Page 85 of The Bones of the Cursed

I try. I really do. But I can’t get it under control.

Ice shoots from my fingertips. Hannah and Elion jump out of the way, yelping.

Malakai pushes up from the chair, grabbing my tear-stained face. My body calms slightly. Wetness drops onto my head. Kailu comes to my side, grasping my hand in a tight hold.

I look at Malakai, finding white flecks litter his hair. I rear back, looking throughout the room. The ice has now calmed, and only fluffy white snow remains.

“Is this my magic too?” I ask.

Malakai wipes my tears away. “Yes, firecracker. This is all you, and it is beautiful.”

I release a breath. Acceptance. I’ve finally found a place where I’m accepted for who I am.

- KAILU -

I knew those entries would break her heart. She would have been mad if we hid them from her, so all I can say is that the woman is lucky she is dead.

I look at Alanis’s face, her nose pink from crying. Her magic is unlike anything I have ever seen before. When she pushed the Amorak back, it was with a hurricane force wind. Anger turned to wind.

Extreme sadness turned to ice, which we were already aware of. What was new was that, at my and Malakai’s touch, her emotions calmed and a gentle snow began to fall. What other powers could remain hidden inside her?

“Alanis,” I say, drawing her attention back to me. “I think you should train your powers. It will be easier to control if you know what to expect.”

The snow has stopped, the ice she created now melting. She gives me a nod. “I agree. If I’m to be useful, I need to know what I’m capable of and how to control it.”

Alanis falls asleep shortly thereafter, Malakai moving back to sit by her side, so while the others slip out, I catch Elion by the arm to hold him back a moment. “Do you have any idea who the mystery man was?”

Elion shakes his head. “But my father had a book in which he made note of how to contact anyone of importance. It might be in there.”

“Do you think it survived like your mother’s journal did?”

Elion gives a slight smirk. “I know it did. It’s sitting on my desk at our cottage in the Outskirts. I had it on me when the bombs dropped. My father had given it to me. Alanis and I were hunting for food, but I was also trying to find my uncle. My father thought the book might help me locate him.”

“Can you get it as soon as possible?”

He nods. “I’ll fetch it now.”

“Thank you.”

As soon as he slips from the room, I turn back to Alanis, asleep in her bed. Malakai looks as if he is seconds away from passing out, so I gently clutch his shoulder. “Mal, go get some sleep. I’ll stay with her tonight.”

He looks at me through tired but grateful eyes before tenderly placing a kiss on Alanis’s head. It’s strange seeing him this way. I would never have described my friend as gentle, but with her, he is. He stares at me a second longer, his eyes filled with a warmth I’m unaccustomed to seeing from him. He clutches me to his chest in a tight hug, my heart rate picking up.

“She’s all right,” he whispers.

Wrapping my arms around him tightly, I nod. “She is.”

He slips from the room and I kick off my boots and shuck my sword to take his place next to her. I crawl into the bed beside her and pull her into my embrace. Her little sigh sends butterflies into my chest, the feeling so similar to what I felt moments ago in Malakai’s arms. I close my eyes, listening to the sound of her steady breathing.

Her heartbeat lulls me to sleep.

32

- ELION -

THE COTTAGE

As I ride back to our cottage in the Outskirts, exhaustion bears down on me. The cottage looks the same as when I last left it, but not the same at the same time. It feels like a lifetime has passed since I was last here, so much has changed. Walking through the door, the air that greets me is stale.

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