Page 38 of Tangled Power
Eyes still closed, she smiled to herself. She was glad Arie had made them take this coin, though she would never tell him. He was still wrong about when to give it to Carter. But she’d be more than happy to tell him that when he returned. As much as she understood his decision to go—to try to find his friend—she missed him.
Chocolate and sandalwood filled her nostrils. Carter’s magical scent didn’t fill the air around him when he called it. It was more like a slow seep into the area. The fire had burned for minutes, and his magic fanned the flame. The scent of his magic grew, just like the fire itself. It started as a spark before burning hot and fast. Once she smelled it, though, she couldn’t miss it.
Opening her eyes, she stared at the flame. Getting past her own fire trauma was not part of this journey. A Vesten had not controlled the flame that took her home and nearly her life. She instead thought of bonfires on the Norden beach as a child. She thought about reading in front of the fire with Arie curled up in cat form. She imagined the fires that heated her forge, connecting her to Mom through their love of making weaponry.
Finally, she let her magic reach toward the flame—toward its connection to the Vesten Point beside her. Before sinking into the heart of it, she instinctively felt the connection to life that Carter had mentioned but had yet to explain.
The flame gave life to the shifter. She couldn’t help but sense the opposite as well. The fire ended the shifter’s existence as the Vesten went back to their fae form. It was a cycle of life and death. Well, that wasn’t quite right. What had he said before about the Vesten having an interest in existence? The shifter didn’t die—it could be brought to existence again at the fae’s command. Maybe it was similar to how most humans and fae on the continent believed in an afterlife. That felt closer. The cycle of shift and flame didn’t feel like death—an end—so much as a constant connection to new beginnings.
Maybe the Vesten connected to whatever was beyond death on the continent.
Rose was confused by this part of her exploration. She really hadn’t even made it to the heart of his magic—too distracted by this tangent. One would imagine she had more experiencethinking about the afterlife given the loss of her family, but for her, it hurt too much to look too closely.
She took a deep breath as she pulled her magic back. Meeting Carter’s eyes, she noted his quickly darted away. “I think that’s enough for tonight,” she said.
“How’d it go?” he asked hesitantly.
She wondered how many of his secrets she had begun to unearth and how much more uncomfortable that would make him. “I got caught up in a cycle thinking about the new beginnings between flame and shift, shift and flame,” she said. She expected him to be disappointed. She thought she’d failed with the fragile trust he’d offered her—but when she looked, his smile burned brighter than the forge.
They hadan audience the next morning as they walked into the market square. Word had spread that the Compass Points were here, and they were trying to close the hole. Rose nervously tugged on her compass chain, checking to see where it led. Unmistakably, it set her on the path she was currently on, heading straight for the center of the square.
In her heart, Rose knew the compass direction wouldn’t change. She still felt this was the right thing to do. It exercised their power together. It healed old wounds. And it just might be a new start for Luc and his relationship with his magic.
Luc squeezed her hand as they made it to the center, pulling her from her thoughts. At least he’d stopped wearing his cloak hood up while they walked through the village. Not that there was ever a possibility of hiding their presence.
“Are we trying anything different than yesterday?” she asked as they came to a stop before the hole.
“I think the roles are the same, but we might know a bit more about what we’re doing,” Carter said. He still seemed energized from whatever her magic evaluation had told him the night before. Honestly, it was a bit of a failure to her, but it seemed to be exactly what he was looking for.
“Alright, everyone to their places then.”
Luc stood before the hole. Rose could already feel him gathering his power. He would focus it on pulling the hole closed. Carter stood next to him, a fire lit in the palm of his hand, ready to toss it into the abyss. Juliette and Rose stood a little to the side, where they could send their wind circling the hole, helping to tighten its circumference.
Wind rushed from Rose to the hole. Juliette’s stream encased hers, following the same path. The feeling of rightness from yesterday snuck back into Rose’s mind. The tighter Juliette’s wind stream circled around hers, the more something in her said they were getting closer. Rose glanced at the hole. She saw Carter’s fire lighting up the darkness of its depths. Luc was throwing off so much earth magic, she thought he might be trying to move mountains. Or maybe move the village of Loch away from the hole and call it a solved problem.
She didn’t know how long they would last, using this much magic. Rose closed her eyes, diving into her power, searching for the door she found yesterday. Finding the lake, her power reserve, was easy. Using this much wind magic meant that the gust blowing across the lake was also present. She let it sweep her away. It had led her to the door yesterday.
The wind blew and billowed, carrying her around the lake, but didn’t seem to have a final destination. Rose opened her eyes, searching Loch’s market square again as the Compass Points used their magic in tandem. Luc never seemed to run out of power, but Rose could feel hers waning already. The hole seemed to suck her magic into it without letting it doanything. Carter didn’t appear to tire, but the newly returned coin probably had something to do with that. She wondered how Juliette was faring.
At the thought of Juliette, the wind guiding Rose around the lake of power inside her, tugged her back to it. Not one to ignore signs, Rose closed her eyes and let the magic lead. The wind blew across the lake, and back to the familiar door she saw yesterday. Unwilling to let another interruption stop this exploration, she flung open the door. Though no house, no path, was attached to the door in her center, peering through the opening revealed a set of steps. It was remarkably similar to the way she’d explored Juliette’s magic when she made the daggers. She searched around the door before going through. There was still no building attached that would indicate where the stairs led. The door was almost like a portal to another place. She shrugged and followed the magic down a set of steps.
She didn’t make it far before being met with a powerful burst of wind. It funneled toward her like a cyclone, billowing past and back across her lake. The door, an opening to a new power reserve. Her wind needed the boost, and the power funneling through the door was more than willing to oblige.
Rose opened her eyes again as the encasing wind Juliette had been providing thinned. The overall stream size didn’t change, though. More wind power pushed through Rose’s initial blast. Luc grunted in surprise as the circumference of the hole shrank. Each of the Compass Points seemed able to feel the change, pushing their elements with a final boost.
“It’s working,” Carter said.
The hole continued to get smaller until, finally, it closed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Their accomplishment wasn’t met with cheers. A child had still lost his life. The history of the village and hole would never be easy. Rose’s magic hummed their success, though. It had absolutely been the right thing to do.
The villagers gave the Compass Points a wide berth, and as they left the square, Rose noticed no one was eager to walk to the center. It would certainly take time to believe this was a real change, but her magic told her it was—and that it was a necessary step in unifying the Compass Point’s power.
“We should probably get out of here and let the village determine what this means for them, right?” Rose asked as they walked back to the inn.
“I agree,” Juliette said. A question in her gaze gave Rose pause. Was she not happy about their success?
