Page 45 of A Touch of Stars and Stones (Kirrian #1)

twenty-five

. . .

Ever

I t wasn’t far enough away.

I needed to be miles from Azur, from Ascella, but I had to settle for my room. There was someone else I wanted to see, but I couldn’t ask that of him. Not when I now feared the outcome. Did that happen every time for him? Pain. The same pain I saw scorched on his face.

My hands clutch the ceramic mug, re-filled twice now, with a warm tea, which Micah retrieved for me.

It’s meant to calm me, but it hadn’t worked because my nerves were still humming under my skin, and my stomach felt hollow, as though I hadn’t eaten in days, and whatever was left was now rotting and festering.

My anger still simmers, but the stress of what happened with Azur has subdued it.

With every blink of my eyes, I was back there, following him along that narrow path that I know now was in my mind, until the path morphed, and I was trapped in miles of pathways, around every corner, surrounded by trees and mountains of rock.

It all happened so quickly.

That landscape shifted, grew, and mutated like it was responding to my rising panic and fear. Closing in around me, suffocating.

“Did you want to go and see the Maker, like Aurelia said?” Micah asks from his post at my desk, turning my attention away from the memory.

There isn’t any choice. I have to master this. Have to get a grip.

I don’t even know what happened when Ten touched me—if he was hit with a vision, or something else entirely. But any excitement at what could be between us, what the connection between us might be, now lay like ashes at my feet.

“Can we see Kyra?”

“My sister? Sure. She might be able to accompany you.”

“Do we just go? Make an appointment?”

“We’ll find out.”

My limbs feel heavy as I rise from where I’ve been sitting on the bed. And I miss Lyle. I miss the simple comfort she provided without even realising it. I hadn’t even realised what it was, but the sheer lack of it in my life was now overwhelming.

But I will not break.

I will master this.

My finger rubs over the ring on my finger, checking it’s still there, and I follow Micah out the door, down the hall of the residence, and into the fading light of the afternoon.

On the way, I clear my mind and search for the spark and anger that had me shouting and fighting to be taught, needing to learn how to protect people.

My eyes scan off towards the horizon, towards the Ember and the first watch tower I saw, and around to the quiet fortress that is The Court, with the spires towering above everything below—pockets of light and green and stone and thatch.

I’ve been here for weeks now, and I’ve only walked through the settlements and streets and haven’t visited Kyra and Micah at their home.

Would that make a difference, help me see this place as a possible home, and give me a better perspective on everything I don’t understand here? A reason to keep fighting?

We don’t speak on the way, and that’s nearly as unsettling as what’s still dormant in my mind. Micah is the first to run his mouth at every opportunity, but he’s become quieter and quieter.

“You okay?” I ask as we approach the bridge.

“Yeah. Kyra will likely be working. Shall we find her or go to the Maker? Your choice.”

“Let’s see if the Maker will see me. Go from there.” My smile is thin on my lips as I think of the witch. But I will rally and force my trepidation under control.

We head straight through The Court, following the same trail up the main cobblestones, but my pace slows as I take in some of the merchants and other shops before the buildings even out as we move towards the Warrior’s residence.

The curve of the path leads us to the foot of The Tower, but Micah doesn’t stop. He just strides right in.

“The library?” I start. “Do you think we should…” I think back to our first adventure and wonder if there might be more answers to steal.

“Risk getting caught for more research?” He tosses over his shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not. Did you get that text?”

“Yes. Thank the stars.” And after what Aurelia said today, maybe the library wasn’t such a good idea. “We should return them if you think we’ll get in trouble?”

“Come on. Let’s sort one problem at a time. The Maker first, then we can deal with breaking in and returning the books.” He gives me a cocky smile full of mischief, and I can’t help but feel my spirits lift with it.

We climb the spiral stairs, ignoring all the doorways and corridors leading from it and head straight for the Great Hall.

It always strikes me as strange that we can just come here—no sentries or officers to prevent our entry. And it makes me wonder if there are hidden protections.

“You have come, then.”

That voice, clear and haunting inside my mind.

Micah raises his hand to thump on the wooden door, but I just shake my head. “She knows I’m here.” He nods and pushes the doors, swinging them wide like a gaping mouth opening ready to swallow me whole. I step over the threshold, spurred on by her voice already inside my head.

This time, The Chamber are not here. The space makes the room feel empty and cold. But up on that dais, with two figures hovering around her, is the Maker. Half in shadow as she waits beneath the statue of Aslendrix.

I turn back at Micah, but he’s not followed me in. He gives me a little nod from the door and leaves, to get Kyra, I hope. My feet carry me across the hall to the bottom of the dais.

“Will you give me answers?” I ask her. “Will you help me?”

The two around her seem to bristle at my tone as if it isn’t a common occurrence for someone to walk in and ask something—anything—of the Maker.

She only stares in my general direction. Her scarred and empty eyes, watching somehow and unnerving me. I wait for the words inside my head, but they do not come.

“Will you tell me about the others like me? What their gifts were? How to use them or wield them?” I try again as if shaping the question correctly might release her tongue.

She stands, pushing herself up from her seat, her shoulders sagging around her, as if her bones aren’t sure they won’t cave in around her body. But then, if she is hundreds of years old...

The others, her Triune, stay where they are, but she descends the stairs, and I breathe through the sweep of anxiety, clinging to the look in Ten’s eyes, the fear in Azur’s, the bile in Ascella’s words.

They are why I’m here.

Her too-thin skin over her lips pulls against the movement of her mouth as she tries to speak, not into my mind, but with words. “Ever. You are beginning to realise. Beginning to see.”

“No. Not really. There isn’t enough information. I’m lost. I don’t know how. I don’t…” Panic invades with the avalanche of questions suddenly let loose in my mind.

“Shhh, child.” Her voice calms as if swathing me in something good and pure.

“You are blessed with bearing all Aslendrix’s power. But it is a cruel gift, for it can be more burden than blessing.”

“Help me.” The emotion is thick on my words. “Nobody seems to know how. Or they are wilfully letting me stumble through like an animal snared in a trap.” I bite the last word back, thinking of Rowan and his drive to test me.

“Use that well inside of you.”

I tilt my head to her. Did she know Kyra helped me?

“I know all. You must practice control. Your emotions are wild and raw. A spark to your own dry wood, threatening to burn you alongside everything. Don’t think of your power as a singular thing.

It is earth and space and time and everything in between.

Caress it, nurture it, for it can be fickle and stubborn and deadly. ”

“Enough of the riddles,” I shout, raising that emotion she just warned me about.

“What about others? Books. Lessons. Please,” I beg.

“I saw myself kill Ascella when I know I’d never do that.

I can see images from places I’ve never been.

I don’t know what will happen if I accidentally touch someone, and…

I can hear people’s thoughts.” I concentrate.

“Like you.” I push the last words to her.

“And worse, lay traps in their minds. How? I didn’t know I was doing that.

Is there something inside of me, my subconscious, that is doing this?

” The words trip over themselves, all my fears bursting through and pushing out the questions. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Please.”

The room grows silent. Like a dampener just draped the room, blocking even the faintest whisper of breeze. And then I feel it like another presence. The Maker raises her hand to my cheek.

I don’t recoil but concentrate on the position of her hand and the feel of her paper-thin skin, dry and brittle, against my face.

The hum of energy pulses between us, and I recognise this now.

She twists her head to one side, then the other, as if she’s sorting through something.

But my mind stays clear, my breathing steady. No pain. No visions.

My fists clench at my side, and I feel the cool metal of the ring on my finger again as I picture that well of water inside my chest.

Calm. Still.

“Good.” She elongates the word like she’s purring it at me. “Have you seen it? The Larimar Lake?”

I just shake my head, more confusion seeping in.

“Interesting. Tea?” She pulls her hand away and steps back.

“Um, yes, thank you,” I agree and mask the confusion. Having a cup of tea with the witch wasn’t what I’d anticipated.

She turns, walks over to the small table on one side of the room, and slumps down into the seat. And as if this was already planned, a woman walks towards us with a tray. She sets the service down, wisps of steam billowing from the teapot.

But there is only one cup. A beautiful blue cup that is eerily familiar. A web of cracks decorates the outside as if it might shatter and break at any moment. My eyes look from the cup to the Maker and then to the woman carrying the tray.

“How?” I ask.

“How, what?”

“How do you have the exact same teacup as I do?”

“Do you believe in coincidences, Ever?”

“No,” I answer in my mind. “Why do you have the same teacup?” My temper flares as I think the question.

“Calm. Think of that lake. The water. You’re halfway, but you must use your mind like a muscle.”

Was this a trick to bait my emotions? If I have an emotional response, the mind-to-mind thing seems to just happen.

“You are rare. Rarer still that you did not grow up in our land. If you’d lived by our traditions, our ways, you would have realised at a young age that you were different.

That has been the way of it for hundreds of years.

We have nurtured the combined gifts and shaped them in others. But with you…”

Every single part of me silently begs for her to keep talking. The information she holds feels like a potent drug, and every syllable is my next fix.

She waves her hand, and a second teacup appears, another twin to the one in my room. The one I’ve always been too afraid to use.

The woman who brought the tray stands and pours the water over the herbs and spices in the bottom of our cups, and a bloom of fragrance erupts.

“But it isn’t just Aslendrix that balances a Fifth. It’s their own heart. What that individual wants or desires.” I listen so intently that the words almost take on new meaning.

“Like good and bad? Light and darkness?”

The Maker takes her tea and sips, a strange sight.

And with no eyes, she seems to manage as if she still has the full use of all her senses.

“A simplification, but yes. Aslendrix is only one side. Novandia is a part of her balance, to her dismay. A Fifth can sometimes be a consequence of their ongoing feud. A show of power.”

I drink in the information along with the floral tea and pretend to understand that riddle.

“You are learning that your gift can amplify or drain. But it is not confined like the other Orders. I see all because I was the first. You will see possibilities. For you. For others. To weave and thread and sow. To nurture or to destroy. But at the centre of it all is your mind and heart. And the way to rule them in harmony is to master your emotions. Something that takes years.”

She is open with her information, as if it had only been a matter of time until she would impart this to me.

But I feel the pressure of the words and run them over in my mind so I don’t lose or forget any of them.

This conversation has subtle inflexions and meanings, and no doubt, I’ll be poring over them in the middle of the night.

I glance at the Maker. Her sagging body and her hollow, empty eye sockets, scarred and worn, and I try to imagine her as a younger woman, a woman who worshipped the moon and was also granted this life—this gift.

“Would you like to see?” She breezes into my mind . “Would that help you to stop calling me Witch, child?”

I nearly choke but manage to keep the tea in my mouth and not splutter all over us. Her low chuckle is my answer.

A beautiful woman now sits in her place with raven hair and milky white skin, like it’s been bathed in moonlight. And just as quickly, it vanishes.

“I won’t call you a witch any longer. Thank you for the information. I still have…” I pause the words in my head.

“You will always have questions. Stop waiting for the answers. Act on what you know now. Carve your path. Stop being afraid.”