Page 6 of Scion of Chaos

The lights flicker overhead, and I distantly hear Shawn mutter “not again” as he glances up.

But it’s not a memory; it’s just a dream. A sensation. A voice. A beard against my face, a pair of lips against my ear. I stare at my reflection in the dark window past Rachel’s head across from me and drift my fingertips over my cheek. The scent—wet forest and lush green things. But not just that…

Chaos.

Hard, terrifying beauty and primordial power rolled into one. The shape of theotheronelooms in my mind’s eye, like a sentinel behind my reflection. Eyes sparking with violet power, his naked body threaded with veins that pulse with the same magic.

Suddenly the window shatters. Rachel yelps and ducks, covering her head with both arms. Then the lights go out, drenching us in darkness as thick mist rolls in from outside. Audra and Shawn both curse.

From somewhere in the kitchen comes the clattering of dishes falling off shelves, followed by cursing from the staff. I snatch up my bag and run.

The campus is drenchedin darkness when I hit the courtyard in the center, the only light the magical glow of the tree which isn’t connected to the power grid, but is illuminated with its own ethereal power. I stare up at it like I’ve done often in the past few weeks, in awe of its very existence. The trunk is a tangle of different types of metal bars, formed and welded into an organic shape that resembles a mass of thick vines. The branches are covered in thin metal leaves that make music when a breeze blows through. The coastal weather has cast them in a patina of green that looks completely natural and plant-like, despite everything about the tree being made of metal and glass, in addition to whatever strange magic fills the globes hanging like ripe fruit from the branches.

As I stare, the globes begin to vibrate, a whistling whine filling the air like the sound of a fingertip around the edge of a glass goblet. I’m rooted to the spot in disbelief. This isn’t me. It can’t be me. It’s some curse that’s following me.

But I can’t look away when, one by one, the globes shatter with muffled pops, followed by the tinkling of glass shards hitting the flagstones below them.

One globe doesn’t break; instead it brightens with a purple glow. This one hangs from a lower branch close to the trunk only a few feet from where I stand, I step forward and reach for it, my gut twisting. Just like the void glass did, it practically gravitates into my hand, the glass warm when it hits my palm.

“This isn’t fucking happening,” I murmur, staring into the glass and trying to make sense of everything.

What I see is baffling in its detail. A landscape of spires and pits splays before me, vast and unforgiving in its scope. At its center, an immense tower looms, surrounded by bridges extending outward like the spokes of a wheel.

Before I can study it in more detail, voices reach me from the other side of the dining hall, along with footsteps running in my direction. I quickly stash the globe in my satchel and dart away, heading for the path down to the beach.

Halfway to my secret retreat, I remember the cabin is a wreck.

“Fuck!” I yell at the sky, tangling my fingers in my hair and pacing several steps back the other direction. My chest burns and my breaths come quicker. This can’t be happening. Whatiseven happening? I turn again, not even focusing on my surroundings, simply trying to mentally retrace my steps from the day before, but getting lost after the moment I climaxed with the dildo inside me.

Something hard hits my boot, and I glance down to find I’ve wound up back at the collection of void glass where I gathered the pieces I used for my project. The shards all glimmer with faint purple light, which is new. Crouching, I sift through them, wishing for answers, but not hopeful they’ll come.

Whatdoescome is a fresh creative urge. When I made the dildo, the elusive tingle of power surged within me to craft the shape in my mind’s eye. It feltgoodto finally be creating something for real for the first time.

The surge rises again when my fingers connect with the shards. Ideas form of other shapes I could create with the pieces. From out of nowhere, I simply crave the act of creating, which is completely at odds with the panicked sense of losing control that rose moments before things started breaking earlier.

Desperate to hold onto this feeling and fend off my anxiety, I lean over and gather as many shards as I can with both hands. Some are sharp enough to leave tiny cuts on my hands, while others are almost as big as the first one I collected for my project. I stuff them into my satchel until it’s so full I can’t even zip it shut. Then I rise and lift it, but pause halfway through slinging the strap across my shoulder. It weighs almost nothing.

I frown, holding the stuffed bag out at arm’s length. The thing should weigh at least forty pounds, but I’m not even straining to hold it aloft.

Panic threatens again. I take several deep breaths through my nose as I stare at the bag.

“Okay, Nem. You’re not losing your marbles. This is just a sign that you aren’t a dud, even if what the fuck you actuallyareis still a mystery...”

I can’t think too hard about it, or I’ll lose my mind. So I sling the strap over my head and shove the bag to my back, where the contents clank softly. Itfeelssolid and weighty against my ass, the strap digging into my shoulder. Gravity suggests it weighs as much as I think, but I don’t feel burdened by it as I jog down the beach toward the cabin.

Obviously it’s still in ruins when I reach it, though I’m not sure why I hoped for anything different. I sigh, scouring my brain for any flicker of memory of what actually happened. The door frames are still erect, but the roof and walls are a splintered mess, like a tornado blew through.

I carefully step through the front door into what was once the main room. Frantic squeaking noises reach me from the other side where the sofa is buried beneath a hunk of roof and a beam.

“Oh god, the mice.” I navigate the mess as quickly as I can to reach the sofa where I discovered a nest of baby mice when I found this quaint, abandoned cabin a couple days ago. The heavy central cross beam lies across the back of the sofa, debris almost completely obscuring it. Brown fur wriggles in a hollow beneath a broken swath of shingles and a wild-eyed, whiskered face comes into view, the squeaking growing louder. Her pink nose pushes through a crack, little claws scrabbling at the sides as she tries to climb through and out of the small space she’s trapped in, but the gap is too narrow. Her body is caged between several shingles and the large beam, while her babies are barely two feet away, still safe inside the fluffy stuffing of the cushion.

Without thinking, I drop my satchel and wrap my arms around the heavy beam. It lifts easily...tooeasily, but I’m too focused on making sure she can escape before I carefully set the beam aside on the other side of the sofa.

Mama Mouse scrambles out in a rush and heads straight for her babies, her whiskers practically vibrating as she sniffs at the wriggling pink tangle.

Taking a deep breath, I crouch close to the sofa and peer down at her. “You’re okay mama. And your babies are okay too. I’m so sorry your house is ruined, but I promise I’ll try to fix it if I can.”

I glance around, frowning. The magic I wished for is unmistakably there now, a steady hum within, where it was once barely a tickle. And somehow it’s made me stronger, because I’m pretty sure the rest of the world didn’t suddenly become lighter. That wooden support beam has to weigh a couple hundred pounds.

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