Page 27 of Nightbane
The dirt was dead in her hands.
Isla sat in the middle of Wild Isle, fingers curled into the soil. The headache and voices hadn’t gone away, but she forced them to the corners of her mind. She had been trying and failing to use her powers for nearly an hour.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Before ...” All she’d had to do was place a hand on the forest floor and it had exploded with life and color.
Oro was standing a few feet away, leaning against a half-rotted tree. “Raw power is like a beast. Without mastery, it lashes out unpredictably. Not always when you want it to.” The memory of the rebels touching her skin flitted through her mind. “That’s why learning control is so important.”
“And difficult?” she asked, finally pulling her hands from the dirt.
“And difficult,” he agreed. “Using it in a directed way requires intense focus.”
Focus.
Her mind was filled to the brim, a thousand thoughts running rampant. She couldn’t focus on a single thought if her life depended on it.
“It might,” Oro said, and only then did she realize she had said part of that aloud. He bent down and grabbed a rock. He placed it in front of her. “Instead of just trying to force your power out, focus all of your mind and energy on this,” he said. “Move it.”
He got up and left.
She whipped around. “Where—where are you going? I thought you were going to train me.”
“I am,” he said.
She watched him walk back to the Place of Mirrors.
Her first impulse was to yell at his back that he had promised not to leave her, but no. She could do this.
Isla dug her fingers into the dirt again. She took a deep breath. Dropped her shoulders. She tried to focus on the sensations around her. The dryness of the ground. The heat of the sun warming the crown of her head. The slight wind making the loose hairs around her face go wild.
It took only a few moments for focusing to feel almost physically painful. Then it slipped, and thoughts poured into her mind like high tide. Worries. Anxieties.
Him.
No. She shut him out, closed her eyes tightly. Dug her fingers deeper into the ground. “I will get this,” she said. “I will forget, and I will focus.”
Would she, though?
Her powers needed a strong vessel. She was a half person. Walking through life carrying the weight of her past around with her.
She tried to force it all away. She sat and curled her fingers even deeper, until dirt ran far up her fingernails.
Nothing happened.
For days, she sat in silence, then went to bed frustrated. Some hours, she could hold her attention in small spurts. Others, distractions would dive in like vultures. Sometimes, the voice in her head was cruel. It was like there was a blade in her mind, feeling around for where it could hurt her the most.
The rock never moved an inch.
When Oro came to meet her that night, she was exhausted and frustrated. “I cannot just spend days staring at a rock,” she said.
“Learning to wield takes time.”
“How long did it take you?”
Oro raised a brow at her. “To master? Years for each power.”
Years. She didn’t have years. Her vision of Grim’s destruction could happen at any moment. She wondered if she should have told the other representatives and rulers about it. Would they trust her at all? Would they believe she was working with Grim, like the woman after the drek attack?
He must have seen her face drop because he said, “It won’t always be hard. One day, something will give. Some of a ruler’s mastery of power is like a key clicking into a lock.”
