I imagine the water, droplets hanging in the air, just waiting to be called. I can almost see it, shimmering faintly in the darkness of my mind, but it’s just out of reach, slipping away whenever I try to grasp it.
“Concentrate. I know you’re close; I can feel it,” Rylan urges, his voice a low rasp. “Feel the need, the urgency. Let it guide you.”
I bite my lip, focusing harder than I’ve ever focused on anything in my life. I picture the water again, imagine the coolness of it, the way it moves and flows. I need this.
Rylan needs this. I can’t fail. Iwon’t.
Then, slowly, something shifts. It’s faint at first, just a flicker of awareness, like a distant echo. But it grows stronger, a ripple of energy deep within me, something cool and fluid stirring at the edges of my consciousness. I latch onto it, pulling it closer, willing it to come to the surface.
And then, suddenly, I feel it—a connection, like a thread pulling at the water in the air.
I open my eyes just as the first droplets begin to form, tiny beads of moisture gathering on Rylan’s burned skin. He lets out a sigh of relief as the water touches him, cooling the angry redness.
“Good, Eirabella. That’s helping,” he breathes, his voice strained but filled with a hint of hope. “More.”
Encouraged,I dig deeper, focusing all my will on drawing more water from the air. I imagine the droplets growing larger, merging together, forming a gentle stream. Slowly, the moisture increases, small drops coalescing into a steady trickle from my fingers that flows over his burned hand, soothing the pain.
The strain wears on me, the effort it takes to keep the water flowing, but I push through, determined to help him. The stream grows stronger, enough to cover his entire hand, the cool water washing over his burns. His breath slows, the tension in his body easing as the pain begins to fade.
For a moment, we stay like that—me, kneeling beside him, concentrating with everything I have on keeping the stream of water steady, and him, finally allowing himself to relax as the healing coolness works its magic. The firelight dances around us, casting flickering shadows, and the night air is filled with the sound of the gentle stream I’ve created.
Finally, when I feel the energy within me start to wane, I blink, and it’s like something shuts down in my brain, and the water disappears. The last of the droplets fall onto his hand, and I collapse onto the forest floor, exhausted, gasping for breath.
Rylan looks at me, gratitude and something else—something deeper—glimmering in his eyes. “Thank you, Eirabella,” he whispers, the words heavy with meaning. He flexes his hand, testing it, and I can see the redness has faded, the burns already looking less severe.
I’m too tired to respond, but I manage a small nod, my heart still pounding from the effort. As I sit there, catching my breath, the realisation hits me like a punch to the gut: I did it. I found the power within me, and I used it to help someone. It wasn’t perfect, and it took everything I had, but it happened.
When the thumping in my head abates, I steal a look at Rylan to see he’s already looking at me. Neither of us looksaway. I have no idea what he’s thinking; I only know that I don’t want to be the first to break the gaze.
Before I can say anything, the sound of hurried footsteps approaches. The other guards come running back, their expressions worried as they scan the area, clearly alert to something being wrong.
“What happened?” Grellor demands, his hand hovering near his weapon.
Rylan, composed despite the earlier pain, shakes his head and says calmly, “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
But I can’t let it go that easily. Ignoring the warning look Rylan throws me, I explain, “His arm caught fire. He was hurt, got burned.”
Grellor huffs, crossing his arms over his chest as he eyes Rylan critically. “Since when can’t you control one of your own Strengths?”
I freeze. “Whatdid you say?” I ask.
Grellor shrugs and kicks some leaves over the puddle that my water,my Strength,created on the forest floor. “One of his Strengths is fire. He hasn’t been burned by it since—”
“Er, Grellor?” Mathis’s voice interrupts. “Come help me find something for dinner. Yosef keeps scaring everything away with his incessant humming.” The giant guard murmurs something under his breath and shuffles back into the darkness with Mathis, who throws Rylan a questioning look.
The truth dawns on me with a sickening clarity.
Rylan didn’t lose control—he did thison purpose, forcing me to use my power. His Strength is fire, and he set his own arm alight. He could’ve stopped that fire from spreading, even catching, at any time.
“Rylan, is that true?” I ask, the question clear in my voice.Why?
He grimaces, fighting something within himself. Then hetakes a deep, deep breath and says, “You wanted to know if you could have use of your magic again. Now you know.” He squats back down by the fire. Then, as Rylan watches it with intense eyes, it unfurls into a raging inferno, the flames reaching so high into the night that I can't even see him on the other side of it.
And then, just like that, it dies back down again.
But when my eyes search for him, he’s gone.
A combination of feelings and thoughts crowd my head, making it pound again, and I press against my temples. It’s not just the manipulation that unsettles me. I saw his skinburn. I saw the raw, angry red flesh beneath the flames. The injury was real. He let himself burn, enduring the agony just to push me to my limits. Incredulity ripples through me as I grasp the extent of his determination. He was willing to suffer—to hurt himself—just to prove a point, just to make me tap into the power he’s convinced I have.
