Page 16 of Live Like Legends

“Oh, did I stutter?” Natalia snarked, teal and pink light traveled down her arms and enveloped her hands. It felt like shewas getting ready for me to erupt, but I wanted to keep myself in check. I should want to do that, right?

Pink light flew by my face, hitting my hair. She brought her arm back and flung another colorful light ball in my direction. I grabbed hold of it, feeling it pulse in my grip and started to squeeze. The light flickered and then started to dim, darkening more and more until it molded itself with my own darkness. The smoke grew bigger and all I wanted to do was prove her wrong.

I allowed my shadows to travel away from me, barreling towards her. Large clumps of smoke following behind, her magic trapped within my own. Natalia barely moved before it all got inches before her, but then she held up both her hands and everything I threw out was encapsulated in some type of translucent bubble that sparked with colorful light. The High Priestess moved her hands, making a flinging motion so that the bubble holding the dark power was thrust towards the wall, exploding as if none of it ever happened.

I went to let out more, but she pointed a finger at me and my whole body felt as if it was being wrapped up with my wrists plastered to my sides. The magical rope she cinched around me pinched as it tightened each time I squirmed.

“Let me go,” I demanded.

“Free yourself.”

I tried to wiggle myself out, but nothing worked. The rope circled around my elbows, slowly. I let my shadows slither around the ropes, hoping to remove them. Natalia was in front of me, grasping the shadows and they whined as she snuffed them out.

“Not like that. Use the light before the rope gets too high, Soul Seether,” she hissed, nodding at me before taking a few steps back.

“Natalia, you aren’t going to just leave her to…” Reese started, but he let the sentence trail off when it seemed like no one was going to do anything until I at least tried.

The rope climbed up my biceps, snaking around my shoulders. I willed whatever light I had in my semi-panicked state. The shadows screamed at me to fix this, to help me. I batted them away in my mind and only pleaded for the light. That light that appeared so dim before was a tiny bit brighter and peered back at me like it was happy I was noticing it for the first time.

It tried to speak to me in a language I didn’t understand, but it wasn’t words. It was speaking with feelings and emotions that I’d never noticed. I could feel the warmth trying to seek me out and fill my insides, but the darkness was barking back at it, not wanting to share space within me. I needed a balance to make this work and neither power wanted to play nice.

The ropes touched my neck, threading around my throat.

I saw tiny light sparks flicker at the tips of my hair and at my fingertips, the idea of my imminent danger too much for it. I wanted to trust it, I wanted it to trust me as well, but it couldn’t be at its maximum power without my willingness to trust it fully and put the dark aside to give it room to grow.

The rope constricted around my throat, and I started coughing. I wanted Natalia to let me go, but I knew she wouldn’t. I tried again, reaching for the light I knew was there. I strived to push the dark back and make the light feel comfortable and wanted. I saw the light sparks again and they started to flourish just a tiny bit more. My vision was less muted now and it started to blur from my lack of oxygen. I started to teeter back and forth on my feet, trying to suck in air but to no avail.

Natalia’s magic touched my jaw and was just at my chin, a large shot of golden light struck me. Air filled my lungs instantly and I fell into a coughing fit when I landed on the ground. Ilooked around to see my raven-haired angel standing near me and his palm was bright, steadily going back to its normal color.

He heaved in breath after breath as if he had run a mile.

“Pretty boy can’t even follow directions. The point was to let her help herself.” Elise rolled her eyes.

Garrett came down to kneel beside me. “Are you alright?”

I nodded, knowing that my pride hurt more than anything physical ever could.

Reese and Beetee both started to walk up to Nick, but Natalia stopped them both. Nick came down to my level, tucking my hair behind my ear as I looked up at him. “I’m sorry, I just…you—” His brown eyes assessed me quickly and then they settled on my face. “I don’t like seeing you like that.”

I took his hand in mine, patting it softly. For Nick, it was about my safety, no matter how many friends surrounded us. My pride would recover. “I know.”

Ileaned outside the door to my bathroom, listening to the shower running on the other side. We didn’t talk much when we came back but she did hold my hand the entire time until both our palms were sweaty, so I called that a win. Reese and I had planned to meet later, while Natalia gave me a hopeful smile on our way out. She’d said for now, she had as much as she could go off of and this kind of thing was one part power development and one part revolving around what motivates those powers.

Something inside of me wanted to let her do what she had to, let her help herself. There was another part of me, a much larger part that nearly combusted at the thought of seeing her in any pain. I honestly didn’t care if it was for training purposes or not.

It made my chest swell with pride to see the tiny bits of light that she tried to release and even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, I mentally kept thinkingyou can do this. My heart did stutter though when her darkness kept popping up, but not in a way where it didn’t belong there. I had no idea whether shenoticed it or not, but from where I stood there was an inner turmoil going on in the middle of that room. The darkness and the light weren’t really fighting each other, but it looked as if they were both trying to grab her attention even though her entire existence had been dedicated to only one. Splitting her affection had never been an option.

Growing up, angelic light wasn’t something that just forced its way out of your fingertips. I had developed it over time and watched my dad and so many others before me use theirs, in hopes that I would mimic them in some way.

I tilted my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I thought back to when my father would watch me try to control my own light in my palm, while I watched it mold and move. It grew in size the harder I focused and most times I would get embarrassed that it wasn’t good enough so I would snuff it out before anyone could see how mediocre I thought mine was. My father would sit next to me on the edge of my bed and bring up his own light, so confident and mesmerizing.

He would say, “open your hand and let it out.”

I would hesitate but did as he asked. My light so tiny, yet so powerful would emerge.

He would bring his own light near mine and my eyes would light up as they intertwined, causing the whole room to seem as if it was set ablaze. I wasn’t in my head in those moments. I was proud that I could be a part of something that was so much bigger than myself.

My father would close my hand with his own and kiss my head, mumbling into my hair. “One day your light will be just as big as that all on your own, but sometimes it’s okay to get a little help.” I’d shrug him off but keep his words with me, even now they still lingered.

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