Black Orchid (Svatura)

by Abigail Owen

  She glanced at the clock. “You’re a little late tonight.”

  Ellie grimaced. “I think training the Vyusher and then practicing here with you is getting to me. I took a nap this evening and then overslept.” She stifled a yawn.

  “Do you feel all right? We don’t have to do this tonight.” Adelaide frowned. Svatura rarely got tired. They needed very little sleep in general.

  Still, Adelaide did need the practice, and Ellie was a great teacher. When she touched someone, Ellie could control their powers. More than that, she instantly became an expert, although Ellie claimed it wasn’t always perfect. She was still learning her own ability, after all. But at the very least, Ellie’s gift came in handy for teaching. She used it to help others discover and then master the nuances of their skills faster.

  Ellie waved a hand at Adelaide’s suggestion. “You sound like Alex.”

  “I bet.” Adelaide gave her wry smile.

  Ellie sighed. “I’m fine. Nothing an extra hour of sleep tonight won’t cure.”

  Adelaide swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Okay, then. I’m ready when you are.”

  “My, my. Eager today,” Ellie teased as she pulled her long hair into a ponytail and secured it in place.

  Adelaide shrugged. “It would be nice to master something.”

  Ellie gave her a sympathetic look. “Makes sense. Let’s get going, then.”

  They made their way downstairs to where Charlotte was waiting to pop them halfway across the world. Selene had insisted that any teaching happen at a place more familiar, the theory being that they’d be able to guard it better and still be away from the bulk of the Vyusher. Very few knew about Adelaide’s problems yet.

  They’d decided to train in a field in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, close to her family’s homes in Estes Park. Adelaide wasn’t thrilled about that. The middle of the Outback seemed fine to her, and she still wasn’t ready to be around a lot of people. But she needed the practice, and they kept it to just her family as guards for now.

  Tonight they popped into Ellie’s house, where she found Griffin and her parents waiting. After a quick round of hugs, Adelaide opened the window, and both girls shifted to falcons and flew out into the night air. Adelaide was a little wobbly at first, but she was getting the hang of things faster now.

  It took them only a short time to make their way to the chosen field. As she had the last several times, Adelaide looked around at the moonlit landscape as they landed. She willed her memory to kick in, to let her feel some sense of recognition or connection to this place. According to Ellie, this was the same field where her family had battled and defeated the Vyusher when they’d been under Gideon’s thrall. Gideon, Selene’s twin brother, had been the ruler of the Vyusher for a long time. He’d used his ability to force his people to do unimaginable horrors against all other Svatura tribes for centuries. And he’d come for them.

  Ellie had killed him in this field. But to Adelaide it just looked like a flat, open space in the middle of pine trees with mountains rising up around them on all sides.

  She pushed her frustration aside and turned to face Ellie. “What’s your plan for tonight?”

  “Well, we could continue to work on the falcon shift if that’s what’s going to gain you some independence.”

  Adelaide picked at a loose thread in her jeans. “Actually, to start with, I’d like to work on my ability to see relationships.”

  She glanced up and caught Ellie’s small frown. Why would Ellie be worried about that? Though, now that she thought about it, Ellie had seemed reluctant to help her much with her relationship power in general. “Is there a problem?”

  Ellie tapped a fingernail on her front teeth, a nervous habit Adelaide had noticed. “Not a problem, really. Just…”

  Adelaide reached out and gently stilled Ellie’s hand. “Just what?” she asked softly.

  Ellie stopped her tapping and sighed. “Before you lost your memory, you were very guarded about sharing that particular gift. You worried that knowing future relationships would influence others to do things they might not otherwise.”

  Adelaide gave a small smile. “Sounds like me.”

  “So I don’t want to violate that rule for you. It was too important. But more than that, because you never let me access that power, I don’t know that I’ll be able to do much to help you with it.”

  Adelaide frowned. “But you’re supposed to be an expert at someone’s powers when you touch them, right?”

  Ellie’s lips twisted. “True. But I’m not an expert at my own powers. So it doesn’t always work. And what makes yours trickier is the question of how much is the power and how much is intuition and learning.”

  “Meaning?”

  “From what you have shared with me, developing your gift meant seeing different levels of relationships. At first you could only see current ones, and then you learned to see past connections, and you were just learning to see future ones. They had to be really obvious for you to see those.”

  Adelaide thought about that. The few times she’d accessed that power since her memory gap, she’d only seen current associations. So that made sense.

  “More than that. You learned what the lines meant first by understanding the connections around you.”

  “So you’re saying that figuring out what those lines represent is more a matter of intuition and learning?”

  Ellie grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”

  “So if I were to ask you what a line that was purple and black meant, you’d say…”

  “No clue. You once told me that the first relationships you recognized were those repeated around you, like te’sorthene with your parents, and Charlotte and Dexter, and—”

  Ellie stopped suddenly.

  “And?”

  Ellie said nothing, just stared into the distance, unseeing.

  Adelaide waved her hand in front of her friend’s face. “Ellie? And?”

  Ellie blinked. “Sorry. Um… and eventually me and Alex.”

  Adelaide had a feeling that wasn’t what Ellie had been going to say. “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh. Yup. I thought I heard something for a moment there.”

  Adelaide had learned by now that Ellie tended to be vague, and her words could refer to multiple things. “Heard with your ears? Or with the telepathy?”

  Ellie grinned. “My ears. I thought I heard something moving in the woods. But that reminds me. You have telepathy. Reach out to the area surrounding us. Do you hear anything?”

  Adelaide concentrated, searching with her mind like Ellie had taught her. It took more concentration than the falcon morph. “Just you.”

  Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? What was I thinking?”

  “You were watching my face as I concentrated.”

  “You’re sure it was my thoughts?” Ellie asked with a frown.

  “Yes. It was from your point of view, directly in front of me and a few feet away. Why?”

  “I thought I was blocking you. You must be getting stronger.” She widened her stance as if it would help her. “Try again.”

  Adelaide reached out again. Again she heard nothing. But this time, where she’d picked up Ellie’s visual image, now there was a black hole. Not just silence, but absence.

  “No.”

  “Push harder.”

  Adelaide focused on that spot. She pictured that scene in a movie Nate had insisted she watch - The Abyss - where the column of water explores the ship. Imagining her telepathy like that, she tried to tunnel into the blank space where Ellie stood.

  Ellie made a little sound in the back of her throat. Suddenly it felt to Adelaide as though a balloon popped, and she could see every image Ellie was looking at. She heard her friend’s mental, “Ouch.”

  She backed out. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No! That was great! Really impressive, Adelaide. I think only Griffin is strong enough to push past my blocking like that. Good job.”

  “But
I can’t pick up random thoughts. And I’m still only fifty percent at sending them.” Adelaide sighed. Sometimes she had to warn Nate to hide a couple of times, just to be sure.

  Ellie grinned and was about to say something when a horrible realization suddenly struck Adelaide. She grabbed Ellie’s arms. Without saying a word, she cast out her telepathic nets. Only this time, she knew what to look for. And when she found it, she sucked in a breath.

  “Do you see them?” she asked.

  “See what?”

  Despite the fear starting to grip her, Adelaide felt a small moment of satisfaction. Maybe she’d just had some kind of breakthrough? The telepathy seemed to be flowing more easily now.

  “Any place there’s a hole, that’s a person standing there. They’re blocking the telepathy. That’s what you felt like to me before I got past your walls.”

  Ellie stilled.

  “I see them. I count at least six.” She casually glanced over Adelaide’s shoulder into the inky darkness of the woods.

  “There are ten. Six are close by, watching. There are another four beyond them, maybe a quarter mile away.”

  “They must have a telepath with them, blocking us. There’s no way Maddox has ten telepaths in his pack.” Ellie’s hand’s fisted. “We need to go. Now.”

  “Wait. This is the first sighting of Maddox’s people in ages. Right?”

  Ellie hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “If we could get just one of them…”

  “No. Way. I can’t put you in danger that way. And you’re not strong enough with your powers to risk it.”

  Out loud, Adelaide tried to throw off their audience by saying, “No. I still can’t hear anything. Show me again.”

  To Ellie she said, “If they get too close, I’ll morph and fly home.”

  She got no response for a moment as Ellie thought through the options.

  “Come on. We can’t pass up this chance.”

  Ellie gave a sharp nod. In seconds they figured out how they’d lure the wolves out and capture at least one to take home. Satisfied, Adelaide dropped Ellie’s arms.

  “Okay. You’ve got that. Now let’s try it when I’m in the air,” Ellie said.

  Shimmering waves hovered in front of and around Ellie’s body as she morphed before Adelaide’s eyes and turned into a falcon. Without a pause she took off into the sky.

  Adelaide kept her perceptual net open. She couldn’t be sure, but the pits of silence seemed to slip closer to where she stood. She still couldn’t see the wolves, not even the reflection of the moonlight in their eyes, but her telepathy told her that they now stood just at the edge of where the clearing met the woods.

  She looked up in the sky, as though she were concentrating on Ellie, and waited for the attack to come.

  Chapter 17

  Adelaide held her breath a few more heartbeats and then started acting lost and confused. At first she just searched the sky, frowning. Very deliberately, she turned her back to the wolves in the woods. And then she called out, “Ellie?”

  With a unified growl, six wolves leapt out of the trees and into the clearing. Adelaide hastily backed up.

  “Now, Ellie!”

  But her friend did not appear. With a menacing growl, the wolves stalked closer.

  “Um, Ellie?” Adelaide mentally felt through the skies above, but couldn’t find Ellie anywhere. Was her telepathy failing her? She tried not to let panic set in. She could always fly away if absolutely necessary.

  But she wouldn’t just sit here and shiver in fear while she held her position either. Instead she tried to pierce their telepathic walls. She used the same technique that’d been successful with Ellie just a few minutes ago. But their telepath was too strong for her, and she couldn’t find a spot weak enough to get through to any of them. So instead, she opened herself to her other ability. Instantly, the sparkling strands of light representing relationships appeared, joining the wolves before her. She studied the lines, looking for anything she could use. Anything at all.

  She’d expected the thin white line that connected all ten wolves, including those still in hiding. She saw the same line between the Vyusher. She’d come to realize it represented the pack mind. But Maddox’s pack relationships looked a little different. Some patches of the strands were jagged, like a fraying rope. She’d think more about that later. Right now, she was looking for something to use against them.

  Nothing was obvious. But as she caught sight of a different relationship, an idea started to occur to her. “Brothers, I see?” she said, addressing the two wolves directly in front of her. Their only response was to pull back their lips in a snarl.

  “Too bad.” She tsked. “I’m sorry to say that one of you will be dead before too long. I can see it in your future relationship. ” A bluff, of course. One she hoped they wouldn’t call.

  The two wolves seemed to pull up and look at each other. Then, without so much as a twitch of warning, they both leapt at her. Adelaide threw herself into the air, shifting into her falcon as she moved and praying that she held it together. She felt a whoosh of air as their snapping jaws just missed her.

  Damn. I shouldn’t have let them get so close. She still couldn’t rely on her morph completely. She almost lost it. She’d never jumped right into it like that, but through sheer force of will, she held it and took off.

  Adelaide quickly gained altitude. She had absolutely no warning before something slammed into her. Luckily, the massive condor didn’t manage to grab her. Adelaide tumbled through the air for a few seconds. She breathed, as she did when Nate helped calm her down, and concentrated on holding her form. As soon as she stabilized, she pulled her wings in tightly and dove back toward the ground, the other bird in hot pursuit.

  This must be why Ellie hadn’t come. Adelaide had no idea where her friend was, but she was now trapped between her enemy in the sky and those on the ground. Desperation and terror had her using that telepathic probe again. The shaking started up as she tried to use two powers at once. But Adelaide held the dragon back. Using her mind, she stabbed as hard as she could in every direction.

  She heard a collective howl rise up from the creatures below her. Encouraged, she pushed harder with her mental assault while never letting up from her dive toward the earth. Flaring her wings at the last moment, she tried to land, but instead she lost control, morphing and hitting the ground hard. Somehow she managed to hold onto the telepathic attack she was wielding, but just barely.

  The wolves around her writhed in agony. Adelaide’s soft heart throbbed. She hated to hurt any living thing, even if they were her enemies. Clenching her teeth, she persisted. Her own survival, and maybe Ellie’s, were at stake here.

  The bright light cast by the full moon was suddenly thrown into shadows. Adelaide looked up to see the hulking form of a dragon plummeting toward her. Thrashing and twisting in the air, Ellie clearly wasn’t in control of the fall.

  “Adelaide,” she barely heard Ellie’s pained whisper in her mind.

  With a sharply indrawn breath, Adelaide realized that using her telepathy like a scalpel in the wolves’ minds was affecting Ellie too. Why wasn’t Ellie blocking her?

  But Adelaide stopped her probe immediately. She watched as Ellie spread her immense wings and slowed her descent. With a small scream, Adelaide flattened herself on the ground, throwing her arms over her head, as Ellie’s form bore down on her. Then she had to scramble to avoid rocks and brambles as the force of the wind generated by the dragon’s wings tumbled her across the ground.

  When her body came to a halt, she staggered to her feet. Brushing her hair and dirt away from her face, Adelaide looked up to see the midnight-black beast taking to the air, a wolf clutched in each monstrous claw.

  “Follow me,” she heard Ellie call.

  “But the condor—”

  “I knocked him out of the sky on my way down.”

  Seeing that some of the remaining wolves around her were regaining their feet, Adelaide needed no further urging.
She quickly morphed and followed Ellie into the night.

  “Ellie, where were you earlier? And why couldn’t you block the pain I was causing with my telepathy?”

  Ellie took so long to answer that Adelaide wondered if her question had gotten through. When Ellie finally did reply, her voice was tinged with worry. “I don’t know. At first, I couldn’t force myself to go dragon, and then I couldn’t get out of it when I was falling. And I couldn’t reach you, although I could hear you.”

  “Has that ever happened before?”

  Another long pause. “Not like that. My powers have been… a bit sketchy lately. But only in little ways so far. Nothing so dangerous”

  “Does Alex know?”

  A deep sigh echoed across their telepathic connection. “Yeah. It’s partly why he didn’t want me to come tonight. But we’ll have to deal with that later. Right now we’ve got to figure out what to do.”

  Adelaide glanced at the struggling forms clutched in Ellie’s great talons.

  “Where will we take them? Your house is in a subdivision. There’s no way we can hide wolves there, let alone a dragon.”

  “Your parents’ house. I’ve already contacted Charlotte. She’ll meet us there and take us to Selene, where there are cells to lock them in. She’ll come back for your parents and Griffin.”

  Adelaide struggled to keep up with Ellie. Falcons were fast, but by sheer size alone, dragons were much faster. She could tell Ellie was trying to go slowly, but it wasn’t enough. “You should go on without me.”

  “No.”

  “I’m only slowing you down. I’ll go back to your house. You meet Charlotte and get those wolves to the Vyusher. I’ll be with the others by the time she comes back for us. Can you hold your morph?”

  Ellie was silent a moment. “I’m sure I can. Can you make it home on your own? What if they attack you with something else?”

  “I’ll hit them with that mind- stabbing thing again if they try to come near me,” Adelaide assured her friend. If I can, she tacked on to herself. She didn’t add that she could still feel the shaking that’d started earlier. She had it under control—at least for now.