Page 83 of Synodic

“There is a clarity and a new sense of purpose I feel in you,” Takoda replied, always finding the good in any situation, never accusatory or chastising in any way.

My eyes slid to Rowen, “I want to say thank you. I know I didn’t want you to come but I’m glad you were there for…for after.” When I had cried and screamed my soul out, dowsing him in my snot and tears.

“You ran right by me as if the Dark Spirit himself were chasing you. I called and called after you, but it was like you were in a trance, so I just ran with you.” His eyes danced across me as if the memory replayed itself upon the screen of my face.

“I’m surprised you were able to keep up,” I said playfully, bumping my shoulder into his. The air in here was too heavy, too serious.

Despite everything that happened, I felt good. All the tears I had shed had been cleansing, renewing, and I felt like an aquatic phoenix slowly emerging from her pearlescent flames.

“I couldn’t,” he replied with a wry smile, glancing down at my wrapped ankle. “If I could have, I would have tackled you down before you got hurt.”

“This? This is nothing. I’ve been hurt much worse missing the timing on a hurdle,” I said, grinning back. “Plus Takoda sorta knows what he’s doing when it comes to healing.”

“It was an honor.” Takoda’s smile consumed his whole face; he couldn’t be disingenuous if he tried. “And there is one more thing.”

“What?” I asked, remembering I’d failed the one test set out for me. I would probably be kicked out of the village tonight.

“A noxlily bulb has taken root from your light-touched soil,” Takoda said, beaming, and I stared at him astounded.

“It worked?”

“It has yet to fully sprout, but the Summit now knows you bear the Alcreon Light. There is much to celebrate.”

“So I’m allowed to stay?” I asked, hope cinching around strangled words. I was more afraid of the answer than I wanted to admit.

“You are allowed to stay, star-touched,” he laughed whole-heartedly.

Demil cleared his throat—I had forgotten he was even in here. “Is anyone going to tell her about tonight?”

“Why?” I asked, perplexed but immensely relieved I was able to witness another night in this village. “What’s tonight?”

* * *

Without explanation, I was escorted from the dome by two women I had yet to meet. Pia and Xala.

They led me to an enchanted bathing suite dripping with vines and soft glowing flowers. But instead of leaving me to get to it, the women entered the room right behind me. I insisted several times that I was perfectly capable of using the facilities on my own, but they were adamant about joining me, standing firm that their required presence was a direct order from Nepta—a gift.

Skeptical as I was, I let them guide me into the bubbling white stone bath, which they filled with different colored bath milks and mineral salts, adding purple petals that floated like lily pads.

The scented water swirled like a midnight nectar fit to pollinate the heavens, and I couldn’t help but feel they were preparing me like a piece of meat for a holiday dinner. It even seemed like they were trying to fatten me up with the plates of food settled around the tub’s edge.

I tried to relax, but I was a ball of nerves. I’d managed to tap into my newfound ability, and though it had been beautiful and powerful, it had also been frightening, unhinged, and…unpredictable. I’d summoned it in a moment of sheer terror and adrenaline, but I didn’t want such a sacred power to be elicited by fear.

Although that wasn’t the only thing that made me spark.

The Light had shown its shy radiance with the lightest of Rowen’s touches—but I didn’t want that either. However much I tried to deny it, there was nowhere I could push Rowen where he wouldn’t be felt. I couldn’t have something so massive and important, be contingent on such unreliable and untrustworthy emotions.

I didn’t want to think of what I could become if I grew enslaved to those feelings, but I knew all too well the imprisonment of indifference. To be trapped by emotions or against them were merely two corners of the same cage.

I thought back to the crevice and how the power filled me like a veined well flowing inside me, but I had lacked any control over it as it wildly shot out of my body.

In the midst of wondering how I could become the source, pump, and spigot for my abilities, Pia and Xala ushered me out of the tub.

They guided me, dripping wet, into a small anteroom lit by petite stained-glass windows dotting the walls and ceiling. The violet, honey-yellow, and aquamarine glass illuminated the room in hazy beams of light as though viewing the sky from beneath a petaled garden.

Xala indicated for me to lay on the marble slab in the sweet-scented room, and in the half-light, I could make out Pia preparing some kind of hand-sized stone.

This was all seeming like an extravagant spa day, and I wanted to politely decline, but my muscles ached from the fatigue of the last few days, and a rub-down didn’t sound half bad.

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