Great.
“Come on.” Ten leads me to the bench with my ‘friends’, but the silence remains as we sit. I grab a plate and busy myself with food. If I can keep anything down, that is.
“Eat. You need your strength.” Ten nods at the food on my plate that’s yet to make it to my mouth.
I tear at the bread roll.
“Classroom. Fifteen minutes,” Rowan yells into the hall, and I sigh, feeling exhausted and shaken.
“It can’t be worse than what you’ve already been through,” Micah offers.
“I’m blaming you if it is.” My jovial attempt is pathetic.
The small roll and accompanying soup are all I manage before we all make our way into the classroom in the training centre. My limbs tremble, but I disguise it, shaking it off as though it’s just another lesson.
I can do this.
“Okay. New tactic for training. No combat. But we all need to work out what Ever’s gifts are.” There are a few murmurs around, but I stay silent. “None of you has had the experience of working with a Fifth. So, we all need to know how they can help us, be an advantage in a battle, or, potentially, be used in a Triune.” Rowan looks around the class at us. “We’ve been focusing on one-on-one. You should know how you can use each other’s power to your own advantage, working together. Three will shape and change your powers again. That’s the goal. But the other factor in this is Ever.” He looks at me now, and I don’tknow if there’s an element of pride shining in his eyes. A hum works up my spine as the rest of the class also looks at me—I can feel the combined pressure. All of it on me. “So, stand up. Push the tables back. It’s time to find out. Touch only, let’s start slowly.”
Everyone starts moving, the scrape of wood against the stone floor jarring me, and I, too, stand, but hug the back wall.
My gaze looks to Ascella, but her blue eyes narrow, and she whips herself away from me, standing on the opposite side of the room.
“She’ll come around.” Micah nods in her direction, where she’s taken position next to Raiden, their closeness obvious amongst the others.
The rest of the trainees gravitate to the edge of the room, Calix sitting on the table he just moved, swinging his legs. When I look at him, he’s not scowling at me or shooting metaphorical daggers at my head. His eyes are kind, maybe. He crunches into a gleaming red apple and winks at me, like he didn’t just beat me to a pulp an hour ago.
“Now, Ever,” Rowan shouts, clapping his hands together to make his point. “If you can come to the middle. Aurelia has some guidance for you all.” Every instinct I have tells me not to, but if I want to master control, I don’t have a choice. My feet take a step, edging into the centre, and I look for the eldest of our custodians.
“This will be a mental test as much as a physical.” She appears as if summoned from the shadows of the room. “Remember that. And remember what you’ve learned about your power so far. How you can push it out, control it. How it wraps around the power you connect with and how it can consume you if you don’t learn to master it.” It’s the most she’s ever said to me, and sort of makes sense. I want to listen tonothing but more of her words, encouraged that I might glean the very knowledge I’ve been looking for, right from her lips.
“Don’t let it consume you. Fight back, wield it, master it. Not with your physical strength, but the mental strength you hold.” Nodding, I remember how I pushed my thoughts to Lyle. Willed it. Maybe, subconsciously, with Ten. I nod to her as if she’s only talking to me, take two calming breaths, and, closing my eyes, I try to feel my power like Aurelia described.
The noise of the room falls away as I search for… something.
Not surprisingly, Micah stands in the middle with me when I open my eyes again, and I grin at him. “Worried?” I ask hesitantly. Although when we fought, it was nothing like the experience with Ascella.
“Nah. I trust you.” He grins back.
“Make a single connection and concentrate on that,” Aurelia instructs.
I raise my hand as if in an open-palmed salute, and Micah moves his in symmetry. I concentrate on the gap between our hands, feeling for any spark of energy or power and take another breath. Controlling, even identifying the right part of me, is hard when you don’t know what it is you’re looking for.
But after a few seconds, there’s a faint buzzing, a vibration. And I push our palms together, locking all my thoughts onto that sensation. As soon as they connect, it intensifies, and I can feel a surge as the vibration grows. It thrums through me, down into my booted feet and into the floor, where the tremors start.
I open my mind a little more, focusing, concentrating, to see if I can pull more of that power, and it starts to flow, and the ground shakes. My eyes flash to Micah’s, who looks a little confused, and I tilt my head.
But he pulls the connection, taking his hand back, and everything stops.
“Okay?” I check.
“Sure.” He steps back.
“Well done, Ever.” Aurelia praises. I give her a subtle nod and then look back and watch Calix jump off the table and stand forward.
Shit.
“Relax. We’re just gonna have a little chat.”
