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I climbed in the car, feeling a little confused. Before I got seated, I heard the back door open and shut. In a blink, Henry was in the back seat.
"Did you see which way she went?" Tallis asked, the alarm in his voice putting me on edge.
"She took a left just up there. She's on foot."
Henry's voice sounded just like Tallis's, causing the knot of dread to start in my stomach. Tallis stepped on the gas and sped out of the parking lot.
"What the hell is going on?" I hissed.
Henry kept his eyes trained on the road ahead of us, but he answered, "We have to find Amelia. Do you know where her house is?"
"No, she's not allowed to have people over. What's wrong? Is she in trouble?"
Now I sounded worried and I didn't even know what was going on.
Tallis spoke to me as his
eyes searched the sides of the road, scouring for her blue-hooded shirt. "She may be if we don't get to her in time."
"Why? What's wrong?" The bruise on her back popped into my mind. I started to bring it up, but Tallis said something that shut me down.
"She's an empath." That raised more questions than it answered.
"She's a what?" I hated sounding like the idiot who knew nothing.
Henry interrupted before Tallis could clarify his answer for me. "There she is!"
He pointed to the side of the road. Her head was down, her steps were quick, and her arms were crossed over her chest. It almost looked like she was hugging herself.
We began following at a slow pace, staying a few hundred feet behind her.
Tallis continued with a slightly calmer tone, now that we had her in our sights. "She's an empath. She can feel your feelings as you do, and she can project them—which makes others feel them as well. She can manipulate emotions so that you feel as if they are your own."
"So... she's a witch, too? Is she dark or light? She doesn't stink." I was so lost. I had no idea what had happened to set them off. This all seemed so out of leftfield.
"Empaths are not witches. Her mother would have been, but her dad would've been mortal. They're incredibly rare. They were thought to be extinct. She must've slipped through the cracks somehow, but now she has bonded and her powers just nested fully. Well, as fully as they can for now—until she reaches immortality."
I knew he thought he was being explanatory, but I was only getting more confused as we continued to follow her at a near crawl.
"We don't need to spook her, so we'll follow her to her house," Henry said to Tallis, his breaths sounding exhausted as he ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.
"I wasn't going to approach her on the streets," Tallis murmured reassuringly.
"How did she find us? Was she looking for us?" I could hear my quizzical tone, and it was starting to annoy even me. I'm sure it was driving them crazy.
Tallis softly elaborated. "Magic has its own gravitational force. It finds its lost children and guides them to a safe home. Especially empaths—because they're only light. Empaths aren't like any other magical creature.
"Once you inherit your magic, you can't have children with anyone but your soul mate. Before you turn, however, you can have a child with a true mortal, if you're completely in love with them. Empaths are a product of a mortal female witch truly in love with a mortal male. It's rare, especially nowadays with love being so easily confused with infatuation and lust, but still possible. Empaths can only be good. They can never be dark. They feel the pain that you feel. If you kill a mortal, or drain an essence for power and they are bonded to your emotions, they will die.
"They were incredibly dangerous in Dramus's eyes, so he hunted them down and killed every empath in existence during Isis's time. Graven has done the same during his reign, but there hasn't been that many since the age of Dramus. Today was the first time I've ever seen one in person. I almost believed they never truly existed. I thought perhaps they had only been a myth."
I didn't have time to absorb the information before my inquisitive mind took over, needing more. "Why do they want them all dead?" I asked.
Nothing was making sense. It was like a carefully woven pattern of confusion now.
"They can project the pain of the victims that was caused by a dramian onto the dramian. Such torture could kill a dramian if the empath was strong enough to withstand the exerted force. They've destroyed dramians many times with that power. They can also make a witch stronger. They're the only ones who can read body language and emotions. It's as good as reading a mind sometimes.
"They can feel the emotions of any living creature. They can spot traitors among any magical beings—including bodyguards—whereas no other magical being can. Only other changers can read a changer's aura. Bodyguards are so shielded that not even another bodyguard can tell about their true intentions. That makes empaths incredibly valuable to our side, tilting the odds in our favor, and it makes them a threat to the dramians. Empaths stay cloaked and undetected until bonded. Now that she's bonded to you, they've probably felt her presence being introduced to the world."
