Page 36 of Tangled Power
He hadn’t answered her question. She needed to give him something—a reason to trust her. The Vesten coin was heavy in her pocket. She hadn’t had time to study it further, but she suspected it would do her more good with Carter than with her. Maybe it could work as a source to evaluate the Vesten magic while they were away from Compass Lake, but part of her knew she couldn’t figure it out on her own. It was a little wild—its heatflaring inconsistently. So very different from the reserved fae before her. But then again, what did she really know about him? “Can you tell me about your magic?” Rose asked.
“Which part?”
“Well,” Rose considered, “that’s just it. I think I’m confused about the duality of Vesten nature. The shifter and the fire wielder.” Rose wasn’t sure what to ask, but she knew she was missing something. As her words came out, she realized why. The gold felt hot, like fire. But especially with what she knew of Arie, the fire seemed—maybe not secondary, but still only a part of a Vesten. When she thought of Arie, she thought of the shapeshifter. She hadn’t known he had fire magic until a few days ago.
Carter chuckled to himself. “It’s an insightful question. No wonder they say you’re such a powerful weapon-maker. The two parts of the Vesten power are related. I’m guessing some part of your magic struggles to understand that.”
“What do you mean?” she pressed.
He shrugged. “When Lord Arctos gave his magic to create the Vesten, they were both fire wielders and shapeshifters. Like the other gods, he was only trying to give them a bit of his elemental magic, but for him, these two things were literally the same. They couldn’t be separated.” He shrugged again. “The fire may appear a magic of its own, but the heat—it’s a fundamental part of the shift. Some say it starts the shift. I don’t think the Vesten god could have given us one without the other.”
Rose was stunned. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t put that together. If flame and shift were one, how was she supposed to get the coin to do anything? She couldn’t shift. Whatever it did, she was confident it needed to be in a shifter’s hands to work.
Carter cut off her train of thought. “Though I guess you may know differently.” His gaze was appraising, cautious again after what he’d shared.
“Arie and I didn’t talk about our magic until a few days ago. It was an unspoken rule of our friendship. I don’t have some secret knowledge of your Vesten ways.” She paused, trying to get him to meet her gaze again. He stubbornly refused. “I’d like to learn.”
He was receptive to the ask, if maybe surprised by it. His eyes widened briefly, still looking around the room, but he began to explain. “The fire starts the shift. And then, once in a shifted form, I liken it to an animal’s heartbeat as they hunt their prey. Nothing is like being in my animal skin, but it feels close when I use my fire in my fae form. I don’t have an answer for you that could be found in an educational text. I can only tell you they are part of the same cycle to me. I feel most alive when I use them together.”
She nodded at his explanation. It was similar to what she had come to expect. Magic was never simple or straightforward to explain.
She had never seen Arie’s fire, but she’d felt the flame of his existence when he’d momentarily inhabited her as they fought off Aterra. He had been in an animal form, and frankly, that was still all she knew of him. But the heat that ran through him when they shared space was synonymous withlife.
“Most alive…” She repeated his words, thinking about what they meant. “That makes sense. Both the animal form and the fire are uninhibited life.”
“Well.” Carter’s gaze shifted. “Uninhibited life might be a stretch, but our power certainly focuses on understanding and appreciating existence.”
She couldn’t quite grasp the meaning between his words. Something was still missing. But she’d learned more from this conversation than she ever would from the coin. In this, she knew that Arie had been wrong, and she needed to find a way to course correct with Carter. He may have been evasive, but he still gave her new information about Vesten magic.
Her magic wanted to explore his—if he’d let her. “I’d like to try to evaluate your magic a little more since we have time. I’m unsure if I have enough connection to the Vesten magic to make you a weapon while we’re away from Vesten house.” He met her gaze without hesitation this time, shock evident in the stretch of his features. She surprised him a bit more as she pulled the coin from her pocket and held it out. “But I’d like to try.”
“Try what—what’s this?”
“It’s yours. Arie wanted me to borrow it, to use it as a source, to help make you a weapon on this trip.”
“Mine?” His mouth moved as he seemed to be sorting through memories. “The coin was what you found? You stole this from Vesten house?” Carter’s eyes widened impossibly further.
“Is it stealing when the Vesten god hands it to you? I think it’s his, after all.”
Carter looked down at it, then back to Rose. He didn’t seem to have an argument against that. But he also still looked stunned to be holding it. “Why are you giving it to me now?”
“I think he might have been wrong in this.” Rose smiled to herself, momentarily wishing Arie were here to hear her. “I think…I can learn more about the Vesten magic from you, not from the artifact. I’m giving it to you as a peace offering, hoping these conversations might continue.”
“And if I don’t want them to?” Carter’s eyes narrowed.
“Then they don’t. All I can say is that Arie wanted you to have a magic weapon, and I’d like to try to make you one.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Carter disappeared for most of the afternoon. They spent the remainder of the day resting their magic. Rose’s wind was tired from the morning, her water eager to take over, but she didn’t think that was what this task required. She didn’t know if she’d be up for trying to close the hole again this afternoon.
“So, we’re just going to sit in this village?” Juliette asked.
Rose could understand her frustration. But she didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else we can do. We could continue to head south, but without the compass to guide us, we’d just continue to the southern sea.”
Juliette crossed her arms over her chest. “Should we return to Compass Lake?”
“I think we can give it another day,” Luc said.
