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Cleora’s eyes widened in alarm. “But how?”
Keres grinned. “Doma tricks.”
“Nothing can shorten distances, except the spirit plane and portals.”
“And jumping,” Fordham added.
Kerrigan looked at him in alarm, suddenly terrified that her mother had used Fordham’s powers again without his permission. “Did we jump?”
“No. I was simply explaining that there are other ways. So, this could be another one of those ways.”
“Yes. Don’t you worry about any of that.” Keres came to her feet and stepped around the others toward the front of the wagon. “Master Selby, let’s stop at the next post to break our fast and give two of the horses to our professor and her new student.”
“As you wish.”
A short while later, they all got out of the wagon to stretch their legs. The post that Keres had indicated was nothing more than a sketchy well. Still, they refilled their water skins and ate crusty bread, cheese, olives, and a bit of cured meat. Fordham went to help Master Selby unhitch two of the horses. Cleora and Keres were discussing next steps.
Kerrigan sidled up to Danae. “You’ve been quiet.”
Danae glanced down at the water skin in her hands. “What should I say? I left everything and everyone I love behind for a chance to learn my magic. And I don’t even know if I want to.”
“It’s not going to be easy, but you need to learn.”
“I know. I want to. I think that I want to at least. I don’t know.” She sighed. “But a Doma knowing about my powers. My father back in Eivreen. It all feels wrong.”
“I wish there had been another way, but you never would have gotten out otherwise. You would have died, locked up in that house, trying to suppress your powers.”
Danae glanced over at Cleora. “Will she really be able to train me?”
“She’ll do her best. She did her best with me. I have faith in her.” She put her hand on Danae’s. “I have faith in you too.”
Danae laughed softly. The light that had dimmed came back to her eyes. “Thanks, Kerrigan.”
The girls hugged, and then Cleora was calling for them to get on the road into the academy. Danae hurried after her, mounting one of the horses and waving at the rest of them.
“I’ll send word when I find something about your magic,” Cleora told her. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Kerrigan waved as the pair galloped off into the distance. Her first friend in this world with the woman who had saved her life on the spirit plane. She was sad to see them go, but it was necessary if they were ever going to figure out how to break this block on her magic.
Keres gestured them back to the wagon. “Come along. My cousin lives a few miles west of here.”
They got back into the dusty wagon and trundled along toward Keres’s cousin’s house. As promised, it wasn’t that much farther. Just a windy western direction on a relatively steep incline. When they finally stopped before the house, Kerrigan was surprised to find that it was a more modest two-story, built into the cliffside.
Kerrigan hopped out, stretching her sore and aching muscles. The door creaked open, and a woman stood in the entrance. She was of average height with dark hair and a rueful expression. Her clothes weren’t the typical Doma toga that Kerrigan had grown accustomed to. In fact, they were more reminiscent of a much more modest woman’s dressing gown that Kerrigan hadn’t seen on anyone in several years.
And it was then that it all clicked into place.
She recognized the woman.
“Holy gods,” Kerrigan said, taking a few rushing steps forward. “Vera!”
Vera laughed at the sight of her and hurried down the stairs. “Look at how much you’ve grown!”
They embraced tightly.
“I can’t believe you’re here. I thought you were still with Cyrene.”
Vera brushed Kerrigan’s red hair from her face. “After everything with my sister …” She paused over the words with a weary sadness in her voice. “I decided it was time to return home. There was nothing left for me in Emporia.”
“And she brought me back with her,” Basille Selby said. He brandished an elaborate bow. His strange clothing suddenly making sense.
He was also from Emporia, another continent months away by sea from Kerrigan’s home of Alandria. The world Cyrene had come from. Cyrene, who had been a Doma in her own right. Though the connotation had been different then. Cyrene was a human. Not like Keres’s immense power. She’d fought in the dragon tournament and won, taking her dragon back to her home to win a fight against the growing darkness in her world. Kerrigan had dropped through a portal to help, touched by Cyrene’s magic in some unfathomable way.
In a way … that maybe was just beginning to make sense. If Cyrene was descended from the Doma and Kerrigan was also a descendant of the Doma, then they were connected. Cyrene had been able to reach Kerrigan across even immense distances in the same way that Kerrigan had found Cleora when she needed her. Vera had been her traveling companion at the time. And now, she was here. It was almost too much to believe possible.
