Page 53 of Daughter of the Dark Sea
A small smile bloomed on Agatha’s lips. “No child, it is harnessing power fromyou.”
The words she dreaded to hear.
“I don’t have any powers! I’m not a mage,” Kora denied, shaking her head, her ears ringing at the mere thought.
“You may not understand it yet, you may not see it yet, but itisthere, deep within you. I can smell it.” Agatha knowingly looked down, as if she could see right through Kora to her core.
Wheresomethingrumbled back, gleefully attentive.
She did know it. She’dseenit.
The water in the fountain. The water she’d choked on in the medical bay. The seas that ebbed and flowed, favouring her commands. The tide always on her side wherever she sailed. The splashing laps of water that flicked at her legs whenever she wandered along the bay. The thought of being contained to land, to forests, to dry deserts, made her stomach churn, and drove her to dive into the nearest lake and swim until she was surrounded with the expanse of blue.
“The empire may have tried their hardest to quash magic from this world, but it’ll return. Power will be reborn,” Agatha said.
Kora frowned. “Magic disappeared long before the empire spread through the islands. It was eons ago. Before the conquest.”
Agatha paused, clasping her mangled hands together. “A lesson for another time. We need to figure out what to do withit.” Her all-seeing blind eyes warily gazed on the talisman, as if it could hear them speaking.
“What does it all mean? What will this talisman do to me?” Kora’s voice strained.
Agatha shrugged. “I don’t know much, only that it will continue to absorb from you the longer you wear it. You have an affinity with a specific power, and it will leach whatever it can from you. You must keep it close.Do notlet anyone see it. And try to not use your power too much.”
“How can I get rid of it?” Kora pleaded. “How can I learn more?” The need, the drive, to discover more propelled her forward. A thirst for knowledge and truth that was constantly parched.
“You’ll have to ask the Silver Sisters. For they created many of these vessels for mankind, and they guard them with their lives. I don’t believe simply throwing it away will be wise. If yourpower is already leaking into it . . . you don’t want it falling into the wrong hands,” Agatha warned.
Travelling to the Shannara Territory was an ordeal. She had ten days to escort the royal sentinel across Aldara before she could return toHell’s Serpentand sail north for answers, and she was already building a list of questions for the sisters in her mind. To discover what they knew about the talismans, what it meant for her, and how she could safely dispose of it. Why she even had these powers.
“Why is this happening now? Surely mages manifest their powers at a younger age.” Facts surfaced in Kora’s mind from the many dusty tomes stashed away under Agatha’s creaky floorboards.
Agatha’s smile broadened wickedly. “Who’s to say it hasn’t?”
Kora traced her scar, following it from her temple to where it curled around her eye and cheek. A tingling sensation ran along the length of the scar, to the base of her skull and down her spine.
Had she been a mage before she lost her memory?
Were her family mages? Was that why they’d been murdered?
Who am I?
“Remember. . .”the voice echoed in her mind. It was a fleeting whisper, so quiet Kora was unsure if she’d heard it. Agatha shifted in her stool, her knobbly knuckles grazing the ends of her braid.
Gods, she was getting a headache.
“I have to venture across the land soon, I’ll be gone a couple weeks,” Kora mumbled, sipping her tea now it had cooled, in hopes it would ease her swimming mind.
She reached into the hidden pocket lining the inside of the cloak, and dropped a small bag of silver bits onto the table. Thesound perked Agatha up, and she fumbled for Kora, clasping at her forearm in gratitude.
“Thank you, my dear.”
If Agatha could see, she’d realise the coins donned the symbol ofDemon Sea Siren, stolen from Captain Cannon’s personal stash of loot hidden within his desk. It was all Kora could offer her for now.
She would visit Agatha whenever she made port at Stormkeep Fortress and give her anything she could shave off the top ofHell’s Serpent’splunders to help her get by. Agatha had granted Kora a haven, a place to explore and learn. She’d taught her the tales of Devani gods, the creation of the islands, and the beautiful language they spoke. Agatha had even let her assist in potion swindling, learning what herbs contained medicinal remedies, and which could cause a bout of sickness, paralysis, or even death.
Kora always presumed Agatha saw her as a daughter she never had—or may had lost once. Whenever she tried to pry into Agatha’s past, she was met with a book flying across the room straight for her head, or the slam of the back door where Agatha would curl up and hide beneath her pile of blankets on her red velvet sofa and weep softly.
Kora knew better than to creep up on a crying, blind female with terrifyingly precise aim.
