Page 59 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“Burst. Well, everyone’s magic is different. Focus on that burst.”
I did. My body recalled the pain. Despite the hot, aching skin on my mangled leg, and the shivers coursing through me at the memory, I struggled to remember.
“Hot. Everything was hot,” I muttered. “Coming from my chest.”
“Your…chest?”
“Yes.”
Allie went silent, but I continued. “I felt like I was caged, the power barely out of my grasp. But I couldn’t–I couldn’t access it. Until I did.”
My arms shook with the strain of trying to dig through myself for that charged sensation.
But there was nothing there now. No spark, no thrill, no burst, no magic.
As the sweat pooled at the base of my temples, my eyes flew open. My fingers had turned white from pushing against the table, as if trying to burrow into the wood itself to find power.
“I can’t,” I said, voice hollow. All my excitement evaporated, leaving me as cold as I’d felt back in that cabin.
“You did it once,” Allie said evenly, index finger pressed against her lips. Her face had turned to stone, no emotion.
“Because I had no other choice.”
“You can’t rely on risking your life to bring out your power.”
“I know.” My shoulders sagged as I pushed against the table, disappointment beating at me. “How was it for you?”
Allie’s lips quirked. “I was about eight, a year after Clara manifested for the first time, as she likes to remind me. Dax had been running after me with a beetle in his hands, trying to tangle it in my hair. I tripped and blue tendrils began shooting out of me, waiting for me to direct them. And I did, straight toward Dax. He fell on his ass, eyes wide. I also like to remind him of that.”
The hollowness inside me grew. So many memories I hadn’t been there for. “And after that? How did you access it again?”
Allie hesitated. She opened and closed her mouth, but that damn finger was still pressed to her lips, as if she didn’t want to speak at all. “Once I first manifested, it was like a pocket had been carved inside of me. All I had to do was open it and the power was there.”
I deflated even more. If only it would be as easy as sewing a pocket inside myself.
“It takes time,” Allie said with a patience and gentleness I didn’t know she was capable of. “First, you have to learn how to access your power whenever you want. Then I can teach you how to wield it. How to recite incantations, how to detect spells, how to curse your enemies. But I can’t find your power for you.”
I sighed, wiping the sweat off my brow.
“Practice and patience, Evie. Power doesn’t come easy and it always has a price,” Allie said. “That’s the hardest lesson of all.”
I looked down at my wrapped leg; the white gauze was now pink. I’d bled through it again. Poor Goose had almost passed out when he’d helped me patch the wound up this morning. Nothing came easy.
“I’ll practice,” I promised her, determination beating away the frustration. I had sixteen years of training to make up for, and one miracle born out of deathly desperation couldn’t undo the time I’d wasted.
Clanks in the courtyard stole my attention away.
“You’re doing that thing with your ears,” Allie said. “Fascinating.”
“What thing?”
“They move and the tips redden when you’re listening intently.”
Like a doe in the forest when a branch snapped behind her. The sounds in the courtyard grew louder.
“Excuse me, but I need to investigate. Either someone is fighting in my courtyard or the Capital citizens are trying to tear down my house,” I said.
Allie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even joke about that.”
