The Discovered Page 6

  He was quiet for many long seconds, and I almost wondered if he would say anything at all. “I’m an orphan. I was taken in by some questionable people, and I’m a witch trainer of sorts. I felt your beacon of power when you saved your friend, and like I said before, I just knew I had to help you. It was instinct, like it was a part of some kind of higher purpose. I don’t know how to explain it. As a shield, I knew I could keep you concealed from the people who wished to do you harm, as well as teach you how to wield your power constructively.” He lowered his voice once again, which was strange considering it was just us. “And I know that your enemies are my enemies.”

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” I said, reaching for his hand slowly like he had done for me. He looked at my hand over his pensively for a moment. “I want to trust everything that you say. But I don’t know how to yet. At least not completely.”

  “I know. It’s just hard to tell you certain things about myself because I fear it would trigger that anger within you, and it should be obvious now you’re not equipped to deal with it all yet. You’ll find that our stories run very parallel.”

  He peered out the glass paneling, which made me realize it was pouring down huge droplets of rain, flooding the earth. I wondered idly if that was my doing.

  Probably.

  “And it’s hard to explain how I got here. Like I said, it was instinct—like a force beyond my rational understanding, built into the fabric of my DNA. I still don’t quite understand it. You needed me and I came. I knew that you were special, that you were brought into existence to bring hope back to this realm, to right the wrongs committed against both of us. You feel that don’t you?”

  I was taken aback at how vulnerable he looked in this moment, staring out at the storm. His voice was low and conspiratorial, as if we were planning a coup, and his words mirrored my mothers’ in ways that didn’t seem all too coincidental.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I feel it.”

  Chapter 4

  “I’m sorry, Momma,” I cried. “I’m sorry.” I begged them to meet my eyes, clenching my small fists so I wouldn’t unleash any more magick. I’d seen the lamb limp onto our property, covered in blood, and I just couldn’t let her die. I had to heal her.

  “You can’t save every animal, Áine,” Momma Jane whispered. Her long dark brown hair reached her chest, wavy and scented lavender like her shampoo. She wore a smoky quartz amulet that hung low against her deep purple blouse. “You have to let nature take its course.”

  “But aren’t I nature, too?” I asked. That was what they always told me. I was nature and nature was me.

  Momma Jane pursed her lips, shooting a look at Momma Celeste, who was staring out the window, tears streaming down her sun-kissed skin, chanting in a language I couldn’t understand but still felt in my soul. She wore a delicate white summer dress, nearly the color of her cool blond hair. The two of them often reminded me of night and day personified, yin and yang, the dark and the light.

  “You are also from the Divine. From the Goddess Herself,” Momma Jane sighed. “And you need to accept that all living beings get sick, all living beings grow old, all living beings die.”

  “She wasn’t sick, Momma,” I said earnestly. “Something hurt her.”

  Momma Celeste stopped chanting and turned to face us, pressing her palms down on the kitchen counter. Her many silver rings clanked together as she tapped her long, pastel pink fingernails on the granite. I saw magick move beyond the window above the sink, like a forcefield expanding out into the horizon.

  She stared at me with enough intensity to make me stop crying. “There is evil in the world. There are people who want to hurt others—to hurt us. Using your magick will attract that evil.”

  Momma Jane shot her a look. “Áine, baby,” she cooed, pulling me in for a hug. “You will banish this evil when the time is right. Never lose your heart.” She pressed her palm on the left side of my chest, and a comforting warmth spread throughout my whole body. “You will be able to use your magick again someday. All of it. And with it you will make the world whole and lovely again. Just not today.”

  The memory faded, and I became lucid of my dream state. My mothers and the inside of our cottage vanished, leaving me in an open field of tall grass. I was back in my adult body—no longer a frightened eight-year-old—and the scenery became just as clear and real as if I were awake.

  A gust of wind danced across my skin, then continued to ripple out among the foliage, the grass bending and swaying. I wasn’t alone. There was something here with me, a familiar being with magick of a magnitude that matched my own.

  Who are you?

  A dark figure shrouded in a blackened cloud of smoke appeared in the distance. I couldn’t make out any features.

  Hello, Áine. It was a deep, distorted male voice that rang in my mind.

  Smoke swirled around him like a cyclone before slithering out like snakes among the grass, inching closer and closer. It picked up its pace, but I stood my ground. This wasn’t real. This was just a dream. I choked back my fear as I glared into the distance. I would not be intimidated.

  The sky turned obsidian black, and the tall grass withered and died upon contact with the dark cloud, which smelled of fire, decay, and death. It turned my stomach sour with nausea. I couldn’t see the being anymore as the smoke surrounded me and entered my lungs. It descended upon me, making my eyes burn as I coughed and grew dizzy.

  No. This wasn’t real.

  Then I felt it in my mind, polluting and corrupting everything good about me and everything beautiful about my magick.

  You killed your mothers, the figure taunted, his distorted voice as grating to my ears as the metal-on-metal impact of a car crash. For power that is weak and dying. You are nothing. No one. Daelon will betray you. He sees how pathetic you really are.

  The darkness coiled around me like a great serpent, and I felt my body levitate off the ground as it tightened its grip. Flashes of suffering, torture, and death played in a loop in my mind. Witches in tattered clothing, crawling all over each other in a pit beneath the earth, reached for me, their mouths contorted into silent screams. I felt their suffering as if it were my own, and thus it became my own. I lost all sense of time, all sense of self. I was trapped in endless pain and destruction.

  But within the darkened pit arose a sliver of light, gleaming from the end of a long tunnel. I fought my way toward it, scraping and digging and pulling myself through the cacophony of screams and packed dirt and sinister laughter.

  This was an intruder. I could fight this.

  In a burst of resistance, calling on every time I’d ever felt strong, every time anyone had ever felt strong, I bellowed,

  Get out of my mind.

  The crack of light opened up, and soon everything was illuminated. The smoke lifted, and I dropped from the sky into my ocean of energy, treading water and desperately breathing in salty, fresh air. I looked up at the deep blue sky, full of stars and constellations. I was safe. The dark force was gone.

  He was gone.

  I was pulled back into reality by Daelon’s voice yet again, coaxing me out of my subconscious. My bed was soft and comforting in the wake of such a horrific nightmare.

  “You’re okay,” he said, stroking my cheek.

  He jerked his hand back when I opened my eyes. I took a moment to adjust to this new change of scenery, as grateful for it as I was.

  “I heard you scream again,” he said. He cleared his throat. Whatever wall he’d so carefully constructed was starting to crack.

  “I’m okay,” I breathed. “Just another nightmare.” Whoever that figure was—I seemed to have cast him out. I hoped he would stay gone, but if the enormity of his power was any indication, I knew it would be far from the last time we would encounter each other. Was this the enemy Daelon hoped to shield me from?

  The light from the moon shining through my open window illuminated the contours of Daelon’s face, his dark hair falling onto his forehead. He was
shirtless tonight, which I had to admit was a sight to behold. His upper body was defined and rigid, and I wondered if his job as a witch trainer had anything to do with that, or if he just worked out. Do witches work out? His joggers hung low on his hips, revealing the V from his abs disappearing below the waistband.

  “Like what you see?” Daelon smirked.

  I blushed scarlet. Busted.

  I hesitated. “Yes,” I answered because it was the truth, and I knew it would catch him off guard. “It’s not a bad view.”

  His eyes widened, regarding me with surprise before letting an amused grin spread across his face.

  “Do you want me to stay with you again?” he asked, quieter this time. His grin faded, and his eyes narrowed, intense and imploring.

  No, Áine, you absolutely do not, I scolded myself. You still don’t really know who this man even is.

  “Yes,” I murmured, barely audible. My breath caught as he crawled over top of me rather than walk to the other side of the wide bed. For a moment he hovered over me before rolling over, leaving a gaping space between us.

  “Well, as long as you don’t end up trying for a cuddle like last time,” I said, daring him.

  “It’s times like these I wish I could force you silent,” he muttered.

  I tensed. He really did have some audacity. “I’d like to see you try.” Something dangerous stirred within me, and I couldn’t tell whether we were threatening or flirting anymore.

  I lay on my side to face him. He was on his back, his jaw tense as he stared up at the ceiling.

  “Don’t test me,” he said, his voice low and rough, throwing me a side-eye. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if we were still toying with each other.

  “Test you? I’m the one with all the power.”

  His mouth twitched. “Power is a social contract between you and others. It can be exchanged, given, and taken at your will. What good is your magick if you don’t desire to wield it on me?”

  “Is this a philosophical riddle?” I asked, attempting to piece together what he was trying to tell me. I wasn’t conscious enough for any of it.

  “Go to sleep, little witch.” The corners of his mouth curved upward, and his eyes closed. His hands clasped over his bare stomach.

  “You’re used to ordering people around, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, actually. And they generally obey, too.”

  I huffed and turned over to face the window. I gave my head a little shake. I didn’t understand what game we were playing, and I sure as hell didn’t know the rules.

  I also didn’t understand the feelings Daelon stirred within me—a longing, an understanding, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it—desire. He knew who I was, and he didn’t run. He didn’t want me to become less of anything, not less powerful, less of a witch, or less different. I didn’t feel different at all here in this place with him. Not like I did back on Earth with my friends, as amazing and loving as they were. They weren’t capable of understanding me. Not fully.

  It was perhaps too good to be true that he was exactly what I needed right now, but here he was. He was a protector, a mentor, and maybe even a friend. But this growing fire between us was dangerous. I knew he felt it too, despite his attempts to remain impassive and controlled. It was raw, like the energy I felt from Reagan as we danced in the club. But it was more serious, like one misstep and we could crumble.

  I reached out to feel Daelon’s energy instinctually as I crept closer to unconsciousness, meeting the same wall as before. It was because of this defense that I was safe, and for that I was grateful. Time passed and I found myself unable to drift off again. As I studied the moonlight on the gray rug next to the bedside, I felt Daelon stir next to me.

  I tensed at first and then relaxed as fingers stroked through the long strands of my hair, slowly and delicately. The gesture was so unexpected that I wasn’t sure if Daelon thought I was asleep or knew that I was awake. I let out a long breath as his fingers brushed back the hair behind my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

  “Go to sleep, Áine,” he whispered. His hand trailed down from my hair to the side of my neck, lingering for a moment before pulling away. “You’re safe.”

  Training was more of the same over the next week. Daelon insisted I wasn’t allowed to graduate to actually wielding magick until I learned how to detach my emotions from my power. I found myself nearly drowning in my metaphysical ocean over and over again all on my own. The mysterious intruder had been absent from the shadows of my mind since I banished him the week before. Despite those brief moments of intimacy and vulnerability, Daelon was just as domineering and hot-and-cold as ever. It felt like we were playing a game that neither of us could win.

  Today, as I treaded amidst all the energy of this world and the next, I bathed in a sense of calm. I was a part of all things, and it was a privilege. I lost sense of where I began and others ended, with all the forces of the cosmos at my fingertips, gently pushing and pulling me with each cresting wave. The water was warm against my skin as if infused by the soft rays of a morning sun.

  Daelon’s voice from beyond the confines of my psyche boomed, Now I want you to think of your mothers.

  I did, and the crystalline water revealed the fragments of my most cherished memories, my most feared memories, and my most hated memories. I let them come, and the familiar currents of anger, pain, and sadness called out to me, begging to be transformed into magick. They made promises of absolution.

  If only I gave in, I could avenge myself and avenge us all.

  Daelon’s voice reached me again. No, Áine. Not yet. It’s time to come back.

  But this energy was intoxicating. I wanted the rush. I had never made it this far before, to this space between emotion and action, where limitless possibilities spread out among the waves and into the horizon. I was in the center of a whirlpool, growing taller around me like a fortress of water. I heard so many voices, each a thread that weaved through the universal tapestry. In the waves played a cosmic story—of war, greed, and fear, but also of love, sacrifice, and devotion. It was the story of my mothers; it was my story, it was Daelon’s story; and it was our story.

  All of us.

  Come back Áine.

  The water collapsed all around me, sending me spiraling into the ocean’s depths. I was not afraid.

  I opened my eyes.

  I blinked in confusion. I was no longer sitting on the floor cushion, instead suspended midair three feet above it, my legs still crossed. “Oh, what the—” I let out a small squeal as I dropped back down to the floor ungracefully, bruising my backside.

  Daelon snorted, but his eyes were filled with awe. “The energy in here has been… intense. How do you feel?”

  “Weird. It was like I lost who I was for a moment.” I furrowed my brows, shifting and shaking off the pain of my landing. “Like I was a part of a whole, rather than a single witch.”

  “An ego death,” Daelon mused. “A lot of mystic witches see that as the ultimate state of existence—where the purest forms of magick are practiced.”

  Sounded like what stoners bragged about when they ate too many edibles to me, but I saw how it could apply here too. I wanted to delve deeper, but a wave of exhaustion hit me with full force. “I feel lightheaded.” I rubbed my temples.

  “I told you to eat beforehand for a reason,” he sighed. “You did really well today. I’m proud of you.”

  “Aw, thanks coach,” I said. “Does that mean I get to play in the big leagues now?”

  He rolled his eyes as he helped me to my feet. Do witches play sports? Oh, no. A sudden headrush almost made my knees buckle. Spots danced in my vision. I swayed, taking in a sharp breath.

  “Okay, maybe I should’ve eaten,” I admitted.

  “Uh huh.” In one swift movement he scooped me into his arms with surprising ease.

  I squealed, glaring up at him. “Not this again,” I said. “Put me down.”

  “You should’ve listened when I tol
d you to eat,” Daelon growled, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m not going to watch you faint.”

  I knew I should’ve been angrier than I was, but I was weary from today’s session. Also, a part of me just might’ve warmed up to Daelon’s antics, now that I knew that they were primarily out of a concern for my safety. His story still had its gaps, but as a witch, it was hard to believe in mere coincidences. Things happened for a reason. My mothers told me that I was born for a specific purpose, and if all that Daelon said was true—then he seemed intertwined in this mysterious fate as well. Is that why he was beginning to remind me of a home I’d never seen?

  He set me down in the kitchen. “Sit,” he commanded. “What do you want to eat?”

  “I can make my own food.”

  “Duly noted. Sit down,” he repeated. “You can barely stand.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I ended up hoisting myself up on the barstool facing the island. “I guess those sandwiches we made yesterday were good,” I sighed.

  Daelon’s face softened, and I thought I glimpsed a shy smile as he turned toward the refrigerator.

  “What exactly is the plan?” I asked. “Like, after I’m more trained and learn what we are up against.”

  “One step at a time, Áine. You won’t be here forever if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re getting better at control every day.”

  I studied Daelon as he chopped an onion. This was one of those moments I wished I could read his emotional state. The confident ease of his body language didn’t match the tinge of worry in his voice.

  “I’m just trying to maximize the time we’re allowed,” Daelon said, something almost bitter in his tone.

  “That we’re allowed?” That was a strange wording. “Did all witches feel my beacon, as you call it? Are our enemies looking for me right now?”

  “Drop it, Áine,” Daelon snapped. “I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. Yes, they’re looking for you, but I have it handled.”

  The edge to his voice caught me off guard. I swallowed, sensing the rise of emotion that generally predicated a magickal outburst. I wasn’t strong enough to fight it right now.