Page 13

The Unlearnable

“It’s not working, is it?” I ask with my eyes screwed closed.

Scoria’s not letting me use the numb, not that I seem to be able to find my way back to it. Instead, it’s like my emotions are all over the place, pushed this way and that by any little thing, even a breeze. She explained that numbness was like smothering fire with oil. It might put it out for a second, but it will only reignite and burn hotter.

With her close by, at least the Shadows are silent. I’m not fighting them and trying to use two powers at the same time.

Vos went to get Tabra, only to return and be told that that wasn’t the deal—Tabra stays in the temple—so we set up camp outside the temple pit. While the others hunt, cook, and wait, Scoria drills me, and drills me, and drills me in increasingly difficult exercises. Tabra she spends time with separately, down inside the temple, usually when I’m passed out asleep from the exhaustion of both healing from my wounds and using power as much as I have been.

We’ve gone back to the basics, as she puts it.

For each new task, she starts me off doing something similar with my power over sand until I get decent enough at the specific technique.

Which makes sense. If I get it wrong or get overwhelmed, sand doesn’t have the ability to bury my soul alive inside my body like a tomb or disappear the corporeal bodies of every person in my vicinity.

So there is that.

Once I can do what she wants with sand, she then moves me over to trying it with shadow, the benign darkness tucked into cracks and crevices during the day, and all around us at night.

Right now, she just wants me to make a shape with it.

I picture the darkness I’m trying to manipulate like my sand, as if there are individual little grains that can be melded together to form a bigger entity. I think about what I’ve seen Reven do with shadow. Eidolon, too. They can manifest physical elements from the darkness, including razor-sharp blades that can cleave a person in two.

“Good,” Scoria says.

“About time,” Vos drawls.

Really? I open my eyes.

Ha!

Darkness that appears almost solid, like smoke that has been captured in a glass bowl, actually looks like what Scoria asked me to form it into—a rabbit.

I saw a real one hopping through the grasses before. It didn’t stop to bow to me like other animals used to—a kirin in Wildernyss and an old she-wolf in the Shadowood, among others. I think maybe because I’m not wearing Aryd’s amulet. Creatures only did that when I had her with me.

The tiny little body of my shadow bunny is seated, puffed tail at the back, long ears pricked. I did it. It’s not just a blob.

I did it!

Off to the side but still in my line of sight, Tziah gives me an encouraging thumbs-up and I smile back.

A flare of pride is followed by an immediate fall because the first thing I think about is Reven. Would he be proud, too?

I’m not numb anymore. Damned erratic emotions. Reven should be able to reach me more easily, at least, but he hasn’t. He’s still gone from me, cold and unresponsive. Like a void out there in the world.

Without the numb, I can feel the piece of my own soul that’s missing with him gone, a hole at my center that aches unbearably all the time.

I haven’t told the others that yet, blaming the fear for them that rolls through me regularly on other things. They haven’t questioned it so far, probably because they’re getting used to my mood swings.

Vos breaks into my thoughts. “It’s not enough.”

Up till now, he’s been leaning against a rock, legs indolently crossed, offering a plethora of unhelpful comments. Unless he thinks provoking me is helpful.

Knowing Vos, he probably does.

Tziah raises a hand to smack him in the arm, but his sharpened gaze gives away how serious he’s become. She must see it, too, because she lowers her hand.

I try not to flinch.

“We’re running out of time,” he says.

We’ve been running out of time since the day Reven stole Eidolon’s Shadows, but Vos is right. It’s been three days. A shadow rabbit is all I have to show for it, and even that was pushing it.

“I know,” I say.

“I’d like to see you learn it that fast.” Cain points at my work.

“We have the rest of the day,” Scoria insists. “Close your eyes again.”

I blink at her. “But I—”

“Do as you’re told,” she says in a voice that reminds me a lot of Omma, grounding me unexpectedly.

I close my eyes and breathe, fighting through the exhaustion and the roiling emotions that make me feel like a bird in the air being tossed about by rough winds.

“Now,” Scoria says, “I want you to make an exact replica of the rabbit.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” I grumble.

“I do not joke.”

That much I’ve figured out by now.

I furrow my brows. It took me all day just to make one rabbit. But after three days, I’m well aware the giantess won’t stop pushing me until I at least try. So I cling to my wavering focus and picture again the darkness that forms my individual grains, like sand.

Rather than trying to make another rabbit from scratch, an idea tickles my mind. I create a hole in the bottom of my rabbit and another smaller one in the top and let the shadows that make up the insides of it drain out, leaving only a hollow shell.

“What is it you’re trying to do, exactly?” Vos wonders somewhere off to my right.

I keep my eyes closed. “A blacksmith had a shop not too far from the hovel where Omma and I lived in Enora when we weren’t at the palace. I used to go and watch her work.”

“Uh-huh.”

My eyes may be closed but I recognize the thump of sound that tells me Tziah didn’t stop herself from smacking Vos this time.

“Hey!” Cain’s voice wobbles on a laugh. “I thought I was the only entertainment you had growing up.”

If he’s teasing… Is my effort that bad?

I’m tempted to take a peek. Except in the last three days I’ve learned that if I check on my progress, my disappointment at the results weighs me down, makes me second guess myself, and eventually stops me from succeeding. Now I just don’t look. Vos or no Vos. “Let me work.”

“Yes, boss.”

Ugh. He knows I hate it when he calls me that. Goddess, I hope that shadow bunny isn’t just melting in on itself or something equally frustrating.

I keep going despite my own doubts. When I think I’ve got it right, I split the hollowed rabbit in two and in my mind set each half on the ground.

Why don’t you open your eyes? an insidious voice whispers. Not the Shadows, though. These are my own thoughts replacing the sound of them in my head. I think.

“Keep working,” Scoria says.

Right.

Now that I have the hollowed-out form, in my mind’s eye, the darkness is like sand when I heat it into a malleable thick liquid, and I imagine pouring it into both of the rabbit-shaped molds. I press the halves together, picturing the shadow inside melding and hardening together. Then I peel away my molds and do it again.

I don’t stop there, though, keeping my eyes closed as I picture each completed shadow bunny together as if they’re sitting side by side and facing me. Sometimes it takes time for what I’m actually doing to catch up with what I’m picturing. I breathe and wait through what I hope is enough time.

I don’t crack an eye. “Am I close?”

A huff of laughter sounds from behind me, followed by Pella’s mumbled, “Only if you consider a child’s first sentence to be close to the poetry of the Unknown Bard.”

Cain sighs. “Not helping, Pell-mell.”

I’m guessing it didn’t work.

Vos sniggers, and I hear another thump , followed by, “Ouch, Tzi.”

When I open my eyes, all it takes is one look before I flop back on the frozen ground and fling a hand over my eyes. Pella was right. My previously recognizable bunny is now more like two blobs of darkness connected by strings of shadow that remind me of drool. “I need more time to get this.”

“Maybe an eon,” Pella agrees.

I sit up, barely noting that my drooly bunny blobs have dissipated like mist burning off under the heat of the sun. A lump of porridge sits in a bowl made of woven grass blades on the ground in front of me. I scoop it up with one hand and fling it at her. Only Pella ducks, and it smacks Horus in the face, right on his gray-and-black stubble-covered chin, probably getting some in his mouth. Then the lump drips down to land in his lap.

At his grimace of disgust and the almost prissy way he picks the smear of oatmeal off his clothes, I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing. Laughter feels like pain to me now. Every emotion is too much. “Sorry, Horus. That obviously wasn’t meant for you .”

“I should have moved faster, domina,” Horus murmurs, still plucking at his clothes.

Pella doesn’t even bother to hide her wide grin. “If your control of shadows is as bad as your aim, we’re screwed.”

I narrow my eyes, glaring. “I dare you to find out what I’m feeling right now.”

She tips her head, expression clearly indicating that my attempt at a comeback is weak at best. “I don’t need my empathic abilities to know that,” she says, nectar sweet. “Your emotions are like a simple glyph on a wall. Easy to read.”

Gritting my teeth will only make her keep going. I may understand Pella now, even respect her, and maybe a tiny bit like her, but that doesn’t mean I have to like her all the time.

Cain elbows his sister. “Give it a rest, Pell.”

She rolls her eyes, then settles into a position that says she’s done, but I know better. Pella is like a cat that grows weary of toying with a mouse it intends to eat and takes a nap right beside its mousy hole. She’s just saving it up for the next time she thinks I need a good whack to the ego.

“One more time,” Scoria demands.

I drop my head into my hands and groan. “I’m exhausted.”

“You are not ready to be without me yet.”

Ouch.

Fair, but ouch.

“Fine.” I pull my shoulders back, keeping my eyes closed.

With the Shadows no longer nattering in my head or fighting me, it’s easier to focus when I draw on Eidolon’s power. I’ve discovered his power feels different from mine. Mine is easy, right there, and warm. But his…it’s more like reaching down a long, chilly tunnel and pulling it to me and through my body. Instead of the pins and needles of my power, his coldness seeps into my blood and bones.

But I’ve used so much today, I’m drained and starting to shake just to siphon him, but I dig deep, down, down, down, to draw it in and in and in. I’m sitting in the quiet of the effort, tuning out everything else.

“Found you,” a voice growls in my head.

The shock of it has me flailing with a gasp, like someone jerking awake in sleep. I open my eyes, but I don’t see Savanah or my friends around me. I’m in a dark room lit by the purple glow of my hands, and in front of me stands Eidolon.

He looks so much like Reven except for the slight silvering at the temples and more lines around the eyes that it hurts to look at him.

I jerk back a step, looking around me frantically. I don’t think he shadowed me here. Wherever here is.

“I can feel when you use my power, Meren.”

I jerk my gaze to him to find him smiling at me, face eerie in the violet light. Ghostly. That smile grows, showing me his teeth like a predator.

He can feel it? I spin around. “Reven!”

The king’s dark chuckle echoes around me. “I buried him,” he says. “Cut him away from you like cutting out rotting flesh.”

“No more Reven,” a Shadow whispers from within me.

Scoria’s influence must not work wherever this is.

Ignoring it, I tip my chin up. “I don’t believe you.”

Eidolon scoffs. “Have you heard him lately? Felt him?”

The fear that’s been pounding at me changes, turning to fear for Reven. I try to hide my reaction. Give him nothing. Show him nothing.

He sees straight through me, though. A smug smile tugs at his lips. “You’ll never find him in any afterlife to come.”

Cold fear burns away to fury. It takes up a spot in my chest, right at the center, swirling and burning like a storm of fire inside me that is just sitting for now, gathering power and speed.

I swear it to the six goddesses, to the mother Nova, to my ancestresses who died at that monster’s hands, and to myself. If I get the chance, I will rend the flesh from Eidolon’s bones and leave it all under the desert sun to rot away, bleach white, then crumble to dust where no one will find him again. Where, in time, no one will even remember he lived.

“You better hope that’s not true,” I snarl at him, my voice wild and unrecognizable. “Because I have all the other amulets now. I have your Shadows. I have Tabra. And I have your power.”

His smile drops away to leave only burning hatred in his eyes.

“You want them?” I taunt. Listening to the Shadows has taught me how to do that well. “You’d better ask nicely.”

I do the only thing I can think of, the only thing I’ve learned to do well with Scoria’s help so far. I picture the darkness around us like sand. Piles of it. Dunes of it. Then I blast Eidolon with it. Bury him in it. Pile it on so fast and hard, he’s gone from view in seconds.

That’s when Scoria yanks me out of my own head. The sensation is like the first time I was thrown from a bucking horse as a child when Cain taught me to ride. Like being tossed around like a rag doll, then launched through the air to hit the ground hard.

I scramble to my feet like a feral thing. “Where did he take me?” I croak.

Part of me expects the Shadows to answer, but they don’t, contained again.

“Take you?” Cain is in front of me in an instant, searching my gaze. “Nowhere.”

“You never left,” Horus says from behind him.

That was all in my mind?

Was it even real? Or was I having a waking nightmare? Given what he told me about Reven, I’d almost it rather be that.

But deep down I know it’s not.

Despite shaking hard with the effort all that cost me, I start to pace. “Eidolon got to me. I talked to him. He knows I have the amulets.” And he did something to Reven. I don’t know what, but I believe him. Time is up. I’m out of options.

I stop in front of Cain and Pella. “I need to speak with your father.”