Page 8 of A Dance With Fire
4
Twin Flames
“Shula, are you okay? Are you harmed?” Fanny’s hands slid over Shula’s whole body, patting her down to check for injuries that weren’t there. Shula grabbed Fanny’s wrists and gently pushed them away.
“I’m fine, Fanny. They didn’t hurt me.”
Fanny expelled a breath of relief, her eyes closing as if sending out a quiet prayer to her god. When her eyes opened, there was a ferocity in them that moved Shula. “Good. The audacity of those soldiers! As if you’d ever be an Esses!” Shula held back her flinch at the word. “Really, the nerve! Shouldn’t they know what those pointed ear abominations look like?” Even as she said the words, her eyes strayed over to Shula’s ears, not visible beneath her dark waves of hair. “Although, I do admit I’d been curious for a while. You’re always hiding your ears.”
All Shula could do was wave her words away with a careless flicker of her hand, but her insides were rolling like clouds after a storm. “I’m self-conscious. My ears are too small.” A lie. The real reason she hid them was so no one could ever see the scars, the proof of what she’d been forced to do to keep herself safe.
“You have nothing to be self-conscious about. All of you is lovely, I am sure your ears are too. As long as they aren’t pointed, who cares what they look like?"
The words were like a small dagger to her heart. They hurt. They put a pressure on her chest that made it hard to breathe for a fraction of a second. If she needed any more proof that no one would ever accept her true nature, it was right here. While she’d known that, she couldn’t believe that it still hurt to realize it, fully and completely.
She took a step away from the human. Her friend. Were they even friends? she questioned. Surely friends should know one another’s darkest secrets. What did Fanny really know about Shula?
She knew all the things that mattered.
She recognized the lie for what it really was. And all she wanted right then was to get away. To go see someone who knew what she really was, what she kept inside. Someone who would understand.
She couldn’t explain it, couldn’t even understand it herself. This sudden, fierce need to be acknowledged when she never even acknowledged herself.
“I—I have to go,” Shula said, her voice shaking with emotion.
Fanny’s blonde brows pulled into a tight frown. “Are you okay? You look flushed.” She pressed her palm against Shula’s cheek and her frown deepened. “And a fever has set in.”
Shula pulled away, not able to bear her friend’s touch. She tried to explain away her abrupt behavior by forcing a smile to her lips. “Fine. Perfect. I think last night’s sweet meat upset my stomach.” That was too much information, but she didn’t care. She just had to get away.
“Oh, okay. If you need a tea brewed let me know. I’m sure we could find something to ease the aches. Are you sure you don't want me to—”
But Shula was already turning and staggering away.
She couldn’t help this pull she felt to find Davina. It was a bad idea, a terrible one, and yet her blood hummed. Her nerves were on edge and she felt like her blood was boiling beneath her skin. Her clothes clung uncomfortably to her skin and she tugged at the garments. They felt all too suffocating, causing her lungs to squeeze and her breath to come out in short pants.
She didn’t know when she started running, just that her feet were pounding against the earth, rocks digging into the calloused skin. She couldn’t feel the pain of it, couldn’t break past the wall of her own tumultuous emotions rising, higher and hotter against her skin like they would break forth at any moment. Like something violent and wild lived beneath her skin, waiting to explode.
She didn’t stop running until she saw the hand painted sign that readDavina’s Fortune and Tarot Readings.She burst past the tent flaps only to find the place empty.
She didn’t bother calling out to Davina. She could already sense she wasn’t there. There were no sounds of breathing or the eerie, prickling sense she usually got at the back of her neck when others were near.
Shula tried to calm her breathing, but that sense of wrongness still climbed viscerally beneath her skin. The need to find Davina just grew stronger and stronger. She walked out of the tent. Everything seemed brighter, every noise louder in a way it had never been before. Not even when she’d been growing into her powers as a child had she felt this ill.
Shula was by no means a seer; she couldn’t see the future in any capacity. Her own powers were more volatile than that, more unpredictable. Yet the strangest sense of premonition settled over her mind. The image flared in her mind as if she was seeing it through the eyes of someone else. Because she was. She was staring down at the rush of river water, a flash of bare skin, hands with long fingers and purple nails that looked like claws.
Davina.
She was seeing this from Davina’s own eyes. It was a calling, like will-o’-the-wisps beckoning Fae to their fate, and Shula had to answer.
A moment later, the image faded, and she rushed across the circus grounds. She followed the river upwards, the sensation in her blood growing stronger with every step she took, each more grueling than the last.
And then she finally saw her.
Davina stood in the shallow end of the river, bare from head to toe. Water rolled off skin as smooth as porcelain. Her long hair was unbound and cascaded over her shoulder and down to her narrow hips. The lush locks left her ear bare on one side like a flaring sign of culpability, the tip elongated and pointed towards the sky.
“Fuck.”
Her own pain forgotten, Shula rushed to Davina, the water soaking through the hem of her long skirts. Her legs tangled, but she kicked the material away with impatience as she reached the Fae, fingers already unwrapping the scarf from around her shoulders.
