“Hey!” I pull at my wrist, but his grip doesn’t budge. It just grows tighter. “You’re hurting me,” I protest.
Fear.
It unwinds and pushes all my feelings from my chest as if I can’t contain my feelings when fear is so near the surface.
The room shudders, the crack of thunder now even louder than before, as if forming inside the room and not overhead in the sky like before. And that heat is back, infusing every part of my body, but it keeps growing. It feels like I’m going to burn, my skin growing sensitive, pain radiating from the place he’s holding me. “Stop!” I shout and pull my arm back, but I just watch as the man looks at me and his grip on my arm.
I don’t know how I know he’s going to do it, but something in my mind clicks, like a chill settling over me. He’s going to push me—throw me across the room. It adds to my worry, but also adds to something else inside of me, too. The heat I felt a moment ago shifts, solidifying, and I pull strength from that. And I know I’m going to be able to pull my arm free. This time, as I jerk against his hold, his grasp slips, and he stumbles forward towards me with the momentum.
His face contorts in disdain, and I can see the thought that he has play out in slow motion. But I won’t stand and let him humiliate me like this. So, I step forward first, brace both my hands over his chest and shove him. As hard as I can.
He flies back across the floor and crumples at the base of the steps.
“Ever!” I hear Lyle, and the room—the full room—comes back into focus.
The air clears, my body comes back to me, and I look over the scene in front of me.
The man looks furious, his face reddening by the second, his eyes narrowing and aimed directly at me.
Lyle stands between me and him as realisation threatens. I assaulted him.
Suddenly, I see the witch, rather, the Maker, stand with the two women flanking her.
“Thank you, Ever. You may go,”she addresses me inside my mind again.
“Stop talking to me inside my head.”My eyes flash to her.
“Why can I hear you both?”A new voice joins. One I haven’t heard before.
“We are still learning the extent of Ever’s magic, Kamari. She will need all our support. Especially before the Transference.”
“Stop it. Both of you. Get out of my head!”
I watch as they both—the witch and the woman in purple—jolt. Kamari was the woman in purple, then.
“What was that?” Lyle asks.
“I don’t know. But I want to leave.”
“You haven’t?—”
“I have finished.” Cutting her off, “The witch said so.”
“She is not a witch, Ever, please.” Kyra is at my side all of a sudden, her voice soft and settling.
“Fine. The Maker told me to go. So, I’m leaving.” I turn around, ready to storm out.
But there’s someone else in my way.
seven
. . .
Aten
Training is delayed for some unknown reason today. Rowan didn’t inform us until we were all up and ready, though. One of the drawbacks of living in the training residence is that the custodians are your new instructors and officers, so you have to learn to take orders pretty quickly.
The conversation with my mother has been weighing on me the last couple of days, so I decided to seek an audience with Kamari, the head of my Order.
