“How do I fix that?” Deckard asked, determined to follow through with whatever she advised.
“With practice.”
Deckard was tired of practicing. After months spent as Hewitt’s student and now a month consumed with training to become proficient with magic, he was tired of the constant lessons.
But he also knew he needed the women’s help.
“What if the practice isn’t enough?” Deckard asked, the prolonged weight of his fears sitting like a rock in his stomach.
“What do you mean?” Isla asked.
Looking between the highladies, Deckard was determined to get the answers he’d so long put off. “Do either of you have dreams of the Relics after the Keeps?”
Ilain shared a look with her sister-in-law, who shook her head. “No,” the Fire Mage said. “Do you?”
“After the existential ones,” he admitted. Apologetically, he added, “Do you know if Auden had the same experience? I thought perhaps it was due to our resources.”
Raising her chin, Ilain took a deep breath. “He never mentioned it to me, which makes it highly unlikely that he shared your experience.” Her shrug failed to hide the sorrow in her posture. “We told one another everything.”
Deckard couldn’t help his frown. “What does it mean? Why am I dreaming of the Relics?”
“We don’t know,” Isla said. “It is possibly due to your connection to Space, especially as it is so powerful. However, we can’t know for sure.”
“Tell us about your dreams exactly,” Ilain prompted.
With a sigh, Deckard recounted each experience, noting that they all had nearly the exact same format. He stood in the Keep, the Shades ran to him, and he absorbed their forms. Suddenly, he found himself in the Chamber, standing on the dais with the pedestal and the Relic before him. In each dream, he would pick up the Relic, feeling its power radiate through him. He hesitatedbefore sharing the alteration that came from after the Space Keep.
“When I touched the Space Relic, I heard a scream so loud it knocked me off the dais,” he said. “It was my magic; it echoed through my mind, crying the same thing over and over again.”
The women listened intently, silently waiting for him to go on.
Deckard stared at his hands as though he could visualize the black crystalline shards he’d grown so used to summoning. “It was demanding that I let it out.”
Isla set a hand to her mouth, a look of blatant worry across her face. However, Ilain let out an easy-sounding hum. She stood from where she’d slumped against a nearby tree. “Jonn,” she said suddenly, “come with me.”
Deckard glanced at Isla, whose expression had shifted with understanding. “I’ll meet up with Vayden and the others,” she said, then disappeared through the trees.
Left alone with the Calder sister, Deckard turned to her, confused as to her purpose in requesting his delay. A gentle breeze rustled the full leaves around them, the forest growing shadowed in the late spring sunset. Ilain gestured for Deckard to follow as she walked farther into the forest.
With little other choice, Deckard hurried after her. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“For a walk,” she replied.
“Any particular reason?”
“You like to pace when you’re working through a problem,” she noted. “I thought a walk might aid your thoughts as I explain some things to you.”
At Deckard’s beckon, Ilain continued, “Did you know I went to Doorstunds Reach when I was only ten?”
“I did not. That’s when you began your training?”
“Yes. It is the youngest age that magic presents itself, and in myself, it was rather strong. I nearly killed the Mage who administered my test because of the intensity of the flame I produced.”
Deckard lifted his chin in surprise and understanding. “Your power was uncontrollable once too?”
“It was,” she confirmed, the remaining shafts of sunlight causing her hair to shimmer. “And it took six years for me to master it.”
Drawing back, Deckard gathered her point. He sighed and said, “We don’t have six years.”
