Page 40 of Wings of Lies
“A warmup for what? Are you trying to kill me?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time, then said, “No, I’m really not. I want you to survive, Lucy. So let’s practice.” He stopped, allowing me to catch up. “Lusceler is the first thing we’re taught to understand how to tap into our power. It won’t drain you if you use it in small bursts. So, catch me.” He winked and blurred away.
“Oliver!” I screamed. Energy and the needle-like pain of my Glory shot across my skin. I chased after him, catching up to his blurring form. He smiled and stopped when he saw me. Unamused, I whipped out a hand to smack him in the chest and missed when he stumbled back, falling on his ass.
“Fuck-a-duck, Lucy! This is why you need practice.”
Horrified, my flickering white flames sank back into my skin.
Oliver stood. “You need to believe in yourself. You’ve luscelered before. I knew you could do it again and only ran away to prompt you into action instead of thinking about it. And you did, but your panic and fear took over, and I almost got a Lucy-sized handprint.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, biting my lip.
“We’re going to try again. Butwhenyou lusceler, feel your power. Get a sense of how it moves through your body. It should be a trickle of energy, not a river.”
“Okay,” I said, unsure.
“You got this. On a count of three,” he said. “One… two… three!”
Oliver luscelered, and I was right beside him. As we ran, I tried to focus on the energy. It prickled and tickled like a gentler combination of sensations I received from my Glory and my purple flames. But the more I focused on the exhilarating sensation, begging it to stay a trickle, the more the prickles became stabs.
No, no, no.
We hit a rocky incline, and my hands blazed with Glory. Oliver stopped us, noticing my white flames.
“Well, you almost had it.”
Defeated and tired, I sank onto a rock and waited until my stupid flames disappeared. “Why is this so hard?”
“Because you’re a grown adult now learning about your power. Not sure how often that happens.”
I sighed.
Oliver stared up the hill, where the pine trees opened to boulders, looking uncertain. The sun beat down on their white flesh while we paused in the shade. “We’re almost there.” He ran two hands through his hair, squeezing his head.
“Are you worried? Because I have an idea of who can help us find our answers.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t mention it earlier, probably because my powers continued to shock me with their attempts at ruining my life and killing Oliver. “I believe she’s in Elora,” I mumbled to myself. Gosh, she had to be. But there was no way that woman would tell me about the name Magda if she wasn’t in Elora. Especially after telling me my mom was there.
“No.” Oliver dropped his head, refusing to look at me. “I have a plan. We just need to get to The Divide.”
I stared at him as birds chirped and squirrels skittered across the bark of the trees. This was hard on him. He had been avoiding Elorafor so long, and now he would have to break his promise to himself—because of me.
The scent of pine sap calmed my guilt with its earthy freshness.
“We’ll find her, Oliver. We’ll find them both.”
He sighed, giving me a half smile that didn’t meet his guilty emeralds. “Yeah. We’ll see.”
Standing, I grabbed his hand and gave a hopefully reassuring smile. “We will.”
He snatched his hand back like I’d burned him. “We have a few hours left climbing rocks. Practice feeling your power. It could help you.”
I glanced down to make sure I didn’t accidentally burn him. “Right. Okay.”
Stepping on the loose dirt, I latched onto trees to help pull my weight up. Oliver followed me, dodging all the dirt and small rocks I kicked up.
Once we passed the tree line, the terrain became steeper. I had no time to practice my power when I was too focused on crawling over boulders. We gripped their jagged, warm edges and pulled our bodies up. Sweat slicked my palms. A couple of times, we lost our grip on the rocks, sliding down until we caught ourselves or each other. My heart crawled up my throat as I gazed at the potential rocky death behind me, happy to have Oliver and his help.
He stood on a boulder up ahead, tilting his head to the ledge a few meters away, rubbing the tattoo on his wrist. Three irritating rocks separated us. I sat, giving myself a break before climbing them and the five others to get to the ledge.
