Page 19 of A Thread of Breath and Bone

Blowing out a long breath, I conjure the memories. The helpless feeling of watching Kuron bleed to death in front of me, the anger I felt toward the men thinking they could get away with it.

I feel the chill in the air disappear, and when I look back to my well of magic, it's bubbling over the surface.

Okay. I can work with that.

The heat flows within me. I feel it wrap around me, every vein, every bone, covered, but somehow unaffected. It’s truly amazing. I shake out my hands and think about pushing it out of me. I pop a single eye open to see if anything is happening. I groan. Of course, it’s not that easy.

“This isn’t working,” I say into the earpiece. “Any tips?”

A gust of wind blows in my direction, snow particles twinkling like mini stars against the bright blue sky.

The elders on the Ancestor Isles told me that I had to stop fighting my magic. To not be scared of it.

I can officially say, I’m not scared—at least I don’t think I am. I can see the value in honing my magic, especially when I think about the fact that the enemy forces we’ve been warned about our whole lives might very well be here already.

And who is the one that’s supposed to be the savior of the system?

Me.

The earpiece crackles before I hear again. “Why don’t you just start by channeling?”

“Ryker has to channel it out of me.”

“Are you sure? What if you were to expel it out and away?”

I tilt my head, considering.

This time, when I close my eyes, I can see the lines of energy flowing around me, deep into the mountain, creating a web effect around the planet. Seeing it is almost second nature now that I know what it is.

The vibrant hues of gold flow like they’re on a river, toward a destination. I reach for it, feeling the soft hum and vibration in my hands as my body absorbs the energy. Unlike the magic within me, this does burn. It’s hot and uncomfortable, but not completely unbearable yet.

I pull in as much as I can handle, suddenly regretting it. What if I can’t expel it?

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

The power builds within me as I fall to my knees. I need to figure this out. Ryker is still on campus. I thrust my hands into the freezing soil and imagine letting it flow back out of me, reversing the pull.

Drawing the power in is easy. Expelling it, not so much.

My heart races as I shove. When the pain is unbearable, I hear myself scream, but all I can see is gold—fiery gold that licks up my spine, flooding my the veins in my arms. With a desperate cry, my panic subsides, and my magic responds. It doesn’t snuff out the flames; it absorbs them. The gold disappears into molten white.

I scream again, and at once, it explodes out of me. The release is so powerful, the ground beneath me shakes, and I hear the crack of trees and the squawk of a flock of birds taking flight.

Like before, this power, it just…is. I don’t know where or how, but all I have to do is tell it to come back, and it does. It’s like shutting the curtain and watching the light slowly disappear. There’s no beginning or end to it.

My vision clears in another breath, and when I see the devastation around me, my stomach swirls with nausea, taking the rest of my energy with it.

“Thanks,” I say softly, my voice hoarse from screaming earlier. Fresh from the shower, I curl against Ryker in bed with a cup of warm tea and honey.

When Professor Ainslyn picked me up after the release, he was quiet the whole way back to school. As if an explosion had gone off, trees for a hundred yards in every direction were bent or felled away from the blast. The snow melted, and several trees and bushes were charred.

I know it could have been worse, but seeing it again did not make me feel any better about the magic within me.

My magic is a weapon. And I still don’t know if I’m capable of controlling it.