Page 111 of Rising Out of the Darkness
“That was for distracting me from your training. Now, let’s get back to concentrating.”
With a snort and a shake of my head, I saluted. “Yes, Captain.”
It took me a while to concentrate on my emotions enough to finally make some progress on my Terran dynamis. I managed to make some cracks within the soil, and even lifted asmaller rock and watched it hover in the air before it plummeted to the ground seconds later.
“Excellent work, Elena.” Nayla patted me on the back. “Let’s try one more thing before we call it a day.”
The sun had started to fall behind the horizon, the sky already painted in an array of warm pinks, violets and oranges. Stretching my arms out wide, I let out a yawn and nodded with approval.
Nayla knelt in the dirt and patted the ground next to her. I mirrored her, sitting back on my heels as I awaited instructions.
“Okay, let’s see if you can summon some roots or vines.”
“That’s possible?” I asked, trying to hide my shock.
With a smirk, she answered. “It is, for some who have powerful dynamis.”
Okay then, challenge accepted.
After stretching my neck from side to side, I place my palms on the dirt. Digging my fingers into the ground, I closed my eyes and summoned my emotions, my dynamis.
Terran, Frost and Tide abilities required calm and serene emotions, which was the opposite of me. So, naturally I was struggling with these dynamis the most.
Controlling my breathing was the first step. Stretching my lungs, I inhaled and exhaled four deep, steady breaths. Reaching even further, I searched for the one feeling that had always pulled me out of the dark, that had always helped me find a sense of calm—love.
As painful as it was to remember, I thought of my mother, the way her fingers would brush through my hair as she sang me to sleep. My father’s embrace was the next thing I felt. As my dynamis surged beneath my skin, I imagined roots twirling underneath my fingertips, vines slithering out from the ground and curling all around us. With a peek, I noticed the groundaround us was still empty, so I dug even deeper into my emotions.
I closed my eyes again. The memory of Declan’s face flashed before me, his emerald eyes blazing a hole straight into my soul. All at once, I could feel the softness of his lips as they crashed against my own, and my entire body ignited in furious heat. I could feel my dynamis pulsing everywhere inside of me, rippling against my skin, just waiting to be released.
“Uh…” Nayla cleared her throat. “Elena, your skin is glowing,” she whispered, just as the creak of wood arose from behind us.
The roots of the gods’ tree began to ripple and sway as smaller roots sprouted from the ground and intertwined themselves around the five solid roots. Silence passed as we both watched the smaller roots create a protective barrier around the larger ones.
“Lena, you should pull back your dynamis.”
Nayla’s words faded behind me. All I could concentrate on was the demanding call of my dynamis. I could feel the power threading through me, melting into the ground underneath my fingers. When I opened my eyes, my body jolted. Wrapped around my hands and arms were soft green vines, with leaves … and thorns.
“Ouch!” I yipped as a thorn dug into my pointer finger, causing it to bleed.
Before I could wipe it away, the vines took on a life of their own, circling around my wrists. With a forceful tug, the vines slammed my hands back into the ground.
Thousands of voices invaded my mind, everyone talking all at once, a hum of conversation. One voice, however, felt louder than the others, almost like it was trying to summon me. Eyes squeezed shut, I dug my fingers deeper into the soil?—
“Elena!”
Shocked by the sound, I released my grasp on the soil and crashed onto my backside.
That voice.
It was the same voice I’d heard waking me from every nightmare. The only voice. The voice of the goddess in my Ascension.
As my mind struggled to absorb what had just happened, the vines continued to grow around me and the gods’ tree. I opened my glowing palm just as a vine slid between my fingers, and a beautiful bud blossomed into a flower right before our eyes.
“Gods above,” Nayla gasped, pressing a kiss to her lips and placing it against the root of the gods’ tree behind us. The petals of the flower continued to unfold as we sat silently, in awe over what I had just created.
“Lena,” she whispered. “No one has ever done that, not even my mother, and she was…very powerful.”
Shaken from my trance, I was able to process her words. “No one has ever done what?”
