My eyes went wide. “So I can heal the trees?”
Krew’s eyes met mine. “It appears so. I don’t know, love. I’ve never seen anything like this. It must be your Iron Will. Or maybe just your will to save the forest. I don’t know.”
“Beginner’s luck?” I whispered as my eyes traveled up the tree, still in shock I had done this.
“There’s only one way to test that theory,” Owen grinned. “Do it again.”
Krew shook his head. “We need to keep this a secret from my father for as long as possible.”
Owen popped his shoulders up into a shrug. “Fine. Tell him you two had an argument in the forest and she cried by these two trees.” He patted the bark of the dead tree next to the one I had just healed. “Do this one too. Then we will call it a day.”
I looked at my palms, seeing and feeling no magic for the first time since it’d woken me this morning.
“Jorah.”
My eyes went to Owen’s.
“Do you remember what the first few days of training with me felt like?”
I smirked. “Yes. They were pure hell.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, this is a lot like that. Think of your magic as a muscle. You will be sore and a bit unsteady at times here at first. But as you gain your strength, it will get easier. We will teach you the right way. How to contain it, will it away, and how to use it frequently so that it truly becomes an extension of you.Yourun your magic, your magic does not run you.”
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t like I had any other options, was it?
Owen patted the tree next to him. “Come on. This one next.”
“Can you at least move first?” I asked. “Please?”
He shook his head. “Nope. One of the first and most important lessons you will need to learn about magic is to trust your magic, to trust yourself. So I trust you. Send the magic into the tree. Not me.”
I swallowed. “Can’t that be tomorrow’s lesson? I would really prefer it if you didn’t sprout leaves.”
Krew came to my defense. “Owen, she’s barely slept.”
“She can sleep after this,” Owen promised. “Come on, Jorah. You can do this. One more tree. And then a nap.”
I wanted to hate Owen for this. I wanted to scream that I had never wanted this power to begin with. But looking into Owen’s green eyes, all I saw was how much he truly believed in me. There was no doubt in Owen’s eyes. He knew I could do it. Even if I did not.
I took a deep breath and moved forward from Krew. The sooner we got this over with, the sooner I could go back to sleep.
I closed my eyes, envisioning what the strands of my magic had just done with the other tree. They had healed it. Healing the tree and not harming the forest at all in the process. I felt the buzzing of my magic pull to the surface, the heat of it along my skin. Just to see if it could, I pictured the magic leaving out of my pinky finger this time instead.
I opened my eyes just before willing the magic to leave my body to see the magic leave my pinky finger and head straight for the tree.
Both strands avoided Owen, winding around the bark just as it had on the other tree. Around and around it went, then burst into more strands which traveled along the branches, the thick ones first, then the smaller ones, and in a final burst, the magic was gone, leaving another green tree in its wake.
Owen looked above him and grinned. “Remarkable, Jorah. Remarkable.”
“Are you sure you guys cannot do it also?”
Krew shook his head. “No. We can’t.”
A shot of green magic hit the next tree over, doing the same thing mine had, and I held my breath for a moment. What if it was the pattern of magic or something that they’d needed to see? But as Owen’s magic burst at the end of its travel across the branches, nothing happened. The dead tree remained.
I rubbed my forehead. “This makes no sense.” I also felt exhausted. All tension had left my body, and I felt as if I were a standing noodle. I was tired and confused, but finally, finally relaxed.
“We will figure it out later,” Krew offered as he put a hand at the small of my back. “Let’s get you back to our wing.”
