“Whatever you say, darling.”
We go on and on and on and on. Attacking, blocking, dodging, parrying. I get knocked down more times than I can count, but I keep getting back up.
Thisis what I’ve been missing.
There’s nothing else quite like the feeling. It’s a bloodlust for personal growth, and I can’t get enough of it. I keep take, take, taking. I want the lethality, the strength, the power. By the time I have to leave the training yard for Abaddon’s session, I’m covered in dirt, sweat, a bit of blood—and the smile of a maniac.
Exhaustion consumes me, yet somehow, it also invigorates me.
Despite Dusk’s ill-advised offer for the Council to drop in on my training today, I’ve managed to avoid any unwanted attention.
So far, at least. The day is still young.
Once again, I’m back on the godforsaken ledge that overlooks the Abyss. Just being up here usually puts me in a bad mood now, thanks to classic psychological conditioning. After all, this is the place where I’ve tried and failed dozens—maybe even hundreds—of times to control the star’s power. Or to confront the entity. Kill it, eat it… I don’t know. I’ve taken every approach to the problem that I can think of, and I’m running out of patience. Abaddon said it could be Divine Timing, which I assume is a fancy word for the “if it’s God’s Will” fallacy. Personally, I think the slippery little parasite just doesn’t like me.
The atmosphere today is different, though.
I blame the two angels hovering over my shoulder.
They radiate a polarity of light and darkness. Like No Man’s Land, I am caught in the middle. It’s a fitting title, really, considering they hate each other and neither will dare to touch me?—
“Focus, Kae,” Abaddon commands, his tone holding enough bite to suck the remaining life out of the air around me. I hate how he always seems to know when I’m not paying attention. “Immerse yourself.”
“You’ve got this,” Dusk adds in a sweet, encouraging little whisper.
With a deep breath, I let the world melt away.
If nothing else, I’ve become highly efficient at reaching this different level of consciousness. It would be nice if I could navigate it better, though. All of my senses are utterly useless here, and I feel like I’m moving through it by blindly bumping into anything and everything—particularly two very hefty anchors.
“I need you both to back up,” I mutter. “You’re derailing my concentration.”
Surprisingly, they both listen. The tethers between us weaken, ebbing away. They don’t disappear, but they’re no longer front-and-center of my focus.
That position becomes rightfully occupied by my soul leech.
‘Leech’ implies that the parasite will eventually get full and fall off of me. If only that were the case. The star isalwayswith me. Even when I can’t feel the slightest trace of it, I know it’s still there, taunting me. It’s a never-ending game of cat and mouse, always one step ahead of me, just out of reach.
Minutes pass, maybe hours. It’s hard for me to tell. Time is unconventional when I’m focused like this.
“Why won’t you let me win already?”I think, hearing the words in my head as clearly as if I were speaking them. Even if the entity never replies, I haven’t been able to rule out the possibility that it’s sentient enough to understand me. “Am I not good enough for you? Who are you?Whatare you? Why?—”
An unrecognizable presence, like a dark force of nature, materializes behind me. From it comes a male voice, growling in my ear, “What doyou wait for?”
For a moment, I think it could be the star talking, but that can’t be true. I still feel its presence in front of me, holding a unique and different energy from the stranger at my back.
No, this is someone in the real world. A voice I can’t quite place.
“Take it. Now.” The man gives me no further explanation, no real warning, before snatching the entity into a chokehold.
Immediately, my world is tilted on its axis, tossing all of my systems into chaos.
A suffocating, intangible pressure rolls in, radiating from the force at my back, quickly consuming my every sensation. It’s similar to the intrusiveness I felt when Abaddon inspected the entity, but exponentially more violent.
There’s only one other time I’ve felt like this before, in a dream I once had, so long ago. Still, I recognize it.
Power.
An overwhelming, unmistakable, colossal amount of raw power.
