Page 18

Slowly, the sun shrinks to the size of a nut in the sky.

The suffocating heat goes back to the humid hotness of a normal day.

Colors return to the room. The landscape that’s visible through the window is no longer a white portrait with stark lines of flashing black but simply the green grass of the rolling hill and the blue of a cloudless sky.

Although, a few of the taller trees in the distance are black, as if they’ve been scorched by fire.

I register the people in the room. Suno is shivering, staring at me with round eyes.

Tarix, who found shelter behind a sofa, is straightening on wobbly legs.

A trickle of sweat runs down his temple, but he doesn’t wipe it away.

He clenches the back of the sofa in a white-knuckled grip, looking at me as if I’m a monster.

Vitai leans against a wall, appearing equally stunned and impressed.

My father has an arm around my mother’s waist, holding her steady.

My mother finds her voice first. “If anything could prove my point, that was it.”

“Nia,” my father says in a tone I’ve never heard him use with her before.

I ball my hands into fists. “You harmed Elsie. You nearly killed her.”

“She’s here now,” Vitai says. “That’s what you have to focus on.”

His words only aggravate me anew.

Vitai adds quicky, “And that she’s perfectly healthy and not dying any longer.”

“How is that possible?” my father asks Vitai. “Could Elsie’s body have been restored to its original health when it was brought back through the portal to Zerra? Is that why her power reappeared?”

Vitai smoothes down his hair. “It’s a plausible explanation. Aruan told me about Elsie’s condition on Earth a while ago, and I’ve looked at it from all angles since, but I still haven’t come up with a theory.”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” my mother says. “Going back through the portal somehow undid?—”

“Is that why you tried to poison her?” I interject with a resentful smile. “Because fate ironically put a spike in your plan? So you thought you’d better finish her off for good this time?”

My mother gasps. “I would never! Besides, do you think I’d poison myself?”

The bitter disappointment makes me cruel. “You’ve proved yourself shrewd enough. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“That’s enough,” my father snaps.

“I didn’t try to poison anyone.” My mother adopts a wounded look. “I swear that on the lives of my children.”

I cross my arms. “Then who did it?”

My mother blows out a frustrated sigh. “I wish I knew.”

Suno clears his throat. “We’re losing sight of the matter at hand, which is determining the extent of Elsie’s power and teaching her how to control it.

As a person who possesses one of the strongest powers in the kingdom, the queen makes an ideal candidate to train your mate, but if you don’t trust your mate with your mother, Gaia could be tasked with the duty. ”

“Gaia’s power isn’t as strong,” Vitai says. “Elsie will make mush out of our sister—figuratively speaking, of course.”

“It’s true that Elsie has to be trained in using her power responsibly.” My father looks at Suno. “What do you suggest?”

I sneer at that. “Have any of us had training?”

My father gives me a hard look. “You were taught how to apply your power ethically as a child.”

He leaves the rest unsaid, namely that if Elsie can control more than animals, every person on Zerra is at risk. She could bring entire kingdoms to their knees if she wished.

People will fear her, and not just because she’s my mate. They’ll wish her away even more than they already do.

“I’m sorry, Aruan,” my mother says. “I’m sorry for everything Elsie suffered. I hope you’ll realize with time that I acted out of love for you because I couldn’t bear losing a son to his own power. You may not think so now, but in my own way, I also acted out of love for Laliss.”

“She prefers to be called Elsie,” I bite out. “That’s who she became.”

Though the truth is a lot more complicated now and reality much more muddled. My mate is both women, Elsie and Laliss, and it’s confusing for her to redefine herself in this new life.

“Fine. Elsie, then,” my mother says. “A different name doesn’t change who she is. I couldn’t stand by and watch someone assassinate that baby. In time, maybe you’ll be able to forgive me.”

My mother is still talking, but I’ve stopped listening to her. Instead, I focus on a deep rumble in the distance. The sound rolls like thunder before cracking down like a whip, shaking the very mountain the palace is carved into.

“What the—” Tarix says, grabbing the back of the sofa for support.

Vitai rushes over to the window. “What’s going on out there?”

“Aruan,” my mother says. “You have to stay calm.”

This storm isn’t mine. For once, my power is under control.

Like a shadow that swallows the room whole, an ominous foreboding creeps up on me. I walk to the window and look outside.

The entire mountain above the village is alive, shuddering and groaning as if it’s about to burst from its seams. I have a terrible feeling this is my doing, that I somehow set off the disaster when my power caused the sun to flare.

The top of the mountain starts sliding, a broad river of gray rocks the size of houses that rips trees out by their roots and drags them down its path, a path that leads straight to the village.

“Dear dragons,” my mother says next to me, her voice pitched with distress.

I have no recollection of her crossing the floor or how my father arrived so quickly at my other side. All I know is that hundreds of people are about to be buried under a sea of rocks.

My mother grips my wrist, her nails digging into my skin. “Do something.”

I focus my gaze on the mountain, using my mind to reassemble soil and stones, keeping the lot together before more damage is done.

The landscape stops shifting. The river of rocks filled with mangled trees and patches of grass that were plucked off the hills like tufts of hair from a scalp slows and then comes to a stop.

People’s screams replace the roar of the land as the villagers flee, running as fast as their legs can carry them.

Just as Vitai blows out a shaky breath, Gaia comes sprinting through the door with her hair flying behind her.

“Quick,” she says. “There’ve been several landslides on the other side of the mountain, and half a moon cycle’s villages are buried beneath rocks. We need all the help we can get.”