren’t busy catching up on sleep or working with other mages and shamans to perfect what we learned during the week.
It was a hard routine, but I found I enjoyed being here more than I’d expected. Rori made it all the more so. And in our short time of getting to know each other, I’d gotten used to stopping her when she tugged on her hair anytime something bothered her. I reached over to stop her now but froze when I caught sight of her hair.
I pulled her to a halt and faced her.
“What, what’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “Brogan?”
“Your hair, it’s turning white.” I showed her the end of her braid, the tips stark against the dark brown. “Is it supposed to do this?”
She took her braid from me and nibbled at her lip. “Usually it has faded back to normal by now.”
“Is this bad?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things, it seems.”
“You’re referring to the matter that everyone seems to know about you?”
She’d told me what happened with Agnes when she had her staff made. The piece was magnificent and seemed to work well for her, but I was concerned that Agnes knew who Rori was before she even gave her name.
There was a reason that Agnes knew me; but Rori wasn’t a legacy.
Rori had mentioned Moran and Blade talking a lot while she trained the last few weeks. As we started walking, I resisted the urge to pull her closer. As though that would keep Moran from deciding to suddenly whisk her away for the Elite Guard. We still had a lot to learn about each other, but I was always drawn to her, thinking about her, sensing her before she approached sometimes. We got along well, and it was nice having someone like her here, someone I could talk to about anything and not feel as if I was bothering her.
“Moran was watching me two days ago,” I told her. I’d argued with myself over the last few days if I should keep it to myself. I thought that she had enough on her mind, but the words slipped out.
“And?”
“And nothing. He said nothing to me, but he was talking to Millie pretty intensely.”
“You think we should be worried? No one’s said anything about an attack, though all the commanders seem to be on edge lately. ” Her voice was a whisper as we neared the hall.
“I’m sure they would tell us if there was a threat,” I said, but couldn’t help but feel the same. Like we were all holding our breaths, standing at the edge of an abyss just waiting to fall over into nothingness. Of late, even my dreams had been more volatile, ending with my waking drenched in a cold sweat, with the strangest sensation that I needed to protect Rori from an unseen enemy.
We walked into the hall with the other recruits, grabbed a few sandwiches and water, then headed to our usual table. It was empty, and we both looked around for a few minutes, then finally began digging into our food.
“You think he’s alright?” she asked, picking at her bread.
“I don’t know. Haven’t actually talked to him in weeks.”
She was talking about him. Chas.
As much as the guy irritated me in the beginning, I’d had a few civil conversations with him. He wasn’t the easiest guy to get along with, but I saw the weight of whatever he carried in his eyes and the stress lines on his face. Whatever he was going through was hitting him hard.
I passed him yesterday in the dorm, but all he did was growl as he walked by, barely making eye contact. I didn’t even see him training with the other druids. There were rumors of a beast roaming the woods; something told me it was Chas out there in bear form. No one else seemed to worry about him except Rori and me. And I wasn’t even sure why I did.
“How are your totems coming along?” Rori asked.
I gave up looking for Chas and dug into my lunch. “Better than before, I guess,” I explained in between bites. “Still a bit shaky. Don’t last long.”
“Patience,” she teased, and her knee brushed against mine under the table.
“Right, like you’re one to talk.” I scooted a bit closer, so our shoulders touched, and she leaned against my side. I wanted to share another kiss like our first one, but the moment just never seemed to be right. Or available. And Rori was not a woman I wanted to just give a light peck on the cheek. I did every chance I could anyway, but we both wanted more than that, I could tell. “And your staff?”
“I managed to smoke Blade in the face today. By accident.” She cringed.
I burst out laughing.
“He’s going to have a black eye; not sure he’s going to find it amusing tomorrow.”
“No, but I will. Look at you, beating up your commanding officer.” I clicked my tongue at her.
She nudged me hard enough to nearly fall out of my seat. We kept elbowing each other until my arm wound up draped around her shoulders and I breathed her in, softly kissing the top of her head. She rested against me, her skin so much cooler now that she was following the frost path.
“You sure you’re alright?” I asked her quietly.
“I’ve been thinking about my dad,” she whispered.
“What for?”
She’d told me what she could remember. About her and her mom being happy until Trevor just up and left them without a word. If I was her, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him, and she’d sounded like she was on the same page, when she told me about him. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Dunno. But he’s been on my mind a lot lately. Remember the garden I told you about? At our house?”
“Yeah. And the trees that died. You said your mom was a better baker than a gardener.”
She laughed lightly. “Yeah, she is. But what if it was more than that?”
I leaned back and studied her face. “What do you mean?”
Before
she could tell me, a recruit appeared at our table handing us two missives. “From Commander Moran.”
“What for?” Rori asked, but he was walking away. “Anyone else get these?”
I glanced around the hall. No one else seemed to have any. “Interesting.”
“Guess we should open them.” She was tapping her fingers on the table, studying at the missive. Her face said she’d rather destroy it.
I opened mine. She did the same with a mumbled curse. We unfolded the messages inside.
I frowned. “That’s not what I was expecting to read.”
“Yeah. Weird,” she agreed. “Is this really from Moran?”
“His stationery and seal. Yours say the same thing?” I glanced over at her letter. All that was on both pages was a location and a time; nothing about what it was for, or who would be there. “Don’t have long before we have to get over there.”
“Wait. This is at the outpost?” she asked sharply. “Why would we be going there?”
“We’ll figure it out when we get there. No panicking. I’ll be right there with you.”
She rested against me again, and I kept my arm around her, but the conversation was over.
All I could think of was why Moran would want to see us at the outpost.
Rori tugged on her braid over and over again, but whether she was thinking about this afternoon or her dad, I wasn’t sure.
Chapter 10
Brogan
At one o’clock, Rori and I stood outside the main gate to the outpost.
Two guards asked us our names. We gave them and then waited as he radioed to whoever he had to run them by. We held the letters in our hands, but he didn’t ask for them.
“Can you tell us what this is about?” I asked the guard.
He shrugged. “Sorry, they don’t tell me anything except who to let in and out.”
“Figures,” Rori mumbled.
