Page 14 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Eleven

H er gentle voice whispered to me, humming horrifying words.

There once was a daughter of seven circles, hidden, protected, avoiding the hurdles.

There once was a palace of crystalized ice awaiting the daughter to sacrifice. Unbalanced and sorrowful. Hopeless with no tomorrow.

I didn’t want to hear it. “Stop.”

There once was a world concealed from her, vibrant in color, awaiting a shudder.

“Be quiet! Stop!”

When the ice whispers. Be prepared for the fissures.

“I said STOP!”

“Lucy, wake up!” Oliver shouted. “Wake up!”

I lurched awake, finding the tent covered in frost. The frigid air froze the moisture in my nose and the breath puffing out of my lungs.

White clusters speckled my sleeping bag, and a purple flame twined with black.

The colorful flames slowly dissolved the end of the silky fabric once covering my toes.

It crept along, eating holes like a picky eater, and suddenly changed tactics and dissolved a giant chunk.

I jerked my feet up and scrambled out, head throbbing. “What’s it doing?”

“I was going to ask you the same question,” he accused, squatting outside the tent.

Once the purple flame reached halfway up the sleeping bag, it dimmed and left, leaving Oliver and me gaping at the melting frost and the snacked-on material.

“Her voice… I had a dream. But the words… I can’t remember them all. Something about a daughter, ice, and sacrifice?” I shuddered.

“Your mom’s voice?”

“Maybe. You said I was yelling. Do you know what I said?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “You kept saying stop and be quiet. After that, I was a little more concerned with not getting eaten by whatever the hell that was.”

I glanced at my hands, shoulders dropping.

At this rate, I’d be naked by the time we arrived in Elora. From wrist to shoulder, my jacket sleeves were gone. Numerous holes in varying sizes peppered the rest. I looked…

“I think the style you are working toward is homeless chic or Swiss cheese couture,” Oliver supplied, guessing my thoughts.

I laughed—something I hadn’t done in some time.

“Cute! I’m glad after all my random blabbering, I could finally make you laugh.” He ruffled through his backpack. “Here. Less Swiss cheese like.” Oliver handed me a black shirt outlined with purple flowers—the same pattern on my joggers .

I eyed him and the lightweight material. “Thanks,” I said, taking the shirt.

“No problem, Luce, just don’t kill me in my sleep, okay?”

Sheepish, I sent him a weak smile. I wished it was that easy. After all of Oliver’s near-death experiences, I seriously wondered why he didn’t leave me.

I glanced at my discarded jacket and sleeping bag. So that was what my purple flame was? Slow-devouring ice?

Oliver gave my sleeping bag a wide berth and packed our gear. “Let’s get going. We have half a day left, and on the way, you’ll practice.” Oliver flung the backpack onto his shoulders, ducking under the tent’s opening.

After changing, I gingerly put on my backpack and climbed out. My lightning wound felt better, but the added weight made me cringe.

The moment I left, Oliver blurred around me, taking down and packing the tent faster than he put it up.

He was always in a rush, not that I was complaining. I wanted out of this forest.

“Here’s breakfast.” He handed me a granola bar, then took off at a jog.

“Not jogging,” I groaned.

I took off after him. He bounded through the grove of birch trees, jumping over stumps and swerving around bushes, never missing a beat. Then there was me, tripping over pebbles, catching on thorn bushes, wincing every time my backpack chafed against my lightning scar .

“Why are we jogging?” I yelled out to him as a branch so kindly whipped me in the face. Each downed log we ran by pleaded to be sat on.

“It’s a warmup,” he exclaimed, sounding at ease as his legs pounded into the ground, unlike my labored pants.

“A warmup for what? Are you trying to kill me?”

He didn’t answer for the longest time, then said, “No, I’m really not.

I want you to survive, Lucy. So let’s practice.

” He stopped, allowing me to catch up. “Lusceler is the first thing we’re taught to understand how to tap into our power.

It won’t drain you if you use it in small bursts.

So, catch me.” He winked and blurred away.

“Oliver!” I screamed. Energy and the needle-like pain of my Glory shot across my skin. I chased after him, catching up to his blurring form. He smiled and stopped when he saw me. Unamused, I whipped out a hand to smack him in the chest and missed when he stumbled back, falling on his ass.

“Fuck-a-duck, Lucy! This is why you need practice.”

Horrified, my flickering white flames sank back into my skin.

Oliver stood. “You need to believe in yourself. You’ve luscelered before. I knew you could do it again and only ran away to prompt you into action instead of thinking about it. And you did, but your panic and fear took over, and I almost got a Lucy-sized handprint.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, biting my lip.

“We’re going to try again. But when you lusceler, feel your power. Get a sense of how it moves through your body. It should be a trickle of energy, not a river.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure.

“You got this. On a count of three,” he said. “One… two… three! ”

Oliver luscelered, and I was right beside him.

As we ran, I tried to focus on the energy.

It prickled and tickled like a gentler combination of sensations I received from my Glory and my purple flames.

But the more I focused on the exhilarating sensation, begging it to stay a trickle, the more the prickles became stabs.

No, no, no.

We hit a rocky incline, and my hands blazed with Glory. Oliver stopped us, noticing my white flames.

“Well, you almost had it.”

Defeated and tired, I sank onto a rock and waited until my stupid flames disappeared. “Why is this so hard?”

“Because you’re a grown adult now learning about your power. Not sure how often that happens.”

I sighed.

Oliver stared up the hill, where the pine trees opened to boulders, looking uncertain. The sun beat down on their white flesh while we paused in the shade. “We’re almost there.” He ran two hands through his hair, squeezing his head.

“Are you worried? Because I have an idea of who can help us find our answers.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t mention it earlier, probably because my powers continued to shock me with their attempts at ruining my life and killing Oliver.

“I believe she’s in Elora,” I mumbled to myself.

Gosh, she had to be. But there was no way that woman would tell me about the name Magda if she wasn’t in Elora.

Especially after telling me my mom was there.

“No.” Oliver dropped his head, refusing to look at me. “I have a plan. We just need to get to The Divide.”

I stared at him as birds chirped and squirrels skittered across the bark of the trees. This was hard on him. He had been avoiding Elora for so long, and now he would have to break his promise to himself—because of me.

The scent of pine sap calmed my guilt with its earthy freshness.

“We’ll find her, Oliver. We’ll find them both.”

He sighed, giving me a half smile that didn’t meet his guilty emeralds. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

Standing, I grabbed his hand and gave a hopefully reassuring smile. “We will.”

He snatched his hand back like I’d burned him. “We have a few hours left climbing rocks. Practice feeling your power. It could help you.”

I glanced down to make sure I didn’t accidentally burn him. “Right. Okay.”

Stepping on the loose dirt, I latched onto trees to help pull my weight up. Oliver followed me, dodging all the dirt and small rocks I kicked up.

Once we passed the tree line, the terrain became steeper.

I had no time to practice my power when I was too focused on crawling over boulders.

We gripped their jagged, warm edges and pulled our bodies up.

Sweat slicked my palms. A couple of times, we lost our grip on the rocks, sliding down until we caught ourselves or each other.

My heart crawled up my throat as I gazed at the potential rocky death behind me, happy to have Oliver and his help.

He stood on a boulder up ahead, tilting his head to the ledge a few meters away, rubbing the tattoo on his wrist. Three irritating rocks separated us. I sat, giving myself a break before climbing them and the five others to get to the ledge.

“I’m sorry, Oliver. ”

One second. Ten seconds. After thirty seconds of stewing in my guilt, he turned, and I wanted to apologize again. His eyes were moist, and his lips were pressed into a fake smile. I think it was supposed to be reassuring, but it came off as painful.

“Don’t apologize. The deals have been made.”

The weight of our gloomy mood was reflected in the darkening clouds of the sky. Rain decided to let loose on us the moment we reached the top.

“We’re here?”

Snow and evergreens dotted an open expanse of rock. It had four ledges. Off of three of them were sheer drops to your death. With the wind whipping at my joggers, threatening to knock over my wobbling toothpicks, I wasn’t about to get near them.

“This way,” Oliver ushered me from the ledge toward a rock that jutted from the earth. Coming around it, I could see it wasn’t a random tall rock but an arch.

“This is the entry to Elora. Once we step through the archway, we won’t be on Earth anymore. Are you ready?”

Nope. But this wasn’t for me.

“Are you?” I asked.

He stared at the archway like it was the end of something good and sighed heavily. “Let’s get this over with.” His words twisted the knife.

“We’ll find them, Oliver.”

He didn’t respond.

The archway blended in with the rocks surrounding it. I walked closer, and pinpricks of iridescent light shimmered. The blues, yellows, and reds mixed with a background of white, changing its hue with each tilt of my head. “Do you see it too? ”

“All supernatural creatures can. To humans, it’s just an archway off the side of a cliff.”

His long fingers lightly traced over the top portion of the arch. As they passed, words glowed a soft white. They curled at odd angles and connected in weird formations—writing in a different language.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“It’s angelic. It speaks of light, darkness, night, and blood. Each word is a representation of a supernatural creature. You must have the blood of one to enter. If not, you will likely fall off the cliff and meet a pleasant end on some rocks.”

There was the humor that was missing, albeit a little off. “Well, doesn’t that sound nice?”

Silver flashed as he took a knife out of his pocket. I eyed it warily. “Blood opens it,” he explained, cutting his thumb and rubbing it against the writing.

A blue light flashed. It lit up the space around us and settled in the center of the arch, glimmering like a wobbly mirror. Giving me one last look, Oliver took my hand. Heart pumping with anticipation, I took a deep breath and walked through the arch.

I didn’t feel the rush of air like I would if I was falling to my death.

Instead, my ears popped, and my body pulled in odd directions.

Light twisted in unusual formations and colors, at times blinding me.

Goosebumps rose on my skin as particles tickled and kissed my exposed flesh.

Within seconds, it was over, my hands and knees hitting solid ground.

My fingers flexed in the soft moonlit grass as I blinked the portal light away. Slowly, I adjusted to the night sky and the oddness of having come from daylight. I glanced on either side of me, wondering where Oliver was, then looked up to a horde of figures.