by Ciara Graves
I frowned, watching her face closely.
Merlin perked up.
Rori’s hands twitched, and the frost thickened, covering her slowly in a full coating of ice.
I reached out to take her hand and pull her back, but her eyes shot open.
I paused at the glowing violet within her gaze. “Rori?”
She said nothing, but her eyes never left mine. Her hands twitched again, and the ice spread out from her, stretching toward me. I stayed where I was, despite the cold seeping into my legs and up my back. I drew on my connection to nature and the lightning always within me to melt the ice before it covered my body I could hardly keep it at bay.
Merlin nudged her elbow, whining, but she remained in a trance.
“Rori, you have to come back,” I said, keeping my voice calm despite my racing pulse. “Rori.”
Her eyes glowed brighter, and the ice pushed back my crackling lightning.
“I’m not your enemy, Rori, pull back.”
The ice paused.
I was waiting to see what would happen when the same dizziness I encountered earlier hit me all over again. I lost my connection to my own powers, and my teeth chattered from the sudden cold creeping through my limbs.
She was fighting against our connection without even realizing she was doing it, trying to unconsciously push me away from her. Part of me said to take the hint and leave, but after all, we’d been through so far, and what I knew she felt for me as I did for her, I wasn’t going anywhere. We were a team, more than a team, and I would help her get through this struggle. I reached out and grabbed her hand in mine, embracing the cold and the weakness it caused me.
“Rori,” I whispered through my clattering teeth. “Stop.”
She blinked, her hand gripped mine. She blinked a few more times, and the violet faded.
“Brogan?” She looked at our clasped hands and immediately tried to yank hers away.
I didn’t let her.
“No, I’m hurting you. You’re covered in ice.”
“I’ll survive.”
“You’re an idiot,” she muttered and tried to take her hand back again. “Brogan.”
“You have to stop letting yourself think you’re going to hurt me or Chas. It’s holding you back. We’re a team, remember? You didn’t hurt us.”
“But I did. I was draining the three of you without even realizing it.”
Merlin whined and rested his head on her shoulder.
She reached back and petted him with her free hand, her other one in mine. “I honestly don’t even remember much of that sparring session. It’s all a blur.”
“It’s going to take time.”
“We don’t have time,” she said, sounding exactly like Chas. “If we fail, it’s going to be my fault.”
“Only if you keep pushing us away.”
As I sat with her, sensing a shift in her mood. It was subtle, but it was there all the same.
“I should be on my own. It’s better that way.” Her words were underscored with power, and her eyes flared violet for a split second.
“That’s not how the Elite Guard works. You know this.”
“I do know, which is why finding the leaders, tracking them down, and destroying them is what we all need to focus on.” She took her hand back. “There is no room for anything else.”
I looked at my now-empty hand. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying whatever you and I have together, we can’t have it anymore. It’s causing a distraction.”
“No,” I argued. “It made us better, gave us confidence, a deeper connection.”
“Did it? As far as I can tell, it’s only made it harder for me to do what is necessary.”
This woman talking to me, this was not Rori. It couldn’t be. “You can’t be serious. What are you even saying?”
“The faster we realize our purpose, our true purpose, the faster we can track down the leaders and take them out.”
“Kill them. Just like that.” I tried not to scoff.
“Why not? They killed my dad, your uncle, Chas’s parents. I think it’s time we end this war before it gets any worse.” She pushed to her feet, Merlin rising with her. The cold radiating from her no longer came from her mage power.
No, there was a hardness in her eyes, an emotional coldness that had me fearing what Rori’s magic was doing to her.
“Kill? Wantonly? Just like they’re doing now? I don’t want to be like our enemy,” I argued, rising to my feet. “I want this to end, but I can’t just commit murder. You can’t either, that is not who you are.”
“People change,” she said simply as if that explained everything. “And it’s not murder if it’s war.”
The heartlessness in her gaze made me step back. “Be careful you don’t lose yourself in this mess. We’ll avenge our families. We will. But if we lose who we are along the way, they’ll win in the end.”
“You don’t think they’re winning now? You’ve heard the reports. More and more of our kind are showing up corrupted, and we still have no idea how to find our enemy, how to stop and undo the damage they’ve caused. If we don’t stop them, and fast, all magic-users in the world will fall to their madness. I want to be the one who stops them. Don’t you?”
“At what cost?”
“Any cost. This is war, Brogan. A war they started, and I say we finish it.”
“What happened to the Rori who cared about not killing? Where’s the kind-hearted girl who hated the idea of being turned into a soldier, a killing machine?” I replied, backing away. “Do you even hear yourself?”
She shrugged and pushed into me as she passed on the way to the door, Merlin at her heels. “Either get on board or get the hell out. I will kill them. And if I have to tear myself apart to do it, then so be it, but they will not be walking away.”
“Just wait one damned minute,” I snapped, grabbing her arm. “What happened to you? Huh? What?”
The cold receded from my hand, and her eyes seemed to clear. Her brow furrowed in confusion. She opened her mouth. Either to yell at me more, or apologize, and I didn’t know which.
The moment was interrupted when Blade stepped into the doorway. “Rori, I need to have a word with you.”
She gave herself a hard shake and snapped her fingers, causing Merlin to disappear with a cracking sound.
“Yeah, why not,” she mumbled. “Brogan, I uh… never mind.”
I watched them leave, wanting to go with them, but knew Blade would tell me to stay behind.
I looked at the place Rori had been sitting, at the frost she’d left behind. And the frost that left a trail where she’d walked. Her magic was incredible. If only she would let herself see it, but it wasn’t the mage path affecting her.
As much as I told myself she had nothing to worry about, her necromancer side was an unknown. If she couldn’t find a way to control it, embrace it, and figure out who she was with it, we all could be in danger. And not just from the Cleansers.
Her words stayed with me as I tried and failed several times to meditate.
Instead, I wound up sitting in the garden for the next couple of hours, replaying the conversation in my head.
For that brief moment, I’d had Rori back, the one I knew was in there. But then she’d disappeared, and another facet of her had emerged.
A side of her lacking in compassion for anyone or anything.
That did not bode well for any of us.
Chapter 5
Rori
Blade walked through yet another hall I hadn’t been down yet, but I paid little attention to where we went.
I was too busy wondering what I said to Brogan to make him look at me like that, like he was almost scared of me. And upset. What had I said? I remembered sparring with the priests, but then the details got a little fuzzy. I remembered they said I’d been draining their life force.
How had I even done that? I never tried to, but I’d done it.
I’d left them all and gone to
the garden to clear my head. Merlin appeared without summoning him. Though his presence was a comfort when I settled in to meditate. A few minutes later, I found myself standing between both paths—frost and necromancy—lost inside my own mind.
I wanted to confront the shadow figure that was me.
It had to be what was causing the weird use of power I had no understanding of yet, but it hadn’t been there. I’d walked along the stretch of nothing in between both paths, but never came across the shadow figure that had been appearing in my dreams at night and whispering to me during the day.
It didn’t help that Chas and Brogan were treating me differently. Each time I was with Brogan, the strain between us grew.
Even with Chas, the closeness we’d gained after the attack slipped further away every day. One second, he looked at me like I was a bomb, just waiting to go off. The next second, with contempt.
As I thought back over the last week, but couldn’t find any reason for his behavior.
And then there was Brogan. I went to hug him just this morning, and he casually moved away from me, not looking me in the eye.
“Rori? Step in here for a second,” Blade said.
Just like that, I was forced back to the present. I peered through the doorway. “What is this place?”
“This is a room that has not been used since Trevor Griffith was killed,” he said sadly. “It was his meditation space and his alone, seeing as he was the only necromancer. Now, it is your space. Make use of it.”
Cautiously, I stepped onto the dark, marble floor.
I regarded the subtle shift in architecture from the metal and stone outside this room to the rounded walls and the columns carved within it. There were a few flowers, the same ones I remembered from our garden back home.
Gently, I ran my fingers along the wilting petals.
A small burst of violet light and shadow wrapped around the flowers, giving them a new burst of life.
Near the back of the small room was a basin filled with water.
I dipped my hand in, smiling at the ripples I created, and with barely a thought, a fine sheen of ice stretched out from my hand, beautiful as it spiraled outward.
“I like it here.” I turned around to face Blade. “Reminds me of home, in a weird way.”
“He made it so he would be reminded of your home.” He motioned to two dark blue mats on the floor.
I took a seat, him sitting across from me.
“I understand how hard this has been for you, but you can’t keep fearing your new path.”
I grabbed one of my braids, tugging on it hard. Not realizing I’d done it until I felt the sharp twinge. “I don’t feel a connection to it as I do the mage side. Is that wrong?”
He shook his head. “Necromancy is a hard path to follow. A darker path. Trevor described it to me once. He told me it was like he was facing himself in the mirror, but the reflection was not exact. It was an extension of him, but it was willing to do what he was not.”
“How did he deal with it?”
“He didn’t deal with it. He found a way to balance both paths.”
“But how? Every time I try, it’s like a part of me is being shoved to the side, so this other side can take over.” I studied the marble floor before me. “I don’t exactly like her,” I added quietly.
“You have to remember you are in control. Not the power. Lesson number one, remember?”
“It’s easier with one path.”
“True, but even with fire and frost, I have to seek the delicate balance between the two.” He held out his hands. Ice formed in the right while a small flame sparked to life in his left. “Every magic-user’s power has influence on their personality. If we’re not careful, it can change us. Shape us in its image, instead of the other way around. You have to discover who you are. Who you truly are, and hold onto that.”
“And who am I?” I mumbled. “Moran says I’m some great necromancer and mage like my dad. But I hardly knew him. Mom can’t use magic, and she’s stronger than I am. Hell, they both were.” I slouched, more lost than I’d been on my first day at Four Point. “I thought I was this kind, fun person. But now all I seem to do is hurt people. And when I’m not hurting them, I’m worrying I’m going to hurt them.”
“Lack of confidence. You had overcome that obstacle, if I recall.”
“I had. But things change.”
“What is it you fear most?” he challenged. “You, Chas, and Brogan stood against the enemy and won.”
“We barely got out alive. I don’t exactly call that winning. And we were all injured. Bad.”
“And?”
“And what? Isn’t that enough?” I snapped, not even sure why I was getting so angry. “I did things that night without thinking. What if that happens again and it’s worse? What if I can’t find that balance and keep it?”
“What if the sky falls and the sun burns out, and we all die tomorrow?” Blade said calmly. “You can what-if until you’re blue in the face, won’t change anything.”
I huffed and crossed my arms. “I can’t do this.”
“You can, but you have to start by figuring out who you are and holding onto that. Your father did. So can you.”
“I’m not him.”
“You’re not,” he agreed. “You are Rori Griffith, and it’s time you understand what that means.” He rose to a stand then made for the door.
“What? That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it. Now I suggest you spend some time getting to know yourself. And him.”
The door shut with a tone of finality.
I stuck my tongue out. “Get to know myself. What does that even mean?” I snapped my fingers, thought of Merlin, and he shimmered to life beside me. He spun around twice, then plopped down, leaning into my thigh. I buried my hand in his furry side. “What do you think, huh? Who am I?”
Before coming to Four Point, I was the daughter of Jodie Griffith, a fierce woman who never gave up, even when the love of her life abandoned her. I’d been more than ready to follow in her footsteps, until bits of the truth emerged and everything I’d known about my life changed. My dad was not a deadbeat. He was a soldier. A warrior who fought and died to protect those he loved. He was the reason I had this magic flowing through my veins. But he was kind-hearted like me, I knew that without anyone having to tell me.
He’d also been a killer when the need called for it, and that was the side I found it so hard to embrace. Serving was always part of the picture, but outright killing? The dying screams of the men we took down in the woods came back to me suddenly, and the temperature in the room plummeted.
Merlin whined, nudging my side with his big head.
“Sorry, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I told him. “What do you think?”
He huffed, lumbered across the room, and picked one of the bright red flowers from the pot. He carried it back and dropped it next to me, sat down, and threw back his head with a howl.
“You think so,” I mused, picking up the flower, twirling it between my fingers the same way I had the flower I plucked after Chas’s magic display. “Back to basics then. Before all this madness started.”
Merlin shook out his furry neck as if to disagree.
“What then?”
He scratched at the floor then lay down in front of me. His two different colored eyes latched onto mine
Instantly, I was floating away in my thoughts, and my feet touched down on the dark blue path of my mage side. I expected to be alone, but when I turned all the way around, I jumped back.
“Who the hell are you?’
The young man standing in front of me, his skin pale with a hint of blue, hair of ice, and eyes nearly translucent, jumped back at the same time, clutching a hand to his chest. “Way to scare us both.”
“Sorry?” I asked, not sure why I was apologizing. “How are you inside my head?”
“Technically speaking I was always inside your head,” he said and bowed from the waist. “
Merlin, at your service.”
“Merlin? As in my familiar Merlin?”
He bobbed his head with a grin.
“But you’re a wolf.”
“Yes, mostly. My shape is odd, I’ll grant you that,” he said, tapping his chin.
“Wait. Is this normal?”
“It is when the familiar has a hard time communicating with its mage. I thought this might make things less complicated for you, seeing how difficult the rest of your life is.”
“Thanks, I think.” My head pounded and I searched around me, waiting for the other figure to show its face next. “Are we alone?”
“For the moment. But I doubt it’ll last long. She doesn’t like me much. At least, not yet.”
“She? You mean the shadow?”
“Yes.”
“But she’s not a familiar, right?”
“No,” he said, and I let out a breath, “however she will wind up being stronger than she should, if you’re not careful.”
“So she does want to take control.”
He wiggled his hand back and forth and cringed. “Not exactly.”
“Then what does she want, and what do you want? Why can’t anyone just give me simple answers?” I ranted, my voice echoing along the nothingness surrounding the path.
Merlin arched his brow at my outburst.
“What? Think I’m allowed to freak out on some level.”
“No, I completely understand. No judgment here. However, if you don’t get a grip on yourself, your alter ego will take over. Neither one of us wants that.”
“You said she doesn’t want to take control,” I reminded him.
He puffed out his cheeks, tapping his fingers together as he mumbled to himself. “To put it simply, she wants what she believes is best for you, but she feels no emotions. So she will not stop to think about what she does before she does it. Her main goal is to keep you alive, no matter what. To fulfill your duty regardless of the cost to you. Or anyone else.”
“But she wants to keep me alive.”
“And she will, but she won’t care about your mental state, or how injured you might be at the end of the fight. She’s not bad, but she’s not all good, either.”
The headache grew worse, and I rubbed my forehead. “So what do I do then?”
