Page 56 of Her Dreadful Will
“We’re not going up, are we?” Achan’s breath was short.
Instantly Soleil made her decision. She looked at him with a malicious smile.
“Oh, god,” he groaned. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You really shouldn’t have.”
Soleil scrambled up the steeper path, followed eagerly by the Doberman, who leaped easily from ledge to ledge. She climbed fast, palms scraped and calves burning, until she and Carebear were about halfway up the side of the falls; and then she collapsed on a rock under a beech tree and waited for Achan to catch up. This was far enough to make her point, but not high enough to put them or the dog in real danger.
“Damn you’re fast,” Achan said, hauling himself up to sit beside her. He plucked at his T-shirt, bouncing the fabric lightly off his chest to cool himself.
Soleil drew a thermos from the bag slung across her body and handed it to him. “Drink.”
While he drank, she berated herself for giving in to that impulse to best him. The climb had sucked even more energy from her—the physical energy that supported the remnants of her magical radiance. She felt dizzy and jumbled inside, spots winking across her vision.
“Now you,” he said, handing back the thermos.
She downed several swallows and stowed the bottle again, while she watched the never-ending cascade of glittering water and snowy foam.
When her heartbeat slowed and the spots danced away from her eyes, she spoke. “You’re right. I’m going to kill myself if I keep going like this with my magic. I’m slipping, making mistakes. The other week I mind-flexed this man who came into my shop—a really terrible man. I could see his mind, how he beat his wife and kids. How he wanted to—” She paused, blinking away the memory of the man’s lust, his urge to do violence. “Anyway, I was too slow. I was clumsy and careless, and he got away before I could finish the job. I didn’t even get his name so I could keep tabs on him. I keep thinking about him, wondering if the little bit of magic I did helped at all. Wondering if his family is okay.”
Achan stroked Carebear’s neck for a moment before answering. “I’m sure they’re fine.”
“Well, I can’t afford to make more mistakes like that. I need to be at the top of my game.” She sighed. “Any chance there’s another moon circle happening this weekend?”
“The coven won’t gather again for a couple weeks,” he said. “But I have another way you can glean the energy you need, and accomplish good on an even greater scale.” He glanced at her furtively.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
He jumped up, tying Carebear’s leash to a sturdy branch before sitting next to her again. “Look, I just need you to keep an open mind.”
She sighed. “Fine.”
“You’ve wondered about my primary affinity.”
“Yes.” Her fingers arched against the rock, her whole body tense with expectation.
“I’m a chaos witch.”
21
Soleil had been half-expecting the words, but they still hit her like a landslide, an assault on everything she knew, all she had been taught. The suspicion that Achan might have been sent by the Convocation died in that instant, because neither the Convocation nor the Institute believed in chaos magic.
If he wasn’t one of them—if he wasn’t sent to watch her, to train her—then why was he here? Was it a coincidental choice of location, or something more?
Her view of him kept changing, like the shifting colors and shapes in a kaleidoscope. Unsettling as it was, she had a deep, steadying sense ofhim, underneath everything he might choose to portray, or reveal. The whispered song of his soul, what she could hear through the mandala—it was achingly familiar, like a long-forgotten childhood lullaby.
He watched her, his tattooed fingers arched over his knees, his T-shirt flexing with his quick breaths. Waiting for her to say something.
“Chaos magic is a myth.” Her voice was only a breath louder than the soft rush of the falls. “No one really has that power.”
“So you’ve been told.” He shifted from his sitting position, taking one knee in front of her, his voice raw with intensity. “I have an affinity for it, deeper than anyone else as far as I know. I’ve kept it hidden from almost everyone, even the Institute professors.”
“You masqueraded as a nature witch.” Of course he would have to. They would never have trained him otherwise.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But chaos is my true gift.”
Soleil felt unmoored, untethered, like a ship launched into a high wind. What would that even be like, havingchaosas one’s primary affinity? She couldn’t fathom it.
