“No, dear. Aran didn’t need to. The gods told me. I saw it in my dreams. I sawyou. I saw you burn your friend before healing him.”
She had seen me. Sheknew.
“I need to learn how to stop it from happening again.”
“Sit,” she said simply, gesturing to the chair across from her. “We have much to discuss.”
Her words slipped out with eerie calm, sending a chill through me. I moved toward the table, every step cautious, uncertain whether the floor might shift beneath me. Will was behind me in an instant, his eyes never left the woman.
“Your power,” she said, “isn’t something to fear. But it is something you need to learn to hold. Magic such as yours can destroy, but it can also heal. It can become a tool.”
My fingers curled tighter into my cloak. “It doesn’t feel like a gift.”
“That’s because it feeds on you, child. And you have not yet learned how to starve it,” she said. “The drops were but the opening. The real work calls to you now.”
I leaned forward slightly before I realized I was doing it. “You can teach me?”
“What kind of work are we talking about?” Will stepped closer, arms crossed. “No quick fixes. We’re not here for tricks.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to him, her smile deepening like he’d amused her.
“I wouldn’t insult you with either.” She turned back to me, reaching for a small metal kettle already warming beside a flame. “I can’t teach you how to use your gift, but I can teach you how to teach yourself. It won’t be easy and it won’t be fast. Your magic isn’t separate from you, Kera. It’s tied to everything. To your body. Your memories. Your grief.”
“Magic?”
I’d never used that word. I called it a curse. A burden. Sometimes, on better days, a gift.Magicbelonged in fairytales with exciting adventures.
My story was nothing like that.
“The more you push it down,” she murmured, lifting a tin lid and pinching dried petals from within, “the more violently it will rise.” She pressed them into a worn tea strainer, dark petals, almost black, then slipped it into the kettle. Steam rose as she set the lid back in place.
I looked at Will, but his expression gave nothing away. Aran stood stiff beside him, more serious than I’d seen him in weeks, and that unsettled me even more.
“How long would it take?” Aran asked, jaw tight.
The woman didn’t even glance at him. Her eyes stayed on me.
“That depends. On how willing Kera is to face what’s inside her.”
My pulse kicked up. Face it? I’d been doing everything I could not to. If I faced it, I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
“What do I have to do?”
“It begins with a seed.” She stirred the petals gently with a spoon, the scent already filling the space—earthy, strange, almost sweet. “A breath. A spark. You must offer it your hand before it reaches for your throat.”
“That doesn’t sound safe.” Will’s mouth tightened.
“It’s not.” Her smile faded. “Power like hers is dangerous. I can only teach her to hold the flame without burning.”
A shiver slid down my spine.
“Your power is strong, Kera. But it’s wild. Tied to everything you fear. Everything you bury. If you keep running from it…” She lifted the kettle and poured the dark liquid into two small cups, her voice even. “…it will burn its way out.”
“I know.” The words scraped their way out, quiet but certain. “That’s why I need your help. I can’t live like this. I have to control it.”
“Control isn’t something you take by force.” She leaned in slightly, eyes never leaving mine. “It’s something you become. You learn to guide it. But first, you must stop running from the parts of yourself that scare you.”
Running. That’s all I had been doing. From the fire. From the past. From myself. The thought of turning to face it made me feel like I was standing on a cliff, toes already past the edge.
