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Boom, boom, boom, boom.
The kids at school had thrown rocks at me, and I came home bleeding. I was sitting on the closed toilet seat, and Clair was bandaging me up. Her face was grave. ‘Sometimes, Raven, people are just afraid of things they don’t understand.’
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
‘Raven, you’re a fighter. You always have been. Whatever you’re going through, I’ll always be here to fight with you.’
But she wouldn’t be. She was dead. Maria had killed her.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
I suddenly realized the drumming sound was coming from inside of me. Even Rycon and Maria had stopped fighting. The giant panther padded over to me, and I met his large, yellow eyes. It was the first time I had ever felt anything close to sympathy from the panther, and the memory of his burning childhood home flashed in my mind.
‘When they kill someone you love, and trust me, they will; I’ll ask you to put that aside, and we’ll see how easy it is for you.’ That conversation had just been days ago. But, now I understood his pain, his rage, his hatred. He bowed his massive ebony head, and I knew what I was going to do.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
My daemon was awake now. She forced her head out of the fist I kept her smothered under. She would hide no more.
The triquetra burned hotter than it ever had, scalding my flesh, but I headed it no mind, and the daemon in me forced my body to stand. Clair’s limp corpse slid off my knees to nestle on the ground.
I was going to kill them. I was going to kill them all.
The drum in my chest built to a crescendo, and the triquetra dug its fingers into my aura, holding on for dear life. My ring of ravens that I had worn my whole life, suddenly seemed to wake up. The tiny pendant that Meredith had told me was the symbol of my heritage vibrated against the triquetra and loosened the hold it had on me, almost gently prying the magical fingers out of my aura.
With half a thought, the cursed thing ripped from my throat and shot so fast from my body that it embedded itself into a nearby shipping container. I turned slowly to face Ash Nevra’s army. Kieran and Amon still hovered above me, both watching me. Maria was nursing her wounds from her scuffle with Rycon off to the side.
Without the triquetra to dampen my powers, I felt like I was seeing the world for the first time. My planets and my stars were spinning with purpose, and I could see the creatures around me as they moved, but it was like my mind saw their movements before they themselves even committed to them.
I could smell the blood beneath their skin, hear their thoughts, and see through all of their eyes simultaneously. Tiny, metaphysical threads jumped between every living thing around me, even the small plants that had managed to climb through old cracks in the docks. The sickly fish in the polluted lake had tiny life arcs tracking them as they moved through the water. Even the beetles and ants couldn’t hide from me.
I took a step towards the now frozen army, my bare feet slicing open on the field of shrapnel that lay before me, only to immediately mend under the enormous hum of power that now beat freely from my core. I could see myself through every being’s eyes, and my thin, wreaked body stood as if held up by a single string that ran down my spine. My eyes had been swallowed into blackness, and my head bobbed as hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
Kieran floated down from where he hovered above me, his face, for once, appropriately grave. He looked at his dead daughter, who now lay behind me.
“Raven, my intention was never to kill Clair,’ his voice almost sounded strained.
The daemon inside me hissed, but I did not move. The beat of the drum in my chest continued, and with each pulse, the steel shipping containers that littered the docks around us vibrated.
Kieran turned to Maria, who was covered in scratches from her scuffle with Rycon. She looked terrified.
“How dare you.” He snarled at her. She may have feared him, but she shrugged, holding her ground.
“Ash Nevra ordered her death.” I felt the build of power as Kieran’s rage, and grief took him over. I raised my left hand and silenced him.
She was mine.
My head turned and bobbed on its own accord to face Maria, who paled and stiffened under my midnight gaze.
My aura was pulsating with each beat of that eternal drum. It grew and surrounded me in an obsidian orbital shield, and my bloody feet drifted off the ground. I hovered in the air in the center of my atramentous armor, my loose, dirty night clothes floating around my wafer-thin body.
The witch could do nothing but watch as I hovered in the air, above her, my dead mother lying beneath me. The small sack of sunflower seeds danced across my vision. They would never be planted now. We would never garden together again.
I felt a sob build in my chest. It started small, then turned to a scream.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom
I didn’t have time to think about building power, all my lessons with Conrad and Meredith flew from my mind. I was power . And it was immediately available at my fingertips. The hand that still held Rycon’s jade hilted knife rose of its own accord. I sent it through the air like a dart, and I knew I would not miss. I watched it impale Maria through the neck, and it felt good.
