To Scale the Emerald Mountain (The Willowbane Saga #1)

14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I t’s been at least a half hour since Locane left me out here and nothing has happened.

If only he had just gone when I’d asked him to instead of antagonizing me and trying to make me believe I require his guidance and support.

I am determined to do this without him.

My ass is sore from sitting in the same spot without moving, but I ignore it. My mind attempts to concentrate on the drag of thick air in my lungs for the hundredth time through a shaky exhale.

Fucking Mother. This is useless.

Beads of sweat have long since built on the back of my neck behind my thick curtain of chestnut brown hair and have started running down between my shoulder blades. Removing my hands from my knees, I twist the locks into a high bun on top of my head and secure it by tucking the end into the knot.

Instead of placing my hands back on my knees, I thread my fingers through the grass and run them back and forth a few times. This does wonders for calming my nerves. I chide myself for not doing this to begin with, forgetting completely what Locane had said about me channeling easier when I’m grounded to the earth.

As I lay my palms against the dirt, I’m finally able to slow my breath and my head becomes clearer. My mind focuses on the gentle sway of leaves in the soft summer breeze. A faint bird call sings in a whistling tune. Locane moves around inside, his soft clamoring filtering through the open doors of the house.

As my mind empties to the atmosphere around me, I focus on the spools of golden thread in my belly. I unravel a fraction of the first, freeing just an inch. Pulling it taut, I give it a gentle, mental pluck. The sensation of magic rings through me like the tiniest tinkling of a small bell. I grasp on to the vibrations and let it lull me into a foggy darkness, riding the waves of tiny ripples until a scene in my mind starts to take shape.

Standing tall, I ignore the stabbing ache in my back brought from my physical exertion; disregard the dizziness and growing headache from the mental as my lightning fades from the sky.

A screen of icy white hair falls around my face, fluttering in the breeze. My tears scorch down my cheeks, the fat drops falling to the earth. The earth of my world—so lovingly named Ellhora in my honor—that I have now tainted with the act I’ve just committed. The landmass cuts a large chasm in its path through the sea, creaks and groans of reluctant earth screaming into the ether.

Nothing will ever be far enough.

Waves of tangy magic pulse from where my power of earth and sky split the land apart, something sticky spawning to drain life. Its darkness eats away at the crust of the ocean floor where the landmass holding my siblings and their magically gifted followers drifts away.

I can only hope this act will be the push they need.

Holding one hand aloft to expel my magic to force my siblings away, I raise the other in front of my face. Blood streaks against the oily black of my fingers. An onyx stain that grows, seeping to my wrists as my power dives deeper into forbidden depths.

A hysterical laugh claws its way out of my mouth while ichor and tears continue to flow.

So much blood on my hands; but that is what it took.

I have failed so completely. Grief for what could have been, what should have been, racks through me like fire hot pins sticking through each one of my pores, gouging down to my bones.

I’ll never recover from it.

Turmoil reigns in this blasphemous planet. This act in banishing my siblings is just another notch against my sacred lands; against the Fates; against the gift of this world.

But these measures have been a necessity. Placing the curse on the willowbane tree, locking the magic of the world into it to be controlled by myself was the right choice. The act prevented my people from being poisoned against me with its power when I arrived here.

But still, my siblings persisted.

The ground bucks at my feet, my heart squeezing in my chest, as I think of the towering white tree in the Territory of Gleisheon that I call home. Now a great bleached husk of what was once vibrant and colorful and dripping with life.

Killing the tree was a necessity as well.

Thundering clouds clash, rattling my chest, remnants of my magic staining the horizon.

Charged static lifts the hair on my arms.

A strange hiss resounds and the ground beneath my feet shifts, softening and sinking around me like a starving pit of quicksand. I scamper backwards and watch in horrified awe as a new shoreline forms. Dark brown compacted dirt crumbles and disintegrates rapidly into sand.

I run several yards away, just in time before the portion I was standing on slopes down, creating a sandbar that the sea waves crash over. There is no transition between the shore and the colossal drop of the underwater cliff from where the new continent moved away, leaving a gaping chasm in its wake.

A Great Trench.

The dirt continues to distort, spreading in both directions and moving inland when it stops at my feet. The strange hiss dies as quickly as it began. The silence reeks of death: putrid and sweet. The newly created sand’s color leeches away and turns the dark hue into a deep and haunting red.

My eyes widen and new tears spring as I swing my head from side to side.

The sand is like ground down blood-red rubies streaked with onyx, stretching as far as even my extraordinary eyes can see.

Bringing both hands to my chest, right above my heart, I let loose a strangled laugh.

The vision releases me with ease. The edges fade into themselves until only a small dot of ruby red is visible. I open my eyes, severing it completely.

A broad smile cracks across my face, and I laugh. Loud and booming and joyous. It turns out I have already mastered this gift as well.

A warm trickle drips from my nose, and my hand wipes it away. I pull my fingers away and find a small amount of blood coating my fingers. Practically nothing compared to other times I can recall, other times recently.

Standing too quickly, a wave of dizziness causes me to lose my balance and sway to the side. A strong arm grabs me around the waist before I can fully fall and hit the ground. I let out an exaggerated groan of displeasure, but my body leans into him further.

“Of course, you’re here.” I turn to Locane and give him a glare.

“Yes, I am here.”

Locane leads me to the porch steps and hands me a glass of cool water, the condensation on the sides mixing with the blood on my fingers, streaking the glass with a sickly pink.

“You were supposed to be leaving me alone.”

I gulp the water down greedily. He takes the empty glass, not paying any mind to the small flecks of blood-tinged water. I groan again, this time with appreciation when he hands me a plate with a large piece of chocolate cake.

“When did you have time to make a cake?” I whisper under my breath, more to myself than to him.

“I did leave you alone. But I was nearby in case you needed my assistance. And I’d say I turned up at a good time.” I ignore Locane’s point, which is too fair for me to care to admit. “I take it you were successful?” He gives me an assessing look, his gaze stopping on the blood still streaking my upper lip.

“Yes. No problem," I say airily.

“And?” he demands, impatience lacing the word.

“And what?” I take another large bite of cake, moaning appreciatively—only partially to infuriate him further. The cake really is delicious. Rich, decadent, moist.

“And what happened? What did you See? ”

Finishing the last bite of my treat, I slowly place the plate on the step above the one I’m sitting on, taking this time to deliberate on whether I should tell him what I Saw.

I still don’t fully trust Locane, and it is rapidly becoming apparent to me that he isn’t very helpful to me. All these tools he talks about being vital, I have a handle on them. After the events of the last few hours, I can’t help but wonder what I really need him for at all. It seems more like Locane needs me.

Weighing my options as quickly as I can, I decide to tell him, if only to get him off my back. “It wasn’t much. It was short and from the past. A vision of Ellhora and the banishment. Different from the lesson I saw on the same subject,” I tell him slowly and simply, leaving out the monumental information that Ellhora was, in fact, the one to kill the willowbane tree—not the gods.

“What exactly happened?”

Locane leans in closer to me and grips my hand in his, squeezing tight enough that it’s almost uncomfortable. I’m about to say something when he lets go and loosens his posture significantly. His eyes soften to a more inquisitive state, dropping the molten black mania that surfaced for a heartbeat.

I try to keep my breaths steady. Steadier than Locane’s pendulum of emotions, constantly swinging back and forth, but always weighing the question of where it will land with each pass.

This man is such an enigma. I swear, I know him and that familiarity gives me a sense of safety and security. He gives me the distinct feeling of home. But in the same breath he’s unhinged, unpredictable, cold. He makes my stomach quake with unease. The two instincts are simultaneous and constantly warring for dominance .

Since we’ve reached the destination of his home, and I’ve been made aware of so many things, it’s like I’m waking up. My mind is becoming clearer by the hour, even with the panic attacks and soaring ups and downs of my own emotions. It’s like a blanket slowly being lifted from my brain, a sticky fog pulling away from my consciousness reluctantly.

I’m figuring out a lot about myself, but is it enough?

I breathe in a heavy sigh as he gazes at me with anticipation.

“I Saw the Ruby Shore and the Great Trench between this Continent and the Territories being formed. After Ellhora attempted to banish her siblings to the other side of the world, there were immediate changes to the landscape. She watched the dark brown dirt morph into powdery red sand in seconds.”

Locane’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “Her siblings? What do you mean?”

The color leeches from my cheeks with a wave of cold, knowing I’ve accidentally revealed something important Locane did not already know. I try to keep my words behind my teeth, but they come out in a choked whisper anyway. “The gods. The gods and Ellhora were all siblings.”

Black overtakes Locane’s dark pupils; his mania has fully returned. “How do you See your visions?” he asks in awe. “Do you See them from the eyes of the subject? Or from above, as if you were looking down into a room from a balcony above? Or standing off to the side?” His excitement is palpable, his words coming out faster with each question.

I raise my hand to stop him.

“I See them through the eyes of the subject. I see, hear, feel everything that they do. It’s as if I am them. I was Ellhora in this vision. ”

“Magnificent,” he says again. “Do you have thoughts of your own? Are you aware of your own consciousness within them? Have you ever tried to alter what they do?” He has leaned into me further, our knees brushing.

My brows raise and then knit together as I consider how to answer.

“It’s strange. And very, very surreal. I am aware of myself, but I don’t form any thoughts of my own. I’ve never tried to control anything about their words or actions. But if what I’m Seeing has happened in the past, I wouldn’t be able to, would I? Those words and actions are already solidified.”

“Yes, I suppose they are. But what about something that hasn’t yet come to pass? Could you alter words and actions then?” His excitement permeates the air around us, making my mind frantic with the possibilities. “I bet you could. You are wonderfully powerful,” he adds.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Even if I could, I’m not sure that I would. That doesn’t seem like something that I should be able to have power over.” Add another stone to the ever-mounting weight of crushing responsibility. “Have you ever heard of anyone with that gift?”

Locane subtly bites his lip as he studies me intently before shaking his head a fraction. “No, I haven’t heard of anyone able to stretch their Sight that far.”

Thank the Mother. For a split second I thought he was going to tell me that was part of Nana’s gift, that I had certainly inherited that aspect of it. There’s no part of me that believes what Locane does, that Nana purposely held me back. She clearly taught me well .

But if what Locane says is true, Nana did keep things from me. The word ‘betrayal’ quietly burrows into my mind like a parasite coming to drain the life out of something precious. I immediately shake it off and ignore the tightness that has formed in my gut at the poisonous, intrusive word. I’ve barely allowed myself to think about what Locane has said about my father.

He gives me an odd, unreadable look. He wipes it away as quickly as it came with a small uptilt of his full lips and squeezes my hand gently, reminding me that they are still connected. He stands pulling me up with him.

“Go grab your staff. Let’s train.”

All the negative emotions trying to take me over disappear at the words. Without argument, I run inside to grab my weapon.