“And why is that?” I whispered, my eyes never leaving his. I had the oddest urge to reach out and touch him, push a lock of his hair off his forehead, but I clenched my fist to suppress the urge.
“Because I also have multiple powers and don’t need a Vessel or crystals.” He shrugged like it was the most normal thing to admit. “Both pillars lit for me as well when I Awakened a few years ago, and I found myself here more often than not.”
“Has Fate ever spoken to you?”
“Once or twice.” I expected him to elaborate on their conversations, but he was staying close-lipped on those interactions. I could understand and respect that. We didn’t know each other well, yet, and I didn’t want to give away all my secrets either.
Though, I felt the pushing urge to just tell him everything and learn everything about him in return.
What is wrong with me?
The sky crackled and split open as lightning hit near our location. My hair stood on end from its charge, and the ground scorched from the impact before the mark disappeared entirely.
“Interesting,” Torin mused to himself.
I felt my body tensing, the sign that I was going to leave this place soon, and I anxiously looked at Torin.
“I’m waking up,” I said, my voice flickering. His eyes met mine and he gave me a smile—one that held an undue number of secrets.
“We’ll see each other soon, I’m certain. Try and pull on your Destruction Magic. It’s there, I’m sure of it,” he said as my vision fogged.
“Wait! If I write to you, will you answer?” I felt silly blurting that as I was pulled from the dreamscape, but something in me had to know that he would.
His lips quirked in that signature grin and he winked again. “For you, Ellowyn, I’d do pretty much anything.”
Then he was gone, and I was hurtling back to my body in bed.
I gaspedand sat up straight in my bed.
What a weird dream. I thought to myself, casually running my hand across my forehead. Unlike all the other previous dreamscapes, this one left my eyes heavy, sleep just around the corner. I turned to my side, finding a comfortable position before my eyes began to flutter shut of their own accord.
Just before I succumbed to sleep, I swore I saw vines trailing up my walls and a coat of the same grass covering my floor. But when I awoke the next morning, well rested for the first time in ages, the room was empty and barren once more, a thin spattering of ash present instead.
Chapter 22
Rohak
The carriage Alois and I arrived in traveled just as smoothly on the way back to Vespera as it did on our way to Hestin. While I expected Alois’ mood to have changed after our discovery of Ellowyn’s power and the wayward Keeper, he was just as silent and moody as ever. Clearly lost in his own thoughts about what all of it meant.
When Alois approached me about a potential Keeper in Hestin, I could barely contain my apprehension and unease. This was the second Keeper spotted in Hestin within a week—the first was strung up in the square, killed in penance for his lies disguised as futures, or so our Mages reported. But for the second to be kept somewhere in Lord d’Aelius’ house, and for us to not be aware of the unexpected visitor, left me feeling incredibly uneasy.
Where did Hestin’s loyalty lie? With the South and the Last Keeper? With Alois and the Northern Territories? Do they say one thing and act a second way? And how were they able to cover up the Keeper’s whereabouts and their intentions from Alois and I?
My thoughts worried me. We already had enough problems with the territories in the South, the Last Keeper’s rebel army constantly stirring up violence and rebellion in non-allied—and even allied—territories, was strain enough. But it was coupled with an alarming increase in cases of Mage Sickness—the lack of Vessels available and willing to take a Mage leftMages no choice but to overdraft from crystals. It was like an addiction—the more power a Mage pulled from the crystals, the more they needed until the magic in their blood destroyed them from the inside out. While there was a limit to a Vessel’s well, and a Mage could theoretically burn out their Vessel, the well of power was much deeper and the connection between a Mage and a Vessel prevented a Mage from overdrawing and becoming sick.
I shuddered slightly and absently fingered the crystals in my pocket—the pull to draw from them was stronger now, more intoxicating. My power was heady to begin with, and adding crystals to the mix created an even more volatile situation.
It was a clusterfuck of issues, to say the least, and it felt like as soon as we made a move on one, something else came up from a different side, pushing us back to the starting point.
I withdrew my hand from my pocket and scrubbed it down my face with a slight groan, frustrated that nothing made sense right now.
“Your thoughts are as loud as mine,” Alois said from his seat on the other side of the carriage, “perhaps even louder, Rohak.”
I grunted in response, not particularly in the mood for idle chatter, but Alois always got his way, one way or another.
“Talk to me, brother, what is on your mind?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, which was Alois’ invitation to continue speaking.
