Page 70 of Mother of Death and Dawn

But instead of throwing the glass, at the last moment, I closed my hand around it, tight tighttight, until pain spasmed through my palm.

“This was a mistake. I don’t haveanything.” The confession slipped from my tongue so easily. Unbidden, I remembered Tisaanah’s steel mind, and the way she so carefully hid such insecurities from spoken words. I’d watched her tuck the thoughts away deep in the darkened crevices of her mind, the same ones that I had occupied.

I realized that I wasn’t as strong as she was. Not in my magic, and not in my empty mind.

“You aren’t trying,” Caduan said.

I welcomed the flood of rage. Easier than hurt.

I whirled to him. Two strides and I was across the room, so close to his face. He didn’t flinch.

“Not trying? For five days, you have remained in this room with me, and you tell me thatI am not trying?”

A muscle twitched above Caduan’s lip. “For five days I’ve watched you run in circles. I am helping you, Aefe.”

I needed an outlet, needed something to shatter. I reached for another glass, but Caduan grabbed my wrist.

“You are better than this.” His fingers tightened, hot against my skin.

“Then tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to think. I want you to lean into the silence and find something there.”

“Find what?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

His hand still clutched my wrist, tighter still, tight enough that it ached just slightly. I liked it—the constriction. It was the first thing in five days that felt even remotely familiar, like a tether when I had been floating at sea.

I leaned into it, my lips twisting into a sneer.

“What do you expect me to find there?” I hissed. “There is nothing inside of me but silence. I don’t understand how anyone can live like this, in a world so empty. I need to feel… to feel…”

I stumbled. Words were too weak to describe what I meant, so I gave up.

“You would not understand it.”

But Caduan’s face had gone pensive. “Go on,” he said, quietly.

“You would not understand.” I tried to pull away, but his grip held firm.

“There’s something there, Aefe. Do not back away. Go on. You say you can’t make something out of nothing. Why?”

I hated him.

“I have seen what you can do,” he pressed. “In all your forms, then and now.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” I snapped. “I did great things, but only when I had something to… to become. A song to sing louder or…”

This did not make any sense to him.

“Go on, Aefe.”

“When I was in them, I could take their magic and make it stronger. I knew I was powerful—infinitely powerful—but they gave me the material. Even so long ago, even as Aefe…”

My tongue ran over my teeth, the point of my canines. Not as sharp as they were long ago, in a different version of this body.

“Even as Aefe, I had no magic of my own, only the ability to take from others. And now, in this body, I am empty. What do you expect me to create? I need the magic of another. A power to amplify. I cannot make something from nothing.”

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