Page 59 of Fractured
We didn’t speak again until the first spark of light burned on the tips of my fingers.
Neither of us spoke.
The music stopped two more times, and on the third, I wound the key slowly, expecting nothing different this time, either. I hadn’t lied before when I told Vair that I was tired. So damn tired.
It almost felt like I was giving up.
Maybe that’s why, when the music started again, I could have sworn that the entire room inhaled together with me. Prepared to release a deep sigh.
But the melody spilled out of the box, as delicate as before but familiar now. The gloves, cool and incredibly light on my fingers, melted against my skin.
I didn’t try to force anything, or even think of being focused or distracted—what would be the point? I didn’t even bother to imagine light burning in the palms of myhands or bursting out of me the way it used to. I didn’t imagine shimmer or anything at all—I just listened to the music and felt the fabric of the gloves on my skin.
Therealquestions didn’t take long to melt in with the melody, the questions that mattered.Onequestion in particular—toknow who I was.My need to understand this madness I was somehow a part of.
I don’t know why but this time, the magic didn’t retreat, and the music didn’t fight to distract me. It wrapped around it instead—around that single question that I’d had since I met the seer, that terrified me to my bones, that I had tried to get away from with my whole being since.
Maybe that was my problem. Maybe that’s why the moment I wasn’t trying to convince myself that Ididn’t belong hereand that I had nothing to do with Verenthia or with this palace that kept me prisoner—it’s just a mistake!—I felt…free.
The magic slid down my veins—slid,and though it was cold, it didn’t feel like ice. It felt like water instead. The music faded away and right now all I felt was the whisper-touch of those gloves against my skin.
Water.
Except when I opened my eyes, the light on the tips of my fingers wasn’t wet. It didn’t burn, either, or freeze. It was exactly like those fae lights I’d seen all over the realm. Exactly like the bird that Rune made me, my friend, who was just light, but I missed it terribly. I missed what it meant—that Rune was with me. That Rune was nearby.
Now he wasn’t, butthislittle light on the tips of my fingers felt the same, and it waseasy.My God, I’d tried so hard to both push it and pull it back, hide it from my ownself, try to keep it in—and it was as easy asnottrying to do any of that stuff.
“I did it,” I whispered, both in awe and surprise, but there was also a part of me that thoughtthiswas normal. Just like all the othernormalsof Verenthia.
“Ice magic,” Vair said, stepping to the side of me as he, too, looked at the light. “That is ice magic. It isn’t frostfire.”
My stomach sank. The light on my fingertips died down almost immediately. I turned to Vair, shaking my head. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
The look he gave me—like he really believed me to be mentally challenged just now. “It isn’t. Close your eyes and try again.”
Fuck me.All that good mood and relief flew right out the window at the same second. “You know, you give a lot of orders for someone who uses my own voice,” I muttered.
Vair took his place again and raised his chin. “Eyes closed.”
Asshole.
I closed my eyes, just like he said.Here we go again.
It wasn’t working—notthat the fact surprised me. I feltso closefor once, like I might actually get it right, but every time a tiny amount of magic came out of me, it wasn’t frostfire,only ice magic,said Vair.
Only ice magic—as if that was a small thing. But it wasn’t, not even close. I was a human from Earth, and I was sitting here in a sentient palace making magic with my hands,deliberately,and I wasn’t even about to die! Magic that came out of mecalmly,that didn’t burst out of my skin like it meant to tear me to pieces.
Granted, I would have no clue what the hell to do withit other thanlookat it, and I did. Even when Vair told me to keep my eyes closed, rely on my feelings instead of my senses, I constantly had to be seeing that tiny light becauseholy fuck I can do real magic!
If only he were human, Vair would understand. This was the stuff I thought magicwasmy whole life. Without the curses and the spells and the using live beings as sources—just a beautiful glowy light that sprung to existence at my call.
Fascinating, really.
And it wasn’t even close to enough.
I thought I was being so stealthy, that Vair couldn’t tell I was peeking through my lashes—until he produced a piece of black fabric from God knows where and dropped it on my lap right from his jaws.
Could have sworn it was a tie at first, but no. It was just a piece of black fabric, and Vair told me to blindfold myself.
