Page 217 of Gift from the Wing

“Congratulations, young lord. You’ve accepted your father’s bestowing.”

Thirty

Willow

Today’s going to be great.

My breathing stays even as the air in my lungs empties through my mouth and my heart rate stays a calm, gentle rhythm. The sun is just now rising above the trees, and I tilt my head toward it, seeking its heat.

I, according to Tillman, was a little too excited for this mission and he instructed me to come simmer down. He’s in full leader mode, and the rest of my men are preparing for battle. My apparent cheeriness was making them nervous.

I can’t help it, though.

Unlike any other mission we’ve been on, I haven’t had to keep any secrets from them. I don’t have any gut-wrenching feelings telling me something is going to go wrong, nor have I been plagued with awful visions. I mean, aside from the one that’ll happen if this does go wrong, but it won’t.

I refuse to accept it.

Regardless, I guess I was being a little too optimistic for my men this morning, so I was ordered to comebalance myself out.

I don’t mind, though, because after I found my balance, I started running through everything on the portals and everything that’s been discussed since then. I have all the faith in the realm now that I’ll be able to detect if any of the portals have been open. I already know for a fact I’ll be able to tell if any of the makeshift ones my mom, grandma, or any before them opened are still open.

Tracking those will require me to bleed into the ground, connecting myself to the fabric of Elementra. Almost like Oakly’s imprint. The difference is I’ll be sending and receiving a signal from each individual portal, and its vibration will tell me if it’s closed, open, even if it’s been recently used.

My body will pretty much turn into a radar.

Explaining to the guys this process last night did not go over well. The second they heard I had to cut myself, they were already shutting it down. I went ahead and told them then, any and everything to do with a portal will require me to bleed.

We pretty much knew this from Franklin’s and the Summum-Master’s obsession with it, but none of us, not even me, truly understood. What I learned opened my eyes to the reality that even getting a sense of the strength of a portal will take a drop of blood. Nothing can be done to them without it. That’s why they’ve always been so adamant about having a stockpile.

Their extreme reactions came from knowing how much I hate getting my blood drawn. Their minds immediately flashed back to my kidnapping, and their consideration of my feelings melted my heart. I’ll admit, I felt a little queasy at first, but realizing that I was in control—doing this to myself, not having it taken from me—helped ease my anxiety over having to cut my palms open, possibly often.

They grumbled for a good few minutes before Tillman finally accepted it and Gaster said enough, it was the way it was and that’ll be that. His no-nonsense on my behalf will always make my heart happy.

Once they were all on board, Corentin had a plan in place, ready to go. Tillman decided to switch some things up and instead of taking multiple palace E.F. teams, it would just be our Nexus, Oakly’s, Lyker’s, Keeper,Codi, and Trex. All the recon teams who are currently positioned at the portals will be on standby for his call if we need them after we track my blood.

Caspian tore everything apart to the bones. Every step of the plan, my new knowledge and how easy it is for me to access it in a split second, Oakly’s and my ability to track my blood. He asked question after question until he was finally satisfied with the answers.

But there was one question he didn’t ask, that I thought for sure he would. Instead, it was Draken who caught on to the fact I can’t do my little radar checking on the main portals.

There was fire in Caspian’s eye when Draken called him out for that. Twenty more minutes of grilling ensued after I informed them that the main portals are too ingrained in the fabric of Elementra. It would take far too much blood and energy for me to sense them farther away and even then I could only do one at a time. It’s faster and safer for me to go there physically.

No one had any objections.

With one more round of my breathing technique, I stretch my arms above my head, then push up off the ground. My moment of settling myself and thinking through everything did, in fact, calm my excitement, but I’m just as confident today as I was when I first perched my ass in the dewy morning grass.

“About time, Willy. Thought you’d done come out here and fallen asleep,” Oakly teases from a few feet behind me, causing me to jump.

“First of all, you just scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even hear you coming. Second, I haven’t done anything today to deserve the name-calling.” I smirk.

“As a matter of fact, you did. All your damn giddiness has got them in there freaking out. I just got kicked out and told to come find you and make sure we’re ready to track your blood.”

“I don’t know why my good mood freaked them out so bad. You’d have thought it’d do the opposite,” I say, shaking my head.

“Not on mission day, apparently. They’ve grown used to the chaos. This is too calm for them. All the reports are too good, the realm still hasn’thad any attacks, you aren’t riddled with worry or the tense energy you carry when you keep secrets. They’re thrown all the way off,” she scoffs playfully.

“Well, in that case, we can stay out here, and when they’ve figured out everything they need to, they can come find us.”

Not needing any more convincing to stay away from the command room, she plops herself down, laughing. I follow suit and grab her book of relics that she passes to me.

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