Page 69 of Avelina

“Oh, that’s the Meriweather Monster,” Aaron said casually. “It never comes ashore.”

I looked at Aaron in dismay. “How would it come ashore? Isn’t it a shark or something?”

“Right now, yes,” he said. “But it transforms into several creatures, including a blue octopus that turns boats over when they get too close to its territory, a large uncharted island southwest of here. I saw the octopus form once when I was about ten. I was out on Jorin’s skiff with him and Terik, rowing to his commercial docks up on the northern beach. I thought it would turn our boat over and eat us, but it just looked at us with one giant black eye, then swam away. It was terrifying, but Jorin said he sees it all the time and it never bothers him. He calls it his friend, Merimo.”

I shook my head. “I can’t wait to get back to Earth. We don’t have any monsters there except the people kind.”

“And bears,” Aaron said, giving me a playful smile.

“And bears,” I agreed. “Small ones.” The rain picked up, and we were getting pretty wet now.

“Come on,” Aaron said, “you just got those clothes dry.” He turned back, making his way down the log again. I followed him but took one last peek over my shoulder at the enormous red fin. It was deeply frightening, and yet I found myself yearning to go out there and see the creature up close, maybe even chase it like Captain Ahab.

“I’d probably just drown,” I muttered, dismissing the idea and following Aaron back toward the house.

Chapter Twenty

That night, Linorra had a dream so vivid it hardly seemed like a dream at all. She saw the face of a man in agony.

“Viktor,” she said. “Is that you? Where are you?”

The man’s eyes lit up with hope when he saw her. “It’s me, my love! I’m in Queen Mortier’s dungeon. You must find the key and rescue me!”

For the next two months, I woke up every morning thinking This will be the day Seleca comes to kill us, but Spirit’s daily reports revealed that Seleca struggled to learn how to use her new Precognition fragment. It gave her terrible migraines, and she acted even more insane than usual, ranting about a bearded blond man who haunted her dreams. Everyone feared her. Even Eve kept her distance, disappearing from the palace entirely. Ward said that Seleca’s overuse of Projection probably made her more psychologically vulnerable to the side effects of Precognition use.

I spent most of my time preparing for a fight, leaning on Ward to tutor me in beginning fragment theory. I practiced using my reservoirs and read everything I could get my hands on. Ward was correct that Aaron’s library was extensive. I finished several textbooks, many of which were antique books written before Anick’s rise to power.

Gerhelm Meriweather, one of the more prolific authors, wrote Ward’s new favorite, Ascension: Twelve Worlds, Twelve Bridges, which included information about all twelve fragments and worlds, including Killmount, the theoretical Conjuration planet that had yet to be discovered. Old Gerhelm even ranked the fragments in order of how painful they are to ascend.

I left that book to Ward to focus on my two priorities for battle, healing and shielding, but he relayed the Teleportation basics. Ascension, he reported, is the linking of an individual’s reservoir with a fragment matrix so that a supply of that fragment becomes essentially limitless. This happens through Teleportation over a bridge originating from that world and was exactly what happened to me when Seleca threw me onto the Earth bridge.

Earth sits in a Protection matrix, so that was the fragment that powered the portal. When I traveled over the Protection bridge, I ascended, and the source of that fragment formed a link to me, perhaps in the same way that it links to Earth.

Unfortunately, the process of ascension is unpredictable and possibly fatal to those without Protection. It physically affects a fragmentor’s body such that when they directly tap into a matrix, it causes a bizarre glowing and enables the use of that fragment within a shield. It also “raises” lesser reservoirs, expanding their power to a greater level. This explained my multiple greater reservoirs.

After a few weeks, I moved on to advanced texts that focused on the more nuanced qualities of each fragment. I learned about Connection substrates, which transmit the fragment over distances and include earth and water for those with greater Connection, and air for those with ascendent Connection. With practice, Connection can be used in conjunction with other fragments like Evocation—which meant that if Aaron had ascendant Connection, it actually would be possible for him to throw fire.

The beaded bracelet didn’t solve Aaron’s problems, but it took the edge off. I felt for him on that front. Even my own bit of Evocation, acquired from mixing reservoirs with Aaron, flared up my emotions when I attempted to use it. It gave me a better understanding of his struggle, but it wasn’t that much worse than a bad case of PMS, perhaps because I barely had enough to reach the level of a lesser reservoir. I couldn’t make a log catch fire, but I managed to light the oil lantern. I scorched the tip of my finger, but I did it.

The only break in our daily routine was when Aaron went out to walk the farm. After he watched me push the shield out around both myself and Ward several times, he promptly announced that he needed to search for the oardoo flock. I think he was just stir-crazy and needed alone time. The property was expansive, and Aaron always left before sunrise and came back after dark, reporting that he’d walked around only a portion of Jorin’s farm. He always came back looking refreshed.

I used the time to tend the garden and hang out with Ward, who wasn’t adjusting well to his new life. Though he put on a brave face, making promises to stay and help me, I recognized the signs of depression from my own experience. He was sad but outwardly calm. He was always tired. He did what was expected of him but nothing more. He read all day, barely eating or sleeping. He made no specific commitments regarding the future.

Worst of all, he spoke longingly of what he remembered about being dead. He went across a bridge, he said, or started to. He didn’t remember anything specific about the bridge, only the feeling of wholeness once he stepped upon it. Though he avoided connecting with me, I knew he wanted that peace back more than anything.

He’d lost his home and family. He’d lost his reservoir. Wretched though it was, he’d lost his purpose in life. So, while he didn’t outwardly object to becoming my tutor, it was also a reminder that he no longer had the ability to personally use any of his knowledge. In his mind, Seleca had stolen the thing that gave him value. That wasn’t true, of course. As far as I was concerned, his value had nothing to do with his reservoir.

Seleca had absorbed his reservoir after he fully shifted into Rogue, and it was supposed to be completely gone, but I had seen his skin ripple just before Seleca threw him onto the Earth bridge. What else could that have been, if not traces of Transformation? But even if he had a small bit of Transformation left, the reservoir would be of the lesser variety, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.

Still, I wasn’t convinced all hope was lost. Ward himself taught me that one of the most basic principles of fragment theory is the idea of symmetry. Every fragment has a complement. Protection, a force of order, is the complement of Evocation, a force of disorder or change. Connection, a force of pushing or expansion, is the complement of Absorption, a force of pulling or contraction. Therefore, it made sense to me that if a reservoir could be absorbed from someone, then it must also be possible to give a reservoir to someone. The raising of lesser reservoirs during ascension was evidence of that, not to mention the fact that Aaron glowed like a radioactive Smurf every time we fragged.

Violet had written in her book that Connection was Linorra’s greatest gift. I had assumed she wrote that to throw Seleca off the trail by making her think that Connection was my only gift. But after thinking about it, Seleca somehow also knew about my Absorption and Conjuration. Protection was the only reservoir she hadn’t known about, a fact that still confused me since Eve and Seleca knew about my other reservoirs before Rogue ever came into my life. But if Violet’s purpose in writing that in the book wasn’t to confuse Seleca, then why did she make that comment about Connection? My intuition told me that Connection had uses I hadn’t discovered yet. Perhaps I could use it to help Ward get his mojo back. That would, indeed, be a great gift.

To that end, I asked Ward for another favor, a favor that I knew would make Aaron angry, but that was essential. I wanted to see if I could give Ward a part of my reservoir. I had to be delicate about this because it would require a deep Connection link, and not only was Aaron going to be jealous of any connecting that I did with Ward, but Ward was also actively trying to hide his mental state from me.

I decided to wait until Aaron disappeared on one of his walkabouts. I know, I’m sneaky and manipulative, but there are some instances where it truly is better to beg forgiveness than permission. This way, Aaron wouldn’t have to experience the anticipatory anxiety. That’s better, right?

Also, he doesn’t own me. I would have done it anyway, so why torture the poor guy? I’d planned to tell him afterward. I swear.

---