Page 77 of Heir of Ashes

I couldn’t recall my mother—or Elizabeth—ever brushing my hair. From a young age, she taught me to rely only on myself and, now that I could look back from a different angle, I understood it was her way of ensuring that I didn’t find myself in a position where I needed help from others.

Maybe she’d thought I’d have a life in the PSS, thinking it was more like a boarding school instead of the torture institution it was.

“… For we were also a disciplinary school,”Dr. Dean had said.Now that I could stand and look back at it objectively, I could see the holes, the way Elizabeth had kept herself detached.She’d brought me gifts, toys and dolls, the best food and clothes her salary as a lab technician could buy. But was there ever love? Had she ever brushed my hair with such tenderness? Sat me on her lap or hugged me just to comfort, just to touch? Did she ever show concern at an injury, ask what had upset me? I tried, but at that moment, I couldn’t think of even one occasion.

Had she seen me when I was growing up,reallyseen me? And here this man I hardly knew … this man, whose only emotions toward me were pity and a dollop of lust, showing me more comfort in a handful of days than I had ever seen before.

I was mortified when my throat constricted with tears. Uncomfortable and confused with the direction of my thoughts and feelings, I took the brush from Logan and exchanged it with some clothes from my duffel, conscious of his eyes on me. I extricated the first item of clothing I found, a yellow and green jogging suit I didn’t like and couldn’t fathom why I’d bought.

Logan cleared his throat. “There’s something I want you to have before we leave.” He waited for me to turn to face him before he pulled out a dark, thin rectangular wooden box from his pocket and offered it to me.

I reached for it, pausing as my fingers hovered above the intricately carved surface. I searched Logan’s eyes for a clue, any hint of what it was or what it meant but found nothing but encouragement.

“What is it?” I asked.

In response, Logan slid the side open like a miniature drawer, revealing a thin bracelet with an oblong, vibrant blue stone in the middle. I felt it then, the slow hum of power emanating from it. Something inside me felt it too. The ripple that ran down my spine wasn’t fear or anxiety. It was something akin to a thrill, excitement—recognition.

Deep at the core of my being, where I once pulled that invisible shield against the fire mage, that slumbering othernessinside me stretched and opened an eye, beginning to awaken. The stirrings of alarm that surfaced whenever the rage inside me clawed free never came. No, if that rage was a malevolence I tried to suppress, this thing now awakening inside me was its opposite. It was something different, more ancient, more primal. Though there were no alarm bells ringing, I recoiled at the strangeness of it. Throughout the years, I was the one to seek that slumbering otherness in the depth of my soul, never the other way around.

“You can sense it?” Logan asked with awe, picking up the bracelet with thumb and forefinger, dangling it by the clasp. Inside the electric blue stone, mist swirled, clearing every other second to show a simple rock as clear as a warm sky in midsummer before misting over again. Logan touched the other end, reverence showing in the brightness of his eyes and in the excited tone of his voice. “I’ve never seen anyone react to it before.” He glanced at me, his lips lifting in a gentle smile.

“What is it?” I murmured, mesmerized.

“We call it Arianna’s bracelet. It’s a boost of energy. Kinetic, to be specific. One push only, crafted by a person from another world, another era.” His eyes returned to it, his smile fading. “It was designed specifically for Archer, a gift from an ally in case …” He shook his head once, clearing it from whatever thoughts clouded it. “I was going to take it to him in case Rafael didn’t show up, but now that he did …” He extended both hands to me.

I took a step back and shook my head. Because I wanted it.

“Take it. In case something goes wrong, and you need a way out.”

“No, no. I don’t think Archer would like that you gave me something that belongs to him. The fact that he hasn’t used ittells me he’s saving it for whatever occasion, or maybe that it’s something he values.”

“Then we’ll call it even. If you use it at all, it means things have gone down badly and this was your ticket out, your get-out-of-jail-free card. Since you’re going there to help us rescue him, it’s only fair this one chance goes to you.”

For a moment, I did nothing. Then I reached for it, that thing inside me still watching curiously, drowsily. When I took the bracelet, its weight heavier than I expected, that otherness inside me lost interest, as if the bracelet with the quiet hum wasn’t worth its notice.

The stone was set inside a band of five braided cords, forming the bracelet without any visible joints or breaks. The hum was soft, a gentle lull against the palm of my hand. It reminded me a bit of the ward on the door of Remo Drammen’s Vegas penthouse, though this one was pleasant and relaxing.

“How do I use it?” I asked, noticing it was too big for my wrist.

Logan took it back and fastened it high on my bicep. “You will it to.”

“But what does it do?”

“It’s a kinetic boost. It propels.”

When he saw the confusion still in my eyes, he added, “You think about something you need to happen and will it to work. It will obey your wish. Point it downward and you can leap over a high fence fast enough that you’ll look like a blur. Or it can help you cover a vast distance faster than the eye can track. It acts like a tank of nitrogen, only faster, stronger.”

I looked down at it, the hem of my sleeve brushing against it. The mist swirled and covered the vibrant blue stone, making it seem dull, a quiet, harmless beauty trinket, but the gentle hum remained steady, like docile lapping waves. Calming.

“It’s beautiful,” I said and glanced up, finding Logan watching me.

“A pretty bauble for a pretty lady,” he said, his eyes crinkling with a smile.

“I’d need a lot of sessions with a beauty surgeon to be as pretty as this,” I said with feeling, looking down in time to see the rock clear, the blue so electric I thought I felt a little zap.

Logan traced the band of the bracelet with the tip of a finger. “You don’t need pretty baubles and fancy clothes to look pretty. You’re just beautiful the way you are.”

I startled, meeting his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. Unable to come up with a suitable reply—was one even needed?—I awkwardly smiled, turning away and reaching for the jogging suit I’d left on top of my open bag. A squeak of surprised escaped my lips when I straightened and found myself enveloped in his warm embrace from behind. I stiffened like a brick wall, but all he did was hold me close. After a moment, he lowered his head to my shoulder, breathing in and out, our cheeks touching. I gradually relaxed back and for a long time basked in the comfort of his warm body behind me, the coarseness of his cheek against mine, the sweet smell of his soap.

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